A U.N. climate summit ground towards a delayed close on Sunday with a handful of major states resisting pressure to ramp up efforts to combat global warming, prompting sharp criticism from smaller countries and environmental activists.

The Madrid talks were viewed as a test of governments’ collective will to heed the advice of scientists to cut greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly in order to prevent rising global temperatures from hitting irreversible tipping points.

But the conference was expected to endorse only a modest declaration on the “urgent need” to close the gap between existing emissions pledges and the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.

Many developing countries and campaigners had wanted to see much more explicit language spelling out the importance of countries submitting bolder pledges on emissions as the Paris process enters a crucial implementation phase next year.

“These talks reflect how disconnected country leaders are from the urgency of the science and the demands of their citizens in the streets,” said Helen Mountford, Vice President for Climate and Economics, at the World Resources Institute think-tank. “They need to wake up in 2020.”

Brazil, China, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the United States had led resistance to bolder action, delegates said, as the summit — known as COP25 — began wrapping up.

It had been due to finish at the two-week mark on Friday but has run on for two extra days – a long delay even by the standards of often torturous climate summits.

Earlier, talks president Chile triggered outrage after drafting a version of the text that campaigners complained was so weak it betrayed the spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The process set out in that deal hinges on countries ratcheting up emissions cuts next year.

The final draft did acknowledge the “significant gap” between existing pledges and the temperature goals adopted in 2015.

Nevertheless, it was still seen as a weak response to the sense of urgency felt by communities around the world afflicted by floods, droughts, wildfires and cyclones that scientists say have become more intense as the Earth rapidly warms.

“COP25 demonstrated the collective ambition fatigue of the world’s largest (greenhouse gas) emitters,” said Greenpeace East Asia policy advisor Li Shuo.

The Madrid talks became mired in disputes over the rules that should govern international carbon trading, favored by wealthier countries to reduce the cost of cutting emissions.

Brazil and Australia were among the main holdouts, delegates said, and the summit seemed all but certain to defer big decisions on carbon markets for later.

“As many others have expressed, we are disappointed that we once again failed to find agreement,” Felipe De Leon, a climate official speaking on behalf of Costa Rica. “We engaged actively, we delivered our homework, and yet we did not quite get there.”

Smaller nations had also hoped to win guarantees of financial aid to cope with climate change. The Pacific island of Tuvalu accused the United States, which began withdrawing from the Paris process last month, of blocking progress.

“There are millions of people all around the world who are already suffering from the impacts of climate change,” Ian Fry, Tuvalu’s representative, told delegates. “Denying this fact could be interpreted by some to be a crime against humanity.”

…

Several thousand people shouting words of thanks to the police turned out in Hong Kong on Sunday in an unusual display of support for a force broadly criticized as abusive by the territory’s protest movement.

People made heart signs with their hands at officers, with some calling them heroes for their policing of six months of demonstrations.

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Five Held Over Man’s Death in Hong Kong Protests

The three males and two females aged 15 to 18 were arrested on Friday on suspicion of murder, rioting and wounding and had been detained pending further investigation, police said in a statement

The rally attracted a bigger crowd than a protest against the government a few hundred meters (yards) away. It brought together a few hundred people in a square.

There were also scattered small protests against the government in shopping malls.

Tensions flared in one mall after police arrested about eight protesters. Police used pepper spray when people threw bottles of water at them.

…

A strong earthquake jolted the southern Philippines on Sunday, causing a three-story building to collapse and prompting people to rush out of shopping malls, houses and other buildings in panic, officials said.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the magnitude 6.9 quake struck an area about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) northwest of Padada town in Davao del Sur province. It had a depth of 30 kilometers (18 miles).

Ricardo Jalad, who heads the Office of Civil Defense, said his office received an initial report that a small three-story building collapsed in Padada as the ground shook and that authorities were checking if people got trapped inside. The building housed a grocery store, Jalad said without elaborating.

Officials in the southern cities of Davao and Cotabato, where the quake was felt strongly, suspended classes for Monday to allow checks on the stability of school buildings. Some cities and town lost their power due to the quake, officials said.

The Davao region has been hit by several earthquakes in recent months, causing deaths and injuries and damaging houses, hotels, malls and hospitals.

The Philippine archipelago lies on the so-called Pacific “Ring of fire,” an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

…

The promise of reparations  to atone for historical ties to slavery has opened new territory in a reckoning at U.S. colleges, which until now have responded with monuments, building name changes and public apologies. 

Georgetown University and two theological seminaries have announced funding commitments to benefit descendants of the enslaved people who were sold or toiled to benefit the institutions. 

While no other schools have gone so far, the advantages that institutions received from the slavery economy are receiving new attention as Democratic presidential candidates talk about tax credits and other subsidies that nudge the idea of reparations toward the mainstream. 

The country has been discussing reparations in one way or another since slavery officially ended in 1865. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slave, launching the violence afflicted on black people to prop up the Southern economy.

University of Buffalo senior Jeffrey Clinton said he thinks campuses should acknowledge historical ties to slavery but that the federal government should take the lead on an issue that reaches well beyond higher education. 

“It doesn’t have to be trillions of dollars … but at least address the inequities and attack the racial wealth gap between African Americans and white Americans and really everybody else, because this is an American-made institution. We didn’t immigrate here,” said Clinton, a descendant of slaves who lives in Bay Shore, New York. 

