BOLSOVER, ENGLAND — Dennis Skinner is a no-nonsense, unchanging socialist and the only British MP ever to heckle the Queen’s Speech Ceremony, when Britain’s lawmakers process from the Commons annually to the House of Lords to hear the monarch’s address outlining the government’s legislative program.

Nicknamed the “Beast of Bolsover,” a reference to the Derbyshire constituency he has represented since 1970, the 87-year-old Skinner has traditionally occupied the seat of the front bench below the gangway in the Commons, where invariably wearing a tweed jacket and red tie, he has harangued those he deems “class enemies,” earning himself a dozen cooling off’ suspensions for what was deemed “unparliamentary language.”

The son of a coal miner — his father was sacked after the historic coal strike of 1926 — and a former miner himself, his first brush with the Speaker of the House of Commons was in 1984 when he dubbed the leader of a group of Labour defectors a “pompous sod” and was ordered out of the chamber when he agreed to withdraw only the word “pompous.” In 1992, he incurred another suspension for describing the then Conservative agriculture minister as “a little squirt” and “a slimy wart on Margaret Thatcher’s nose.”

Skinner’s working-class constituents, many of them former coal-miners or the sons and daughters of miners, have been relentlessly behind their pugnacious tribune with the snappy bark, and they have been loyal to the Labour Party. The closure of local collieries by Conservative governments in the 1980s and 1990s only deepened Bolsover’s allegiance to Labour and to their MP, who took a pay cut himself in support of the miners during a ferocious 1984-85 miners’ strike.

But the times are changing and the country’s oldest serving MP may became next week a casualty of electoral war thanks to the scrambling of British politics by Brexit and a makeover of the Labour Party, which has become more focused on metropolitan issues pushed by progressive urban recruits, irritating older and more socially conservative traditional Labour voters.

Britain’s ruling Conservatives hope Boris Johnson can pull off what his predecessor at 10 Downing Street, Theresa May, failed to do in a snap election 18 months ago. Their hope is that Johnson will breach the Labour Party’s so-called northern red wall,’ once thought to be impregnable, by persuading anti-European Union northern working-class voters to defect to the class-enemy Conservatives to “deliver Brexit.”

Skinner’s constituency is one brick in that wall and on the streets of Bolsover in the north east of the county of Derbyshire amid rolling hills, the talk is the December 12 general election may mark the end of the long-serving lawmaker’s political career. Locals say while they still admire their local MP, who’s been unable to campaign personally because of recent hip-replacement surgery, Brexit is driving them away from a Labour Party, which wants to hold a second Brexit referendum, if it wins power.

Bolsover voted 70 percent to Leave the EU in the 2016 referendum and because of that high proportion of pro-Brexit voters, the seat is a key target for the Conservatives. On a cold, breezy day when VOA visited the town center, which has the feel of left-behind desperation about it with boarded-up shops, shuttered pubs, neglected terrace houses and shabby cheap takeaways, it wasn’t difficult to find locals planning to switch their votes to either the Conservatives or the newly-minted Brexit Party of Nigel Farage.

One former miner, Dave Michaels, a stocky 65-year-old wearing a flat cap, said, “I’ve been Labour all my life, as was my father, and I don’t like Johnson, don’t trust the man, but I think he’ll get us out of the EU and stop all the dithering.” He voiced annoyance at the influx of eastern European migrants to staff new warehouses and online retail distribution centers. Locals complain migration has altered the social cohesion of this corner of Derbyshire and strained already under-resourced public services.

Others expressed similar sentiments, suggesting that Skinner’s 5,000 majority may well collapse next week, adding to a possible seismic change in British politics that could see Labour and the Liberal Democrats snatch traditional Conservative seats in the pro-EU south of England and the commuter belt around London, but lose heartland seats of their own in the north, midlands and southwest of the country.

The Conservatives’ assault on the “red wall” will make or break Johnson’s dream of securing a parliamentary majority and dictate whether Britain leaves the European Union or not.

Daphne, a 52-year-old, who’d just finished shopping in a butcher’s shop, said she’ll be voting for Skinner’s Conservative rival Mark Fletcher. The mother of two grown up daughters, Lewis says she remains grateful to Skinner for all he’s done in the past, but he is “long in the tooth” and it is time for a change. “The Conservatives seem to have a goal,” she says.

The 34-year-old Fletcher, the grandson himself of a miner who was educated at state schools before heading to Cambridge University, says locals “want to get Brexit done and the Labour party has lost its way.” He’s convinced he can win Bolsover and that the Brexit Party won’t deny him victory by splitting the Leave vote. He is buoyed by a seat-by-seat opinion survey last week produced by the YouGov polling agency that predicted he will win the seat on December 12 with 42 percent of the vote, with Labour trailing 38 percent and the Brexit Party picking up 12 percent.

