Iran vows revenge for US attack that killed powerful general

January 04, 2020

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iran promised to seek revenge for a U.S. airstrike near Baghdad's airport that killed the mastermind of its interventions across the Middle East, and the U.S. said Friday that it was sending thousands more troops to the region as tensions soared in the wake of the targeted killing.

The death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran's elite Quds Force, marks a major escalation in the standoff between Washington and Tehran, which has careened from one crisis to another since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed crippling sanctions.

Almost 24 hours after the attack on Soleimani, Iraqi officials and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq reported another deadly airstrike. An Iraqi government official reported a strike on two vehicles north of Baghdad but had no information on casualties. Another security official who witnessed the aftermath described charred vehicles and said five people were killed. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Iraqi state television and the media arm of the Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces also reported the strike. The group said its medics were targeted. An American official who spoke on the condition on anonymity denied the U.S. was behind the reported attack.

The targeted strike against Soleimani and any retaliation by Iran could ignite a conflict that engulfs the whole region, endangering U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and beyond. Over the last two decades, Soleimani had assembled a network of heavily armed allies stretching all the way to southern Lebanon, on Israel's doorstep.

“We take comfort in knowing that his reign of terror is over,” Trump said of Soleimani. The United States said it was sending nearly 3,000 more troops to the Middle East, reflecting concern about potential Iranian retaliation. The U.S. also urged Americans to leave Iraq immediately following the airstrike at Baghdad's international airport that Iran's state TV said killed Soleimani and nine others.

The State Department said the embassy in Baghdad, which was attacked by Iran-backed militiamen and their supporters earlier this week, is closed and all consular services have been suspended. Around 5,200 American troops are based in Iraq to train Iraqi forces and help in the fight against Islamic State militants. Defense officials who discussed the new troop movements spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision not yet announced by the Pentagon.

A Pentagon official who was not authorized to speak publicly said the U.S. also had placed an Army brigade on alert to fly into Lebanon to protect the American Embassy. U.S. embassies also issued a security alert for Americans in Bahrain, Kuwait and Nigeria.

The announcement about sending more troops came as Trump said Soleimani's killing was not an effort to begin a conflict with Iran. “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war,” Trump said, adding that he does not seek regime change in Iran.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed “harsh retaliation" after the airstrike, calling Soleimani the “international face of resistance.” Khamenei declared three days of public mourning and appointed Maj. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, Soleimani's deputy, to replace him as head of the Quds Force.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the killing a “heinous crime" and said his country would “take revenge.” Iran twice summoned the Swiss envoy, the first time delivering a letter to pass to Washington.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the U.S. attack a “cowardly terrorist action” and said Iran has the right to respond “in any method and any time.“ Thousands of worshipers in Tehran took to the streets after Friday prayers to condemn the killing, waving posters of Soleimani and chanting “Death to deceitful America.”

However, the attack could act as a deterrent for Iran and its allies to delay or restrain any potential response. Trump said possible targets had been identified and the U.S. was prepared. Oil prices surged on news of the airstrike, and markets were mixed.

The killing promised to further strain relations with Iraq's government, which is allied with both Washington and Tehran and has been deeply worried about becoming a battleground in their rivalry. Iraqi politicians close to Iran called for the country to order U.S. forces out.

The U.S. Defense Department said it killed the 62-year-old Soleimani because he “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region." It also accused Soleimani of approving orchestrated violent protests at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

The strike, on an access road near Baghdad’s airport, was carried out early Friday by an American drone, according to a U.S. official. Soleimani had just disembarked from a plane arriving from either Syria or Lebanon, a senior Iraqi security official said. The blast tore apart his body and that of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces. A senior politician said Soleimani's body was identified by the ring he wore.

Others killed include five members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard and Soleimani's son-in-law, Iranian state TV said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

The attack comes at the start of a year in which Trump faces both a Senate trial following his impeachment and a re-election campaign. It marks a potential turning point in the Middle East and represents a drastic change for American policy toward Iran after months of tensions.

They are rooted in Trump’s decision in May 2018 to withdraw the U.S. from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, struck under Barack Obama. Since then, Tehran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone and seized oil tankers. The U.S. also blames Iran for other attacks targeting tankers and a September assault on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry that temporarily halved its production.

Supporters of the strike against Soleimani said it restored U.S. deterrence power against Iran, and Trump allies were quick to praise the action. “To the Iranian government: if you want more, you will get more,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted.

“Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran,” Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, wrote in a tweet. Others, including Democratic presidential hopefuls, criticized Trump's order. Joe Biden said Trump had “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox," saying it could leave the U.S. “on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East."

Trump, who was vacationing at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, said he ordered the airstrike because Soleimani had killed and wounded many Americans over the years and was plotting to kill many more.

“He should have been taken out many years ago," Trump added. The potential for a spiraling escalation alarmed U.S. allies and rivals alike. “We are waking up in a more dangerous world,” France’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Amelie de Montchalin, told RTL radio.

The European Union warned against a “generalized flare-up of violence.” Russia condemned the killing, and fellow Security Council member China said it was “highly concerned.” Britain and Germany noted that Iran also bore some responsibility for escalating tensions.

Even so, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed frustration at the European reaction. “Frankly, the Europeans haven't been as helpful as I wish that they could be. The Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did, what the Americans did, saved lives in Europe as well,” he said on the Fox News “Hannity” program.

While Iran’s conventional military has faced 40 years of American sanctions, Iran can strike in the region through its allied forces like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraqi militias and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called on “the resistance the world over” to avenge Soleimani's killing. Frictions over oil shipments in the Gulf also could increase, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has built up a ballistic missile program.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council said in a statement Friday that it had held a special session and made “appropriate decisions” on how to respond but didn't elaborate. Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett held a meeting with top security officials Friday, but the Israeli military said it was not taking any extraordinary action on its northern front, other than closing a ski resort in the Golan Heights near Lebanon and Syria as a precaution.

The most immediate impact could be in Iraq. Funerals for al-Muhandis and the other slain Iraqis were set for Saturday. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the strike as an “aggression against Iraq.” An emergency session of parliament was called for Sunday, which the deputy speaker, Hassan al-Kaabi, said would take “decisions that put an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq.”

Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Robert Burns, Lolita C. Baldor and Zeke Miller in Washington; Jon Gambrell and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Bassem Mroue and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut; and Joseph Krauss and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Soleimani, a general who became Iran icon by targeting US

January 03, 2020

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — For Iranians whose icons since the Islamic Revolution have been stern-faced clergy, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani widely represented a figure of national resilience in the face of four decades of U.S. pressure.

For the U.S. and Israel, he was a shadowy figure in command of Iran's proxy forces, responsible for fighters in Syria backing President Bashar Assad and for the deaths of American troops in Iraq. Solemani survived the horror of Iran’s long war in the 1980s with Iraq to take control of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, responsible for the Islamic Republic’s foreign campaigns.

Relatively unknown in Iran until the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Soleimani's popularity and mystique grew out American officials calling for his killing. By the time it came a decade and a half later, Soleimani had become Iran's most recognizable battlefield commander, ignoring calls to enter politics but becoming as powerful, if not more, than its civilian leadership.

“The warfront is mankind’s lost paradise,” Soleimani recounted in a 2009 interview. “One type of paradise that is portrayed for mankind is streams, beautiful nymphs and greeneries. But there is another kind of paradise. ... The warfront was the lost paradise of the human beings, indeed.”

A U.S. airstrike killed Soleimani, 62, and others as they traveled from Baghdad's international airport early Friday morning. The Pentagon said President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to take “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing” a man once referred to by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “living martyr of the revolution.”

Soleimani's luck ran out after being rumored dead several times in his life. Those incidents included a 2006 airplane crash that killed other military officials in northwestern Iran and a 2012 bombing in Damascus that killed top aides of Assad. More recently, rumors circulated in November 2015 that Soleimani was killed or seriously wounded leading forces loyal to Assad as they fought around Syria’s Aleppo.

Iranian officials quickly vowed to take revenge amid months of tensions between Iran and the U.S. following Trump pulling out of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. While Soleimani was the Guard's most prominent general, many others in its ranks have experience in waging the asymmetrical, proxy attacks for which Iran has become known.

“Trump through his gamble has dragged the U.S. into the most dangerous situation in the region,” Hessameddin Ashena, an adviser to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, wrote on the social media app Telegram. “Whoever put his foot beyond the red line should be ready to face its consequences.”

Born March 11, 1957, Soleimani was said in his homeland to have grown up near the mountainous and the historic Iranian town of Rabor, famous for its forests, its apricot, walnut and peach harvests and its brave soldiers. The U.S. State Department has said he was born in the Iranian religious capital of Qom.

Little is known about his childhood, though Iranian accounts suggest Soleimani’s father was a peasant who received a piece of land under the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but later became encumbered by debts.

By the time he was 13, Soleimani began working in construction, later as an employee of the Kerman Water Organization. Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution swept the shah from power and Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard in its wake. He deployed to Iran’s northwest with forces that put down Kurdish unrest following the revolution.