A majority of Georgetown undergraduates voted in April for a nonbinding referendum to pay a $27.20-per-semester “Reconciliation Contribution” toward projects in underprivileged communities that are home to some descendants of 272 slaves who were sold in 1838 to help pay off the school’s debts. 

Georgetown President John DeGioia responded in October with plans instead for a university-led initiative, with the goal of raising about $400,000 from donors, rather than students, to support projects like health clinics and schools in those same communities.

Elsewhere, discussions of reparations have been raised by individual professors, like at the University of Alabama, or by graduate students and community members, like at the University of Chicago. 

At least 56 universities have joined a University of Virginia-led consortium, Universities Studying Slavery, to explore their ties to slavery and share research and strategies. 

In recent years, some schools, like Yale University, have removed the names of slavery supporters from buildings. New monuments have gone up elsewhere, including Brown University’s Slavery Memorial sculpture — a partially buried ball and chain — and the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers under construction at the University of Virginia. 

“It’s a very diffused kind of set of things happening around the nation,” said Guy Emerson Mount, an associate professor of African American history at Auburn University. “It’s really important to pay attention to what each of these are doing” because they could offer learning opportunities and inform national discussions on reparations. 

Virginia Theological Seminary in September announced a $1.7 million endowment fund in recognition of slaves who worked there. It said annual allocations would go toward supporting African American clergy in the Episcopal church and programs that promote justice and inclusion.

The Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey followed with a $27.6 million endowment after a historical audit revealed that some founders used slave labor. 

“We did not want to shy away from the uncomfortable part of our history and the difficult conversations that revealing the truth would produce,” seminary President M. Craig Barnes said in October. 

In an October letter to Harvard University’s president, Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister noted the developments at Georgetown and the seminaries and asked the Ivy League school to consider how it could make amends for the oppression of Antiguan slaves by a plantation owner whose gift endowed a law professorship in 1815. Harvard’s president wrote back that the school is determined to further explore its historical ties to slavery. 

Harvard in 2016 removed a slave owner’s family crest from the law school seal and dedicated a plaque to four slaves who lived and worked on campus.

At the University of Buffalo, some have urged the public school to consider the responsibility it bears having been founded by the 13th U.S. president, Millard Fillmore, who signed the Fugitive Slave Act to help slave owners reclaim runaways. Students have not formally raised the idea of reparations, according to a school spokesman, but they led a discussion on the topic as part of Black Solidarity Week last month. 

William Darity, a Duke University public policy professor and an expert on reparations, said the voices of college students have helped bring attention to reparations in a way that hasn’t been seen since Reconstruction.

But he has warily watched what he sees as a piecemeal approach to an issue he believes merits a congressional response. 

“I don’t want anybody to be under the impression that these constitute comprehensive reparations,” Darity said. 

Supporting a reparations program for all black descendants of American slaves “would be the more courageous act,” he said. 

Few Americans support reparations, according to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. It showed that only 29% say the government should pay cash reparations to descendants of enslaved black people. 

University of Buffalo associate professor Keith Griffler, who specializes in African and African American studies, said he sees the cusp of a movement on college campuses. 

“And it’s probably not surprising that some of the wealthier private institutions have been the first to take those kinds of steps, because public universities still have their funding issues. 

“The conversations, just acknowledging these kinds of things,” Griffler said, “I think would go a long way toward making students feel that at least their voices are being heard.” 

…

Leaving the European Union is not the only split British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has to worry about.

Johnson’s commanding election victory this week may let him fulfill his campaign promise to “get Brexit done,” but it could also imperil the future of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland didn’t vote for Brexit, didn’t embrace this week’s Conservative electoral landslide — and now may be drifting permanently away from London.

In a victory speech Friday, Johnson said the election result proved that leaving the EU is “the irrefutable, irresistible, unarguable decision of the British people.”

Arguably, though, it isn’t. It’s the will of the English, who make up 56 million of the U.K.’s 66 million people. During Britain’s 2016 referendum on EU membership, England and much smaller Wales voted to leave bloc; Scotland and Ireland didn’t. In Thursday’s election, England elected 345 Conservative lawmakers — all but 20 of the 365 House of Commons seats Johnson’s party won across the U.K.

In Scotland, 48 of the 59 seats were won by the Scottish National Party, which opposes Brexit and wants Scotland to become independent of the U.K.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said her party’s “emphatic” victory showed that “the kind of future desired by the majority in Scotland is different to that chosen by the rest of the U.K.”

The SNP has campaigned for decades to make Scotland independent and almost succeeded in 2014, when Scotland held a referendum on seceding from the U.K. The “remain” side won 55% to 45%.

At the time, the referendum was billed as a once-in-a-generation decision. But the SNP argues that Brexit has changed everything because Scotland now faces being dragged out of the EU against its will.

Sturgeon said Friday that Johnson “has no mandate whatsoever to take Scotland out of the EU” and Scotland must be able to decide its future in a new independence referendum.

Johnson insists he will not approve a referendum during the current term of Parliament, which is due to last until 2024. Johnson’s office said the prime minister told the Scottish leader on Friday that “the result of the 2014 referendum was decisive and should be respected.”

The Scotsman newspaper summed up the showdown Saturday with front page face-to-face images of Sturgeon and Johnson: “Two landslides. One collision course.”