But the remaining days will be crucial before voting — in Bolsover, as well as in 49 other Labour seats in Wales, the midlands and northern England targeted by the Conservatives. At the last general election there were hints the ‘red wall’ isn’t as strong as Labour strategists suppose — two of Bolsover’s neighboring constituencies, North East Derbyshire and Mansfield, defected to the Conservative camp.

The Labour activists are hitting the doorsteps hard in the northern constituencies, though, trawling residual party support. And while the Conservatives are doing well when it comes to the issue of Brexit, they are on the back foot when it comes to public-service issues, and especially in regards to the under-staffed and under-funded National Health Service.

But Brexit isn’t Labour’s only problem in the north in what commentators describe as a “hold-your-nose election.” Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, seen widely as the most far-left leader the party has ever had, are vying in the unpopularity stakes, and according to opinion polls neither are trusted by voters. Johnson is the most disliked new prime minister in the modern history of opinion polling, while Corbyn is the most disliked leader of the opposition.

General election victory or defeat may come down to who is disliked the most.

…

Biogen Inc on Thursday presented new data on its experimental Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab that eased concerns raised by some experts but still left many questions unanswered as the company made its case about why it plans to seek U.S. approval after declaring the drug a failure in March.

Experts had been watching closely for any statistical abnormalities or excess safety issues that would affect how the drug is reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), likely in the second half of 2020.

It has been at least 15 years since the FDA has reviewed an application for a new Alzheimer’s treatment, and an agent that can slow progression of the mind-wasting disease is desperately needed.

Alzheimer’s experts on a panel organized by the company, who had seen the data previously, expressed confidence that the complicated study did show that the drug was able to slow progression of the disease.

“All of the data suggests this is a disease modification. That means the impact of the treatment will continue to accrue with time,” said Dr. Paul Aisen, an Alzheimer’s expert from the University of Southern California.

Dr. Ronald Petersen, an Alzheimer’s expert from Mayo Clinic who moderated the panel and has been a paid adviser for Biogen, said while one of the two studies, known as Emerge, was “overwhelmingly positive,” the twin study known as Engage, was not. “Overall, I think it’s more positive than negative,” he said of the results.

Petersen was not too worried about the rates of a brain swelling side effect, known as ARIA-E, which occurred in 33-35 percent of patients in the high-dose groups.

“The side effects are there. They’re not zero. They’re to be expected. But I think they’re manageable.”

Others, however, acknowledged that the affected sample size was small and the trials were cut short early. Only one of the two phase 3 trials showed a statistically significant benefit.

“This reinforces what I thought before. That we need a third study. The data are encouraging, but there are still questions about whether the drug has a clinical effect,” said Dr. Howard Fillit, chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, who was at the meeting.

Fillit said the company only measured one timepoint – 78 weeks after treatment. “It still remains to be seen if this effect is sustained. It could be an anomaly.”

Dr. Eric Siemers, a former Alzheimer’s researcher for Eli Lilly and a consultant on drugs for neurodegenerative disease who was not involved with the study, said based on his read of the data, the patient responses are not happening by chance.

“The regulators will have a very difficult job. Do you look at the totality of the data, or require more study, which would be years away,” he said.

Stifel analyst Paul Matteis said in a note to clients that he saw aspects that were both “incrementally better and worse than expected,” and puts the probability of the drug winning approval at less than 50%.

Biogen’s shares had been halted prior to the presentation at a Alzheimer’s meeting, reopened lower, and then rose as investors tried to parse the meeting from the complicated study.

Biogen has partnered with Japan’s Eisai Co Ltd to develop aducanumab as well as BAN2401, which works in a similar way.

…

A Navy sailor shot three civilians, killing two of them, before taking his own life at Pearl Harbor just days before thousands were scheduled to gather at the storied military base to mark the 78th anniversary of the Japanese bombing that launched the U.S. into World War II.

Rear Adm. Robert Chadwick, the commander of Navy Region Hawaii, said the service would evaluate whether security should be upgraded before the annual ceremony. About a dozen survivors of the 1941 bombing were expected to attend, along with dignitaries and service members.

The shooter was identified Thursday as 22-year-old G. Romero, according to a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that had not been made public.

Chadwick said he didn’t know the motive behind Wednesday’s shooting at the naval shipyard within the base. The third victim was hospitalized.

It wasn’t known if the sailor and the three male civilians had any type of relationship, or what the motive was for the shooting, Chadwick said.

“We have no indication yet whether they were targeted or if it was a random shooting,” Chadwick said.

The sailor was assigned to the fast attack submarine USS Columbia, which is at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for maintenance. 

He was identified as a 22-year-old enlisted sailor, according to a military official speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details that hadn’t been made public

It wasn’t immediately known what type of weapon was used or how many shots were fired. Chadwick said that was part of the investigation. Personal weapons are not allowed on base.