Soon after, Iraq invaded Iran and began the two countries long, bloody eight-year war. The fighting killed more than 1 million people and saw Iran send waves of lightly armed troops into minefields and the fire of Iraqi forces, including teenage soldiers. Solemani’s unit and others came under attack by Iraqi chemical weapons as well.

Amid the carnage, Soleimani became known for his opposition to “meaningless deaths” on the battlefield, while still weeping at times with fervor when exhorting his men into combat, embracing each individually.

After the Iraq-Iran war, Soleimani largely disappeared from public view for several years, something analysts attribute to his wartime disagreements with Hashemi Rafsanjani, who would serve as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997. But after Rafsanjani, Soleimani became head of the Quds force. He also grew so close to Khamenei that the Supreme Leader officiated the wedding of the general’s daughter.

As chief of the Quds — or Jerusalem — Force, Solemani oversaw the Guard’s foreign operations and soon would come to the attention of Americans following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

In secret U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, U.S. officials openly discussed Iraqi efforts to reach out to Soleimani to stop rocket attacks on the highly secured Green Zone in Baghdad in 2009. Another cable in 2007 outlines then-Iraqi President Jalal Talabani offering a U.S. official a message from Soleimani acknowledging having “hundreds” of agents in the country while pledging, “I swear on the grave of (the late Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini I haven’t authorized a bullet against the U.S.”

U.S. officials at the time dismissed Soleimani’s claim as they saw Iran as both an arsonist and a fireman in Iraq, controlling some Shiite militias while simultaneously stirring dissent and launching attacks. U.S. forces would blame the Quds Force for an attack in Karbala that killed five American troops, as well as for training and supplying the bomb makers whose improvised explosive devices made IED — improvised explosive device — a dreaded acronym among soldiers.

In a 2010 speech, U.S. Gen. David Petreaus recounted a message from Soleimani he said explained the scope of Iranian’s powers. “He said, ‘Gen. Petreaus, you should know that I, Qassem Soleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan,’” Petraeus said.

The U.S. and the United Nations put Soleimani on sanctions lists in 2007, though his travels continued. In 2011, U.S. officials also named him as a defendant in an outlandish Quds Force plot to allegedly hire a purported Mexican drug cartel assassin to kill a Saudi diplomat.

But his greatest notoriety would arise from the Syrian civil war and the rapid expansion of the Islamic State group. Iran, a major backer of Assad, sent Soleimani into Syria several times to lead attacks against IS and others opposing Assad’s rule. While a U.S.-led coalition focused on airstrikes, several ground victories for Iraqi forces came with photographs emerging of Soleimani leading, never wearing a flak jacket.

"Soleimani has taught us that death is the beginning of life, not the end of life," one Iraqi militia commander said.

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

US kills Iran's most powerful general in Baghdad airstrike

January 03, 2020

BAGHDAD (AP) — The United States killed Iran's top general and the architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East in an airstrike at Baghdad's international airport early on Friday, an attack that threatens to dramatically ratchet up tensions in the region.

The targeted killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force, could draw forceful Iranian retaliation against American interests in the region and spiral into a far larger conflict between the U.S. and Iran, endangering U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and beyond.

The Defense Department said it killed Soleimani because he “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region." It also accused Soleimani of approving the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for the U.S. Iranian state TV carried a statement by Khamenei also calling Soleimani “the international face of resistance.” Khamenei declared three days of public mourning for the general’s death.

Also, an adviser to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani warned President Donald Trump of retaliation from Tehran. “Trump through his gamble has dragged the U.S. into the most dangerous situation in the region,” Hessameddin Ashena wrote on the social media app Telegram. “Whoever put his foot beyond the red line should be ready to face its consequences.”

Iranian state television later in a commentary called Trump’s order to kill Soleimani “the biggest miscalculation by the U.S.” in the years since World War II. “The people of the region will no longer allow Americans to stay," the TV said.

The airport strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, and five others, including the PMF's airport protocol officer, Mohammed Reda, Iraqi officials said.

Trump was vacationing on his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, but sent out a tweet of an American flag. The dramatic attack comes at the start of a year in which Trump faces both a Senate trial following his impeachment by the U.S. House and a re-election campaign. It marks a potential turning point in the Middle East and represents a drastic change for American policy toward Iran after months of tensions.

Tehran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone and seized oil tankers. The U.S. also blames Iran for a series of attacks targeting tankers, as well as a September assault on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry that temporarily halved its production.

The tensions take root in Trump’s decision in May 2018 to withdraw the U.S. from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, struck under his predecessor, Barack Obama. The 62-year-old Soleimani was the target of Friday's U.S. attack, which was conducted by an armed American drone, according to a U.S. official. His vehicle was struck on an access road near the Baghdad airport.

A senior Iraqi security official said the airstrike took place near the cargo area after Soleimani left his plane and joined al-Muhandis and others in a car. The official said the plane had arrived from either Lebanon or Syria.

Two officials from the PMF said Suleimani's body was torn to pieces in the attack, while they did not find the body of al-Muhandis. A senior politician said Soleimani's body was identified by the ring he wore.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements. It’s unclear what legal authority the U.S. relied on to carry out the attack. American presidents claim broad authority to act without the approval of the Congress when U.S. personnel or interests are facing an imminent threat. The Pentagon did not provide evidence to back up its assertion that Soleimani was planning new attacks against Americans.

Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Trump owes a full explanation to Congress and the American people. "The present authorizations for use of military force in no way cover starting a possible new war. This step could bring the most consequential military confrontation in decades," Blumenthal said.

But Trump allies were quick to praise the action. “To the Iranian government: if you want more, you will get more,” tweeted South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. For Iran, the killing represents more than just the loss of a battlefield commander, but also a cultural icon who represented national pride and resilience while facing U.S. sanctions. While careful to avoid involving himself in politics, Soleimani’s profile rose sharply as U.S. and Israeli officials blamed him for Iranian proxy attacks abroad.

While Iran’s conventional military has suffered under 40 years of American sanctions, the Guard has built up a ballistic missile program. It also can strike asymmetrically in the region through forces like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The U.S. long has blamed Iran for car bombings and kidnappings it never claimed.

As the head of the Quds, or Jersualem, Force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Soleimani led all of its expeditionary forces and frequently shuttled between Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Quds Force members have deployed into Syria’s long war to support President Bashar Assad, as well as into Iraq in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, a longtime foe of Tehran.

Soleimani rose to prominence by advising forces fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and in Syria on behalf of the embattled Assad. U.S. officials say the Guard under Soleimani taught Iraqi militants how to manufacture and use especially deadly roadside bombs against U.S. troops after the invasion of Iraq. Iran has denied that. Soleimani himself remains popular among many Iranians, who see him as a selfless hero fighting Iran’s enemies abroad.

Soleimani had been rumored dead several times, including in a 2006 airplane crash that killed other military officials in northwestern Iran and following a 2012 bombing in Damascus that killed top aides of Assad. Rumors circulated in November 2015 that Soleimani was killed or seriously wounded leading forces loyal to Assad as they fought around Syria’s Aleppo.

Soleimani's killing follows the New Year's Eve attack by Iran-backed militias on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The two-day embassy attack, which ended Wednesday, prompted Trump to order about 750 U.S. soldiers deployed to the Middle East.

It also prompted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to postpone his trip to Ukraine and four other countries “to continue monitoring the ongoing situation in Iraq and ensure the safety and security of Americans in the Middle East,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Wednesday.

The breach at the embassy followed U.S. airstrikes Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah. The U.S. military said the strikes were in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that the U.S. blamed on the militia.

U.S. officials have suggested they were prepared to engage in further retaliatory attacks in Iraq. “The game has changed,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday, telling reporters that violent acts by Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq — including the Dec. 27 rocket attack that killed one American — will be met with U.S. military force.

Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Zeke Miller in Washington, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed reporting.

Attack on US Embassy in Iraq shows stark choices for Trump

January 01, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — The attack on the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad by Iran-supported militiamen Tuesday is a stark demonstration that Iran can still strike at American interests despite President Donald Trump's economic pressure campaign. Trump said Iran would be held “fully responsible” for the attack, but it was unclear whether that meant military retaliation.

“They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!” Trump tweeted later in the afternoon. He also thanked top Iraqi government leaders for their “rapid response upon request.”

Defense Secretary Mark Esper later announced that “in response to recent events” in Iraq, and at Trump's direction, he authorized the immediate deployment of an infantry battalion of about 750 soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the Middle East. He did not specify their destination, but a U.S. official familiar with the decision said they will go to Kuwait.

Esper said additional soldiers from the 82nd Airborne's quick-deployment brigade, known officially as its Immediate Response Force, are prepared to deploy over the next several days. The U.S. official, who provided unreleased details on condition of anonymity, said the full brigade of about 4,000 soldiers may deploy.

“This deployment is an appropriate and precautionary action taken in response to increased threat levels against U.S. personnel and facilities, such as we witnessed in Baghdad today,” Esper said in a written statement.

The 750 soldiers deploying immediately are in addition to 14,000 U.S. troops who have deployed to the Gulf region since May in response to concerns about Iranian aggression, including its alleged sabotage of commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf.