“What we’ve got now is pretty close to a perfect storm,” said historian Tom Devine, professor emeritus at the University of Edinburgh. He said the U.K. is facing an “unprecedented constitutional crisis” as Johnson’s refusal to approve a referendum fuels growing momentum for Scottish independence.

Politically and legally, it’s a stalemate. Without the approval of the U.K. government, a referendum would not be legally binding. London could simply ignore the result, as the Spanish government did when Catalonia held an unauthorized independence vote in 2017.

Mark Diffley, an Edinburgh-based political analyst, said Sturgeon “has said that she doesn’t want a Catalonia-style referendum. She wants to do this properly.”

There’s no clear legal route to a second referendum if Johnson refuses, though Sturgeon can apply political and moral pressure. Diffley said the size of the SNP’s win allows Sturgeon to argue that a new referendum is “the will of the people.”

Sturgeon said that next week she will lay out a “detailed democratic case for a transfer of power to enable a referendum to be put beyond legal challenge.”

Devine said the administrations in Edinburgh and London “are in a completely uncompromising condition” and that will only make the crisis worse.

“The longer Johnson refuses to concede a referendum, the greater will the pro-independence momentum in Scotland accelerate,” he said. “By refusing to concede it, Johnson has ironically become a recruiting sergeant for increased militant nationalism.”

Northern Ireland has its own set of political parties and structures largely split along British unionist/Irish nationalist lines. There, too, people feel cast adrift by Brexit, and the political plates are shifting.

For the first time this week, Northern Ireland elected more lawmakers who favor union with Ireland than want to remain part of the U.K.

The island of Ireland, which holds the U.K.’s only land border with the EU, has proved the most difficult issue in Brexit negotiations. Any customs checks or other obstacles along the currently invisible frontier between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland would undermine both the local economy and Northern Ireland’s peace process.

The divorce deal struck between Johnson and the EU seeks to avoid a hard border by keeping Northern Ireland closely aligned to EU rules, which means new checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

“Once you put a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland’s going to be part of a united Ireland for economic purposes,” Jonathan Powell, who helped negotiate Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord, told the BBC. “That will increase the tendency toward a united Ireland for political reasons, too.

“I think there is a good chance there will be a united Ireland within 10 years.”

In Scotland, Devine also thinks the days of the Union may be numbered.

“Anything can happen,” he said. “But I think it’s more likely than not that the U.K. will come to an end over the next 20 to 30 years.

…

North Koreans with disabilities may face disproportionate risk due to efforts to curtail the country’s weapons of mass destruction programs. 

Some humanitarian aid groups providing medical, educational and material support to people with physical, sensory and other developmental impairments say United Nations sanctions, as well as the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign imposed on Pyongyang for its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, are limiting their ability to carry-out work in North Korea.  

Amid those restrictions, some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are abandoning their programs altogether. 

Multiple sources involved in aid work tell VOA that Humanity & Inclusion (HI) is ceasing its North Korea operations. The French/Belgian organization, also known as Handicap International, has been active in the country since 2001 and works in conjunction with the state-run Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, according to the non-profit’s website. 

HI declined to respond to VOA’s request for confirmation. 

North Korea’s opacity and the reluctance of many NGOs to publicly discuss their work there make it difficult for outside observers to obtain a full picture of the situation.  

But, Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings, who lectures in humanitarian studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, says the “detrimental impact of sanctions” is primarily responsible for the departure of international organizations, like HI, from North Korea.

She explains that while humanitarian activity in North Korea is permitted under the sanctions, the lengthy process of applying for exemptions from member states and the UN Sanctions Committee as well as blocks on financial transactions lead to the erosion of partnerships that these organizations have spent years building with Pyongyang.   

“It’s really a tragedy,” Zadeh-Cummings says. “Because of time delays, uncertainty and difficulties in getting sanctions exemptions, those decades of trust and relations are being threatened.”

Among the relief agencies that have pulled-out or suspended work in North Korea are Finland’s Fida International, which closed its food security program earlier this year, and the Britain-based charity Save the Children, which left the country in 2017. Both organizations say the pressure brought on by sanctions forced their decisions.        

Zadeh-Cummings notes the closure of programs that benefit the disabled could be a lost opportunity.  She says that despite North Korea’s reputation as one of the world’s worst human rights abusers, the regime “shows a willingness to engage” with the international community over the creation of such initiatives, which have gone from “non-existent to a space for collaboration” with aid groups in the past several years. 

“The people on the receiving end of this aid are the ones who are losing out,” due to the international sanctions, she adds.

The sanctions further complicate many NGOs’ ability to provide support for North Korea’s disabled due to a “dual use” ban on metallic objects because of concern these could end up in the hands of the country’s military. In turn, this measure could prohibit many medical supplies and adaptive equipment from entering North Korea, unless an import license and waiver are obtained, which some humanitarians say could take many months or years, if not at all. 
 
“I can’t send wheelchairs, crutches or canes because they all have metal in them,” says Sue Kinsler, whose California-based Kinsler Foundation has supported North Korean schools for the blind and has helped disabled athletes compete in recent Paralympics and other sporting events.  

She says her charity, which relies on small donations from churches in South Korea and the U.S., has not been able to raise sufficient funds or collect many donations in recent years.

“They all stopped helping me because of the sanctions,” she  says. “They’re afraid of breaking the rules.” 

Kinsler, who says she used to visit North Korea several times a year, adds that she hasn’t returned since Washington banned U.S. citizens from traveling to the country following the death of tourist Otto Warmbier in 2017. 

Some other American aid workers have obtained permits to enter North Korea to carry-out relief work. 

Dr. Kee Park, director of DPRK Programs at the Korean American Medical Association, says he travels to North Korea twice a year and performs surgeries with local physicians. DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. 

Park, who lectures at Harvard and co-authored the recent report The Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North Korea, says the difficulty in “navigating the regulatory hurdles” required to obtain permission to transport even the most basic of medical devices to North Korea could mean many patients will become permanently disabled.  

“If they have an injury and cannot obtain surgical care in a timely fashion they might end up with a disability,” he says, adding that sanctions could prevent performance of “simple operations” for disabling conditions such as cleft pallet, clubbed foot and cataracts. 

Park says that despite the lack of new surgical instruments, North Korean doctors are “masters at maximizing the utility of their medical supplies.”

“They reuse as much as possible until things become unusable,” he says. 

“Collateral damage” 

North Korea has given Washington an end of year deadline to drop what Pyongyang calls a “hostile policy” in order to resume stalled denuclearization talks. Some observers say the North wants relief from unilateral U.S. sanctions that have reduced its capacity to earn foreign sources of income – an indication that these measures are having their intended effect. 

Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert at Tufts University, writes in an email to VOA that “targeted financial sanctions are a potent and fine-tuned, non-lethal instrument of coercion.”

Lee notes that while sanctions are not a “perfect instrument”, he argues that humanitarian concern should instead focus on the Kim regime’s “perverse priorities” as the root cause of the North Korean people’s “misery and hunger.” 

“There will invariably be negative trickle down effects on the innocent people and in procedural aspects related to the delivery of aid,” Lee writes.

Andray Abrahamian, a visiting scholar at George Mason University’s Incheon, South Korea campus, agrees that North Korea is “unable or unwilling” to care for many of its citizens, including people with disabilities, and so has largely outsourced this responsibility to international aid groups. 

But Abrahamian, who previously worked for a North Korea-focused NGO, says the livelihood of this already disadvantaged population will continue to decline if recipients of humanitarian support  are seen as “collateral damage.”   

“The further you are away from political power the more vulnerable you are to sanctions-imposed scarcity,” he says.

…

Melania Trump on Friday appeared to condone her husband’s criticism of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, saying through a spokeswoman that her 13-year-old son, Barron, is in a different category than the teenage climate activist “who travels the globe giving speeches.”

“He is a 13-year-old who wants and deserves privacy,” spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in an emailed statement the day after President Donald Trump lashed out at Thunberg  because Time magazine had named her “Person of the Year.”

The first lady’s apparent acceptance of her husband’s actions stood in contrast to the work she’s doing through her “Be Best”  initiative to combat online bullying and teach children to be kind.

The president tweeted Thursday that “Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend!” He said it was “ridiculous” that Time had chosen her for the honor.

Trump mocked the teenage activist, who has Asperger’s syndrome, a week after the first lady tweeted angrily at Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan for mentioning Barron during her testimony as a Democratic witness at a House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing.

“A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it,” Melania Trump tweeted.

At one point during her testimony, Karlan said that while Trump can “name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.” Karlan was trying to make a point that Trump is a president and not a king. At the end of the hearing, Karlan apologized for the comment.

Grisham said the first lady will continue to use “Be Best” to help children.

“It is no secret that the president and first lady often communicate differently — as most married couples do,” Grisham said.

Former first lady Michelle Obama encouraged Thunberg, saying, “don’t let anyone dim your light.”

Michelle Obama wrote on Twitter from Vietnam, where she was traveling this week. “Like the girls I’ve met in Vietnam and all over the world, you have so much to offer us all,” she wrote. “Ignore the doubters and know that millions of people are cheering you on.”

…

Three months after being sworn into office, the civilian-led transitional government in Sudan has been trying to overcome political and economic challenges in the African country after decades under the former regime of Omar al-Bashir, who was toppled in April this year after months of popular protests against his government.   

One major objective for the new government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has been the removal of Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

During his recent visit to Washington, where he met with senior U.S. officials, Hamdok emphasized that removing his country from the list of the states sponsoring terrorism was essential for the success of the new government in carrying out necessary reforms.

“This issue has a lot of bearing on so many processes, not to mention debt and investment but also opening the country at large,” Hamdok said last week during remarks at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

“This is something, unless it is addressed, all these other processes will not take place,” he added, linking the removal of Sudan from the U.S. terrorism list to top priorities his government has taken on for the transitional period.

Sponsoring terrorism

Sudan was added to the U.S.  list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1993 over charges by Washington that Bashir’s Islamist government was supporting terrorism. The country was also targeted by U.S. sanctions over Khartoum’s alleged support for terror groups, including al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah.

“When Bashir took over the country [in 1989], and then the fundamentalists and Islamists gained more and more power, Sudan was harboring some very bad people, including Osama bin Laden,” said former U.S. Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates, co-chair of the Sudan Task Force at the Atlantic Council, who was the U.S. chargé d’affaires to Sudan from 2011 to 2012.

“The more power the Islamists had within the government then, the more of whom we would call the bad actors [and] terrorists came to spend time in Sudan,” she told VOA.

But Sudanese officials maintain that it was the former regime that supported terrorism and that the Sudanese people shouldn’t be published for crimes committed by Bashir’s regime.