Tuesday's breach of the embassy compound in Baghdad, which caused no known U.S. casualties or evacuations, revealed growing strains between Washington and Baghdad, raising questions about the future of the U.S. military mission there. The U.S. has about 5,200 troops in Iraq, mainly to train Iraqi forces and help them combat Islamic State extremists.

The breach followed American airstrikes Sunday that killed 25 fighters of an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah. The U.S. said those strikes were in retaliation for last week's killing of an American contractor and the wounding of American and Iraqi troops in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that the U.S. blamed on the militia. The American strikes angered the Iraqi government, which called them an unjustified violation of its sovereignty.

Trump blamed Iran for the embassy breach and called on Iraq to protect the diplomatic mission even as the U.S. reinforced the compound with Marines from Kuwait. "Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many," he tweeted from his estate in Florida. “We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”

Even as Trump has argued for removing U.S. troops from Mideast conflicts, he also has singled out Iran as a malign influence in the region. After withdrawing the U.S. in 2018 from an international agreement that exchanged an easing of sanctions for curbs on Iran's nuclear program, Trump ratcheted up sanctions.

Those economic penalties, including a virtual shut-off of Iranian oil exports, are aimed at forcing Iran to negotiate a broader nuclear deal. But critics say that pressure has pushed Iranian leaders into countering with a variety of military attacks in the Gulf.

Until Sunday's U.S. airstrikes, Trump had been measured in his response to Iranian provocations. In June, he abruptly called off U.S. military strikes on Iranian targets in retaliation for the downing of an American drone.

Robert Ford, a retired U.S. diplomat who served five years in Baghdad and then became ambassador in Syria, said Iran's allies in the Iraqi parliament may be able to harness any surge in anger among Iraqis toward the United States to force U.S. troops to leave the country. Ford said Trump miscalculated by approving Sunday's airstrikes on Kataeb Hezbollah positions in Iraq and Syria — strikes that drew a public rebuke from the Iraqi government and seem to have triggered Tuesday's embassy attack.

“The Americans fell into the Iranian trap,” Ford said, with airstrikes that turned some Iraqi anger toward the U.S. and away from Iran and the increasingly unpopular Iranian-backed Shiite militias. The tense situation in Baghdad appeared to upset Trump's vacation routine in Florida, where he is spending the holidays.

Trump spent just under an hour at his private golf club in West Palm Beach before returning to his Mar-a-Lago resort in nearby Palm Beach. He had spent nearly six hours at his golf club on each of the previous two days. Trump spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi and emphasized the need for Iraq to protect Americans and their facilities in the country, said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley.

Trump is under pressure from some in Congress to take a hard-line approach to Iranian aggression, which the United States says included an unprecedented drone and missile attack on the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry in September. More recently, Iran-backed militias in Iraq have conducted numerous rocket attacks on bases hosting U.S. forces.

Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican and supporter of Trump's Iran policy, called the embassy breach “yet another reckless escalation” by Iran. Tuesday's attack was carried out by members of the Iran-supported Kataeb Hezbollah militia. Dozens of militiamen and their supporters smashed a main door to the compound and set fire to a reception area, but they did not enter the main buildings.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blamed Iran for the episode and faulted Trump for his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. “The results so far have been more threats against international commerce, emboldened and more violent proxy attacks across the Middle East, and now, the death of an American citizen in Iraq,” Menendez said, referring to the rocket attack last week.

By early evening Tuesday, the mob had retreated from the compound but set up several tents outside for an intended sit-in. Dozens of yellow flags belonging to Iran-backed Shiite militias fluttered atop the reception area and were plastered along the embassy's concrete wall along with anti-U.S. graffiti. American Apache helicopters flew overhead and dropped flares over the area in what the U.S. military called a "show of force."

The U.S. also was sending 100 or more additional Marines to the embassy compound to support its defenses. The embassy breach was seen by some analysts as affirming their view that it is folly for the U.S. to keep forces in Iraq after having eliminated the Islamic State group's territorial hold in the country.

A U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is also a long-term hope of Iran, noted Paul Salem, president of the Washington-based Middle East Institute. And it's always possible Trump would “wake up one morning and make that decision” to pull U.S. forces out of Iraq, as he announced earlier with the U.S. military presence in neighboring Syria, Salem said. Trump's Syria decision triggered the resignation of his first defense secretary, retired Gen. Jim Mattis, but the president later amended his decision and about 1,200 U.S. troops remain in Syria.

Trump’s best weapon with Iran is the one he’s already using — the sanctions, said Salem. He and Ford said Trump would do best to keep resisting Iran's attempt to turn the Iran-U.S. conflict into a full-blown military one. The administration should also make a point of working with the Iraqi government to deal with the militias, Ford said.

For the president, Iran’s attacks — directly and now through proxies in Iraq — have “been working that nerve," Salem said. “Now they really have Trump’s attention.”

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Darlene Superville and Sagar Meghani contributed to this report.

Iran rejects 'conditional release' for Iranian-British woman

December 22, 2019

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The lawyer of an Iranian-British woman convicted on spying charges in Iran has asked that she be released after serving half of her sentence, a request that was immediately rejected by the Tehran prosecutors'office, the state IRNA news agency reported Sunday.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was sentenced to five years for allegedly planning the "soft toppling" of Iran's government while traveling with her young daughter in Iran at the time. She was arrested in April 2016. Her sentence has been widely criticized and her family has denied all the allegations against her.

The report by IRNA quoted her lawyer, Mahmoud Behzadi Rad, as saying that he had submitted a request for what Iran's judiciary calls “conditional release” — when a convict has served half his or her sentence, the person can apply for such a release and the courts have the power to grant it for “good behavior”.

“According to the law, she is entitled to apply for a conditional release,” the lawyer said. IRNA did not say why the request was denied. Behzadi Rad said he had applied for a conditional release for another of his clients, prominent Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi who is serving a 10-year sentence. Behzadi Rad is her lawyer, too. The request for her release was also denied, he said.

The lawyer also said that Zaghari-Ratcliffe has had several psychiatric evaluations recently while in prison but did not elaborate on her condition or the state of her health. In England, Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has been leading a campaign to try to win his wife’s release from prison. British officials are also calling for her release.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe went on a 15-day hunger strike in June, to call attention to her plight. In July, she was moved to the mental health ward of Imam Khomeini hospital under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

The Free Nazanin Campaign said in a statement at the time that it does not know what treatment she is receiving or how long she is expected to remain in the hospital. Iran has also detained at least one other Iranian-British national, anthropologist Kameel Ahmady, who has been accused of spying and of links to foreign intelligence agencies.

Iran does not recognize dual nationality for its citizens.

India's crackdown hits religious freedom in disputed Kashmir

December 10, 2019

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — For years Romi Jan’s mornings would begin with the plaintive call to prayer that rang out from the central mosque in disputed Kashmir’s largest city. The voice soothed her soul and made her feel closer to God.

Not anymore. For nearly four months now, the voice that would call out five times a day from the minarets of the Jamia Masjid and echo across Srinagar has been silent, a result of India’s ongoing security operations in this Muslim-majority region.

“The mosque closure is a relentless agony for me and my family,” Jan said. “I can’t tolerate it, but I am helpless.” Already one of the most militarized places in the world, last summer India began pouring more troops into its side of Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety. It implemented a security lockdown in which it pressed harsh curbs on civil rights, arrested thousands of people, blocked internet and phone service, and shuttered important mosques.

All of this was laying the groundwork for the Hindu nationalist-led government’s Aug. 5 decision to strip Kashmir of its semiautonomous status and remove its statehood, moves it knew would be met with fury by Kashmiri Muslims, most of whom want independence or unification with Pakistan. The government said the restrictions were needed to head off anti-India protests and violence.

While some of the conditions have since been eased, some mosques and Muslim shrines in the region either remain shuttered or have had their access limited. Muslims say this is undermining their constitutional right to religious freedom and only deepening anti-India sentiment.

The centuries-old Jamia Masjid, made of brick and wood, is one of the oldest in this city of 1.2 million, where 96% of people are Muslim. When it’s open, thousands of people congregate there for prayers.

Romi would take her two children there every day and sit inside the compound while they would play. “I would forget all my miseries there,” she said. Now, when her kids ask why they can’t go to the mosque, she draws a blank face.

“I open my window of the house which faces the mosque and show my kids the soldiers that are stationed outside it,” Romi said. That it’s a target for authorities is neither surprising nor new. Friday sermons at the mosque mainly revolve around the Kashmir conflict, and its surrounding neighborhoods are often where stone-throwing protesters clash with government forces as part of an ongoing anti-India rebellion.

Authorities have banned prayers at the mosque for extended periods during unrest in 2008, 2010 and 2016. Official data show the mosque was closed at least 250 days in those three years combined. Mohammed Yasin Bangi, the 70-year-old whose voice has called out the prayers at the mosque for the last 55 years, said the current restrictions are the worst he has seen.

“During earlier restrictions, we would be sometimes allowed to offer evening prayers. But not even once during this time around,” he said. “The closure of the mosque has robbed me of my peace. I’ve been subjected to spiritual torture.”

A top police officer in the city, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with department policy, said authorities decided the mosque could reopen last month for Friday prayers but mosque officials refused.

A mosque official speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals said they refused because authorities sought assurances that there would be no protests or speeches against Indian rule.

Rohit Kansal, Kashmir’s chief government spokesman, declined to comment. Officials from the Home Ministry in New Delhi, which oversees internal security in the country, did not respond to requests for comment.

Freedom of religion is enshrined in India’s constitution, allowing citizens to follow and freely practice religion. The constitution also says the state will not “discriminate, patronize or meddle in the profession of any religion.”

But even before the current security operation in Kashmir, experts say conditions for India’s Muslims have been growing worse under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which came to power in 2014 and won a landslide re-election in May.

In June, the U.S. State Department said in a report that religious freedom in India continued a downward trend in the year 2018. India’s foreign ministry rejected the report. In August, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation raised concerns about India's lockdown in Kashmir and called for authorities to ensure that Kashmiri Muslims could exercise their religious rights.

The ongoing restrictions in Kashmir have also included gatherings at Muslim shrines and religious festivals. In August, worshipers were told to host the prayers for the festival of Eid-al-Adha inside small neighborhood mosques rather than in the large outdoor gatherings that are normal. In September, authorities banned the annual Muharram processions that mark the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.

Last month, during the yearly celebration of the birth anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad, authorities blocked all roads leading to Dargah Hazratbal, the region’s most revered Muslim shrine. Only a few hundred devotees were allowed to pray there — far fewer than the tens of thousands the event has been known to draw.

Authorities on Monday allowed thousands of people to gather at a Sufi shine in downtown Srinagar for an annual celebration. Restrictions on such gatherings are particularly galling to Kashmiri Muslims because they have long complained that the government curbs their religious freedom on the pretext of law and order while promoting and patronizing an annual Hindu pilgrimage to the Amarnath Shrine in Kashmir that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Sheikh Showkat, a professor of international law and human rights at the Central University of Kashmir, warned that such a duality in policy sent a clear message that the government no longer remains impartial toward different religions and further alienates the people of Kashmir.

“It no way augers well for any peace,” he said. “Whether it triggers further radicalization or not, it definitely infuriates people about the safety and security of their faith. It can also snowball into a mass mobilization against the state.”

Syed Mohammed Tayib Kamili has been leading annual prayers at Kashmir’s Khanqah Naqashband shrine since 1976. Indian authorities stopped last month’s gathering from taking place. The decision, which was met with anti-India protests, was the first time the prayers had not been held in the shrine’s 399-year history, Kamili said.

“They have not only violated constitution,” he said, “but also invited wrath of the divine power.”

Associated Press writer Sheikh Saaliq contributed to this report.

Devastating factory fire kills at least 43 in Indian capital

December 08, 2019

NEW DELHI (AP) — Authorities said an electrical short circuit appeared to cause a fire that killed at least 43 people in a factory in central New Delhi early Sunday, as relatives of the workers who were trapped inside identified the dead from photos on police officers' phones.

Assistant New Delhi police commissioner Anil Kumar Mittal said that “the fire appears to have been caused by electric short circuit,” adding that authorities were investigating whether the factory was operating legally.

The building's owner, Rihan, who goes by one name, was detained on suspicion of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, Mittal said. Firefighters had to fight the blaze from 100 meters (yards) away because it broke out in one of the area's many alleyways, tangled in electrical wire and too narrow for vehicles to access, authorities said.

A resident of the area, Mohammed Naushad, said he was woken by people wailing at around 4:30 a.m. He went outside to find smoke and flames shooting out of a building near Sadar Bazaar, New Delhi's largest wholesale market for household goods. Inside, he found the fourth floor engulfed in flames. One floor below, he saw “20 to 25 people lying on the floor."

“I don’t know if they were dead or unconscious, but they were not moving,” Naushad said. He said he carried at least 10 people out of the flames on his shoulders and into the arms of emergency responders.

Maisuma Bibi, a day laborer making plastic handbags, survived the blaze. She said she was sleeping in a room with about 18 other women and children on the building's first floor when she woke to find a bag full of plastic parts on fire. Her brother-in-law carried her to safety, she said.

Outside a mortuary that was guarded by dozens of police officers, some of the workers' relatives said they had received phone calls from the men trapped inside, who begged them to call the fire brigade.

Many of the men were migrant workers from the impoverished border state of Bihar in eastern India, relatives said. They earned as little as 150 rupees ($2.10) per day making handbags, caps and other garments, sleeping at the factory between long shifts.

Many of the victims were asleep when the blaze began, according to Yogesh, a police spokesman who uses one name. Dr. Kishore Singh said rescuers brought victims to his government-run hospital and two others in the city. Another 16 people were being treated for burns or smoke inhalation and were in stable condition, Singh said.

Police barred relatives from entering Lok Nayak hospital, where some of the victims were taken. Relatives of the workers cried, consoled one another and jostled for information. “I was told by someone my nephew is inside, but I haven't seen him,” said Mohammad Moti, who was searching for his 22-year-old nephew, Mohammad Chedi.

Fire Services chief Atul Garg said it took 25 fire trucks to put out the blaze. About 60 people, including some of the dead, were taken out of the building, Mittal said. New Delhi's chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, appeared at the scene of the fire, promising victims' families compensation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the fire as "extremely horrific." “My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones. Wishing the injured a quick recovery," Modi tweeted. Fires are common in India, where building laws and safety norms are often flouted by builders and residents. In 1997, a fire in a movie theater in New Delhi killed 59 people. In February this year, 17 people were killed by a fire in a six-story hotel in the capital not far from Sunday's blaze that started in an illegal rooftop kitchen.

Associated Press photojournalist Manish Swarup contributed to this report.

India's Muslims split in response to Hindu temple verdict

December 06, 2019

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s largest Muslim political groups are divided over how to respond to a Supreme Court ruling that favors Hindus’ right to a disputed site 27 years after Hindu nationalist mobs tore down a 16th century mosque, an event that unleashed torrents of religious-motivated violence.

The sharp split illustrates growing unease among India’s Muslims, who are struggling to find a political voice as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government gives overt support to once-taboo Hindu nationalist causes.

“We are pushed against the wall,” said Irfan Aziz, a political science student at Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi. “No one speaks about us, not even our own.” The dispute over the site of the Babri Masjid mosque in the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state has lasted centuries. Hindus believe Lord Ram, the warrior god, was born at the site and that Mughal Muslim invaders built a mosque on top of a temple there. The December 1992 riot — supported by Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party — sparked massive communal violence in which some 2,000 people were killed, mostly Muslims.

The 1992 riot also set in motion events that redefined the politics of social identity in India. It catapulted the BJP from two parliamentary seats in the 1980s to its current political dominance. Modi’s party won an outright majority in India's lower house in 2014, the biggest win for a single party in 30 years. The BJP won even more seats in elections last May.

Muslim groups for decades waged a court fight for the restoration of Babri Masjid. But now, friction among Muslim groups has spilled into the open, with one side challenging the verdict and the other saying they are content with the outcome.

Hilal Ahmad, a political commentator and an expert on Muslim politics, said India's Muslims feel isolated and even divided over the verdict because policies championed by the BJP have established a populist anti-Muslim discourse.

Muslims in India have often rallied around secular parties. However, after Modi won his first term in 2014, religious politics took hold. The BJP’s rise has been marked by the electoral marginalization of Muslims, with their representation in democratic institutions gradually falling.

The 23 Muslim lawmakers in India’s Parliament in 2014 was the lowest number in 50 years. The number rose slightly to 27 in 2019 — out of these, only one is from the BJP. India's population of more than 1.3 billion includes more than 200 million Muslims.

The unanimous court verdict last month paves the way for a Hindu temple to be built on the disputed site, a major victory for the BJP, which has been promising such an outcome as part of its election strategy for decades. The court said Muslims will be given 5 acres (2 hectares) of land at an alternative site.

But the Muslim response has been far from unanimous. All India Muslim Personal Law Board and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, two key Muslim parties to the dispute, have openly opposed the ruling, saying it was biased.

Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has filed a petition with the court for a review of the verdict. Its chief, Maulana Arshad Madani, said the verdict was “against Muslims.” “We will again fight this case legally,” Madani said.

Asaddudin Owaisi, one of India’s most prominent Muslim leaders and a member of Parliament, told reporters in November that it was “the right of the aggrieved party” to challenge the verdict. But another influential Muslim body, Shia Waqf Board, said it accepts the verdict.

It believes any further court procedures in the case will keep the festering issue alive between Hindus and Muslims, said the organization's head, Waseem Rizvi. “I believe Muslims should come forward and help Hindus in construction of the temple,” he said.

Swami Chakrapani, one of the litigants in the case representing the Hindu side, said both Hindus and Muslims had accepted the verdict, and "the matter should be put to rest now no matter what some Muslim parties have to say.”