Normalized relations

Since the overthrow of Bashir, U.S. officials have expressed support for the new Sudanese government.

Earlier this month, U.S. and Sudan announced the warming of their diplomatic relations through an exchange of ambassadors for the first time in 23 years.

Pleased to announce that the United States and #Sudan have decided to initiate the process to exchange ambassadors for the first time in 23 years. This is a historic step to strengthen our bilateral relationship.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) December 4, 2019

This move, experts say, could be a gesture of goodwill as both sides are trying to open a new page in their relations.

“Having ambassadors in both countries will certainly make efforts to delist Sudan from the terrorism list more effective,” said al-Noor Mohammed, a Sudanese researcher based in Khartoum.

“It gives our government a great deal of legitimacy as it seeks to turn this opening into meaningful outcomes, such as the removal of Sudan from the U.S. [terrorism] list,” he told VOA in a phone interview.

Essential for Sudan’s economy

Experts believe lifting economic sanctions imposed on Sudan and removing the country from the terrorism list will significantly help alleviate economic hardships that Sudan has faced  for many years.

“The new government has inherited a country with an enormous debt of about $60 billion,” said Yousif al-Jalal, a Khartoum-based political analyst.

He told VOA that “removing the country from that list will allow Hamdok’s government to reach out to international monetary lenders to address the debt issue.”

The designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism bars the country from debt relief and financing from international financial lenders such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Some groups such as the Sentry, an organization that monitors conflicts in Africa, have called on the U.S. government to accelerate the process of taking Sudan off the terrorism list.

Removing Sudan from the list “will help unlock essential financial support and bolster Sudan’s economic prospects,” the Sentry said in a statement Thursday.

“If it occurs in conjunction with meaningful economic, governance and human rights reforms, the prospects for economic recovery and democratic transformation in the country will grow exponentially,” it added.

U.S. conditions

U.S. officials say that one of the important steps in removing Sudan from the list is reaching a settlement with families of those killed in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Sudan’s Hamdok said in addition to settling with the victims’ families, his government was also pursuing a deal with those injured in the 2000 bombing of the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole.

Sudan is accused of providing material support to al-Qaida, which was responsible for all those attacks.

U.S. officials  have also expressed concerns about the presence of some military personnel in the newly established authority in Sudan who had ties with the former regime.

“Sudan needs to give assurances to Washington that these military people won’t have the power to take over the government at some point,” analyst al-Jalal said.

The U.S. also raised questions during Hamdok’s recent visit to Washington about Sudan’s intelligence agency and whether it has fully been transferred to a civilian leadership.

The delisting process

Removing Sudan from the U.S. State Department list requires approval from Congress after a six-month review.

“There is an interagency discussion that happens,” Yates said, adding that the State Department, Defense Department and the intelligence community discuss the outcome and “then they refer the decision to the president.”

She noted that Congress has to be notified after the process is over.

“But after a 45-day period, if the Congress does nothing, then [Sudan would be] delisted,” Yates said.

…

All seven Democratic presidential candidates who qualified for next week’s debate threatened on Friday to skip the event if an labor dispute forces them to cross picket lines on the campus hosting it. 
 
The Democratic National Committee said it was trying to come up with an “acceptable resolution” to the situation so the debate could proceed. 
 
A labor union called UNITE HERE Local 11 said it would picket as Loyola Marymount University hosted Thursday’s sixth Democratic debate of the cycle, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders responded by tweeting they wouldn’t participate if that meant crossing the lines. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, environmental activist Tom Steyer and businessman Andrew Yang followed suit. 
 
“The DNC should find a solution that lives up to our party’s commitment to fight for working people. I will not cross the union’s picket line even if it means missing the debate,” Warren tweeted. 
 
Sanders tweeted, “I will not be crossing their picket line,” while Biden tweeted: “We’ve got to stand together with @UNITEHERE11 for affordable health care and fair wages. A job is about more than just a paycheck. It’s about dignity.” The other candidates used Twitter to post similar sentiments. 

Picketing began in November
 
UNITE HERE Local 11 says it represents 150 cooks, dishwashers, cashiers and servers working on the Loyola Marymount campus. It says it has been in negotiations with a food service company since March for a collective bargaining agreement without reaching a resolution, and “workers and students began picketing on campus in November to voice their concern for a fair agreement. The company abruptly canceled scheduled contract negotiations last week.” 
 
“We had hoped that workers would have a contract with wages and affordable health insurance before the debate next week. Instead, workers will be picketing when the candidates come to campus,” Susan Minato, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, said in the statement. 
 
DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said both the DNC and the university found out about the issue earlier Friday, but expressed support for the union and the candidates’ boycott, stating that DNC Chairman “Tom Perez would absolutely not cross a picket line and would never expect our candidates to either.” 
 
“We are working with all stakeholders to find an acceptable resolution that meets their needs and is consistent with our values and will enable us to proceed as scheduled with next week’s debate,” she said in a statement. 

University encourages resolution
 
Loyola Marymount said that it was not a party to the contract negotiations but that it had contacted the food services company involved, Sodexo, and had encouraged it “to resolve the issues raised by Local 11.” 
 
“Earlier today, LMU asked Sodexo to meet with Local 11 next week to advance negotiations and solutions. LMU is not an agent nor a joint employer of Sodexo, nor of the Sodexo employees assigned to our campus,” the university said in a statement. “LMU is proud to host the DNC presidential debate and is committed to ensuring that the university is a rewarding place to learn, live and work.” 
 
This is the second location site set to host the December debate. In October, the DNC announced it wouldn’t be holding a debate at the University of California-Los Angeles because of “concerns raised by the local organized labor community” and was moving the event to Loyola Marymount. 

…

Freweini Mebrahtu remembers when she returned to her home village in northern Ethiopia and saw women squatting over holes in the ground. Without any sanitary pads to use during their menstrual period, they were stuck in this undignified position.

“How is that possible? And they were telling me that they don’t even use underwear,” she told VOA. “And that was the turning point for me. I kind of felt the nerves going from head to my toes. And that’s when I said, ‘you know, I’ve gotta do something.’ Why is this thing bothering me over and over again? So that was it.”

The more she examined the problem the bigger it appeared. Two out of every five girls have been forced to miss school during their periods with many eventually dropping out. Grown women were resorting to using old cloth or grass as pads. Women and girls, she found, were being shamed by their community during their menstrual periods.

“We’re talking about gender equality and all that stuff. But when the basic necessity of a young girl is not fulfilled, how is that possible?” she said. “ How is the country going to be developed when 50 percent of your society – women – are compromised this way?”

In 2009, Freweini founded Mariam Seba Products Factory (MSPF) in Ethiopia’s northern city of Mekelle. The factory produces reusable pads that can last up to 18 months and cost 90 percent less than disposable pads. Freweini has teamed up with a charitable organization Dignity Period and together they have distributed more than 150,000 free menstrual hygiene kits produced by the factory.

The work is having an impact. Dignity Period has recorded a 24% increase in attendance by girls in schools where they offer services.

This month Freweini was selected as the CNN Hero of the Year and will receive $100,000 to support her work. She said the award was an affirmation of a decision she made years ago to move, along with her 3-year-old daughter, from the U.S. back to Ethiopia and pursue this cause. Today her daughter is 18 and going off to college.

Congratulations to 2019 CNN Hero of the Year Freweini Mebrahtu

Learn more about her at https://t.co/MkgzSoE3Zf#CNNHeroespic.twitter.com/xTTfdWCnkn

— CNN Heroes (@CNNHeroes) December 9, 2019

“You know, it was a moment of an amazing journey. And people thought that I was crying because of the whole event. But it’s the whole timing issue,” she said. “It must have been God’s willing it to happen, the way it happened.”

But she says her work is not done. She noted that there are 30 million women of reproductive age in Ethiopia and the vast majority do not have access to affordable sanitary pads. Additionally, there is a 15 percent value-added tax on many menstrual hygiene products.

“It’s not just Ethiopia. It’s everywhere, developing countries even in the U.S. there is a tax issue. So, now that CNN has made it an issue for anybody to look at this seriously, we hope that everyone will make a sensible solution and a sensible change in making this a reality for all,” she said.

“Reach out and help your sisters. Wherever you are, together we can make this issue a thing of the past.” #CNNHero Freweini Mebrahtu is stamping out the stigma surrounding menstruation — all while paying women premium wages. https://t.co/Ae0lyQdDY0pic.twitter.com/2G7cyaUYO6

— CNN Heroes (@CNNHeroes) December 9, 2019

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has won a solid majority of seats in Britain’s Parliament — a decisive outcome to a Brexit-dominated election that should allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take the U.K. out of the European Union next month.

With just over 600 of the 650 seats declared, the Conservatives reached the 326 mark, guaranteeing their majority.

Johnson said it looked like the Conservatives had “a powerful new mandate to get Brexit done.”

The victory will likely make Johnson the most electorally successful Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher, another politician who was loved and loathed in almost equal measure. It was a disaster for left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who faced calls for his resignation even as the results rolled in. The party looked set to gain around 200 seats.

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Britain Brexit Bound as Johnson Set for Big Parliamentary Majority

An exit poll showed Boris Johnson’s Conservatives would win a landslide of 368 seats, more than enough for a very comfortable majority in the 650-seat parliament

Corbyn called the result “very disappointing” for his party and said he would not lead Labour into another election, though he resisted calls to quit immediately,

Results poured in early Friday showing a substantial shift in support to the Conservatives from Labour. In the last election in 2017, the Conservatives won 318 seats and Labour 262.

The result this time looked set to be the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher’s 1980s’ heyday, and Labour’s lowest number of seats since 1935.

The Scottish National Party appeared set to take about 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats — a big increase — with a lackluster dozen or so for the centrist, pro-EU Liberal Democrats. Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson lost her own Scottish seat.

The Conservatives took a swathe of seats in post-industrial northern England towns that were long Labour strongholds. Labour’s vote held up better in London, where the party managed to grab the Putney seat from the Conservatives.

The decisive Conservative showing vindicates Johnson’s decision to press for Thursday’s early election, which was held nearly two years ahead of schedule. He said that if the Conservatives won a majority, he would get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.

Speaking at the election count in his Uxbridge constituency in suburban London, Johnson said the “historic” election “gives us now, in this new government, the chance to respect the democratic will of the British people to change this country for the better and to unleash the potential of the entire people of this country.”

That message appears to have had strong appeal for Brexit-supporting voters, who turned away from Labour in the party’s traditional heartlands and embraced Johnson’s promise that the Conservatives would “get Brexit done.”