For many Muslims, the verdict has inspired feelings of resignation — of having no choice but to accept the court's ruling — and fear. “Our leaders have no consensus and the community is just scared and helpless,” Aziz said.

Disenchanted with the attitude of the religious and political leadership of Muslims, Aziz said the community lacks a “unified voice.” The divisions are likely to worsen as some Muslim parties start to lean towards the BJP, either as a result of pressure or in an attempt to gain greater Muslim representation in it. With no national Muslim political party to represent them, the community is likely to remain divided over its politics.

“The lack of Muslim representation in Indian politics will marginalize us more,” Aziz said. Ahmad said the temple verdict could further inflame a dangerous perspective on religious communities in India which portrays Muslims and Hindus as hostile opponents. He said some Muslim groups use issues like Babri Masjid to maintain support, while some Hindu groups thrive on presenting Muslims as “the other,” resulting in greater friction between the communities.

“The fear is evident among the Muslims. The Hindu and Muslim religious elites, as well as political parties, employ this fear to nurture their vested interests,” he said.

Associated Press writer Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow, India, contributed to this report.

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi defends Myanmar army in genocide case

December 12, 2019

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize winner and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi denied Wednesday that Myanmar's armed forces committed genocide, telling the United Nation's top court that the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she leads was the unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.

The image of the former pro-democracy icon appearing before the International Court of Justice to defend the army that kept her under house arrest for 15 years was striking. Suu Kyi, who as Myanmar's state counselor holds an office similar to prime minister, was awarded the 1991 peace prize in absentia for championing democracy and rights under the nation's then-ruling junta.

Myanmar’s accusers have described a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide that drove more than 700,000 Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh. Addressing the world court in The Hague in her role as Myanmar's foreign minister, Suu Kyi calmly attempted to refute allegations that army personnel killed civilians, raped women and torched houses in 2017.

She said the allegations stemmed from “an internal armed conflict started by coordinated and comprehensive armed attacks ... to which Myanmar’s defense services responded. Tragically, this armed conflict led to the exodus of several hundred thousand Muslims.”

Rohingya representatives and rights group said they were appalled by Suu Kyi's testimony. “The world will judge their claim of no genocide with evidence," said Mohammed Mohibullah, chairman of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights. "A thief never admits he is a thief, but justice can be delivered through evidence.”

The African nation of Gambia brought the legal action against Myanmar on behalf of the 57-country Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Gambia alleges that genocide occurred and is still ongoing. It requested an emergency legal hearing asking the International Court of Justice to take action to stop the violence, including “all measures within its power to prevent all acts that amount to or contribute to the crime of genocide” in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi insisted that Gambia provided “an incomplete and misleading factual picture” of what happened in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, saying developments in one of Myanmar’s poorest regions were “complex and not easy to fathom.”

She detailed how the army responded on Aug. 25, 2017 to attacks by insurgents trained by Afghan and Pakistan extremists. Suu Kyi said the armed forces had tried “to reduce collateral damage” during fighting in 12 locations. Conceding that excessive force might have been used and that one helicopter may have killed “non-combatants,” she said Myanmar is investigating what happened and should be allowed to finish its work.

“Can there be genocidal intent on the part of a state that actively investigates, prosecutes and punishes soldiers and officers who are accused of wrongdoing?” she asked the court. Rights groups joined Rohingya representatives in slamming the claims Suu Kyi and Myanmar's legal team made in The Hague.

George Graham, humanitarian advocacy director at Save the Children, said Suu Kyi's remarks “fly in the face of all the evidence gathered by the U.N., and the testimony our own teams have heard from countless survivors.”

“Rohingya families have faced patterns of unimaginable horrors in a campaign of violence. Children and their parents have been systematically killed, maimed and raped,” he said, adding that “the government of Myanmar has failed at every turn to punish those responsible.”

Amnesty International’s Nicholas Bequelin, accused Suu Kyi of trying to downplay the severity of crimes committed against the Rohingya and “wouldn’t even refer to them by name or acknowledge the scale of the abuses. Such denials are deliberate, deceitful and dangerous.”

“The exodus of more than three quarters of a million people from their homes and country was nothing but the result of an orchestrated campaign of murder, rape and terror,” he said. The U.S., meanwhile, slapped economic sanctions on four Myanmar military officers suspected of human rights violations. It sanctioned Min Aung Hlaing, commander of Myanmar’s armed forces, over allegations of serious rights abuses. Deputy commander Soe Win and two other military leaders, Than Oo and Aung Aung, were also targeted.

“There are credible claims of mass-scale rape and other forms of sexual violence committed by soldiers under Min Aung Hlaing’s command," a U.S. Treasury statement said Tuesday. The court's hearings are scheduled to end on Thursday, when Myanmar and Gambia will have 90 minutes each to wrap up their cases.

Cook reported from Brussels. Associated Press reporter Suzauddin contributed to this story from Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

Australian prime minister is jeered in wildfire-ravaged zone

January 02, 2020

PERTH, Australia (AP) — Prime Minister Scott Morrison was confronted by angry residents who cursed and insulted him Thursday as he visited a wildfire-ravaged corner of the country. Locals in Cobargo, in New South Wales, yelled at him, made obscene gestures and called him an “idiot” and worse, criticizing him for the lack of equipment to deal with the fires in town. They jeered as his car left. In the New South Wales town of Quaama, a firefighter refused to shake hands with him.

"Every single time this area has a flood or a fire, we get nothing. If we were Sydney, if we were north coast, we would be flooded with donations with urgent emergency relief," a resident said in Cobargo.

The outpouring of anger came as authorities said 381 homes had been destroyed on the New South Wales southern coast this week. At least eight people have died this week in New South Wales and the neighboring state of Victoria.

More than 200 fires are burning in Australia's two most-populous states. Blazes have also been burning in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. “I'm not surprised people are feeling very raw at the moment. And that's why I came today, to be here, to see it for myself, to offer what comfort I could,” Morrison said, adding, "There is still, you know, some very dangerous days ahead. And we understand that, and that's why we're going to do everything we can to ensure they have every support they will need.”

Morrison, who has also been criticized over his climate change policies and accused of putting the economy ahead of the environment, insisted that Australia is "meeting the challenge better than most countries” and "exceeding the targets we set out."

Cooler weather since Tuesday has aided firefighting and allowed people to replenish supplies, with long lines of cars forming at gas stations and supermarkets. But high temperatures and strong winds are forecast to return on Saturday, and thousands of tourists fled the country's eastern coast Thursday ahead of worsening conditions.

New South Wales authorities ordered tourists to leave a 250-kilometer (155-mile) zone. State Transport Minister Andrew Constance called it the “largest mass relocation of people out of the region that we've ever seen.”

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared a seven-day state of emergency starting Friday, which grants fire officials more authority. It's the third state of emergency for New South Wales in the past two months.

“We don’t take these decisions lightly, but we also want to make sure we’re taking every single precaution to be prepared for what could be a horrible day on Saturday,” Berejiklian said. The early and devastating start to Australia’s summer wildfires has led authorities to rate this season the worst on record. About 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land have burned, at least 17 people have been killed, and more than 1,400 homes have been destroyed.

The crisis "will continue to go on until we can get some decent rain that can deal with some of the fires that have been burning for many, many months,” the prime minister said. In Victoria, where 83 homes have burned this week, the military helped thousands of people who fled to the shoreline as a wildfire threatened their homes in the coastal town of Mallacoota. Food, water, fuel and medical expertise were being delivered, and about 500 people were going to be evacuated from the town by a naval ship.

“We think around 3,000 tourists and 1,000 locals are there. Not all of those will want to leave, not all can get on the vessel at one time,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Smoke from the wildfires made the air quality in the capital, Canberra, the worst in the world, according to a ranking Thursday.

Australia fire survivors join global climate protests

November 29, 2019

BERLIN (AP) — Australians affected by recent devastating wildfires in the country have joined young environmentalists kicking off a global protest Friday demanding governments act against climate change.

The “global day of action” was expected to see rallies in hundreds of cities around the world, days before officials gather Monday in Madrid for talks on tackling climate change. Janet Reynolds, who joined a protest in Sydney, said she had lost everything in an “inferno, an absolute firestorm that raced through my property.”

Speaking outside the local offices of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal Party, student Daisy Jeffrey said “people have lost their homes, people have lost their lives. We have to ask: How far does this have to go before our government finally takes action?"

Further rallies were planned in cities worldwide, including Washington, London, Berlin and Madrid. Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who is traveling across the Atlantic by sailboat to attend the climate talks next week, sent a message of support to protesters.

“Everyone’s needed. Everyone’s welcome. Join us,” she said on Twitter. About two dozen environmental activists in the German capital symbolically jumped into the chilly waters of the Spree river in front of parliament to protest a government-backed package of measures they say won’t be enough to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The package was blocked Friday by Germany’s upper house, which represents the country’s 16 states.

3 women investigated for causing deadly blaze at German zoo

January 02, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — Three women are under investigation in Germany for launching paper sky lanterns for the new year which apparently ignited a devastating fire that killed more than 30 animals at a zoo, officials said Thursday.

The three local women — a mother and her two daughters, ages 30 to 60 — went to police in the western city of Krefeld on New Year's Day after authorities held a news conference about the blaze, criminal police chief Gerd Hoppmann said.

The women are being investigated on suspicion of negligent arson, prosecutor Jens Frobel said. The offense can carry a prison sentence of up to five years. Many Germans welcome in the new year legally with fireworks at midnight. Sky lanterns, however, are both illegal and unusual in Germany. The mini hot-air balloons made of paper have been used in Asia for centuries.

The fire started in a corner of the ape house's roof in the first minutes of the new year and spread rapidly. The zoo near the Dutch border says the ape house burned down and more than 30 animals — including five orangutans, two gorillas, a chimpanzee and several monkeys — were killed, as well as fruit bats and birds. The animals either burned to death or died from smoke inhalation, authorities said.

Hoppmann said the women had ordered five sky lanterns on the internet and told authorities that they had believed they were legal in Germany. He added that there was nothing in the product description showing that they were banned.

Hoppmann described the women as “completely normal people who seemed very sensible, very responsible" and said it was “very courageous” of them to come forward, saving authorities a tricky investigation. He added that they feared reprisals and authorities limited the details given about the suspects.

Investigators believe that just one lantern started the blaze. They found the other four later, with handwritten good wishes for the new year attached. The destroyed ape house lacked fire detectors and sprinklers, which weren't required when it was built in the 1970s. The zoo said, however, that it had passed a regular fire protection check a few months ago.

The building's roof had been renovated after a hailstorm a few years ago and plexiglass was added, Hoppmann said. He said while investigators were confident the sky lantern was to blame, they will look at other factors that may have contributed to the blaze, such as dry fallen leaves on the roof.

Investigators plan to carry out tests to help find out why the blaze spread so quickly. Firefighters were only able to rescue two chimpanzees. The zoo said Thursday it was satisfied with their condition.

Fire kills animals at zoo in western Germany

January 01, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — A fire at a zoo in western Germany killed a large number of animals in the early hours of the new year, authorities said. They did not comment on local media reports that the fire was started by celebratory fireworks.

The Krefeld zoo near the Dutch border said the entire ape house burned down and all the animals inside are dead. The dpa news agency, quoting officials, said the dead animals included chimpanzees, orangutans and two gorillas, as well as fruit bats and birds.

The zoo said the nearby Gorilla Garden didn't go up in flames, however. Gorilla Kidogo and his family are alive, the zoo wrote on Facebook early Wednesday. “An unfathomable tragedy hit us shortly after midnight.” the zoo said. “Our ape building burned down to the foundation."

Both the zoo and the city said that they didn't know the cause of the fire and that police are investigating. Officials would not confirm reports by local media that New Year's fireworks could have caused the blaze. The zoo will remain closed on Wednesday.

In Sweden's Arctic, global warming threatens reindeer herds

December 10, 2019

KIRUNA, Sweden (AP) — Thick reindeer fur boots and a fur hat covering most of his face shielded Niila Inga from minus 20-degree Celsius (minus 4-degree Fahrenheit) winds as he raced his snowmobile up to a mountain top overlooking his reindeer in the Swedish arctic.

His community herds about 8,000 reindeer year-round, moving them between traditional grazing grounds in the high mountains bordering Norway in the summer and the forests farther east in the winter, just as his forebears in the Sami indigenous community have for generations.

But Inga is troubled: His reindeer are hungry, and he can do little about it. Climate change is altering weather patterns here and affecting the herd’s food supply. “If we don’t find better areas for them where they can graze and find food, then the reindeers will starve to death,” he said.

Already pressured by the mining and forestry industry, and other development that encroach on grazing land, Sami herding communities fear climate change could mean the end of their traditional lifestyle.

Slipping his hand from a massive reindeer skin mitten, Inga illustrated the problem, plunging his hand into the crusted snow and pulling out a hard piece of ice close to the soil. Unusually early snowfall in autumn was followed by rain that froze, trapping food under a thick layer of ice. Unable to eat, the hungry animals have scattered from their traditional migration routes in search of new grazing grounds.

Half the herd carried on east as planned, while the rest retreated to the mountains where predators abound, and the risk of avalanches is great. Elder Sami herders recall that they once had bad winters every decade or so, but Inga said that "extreme and strange weather are getting more and more normal, it happens several times a year.”

The arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe. Measurements by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute show the country has warmed 1.64 degrees Celsius (2.95-degree Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial times. In Sweden’s alpine region, this increase is even greater, with average winter temperatures between 1991 and 2017 up more than 3 degrees Celsius (5.4-degree Fahrenheit) compared with the 1961-1990 average.

Snowfall is common in these areas, but as temperatures increase, occasional rainfall occurs — and ‘rain-on-snow’ events are having devastating effects. The food is still there, but the reindeer can’t reach it. The animals grow weaker and females sometimes abort their calves while the survivors struggle to make it through the winter.

“We have winter here for eight months a year and when it starts in October with bad grazing conditions it won’t get any better,” Inga said. That is devastating to Sami herders, a once-nomadic people scattered across a region that spans the far north of Sweden, Norway, Finland and the northwestern corner of Russia. Until the 1960s, this indigenous minority were discouraged from reindeer herding and their language and culture were suppressed. Today, of the 70,000 Sami, only about 10% herd reindeer, making a limited income from meat, hides and antlers crafted into knife handles.

“Everyone wants to take the reindeers’ area where they find food. But with climate change, we need more flexibility to move around,” said Sanna Vannar, a young herder from a community living in the mountains surrounding Jokkmokk, an important Sami town just north of the Arctic Circle. “Here you can’t find food, but maybe you can find food there, but there they want to clear-cut the forest and that’s the problem.”

The 24-year-old is the president of the Swedish Sami Youth organization and, together with eight other families elsewhere in the world, they launched a legal action in 2018 to force the European Union to set more ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this year, the European General Court rejected their case on procedural grounds, but the plaintiffs have appealed.

“We’ve said we don’t want money because we can’t buy better weather with money,” Vannar said. “We’ve said we need that the EU take action and they need to do it now.” The EU’s new executive Commission is expected to present a ‘European Green Deal’ on Wednesday, to coincide with a U.N. climate conference in Madrid.

Herders have also started working with Stockholm University, hoping to advance research that will broaden understanding about changing weather patterns. As part of this rare collaboration between Sami and science, weather stations deep in the forests of the Laevas community are recording air and ground temperature, rainfall, wind speed and snowfall density. Sami ancestral knowledge of the land and the climate complements analysis of data gathered, offering a more detailed understanding of weather events.

“With this data we can connect my traditional knowledge and I see what the effects of it are,” says Inga who has been working on the project since 2013 and has co-authored published scientific papers with Ninis Rosqvist, a professor of Natural Geography at Stockholm University.

Rosqvist directs a field station operating since the 1940s in the Swedish alpine region measuring glaciers and changes in snow and ice. But through the collaboration with Inga, she realized that less “exciting” areas in the forests may be most crucial to understanding the impacts of changing climate.

“As a scientist I can measure that something is happening, but I don’t know the impact of it on, in this case, the whole ecosystem. And that’s why you need their knowledge,” she said. Rosqvist hopes this research can help Sami communities argue their case with decision-makers legislating land use rights.

Back in the forest, Inga is releasing onto the winter pastures a group of reindeer that had been separated from the herd when the animals scattered earlier in autumn. Several other herders have spent more than a week high in the mountains searching for the other half of the herd and trying to bring the animals down, to no avail.

“As long as they are forced to stay there, they’ll get into worse and worse condition,” he warned.

'A more dangerous world': US killing triggers global alarm

January 04, 2020

PARIS (AP) — Global powers warned Friday that the American airstrike responsible for killing Iran’s top general made the world more dangerous and that escalation could set the entire Mideast aflame. Some U.S. allies suggested Iran shared in the blame by provoking the attack.

The deaths of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and several associates drew immediate cries for revenge from Tehran and a chorus of appeals from other countries seeking reduced tensions between Iran and the United States. As U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called world capitals to defend the attack, diplomats tried to chart a way forward.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for the U.S. He moved quickly to appoint Soleimani's deputy, Maj. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, as the new commander of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force, which undertakes the country's foreign campaigns, including in Syria and Yemen.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged leaders to “exercise maximum restraint,” stressing in a statement that “the world cannot afford another war" in the Persian Gulf. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas echoed the U.N. chief saying, "A further escalation that sets the whole region on fire needs to be prevented." Maas also noted that the assault “followed a series of dangerous Iranian provocations.”

In the United Arab Emirates, which sits across the Gulf from Iran, the minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, called in a tweet for rational engagement and a “calm approach, free of emotion.” Qatar, which shares a massive underwater gas field with Iran, also called for restraint in a Foreign Ministry statement.

Saudi Arabia, Iran’s top regional rival, added its own voice of caution against "all acts that may lead to aggravating the situation with unbearable consequences.” The White House sought to justify the killings with a tweet alleging that Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region."

“He should have been taken out many years ago!” U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted. But the president also told reporters: “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.”