“I think Brexit has dominated, it has dominated everything by the looks of it,” said Labour economy spokesman John McDonnell. “We thought other issues could cut through and there would be a wider debate, from this evidence there clearly wasn’t.”

The prospect of Brexit finally happening more than three years after Britons narrowly voted to leave the EU marks a momentous shift for both the U.K. and the bloc. No country has ever left the union, which was created in the decades after World War II to bring unity to a shattered continent.

But a decisive Conservative victory would also provide some relief to the EU, which has grown tired of Britain’s Brexit indecision.

Britain’s departure will start a new phase of negotiations on future relations between Britain and the 27 remaining EU members.

EU Council President Charles Michel promised that EU leaders meeting Friday would send a “strong message” to the next British government and parliament about next steps.

“We are ready to negotiate,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

The pound surged when an exit poll forecast the Tory win, jumping over two cents against the dollar, to $1.3445, the highest in more than a year and a half. Many Investors hope a Conservative win would speed up the Brexit process and ease, at least in the short term, some of the uncertainty that has corroded business confidence since the 2016 vote.

Many voters casting ballots on Thursday hoped the election might finally find a way out of the Brexit stalemate in this deeply divided nation. Three and a half years after the U.K. voted by 52%-48% to leave the EU, Britons remain split over whether to leave the 28-nation bloc, and lawmakers have proved incapable of agreeing on departure terms.

On a dank, gray day with outbreaks of blustery rain, voters went to polling stations in schools, community centers, pubs and town halls after a bad-tempered five-week campaign rife with mudslinging and misinformation.

Opinion polls had given the Conservatives a steady lead, but the result was considered hard to predict, because the issue of Brexit cuts across traditional party loyalties.

Johnson campaigned relentlessly on a promise to “Get Brexit done” by getting Parliament to ratify his “oven-ready” divorce deal with the EU and take Britain out of the bloc as scheduled on Jan. 31.

The Conservatives focused much of their energy on trying to win in a “red wall” of working-class towns in central and northern England that have elected Labour lawmakers for decades but also voted strongly in 2016 to leave the EU. That effort got a boost when the Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage decided at the last minute not to contest 317 Conservative-held seats to avoid splitting the pro-Brexit vote.

Labour, which is largely but ambiguously pro-EU, faced competition for anti-Brexit voters from the centrist Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties, and the Greens.

But on the whole Labour tried to focus the campaign away from Brexit and onto its radical domestic agenda, vowing to tax the rich, nationalize industries such as railroads and water companies and give everyone in the country free internet access. It campaigned heavily on the future of the National Health Service, a deeply respected institution that has struggled to meet rising demand after nine years of austerity under Conservative-led governments.

It appears that wasn’t enough to boost Labour’s fortunes. Defeat will likely spell the end for Corbyn, a veteran socialist who moved his party sharply to the left after taking the helm in 2015, but who now looks to have led his left-of-center party to two electoral defeats since 2017. The 70-year-old left-winger was also accused of allowing anti-Semitism to spread within the party.

“It’s Corbyn,” said former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Johnson, when asked about the poor result. “We knew he was incapable of leading, we knew he was worse than useless at all the qualities you need to lead a political party.”

For many voters, the election offered an unpalatable choice. Both Johnson and Corbyn have personal approval ratings in negative territory, and both have been dogged by questions about their character.

Johnson has been confronted with past broken promises, untruths and offensive statements, from calling the children of single mothers “ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate” to comparing Muslim women who wear face-covering veils to “letter boxes.”

Yet, his energy and determination proved persuasive to many voters.

“It’s a big relief, looking at the exit polls as they are now, we’ve finally got that majority a working majority that we have not had for 3 1/2 years,” said Conservative-supporting writer Jack Rydeheard. “We’ve got the opportunity to get Brexit done and get everything else that we promised as well. That’s investment in the NHS, schools, hospitals you name it — it’s finally a chance to break that deadlock in Parliament.”

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Time Magazine’s selection of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as its Person of the Year underscores the growing clout of youth power—pushing governments to escalate the fight against what many consider a climate crisis. That is also happening in Africa, which is especially vulnerable to climate change. At the Madrid climate conference, Lisa Bryant reports on three young Africans who are making a difference

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A lawyer presenting Gambia’s case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against Rohingya Muslims said Thursday that Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi ignored allegations of mass killings and rape as she led her country’s defense before the U.N.’s top court.

Paul Reichler told the International Court of Justice in The Hague Myanmar was choosing to ignore the alleged sexual violence because “it is undeniable and unspeakable.”

Aung San Suu Kyi told the court Wednesday the mass exodus of the Rohingya minority stemmed from “an internal conflict started by coordinated and comprehensive armed attacks.”

She said that “Myanmar’s defense services responded” to the attacks, creating an armed conflict “that led to the exodus of several hundred thousand Muslims.”   

Appearing before the court in her official role as Myanmar’s foreign minister, the Nobel Peace laureate reiterated her government’s claim that the military was targeting Rohingya militants who had attacked security posts in western Rakhine state in August 2017.   

Myanmar’s military launched a scorched earth campaign in response to the attacks, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingyas to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. A U.N. investigation concluded the campaign was carried out “with genocidal intent,” based on interviews with survivors who gave numerous accounts of massacres, extrajudicial killings, gang rapes and the torching of entire villages.
 