Oil prices surged as investors fretted about Mideast stability. Social media flooded with alarm. Twitter users morbidly turned “WWIII” into the top trending term worldwide. “We are waking up in a more dangerous world. Military escalation is always dangerous,” France's deputy minister for foreign affairs, Amelie de Montchalin, told RTL radio.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Soleimani's killing “grossly violates international law and should be condemned.” He told Pompeo in a phone conversation late Friday that “the move by the U.S. is fraught with severe consequences for the peace of stability in the region and doesn't help resolve complicated problems in the Middle East,” according to a ministry statement. Lavrov also urged Washington to "stop using unlawful methods of force" in trying to achieve its foreign policy goals and instead bring "any problems to the negotiating table.""

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested earlier that Trump ordered it with one eye on his reelection campaign. “The U.S. military were acting on orders of U.S. politicians. Everyone should remember and understand that U.S. politicians have their interests, considering that this year is an election year,” Zakharova said in a TV interview.

Trump's election opponents characterized him as reckless. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said the president “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox." Iran’s allies rallied to its side.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned what it called "treacherous American criminal aggression." It said the attack reaffirmed U.S. responsibility for the instability in Iraq as part of its policy to "create tensions and fuel conflicts in the countries of the region."

The top leader of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are Shiite and closely allied with Iran, offered his condolences to the Iranian people. Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, whose forces are fighting the internationally recognized government, said that Soleimani's “pure"’ blood has not been shed in vain.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani expressed concern in a statement that the death could mean more violence in the region. He said Afghanistan, despite the presence of 13,000 U.S. troops on its soil, does not want to be drawn into any confrontation between Washington and Tehran. Former Afghan President Hamed Karzai condemned the airstrike and said it violated international law.

U.S. allies Britain, Germany and Canada suggested that Iran bore some responsibility for the strike near Baghdad’s airport. Iranian state TV said 10 people were killed. German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer described the strike as “a reaction to a whole series of military provocations." She pointed to attacks on tankers and a Saudi oil facility, among other events.

“We are at a dangerous escalation point," she said. The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said his government had “always recognized the aggressive threat" posed by the Quds force. Following Soleimani's death, "we urge all parties to de-escalate," he said. “Further conflict is in none of our interests.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Soleimani's “aggressive actions" had "a destabilizing effect in the region and beyond. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro said in a televised interview:”"I hope the moods calm down and that Iran modifies its way of conducting politics, as other Arab countries have done in the past."

There were warnings the killing could set back efforts to stamp out remnants of the Islamic State group. A top European Union official, Charles Michel, said “the risk is a generalized flare-up of violence in the whole region and the rise of obscure forces of terrorism that thrive at times of religious and nationalist tensions.”

Italy also warned that increased tensions “risk being fertile terrain for terrorism and violent extremism.” But right-wing Italian opposition leader Matteo Salvini praised Trump for eliminating "one of the most dangerous and pitiless men in the world, an Islamic terrorist, an enemy of the West, of Israel, of rights and of freedoms.”

Trump also won the support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “for acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively.” In his calls to explain the strike to world leaders, Pompeo said the U.S. is committed to bringing down tensions that have soared since Iranian-backed militia killed an American contractor and the U.S. responded with strikes on the militia. That set off violent pro-Iran protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which in turn set the stage for the killing of Soleimani.

“Doing nothing in this region shows weakness. It emboldens Iran,” Pompeo said. “We don’t seek war with Iran, but we at the same time are not going to stand by and watch the Iranians escalate.” In the Mideast, the strike provoked waves of fury and fears of worse to come.

Iraq’s most powerful Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said in a speech during Friday prayers that the country must brace for “very difficult times.” In Iran, a hard-line adviser to the country’s supreme leader who led prayers in Tehran likened U.S. troops in Iraq to “insidious beasts" and said they should be swept from the region.

“I am telling Americans, especially Trump, we will take a revenge that will change their daylight into to a nighttime darkness," said the cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.

Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Gregory Katz in London, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing, Geir Moulson and Frank Jordans in Berlin, Daria Litvinova in Moscow, Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Matthew Lee in Washington, Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem, Rob Gillies in Toronto, Aya Batrawy in Dubai, Daria Litvinova in Moscow, Kathy Gannon in Islamabad and David Biller in Brazil contributed to this report.

Year on, Amnesty urges Sudan deliver on protesters' demands

December 19, 2019

CAIRO (AP) — Amnesty International on Thursday urged Sudan's new transitional government to deliver on the people’s demands for sweeping change as the country marked the first anniversary of mass protests that led to the ouster of former president and longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

A year ago, the first rally was held in Sudan to protest the soaring cost of bread, marking the beginning of a pro-democracy movement that convulsed the large African country. That led, in April, to the extraordinary toppling by the country's military of al-Bashir, and ultimately to the creation of a joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that has committed to rebuilding the country and promises elections in three years.

To mark the anniversary, activists have organized protests in cities across the country. “The transitional authorities must honor the commitments they made to restore the rule of law and protect human rights,” Seif Magango, Amnesty's deputy director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes said in a statement. “The Sudanese people deserve nothing less.”

The global rights group said Sudan's new government has shown positive signs of progress during its fragile transition to democracy, citing the repeal of a decades-old Islamist moral policing law and dissolution of the former ruling party — moves that have helped the Sovereign Council distance itself from al-Bashir’s disgraced rule.

Over the weekend, a court in Sudan convicted al-Bashir of money laundering and corruption, sentencing him to two years in a minimum security lockup. The image of the former dictator in a defendant's cage “sent a strong message, on live TV for all of Sudan to see, that we are on the route toward justice,” said Sarah Abdel-Jaleel, a spokeswoman for the protest organizers.

But in the view of protesters, Abdel-Jaleel added, “al-Bashir has not been held to account.” The deposed ruler is under indictment by the International Criminal Court on far more serious charges of war crimes and genocide linked to his brutal suppression of the insurgency in the western province of Darfur in the early 2000s. The military has refused to extradite him to stand trial in The Hague.

Amnesty also called on the new government to hold security forces accountable for killing scores of people in their efforts to stifle protests against military rule, especially those behind a deadly crackdown on a huge sit-in outside the military headquarters in the capital, Khartoum, in June. Since last December, nearly 200 protesters have been killed.

The government recently appointed independent judges to oversee investigations into the killings, a major achievement for the protest movement. But even the most high-profile cases have shown no signs of official action, said Amnesty’s Sudan researcher Ahmed Elzobier. Families still find it very difficult to bring cases against security officers, he added.

Sudan is under heavy international and regional pressure to reform. With the economy on the brink, the new government has made it a mission to get Sudan removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism so that it can attract badly needed foreign aid.

Many pro-democracy protesters say the revolution remains unfinished. The poverty, high prices and resource shortages that catalyzed the original uprising continue to fuel frustration. “We’re looking at a deep state that for thirty years has been plagued by corruption and economic crisis,” said Abdel-Jaleel. “But if the nation is given an opportunity to achieve democracy and development and peace, that will be an achievement for the world, not just for Sudan.”

Thunberg accuses leaders of 'creative PR' at climate talks

December 11, 2019

MADRID (AP) — Activist Greta Thunberg on Wednesday accused governments and businesses of misleading the public by holding climate talks that are not achieving real action against the world's “climate emergency.”

In a speech peppered with scientific facts about global warming, the Swedish 16-year-old told negotiators at the U.N.'s climate talks in Madrid that they have to stop looking for loopholes and face up to the ambition that is needed to protect the world from a global warming disaster.

“The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening, when in fact almost nothing is being done, apart from clever accounting and creative PR,” said Thunberg, who later Wednesday was named Time magazine's ”person of the year."

“Finding holistic solutions is what (this meeting) should be all about, but instead it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition,” she added, to wide applause.

About 40 climate activists, including indigenous people from several continents, briefly joined Thunberg after her speech on the conference's main stage, holding hands and demanding "Climate Justice!" through slogans and songs.

Time magazine said Thunberg won its 2019 award “for sounding the alarm about humanity’s predatory relationship with the only home we have, for bringing to a fragmented world a voice that transcends backgrounds and borders, for showing us all what it might look like when a new generation leads.”

Climate negotiators in Madrid also had one eye on Brussels, where the European Union announced a 100-billion euro ($130-billion) plan to help wean EU nations off fossil fuels. German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said she hoped the “European Green Deal” would "give the discussions here a boost."

"It's a really important signal if the EU puts protecting the climate center stage in this way," she told reporters in Madrid. The European Commission hopes the fund will help the regions that stand to be hit the hardest financially by the transition to cleaner industries — namely Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, which rely heavily on coal-fired power plants. Those nations have yet to commit to the EU’s goal of having net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

The climate talks in Madrid entered choppier waters Wednesday with ministers struggling to agree on rules for a global carbon market and possible ways to compensate vulnerable countries for disasters caused by global warming.

World leaders agreed in Paris four years ago to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ideally no more than 1.5 C (2.7 F) by the end of the century. Scientists say countries will miss both of those goals by a wide margin unless drastic steps are taken to begin cutting greenhouse gas emissions next year.

Saying that the message doesn't seem to be getting through to governments, more than 100 activists led by representatives of indigenous peoples from Latin and North America made their way to the talks' venue, briefly blocking the entrance to a plenary meeting where U.N. Secretary General António Guterres was to speak.

After a brief discussion, U.N. security personnel escorted the protesters outdoors. In a statement, more than a dozen NGOs accused the U.N. of silencing their voices instead of kicking out the “rich industrialized countries who refuse to meet their commitments” and “corporate polluters.”

U.N. climate officials didn't offer an immediate comment. But some experts echoed the activists' concerns about a lack of progress. “In my almost 30 years in this process, never have I seen the almost total disconnect that we're seeing here in Madrid, between what the science requires and the people of the world are demanding on the one hand and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientist, a U.S.-based nonprofit group.

Speaking at the summit, the U.N.'s Guterres said that the 1.5 C limit was “still within reach" if countries, starting with the main emitters, step up emission cuts over the next 12 months. Earlier, he suggested that negotiators in Madrid stop listening to those who oppose more ambitious measures for reducing emissions.

“I call on anyone who is still lobbying their governments for a slow transition – or even in some cases no transition – to end those activities now,” he said. The U.N. chief said governments were slowing down businesses action on the climate front by keeping “bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles, including perverse fossil fuel subsidies.”

Johan Rockstrom, director of the Postdam Institute of Climate Studies, said for 20 years “we have underestimated the pace of change and we have underestimated the risks we are facing.” Addressing the heads of delegations, activists and non-governmental organizations at the climate talks, Rockstrom said the planet is heading to warming by 3-4 C in only 80 years. He said that could create an environment unseen in Earth for more than 4 million years and could trigger disastrous domino effects for human life.

“We stand on an unprecedented mountain of truth,” he said. “If nature fails, we fail as well.” Following him, Thunberg cited the same reports, insisting that national pledges to reduce emissions weren't enough. She said carbon needs to remain underground and that the greenhouse gases responsible for rising temperatures need to be zeroed.

"This is not leading, this is misleading,” she told the plenary, adding that “every fraction of a degree matters.”

AP journalists Bernat Armangue and Helena Alves contributed to this report.

Thunberg 'a bit surprised' to be Time 'Person of the Year'

December 11, 2019

MADRID (AP) — Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg said she was surprised and honored Wednesday to learn she had been named Time’s youngest “Person of the Year,” saying the accolade deserved to be shared by others in the global movement she helped inspire.

The 16-year-old Swede has become the face of a new generation of activists, drawing large crowds with her appearances at protests and conferences over the past year and a half. Some have welcomed her activism, including her speeches challenging world leaders to do more to stop global warming. But others have criticized her sometimes combative tone.

"For sounding the alarm about humanity’s predatory relationship with the only home we have, for bringing to a fragmented world a voice that transcends backgrounds and borders, for showing us all what it might look like when a new generation leads, Greta Thunberg is TIME’s 2019 Person of the Year,” the media franchise said on its website.

Leaving a U.N. climate conference in Madrid, Thunberg told The Associated Press she was “a bit surprised” at the recognition. “I could never have imagined anything like that happening,” she said in a phone interview.

“I'm of course, very grateful for that, very honored,” Thunberg said, but added that "it should be everyone in the Fridays for Future movement because what we have done, we have done together.” Thunberg said she was hopeful that the message being pushed by her and other activists — that governments need to drastically increase their efforts to combat climate change — is finally getting through.

But she insisted that the media should also pay attention to other activists, particularly indigenous people who she said “are hit hardest by the climate and environmental crisis,” and to the science around global warming.

"That is what I am trying to do, to use my platform to do,” she said. Thunberg said the movement, which has staged repeated worldwide protests attended by hundreds of thousands of people, had managed to spread awareness about the need to urgently reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and help those already affected by climate change.

“To get in a sense of urgency in the conversation that is very needed right now to be able to move forward,” she said. "That, I think, is our biggest success.” Asked whether she thought world leaders were beginning to respond to this message, Thunberg said: “They say they listen and they say they understand, but it sure doesn't seem like it.”

“If they really would listen and understand then I think they need to prove that by translating that into action,” she added. She said the experience of the past 15 months, going from solo-protester outside the Swedish parliament to speaking in front of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, had changed her.

"I think life is much more meaningful now that I have something to do that has an impact," she said. Thunberg has tried to preserve some privacy despite the relentless interest she's received from media and adoring fans in recent months.

She was mobbed on her arrival in Madrid last week and the attention paid to her appearances at the climate conference has far outstripped that of other events, save for Hollywood stars like Harrison Ford.

“I would like to be left alone,” Thunberg said when asked about her plans for the next days. She will later travel home to Sweden, to spend Christmas with her family and dogs, she added. “After that, I have no school to return to until August because I've taken a gap year,” she said.

"I will probably continue a bit like now, travel around. And if I get invitations to come. And just try everything I can," she added. Earlier Wednesday, Thunberg addressed negotiators at the U.N.'s annual climate talks, warning that “almost nothing is being done, apart from clever accounting and creative PR.”

Last year's Time winners included slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi; the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, where five people were shot to death; Philippine journalist Maria Ressa; and two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.

Kiley Armstrong in New York contributed to this report.

Ministers arrive to tackle climate talks' hot issues

December 10, 2019

MADRID (AP) — U.N. climate talks in Madrid are kicking into high gear Tuesday, with ministers arriving to tackle some of the tough issues that negotiators have been unable to resolve over the past week.

Officials from almost 200 nations haven’t managed to finalize the rules for international carbon markets that economists say could help drive down emissions. Another contentious issue is poor countries’ demand for aid to help them cope with the damage and destruction wrought by natural disasters blamed on climate change.

Unlike at many past climate summits, few heads of government will join the talks. Most are sending environment ministers or other senior officials instead.

Too much of a Greta thing? Activist urges focus on others

December 09, 2019

MADRID (AP) — With dozens of cameras pointing at her across a room full of reporters, celebrity teen environmentalist Greta Thunberg had an unexpected message: Look the other way. “Our stories have been told over and over again,” the 16-year-old Swede said, explaining why she and prominent German activist Luisa Neubauer would be handing over the stage at the U.N. climate meeting in Madrid to other young activists.

“It’s really about them,” Thunberg added of the young activists from developing countries already facing the effects of climate change, including violent storms, droughts and rising sea levels. “We talk about our future, they talk about their present.”

Thunberg has become the face of the youth climate movement, drawing large crowds with her appearances at protests and conferences over the past year and a half. Veteran campaigners and scientists have welcomed her activism, including her combative speeches challenging world leaders to do more to stop global warming. But some say that it’s time to put the spotlight on other young activists who also have a strong story to tell about climate change.

"Greta and other youth leaders have been an incredible inspiration and catalyzed a whole group of young people,” said Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International. “And I think that the media needs to do a better job at covering that.”

Thunberg and those close to her appeared to agree. Neubauer, a 23-year-old who has become the face of the Fridays for Future student movement in Germany, said the focus on her and Thunberg was “incredibly disproportionate.”

Thunberg was met by a crowd of cameras as she arrived in Portugal last week, having sailed back to Europe to avoid air travel for environmental reasons. On Friday, she left a protest march through the Spanish capital early after being mobbed by crowds of protesters and reporters.

“We want to break this up,” Neubauer told The Associated Press. Thunberg said she felt a “moral duty” to use the media’s attention to promote others who have struggled to get the limelight. “It is people especially from the global south, especially from indigenous communities, who need to tell their stories,” she said before handing the microphone to young environmentalists from around the globe.

Among them was Kisha Erah Muaña, a 23-year-old activist from the Philippines, who called on global leaders to take “robust and lasting action” against climate change. “We are talking about lives and survival here,” she said.

Some stressed the risks they are exposing themselves to for speaking out on climate change. "I am from Russia, where everyone can be arrested for anything,” said Arshak Makichyan, a 25-year-old violinist from Moscow. “But I am not afraid to be arrested. I'm afraid not to do enough."

Thunberg’s angry accusations that world leaders are failing the younger generation have made headlines, including her shouts of “How dare you?” at the U.N. General Assembly earlier this year. However, politicians have, by and large, praised Thunberg and her movement as an important voice of her generation.

“We have all of the youth around the world that are marching and calling to our conscience. And they have moral authority,” said former Vice President Al Gore, calling Thunberg "an absolutely fantastic leader."

Other young activists now being propelled to the fore may find more push-back for their views. Rose Whipple, 18, a community organizer from Minnesota who has taken part in the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline, linked the issue of climate change to broader political concerns, including racism and long-standing grievances among indigenous groups.

“We deserve to be listened to and we also deserve to have our lands back,” said Whipple, wearing a sweatshirt with the words “Destroy white supremacy.” Morgan, of Greenpeace, said she hoped attention would shift “to others who are living on the front line of climate impacts, who are trying to mobilize and push their governments as well.”

“And I hope that can be the beginning of showing the world the very, very diverse set of young people who are desperate for leadership coming from their governments,” she said.