The case against Myanmar was brought to the IJC by the small West African nation Gambia on behalf of the 57-member Organization for Islamic Cooperation. Lawyers for Gambia recounted numerous acts of atrocities committed by Myanmar’s military during the crackdown during Tuesday’s opening session.

Aung San Suu Kyi called the allegations made by Gambia “misleading” during her opening statement.  

Gambian Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou told reporters Tuesday he wants the IJC to order special measures to protect the Rohingyas until the genocide case is heard in full.

“We are signatories to the Genocide Convention like any other state. It shows that you don’t have to have military power or economic power to stand for justice,” Tambadou said.

Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her pro-democracy stand against Myanmar’s then-ruling military junta, which placed her under house arrest for 15 years until finally freeing her in 2010. But her defense of the military’s actions against the Rohingyas has wrecked her reputation among the international community as an icon of democracy and human rights.  

The Rohingya were excluded from a 1982 citizenship law that bases full legal status through membership in a government-recognized indigenous group. The Myanmar government considers the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, effectively rendering the ethnic group stateless.

A ruling from the court to approve measures to protect the Rohingya is expected within weeks. A final ruling on the accusation of genocide could take several years.

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Shares in Saudi Aramco gained on the second day of trading Thursday, propelling the oil and gas company to a more than $2 trillion valuation, where it holds the title of the world’s most valuable listed company.

Shares jumped in trading to reach up to 38.60 Saudi riyals, or $10.29 before noon, three hours before trading closes.

Aramco has sold a 1.5% share to mostly Saudi investors and local Saudi and Gulf-based funds.

With gains made from just two days of trading, Aramco sits comfortably ahead of the world’s largest companies, including Apple, the second largest company in the world valued at $1.19 trillion.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the architect of the effort to list Aramco, touting it as a way to raise capital for the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which would then develop new cities and lucrative projects across the country that create jobs for young Saudis.

He had sought a $2 trillion valuation for Aramco when he first announced in 2015 plans to sell a sliver of the state-owned company.

International investors, however, thought the price was too high, given the relatively lower price of oil, climate change concerns and geopolitical risks associated with Aramco. The company’s main crude oil processing facility and another site were targeted by missiles and drones in September, knocking out more than half of Saudi production for some time. The kingdom and the U.S. have blamed the attack on rival Iran, which denies involvement.

In the lead-up to the flotation, there had been a strong push for Saudis, including princes and businessmen, to contribute to what’s seen locally as a moment of national pride, and even duty. Gulf-based funds from allied countries also contributed to the IPO, though it has largely been propelled by Saudi capital.

At a ceremony Wednesday for the start of trading, Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan, described the sale as “a proud and historic moment for Saudi Aramco and our majority shareholder, the kingdom.”

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Five candidates have their eyes on becoming the next president of Algeria — without a leader since April — as voting began in Thursday’s contentious election boycotted by a massive pro-democracy movement.

The powerful army chief and his cohorts in the interim government have promised the voting will chart a new era for the gas-rich North African nation that is a strategic partner of the West in countering extremist violence. Those opposed to the voting fear the results will replicate a corrupt, anti-democratic system they are trying to level.

Tension was palpable on the eve of the vote as protesters in at least 10 towns denounced the elections. In Bouira, east of Algiers, the capital, security forces used tear gas to push back protesters who had invaded a voting station in a high school, according to the online TSA news agency, citing witnesses. Several thousand people demonstrated in Algiers.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and are to close at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT). Results were not likely until Friday, to be announced by a newly created National Independent Electoral Authority overseeing the voting. The body was among the nods of authorities to protesters, like the decision for soldiers to vote in civilian clothes at regular polling stations, rather than in barracks.

The five candidates, two of them former prime ministers, Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, endured insults and protests during the 22-day campaign. All five contenders have links to former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced to resign in April after 20 years in office under pressure from weekly street protests that began in February, with an assist from army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah.

The turnout rate should be a critical indication of whether the contender elected has popular legitimacy. There was no firm indication which of the five had the upper hand ahead of the vote. Opinion polls for elections are not permitted.

Tebboune, 74, was until recently seen as the favorite due to his reportedly close ties to Gaid Salah. However, a 60-year-old former culture minister, Azzedine Mihoubi, a writer and poet, has been touted in the media. Mihoubi has deep ties to the fallen Bouteflika regime. He took over leadership of the National Democratic Rally party, which governed in alliance with the FLN, the sole party for nearly three decades, until 1989, and now in tatters.

Benflis, 75, was making his third attempt at the presidency. A lawyer and former justice minister, he was Bouteflika’s top aide before falling out when he ran against him in 2004. He started his own party.

The other candidates are Abdelaziz Belaid, 56, a former figure in the FLN who started his own party, and Abdelkader Bengrini, 57, a one-time tourism minister and former member of the moderate Islamist party, Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP). He then started his own Islamist party el Bina, which like the MSP, backed Bouteflika.

Gaid Salah, who has emerged as the authority figure in the political vacuum, setting the date for the elections, has maintained that the voting is the shortest and surest way to raise Algeria out of its paralyzing political crisis and give birth to a new era. He was the force behind an anti-corruption campaign that has seen top figures jailed and convicted, including Said Bouteflika, the president’s brother and chief counselor, sentenced to 15 years in prison in September for “plotting against the state.”

Gaid Salah refers to Bouteflika’s entourage as “the gang,” as do pro-democracy protesters who include Gaid Salah among them.

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