Names of the victims will not be released until next of kin have been notified.

“Our thoughts are with the families of the victims and everyone involved. I can say that we are mobilizing support services for naval shipyard personnel as well as everyone else who may be affected by this tragic event,” Chadwick said.

The base went into lockdown at about 2:30 p.m. when the first active shooter reports were received. The base reopened a few hours later. Witnesses were still being interviewed hours after the shooting.

The shipyard repairs, maintains and modernizes the ships and submarines of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which is headquartered at Pearl Harbor. The base is the home port for 10 destroyers and 15 submarines. It also hosts Air Force units.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige said the White House has offered assistance from federal agencies and that the state is also ready to help if needed.

“I join in solidarity with the people of Hawaii as we express our heartbreak over this tragedy and concern for those affected by the shooting,” Ige said in a statement.

Mass shootings and gun violence are rare in Hawaii. In 1999, a Xerox service technician fatally shot seven coworkers. In 2006, a man fatally shot his taxi driver and a couple taking photos of the city lights from a lookout point in the hills above Honolulu.

Hawaii had the lowest gun death rate among the states in 2017, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The islands have strict firearms laws, including a ban on assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines.

The shipyard is across the harbor from the wreckage of USS Arizona, which sank in the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack. It’s also across from the visitors center, which will host Saturday’s ceremony. More than 2,300 Americans were killed in the bombing.

The shipyard has played a key role in naval history, most notably during World War II. Shipyard workers were given just days to repair the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier severely damaged during the Battle of the Coral Seat in 1942, because the Navy needed to quickly send the ship to Midway to meet Japanese forces there.

Some 1,400 shipyard workers labored around the clock for almost 72 hours to patch the carrier together. The planes the Yorktown delivered to Midway sank one of the four aircraft carriers Japan sent to the battle and helped destroy two others. The Battle of Midway turned the tide of the war in the United States’ favor.
 

…

A documentary on Taylor Swift will kick off the next Sundance Film Festival, where new films including the Will Ferrell-Julia Louis Dreyfus remake of the Swedish film “Force Majeure” and Benh Zeitlin’s long-awaited follow-up to “Beasts of the Southern Wild” are set to premiere.

Programmers for the preeminent showcase for independent cinema, founded by Robert Redford and set annually in the mountains of Park City, Utah, announced the lion’s share of the lineup for its 2020 edition Wednesday. The lineup of 118 feature-length films, culled from a record 15,100 submissions, come from 27 countries, includes 44 first-time filmmakers and is among the most diverse in the festival’s 37-year history. In the four competition categories, 46% of the directors are women, 38% are people of color and 12% are LGBTQ.

Streaming services

The coming Sundance, set for Jan. 23-Feb. 2, follows a 2019 festival that saw deep-pocketed streaming services set off an avalanche of high-priced acquisitions, some of which notably fizzled at the box office. Amazon paid large sums for “Late Night” and “The Report” but neither made much of a dent in theaters; Amazon is now shrinking its exclusive theatrical window for some releases. Warner Bros. paid $15 million for the Bruce Springsteen-infused coming-of-age tale “Blinded by the Light,” but it failed to catch on.

The biggest hit to emerge from last year’s crop was Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” which has grossed $17.7 million for A24. It’s been one of the bright spots in a trying marketplace this year for indie film. Still, Sundance, where movies like “Get Out,” “Little Miss Sunshine” and “The Big Sick” first debuted, remains the premier factory for breakout hits. Lately, that’s increasingly meant documentaries, too, including “RBG,” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and, from this year’s Sundance, “Apollo 11.”

Taylor Swift documentary

Sure to add extra frenzy this year is Lana Wilson’s “Taylor Swift: Miss Americana,” which the festival describes as “a raw and emotionally revealing look at one of the most iconic artists of our time during a transformational period in her life.”

Netflix has acquired the film and plans to release it in early 2020. It is also set to distribute seven more, including new films from “Mudbound” filmmaker Dee Rees and the fictional debut of “What Happened, Miss Simone” director Liz Garbus, an early sign that Netflix will play a prominent role in this year’s Sundance.

Apple, too, has gotten in on the act, a year after making its first acquisition at Sundance (“Hala”). On Monday, it picked up a high-profile documentary headed to Park City: Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick’s untitled film about a former music executive grappling with the decision to go public with a story of sexual assault by a notable figure in the music industry. Oprah Winfrey is an executive producer.

“This year’s festival is full of films that showcase myriad ways for stories to drive change, across hearts, minds and societies,” Redford, president and founder of the Sundance Institute, said in a statement.

Premieres section

Among the films debuting in Sundance’s Premieres section is Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s “Downhill,” the English-language remake of Ruben Ostlund’s “Force Majeure,” starring Louis-Dreyfus and Ferrell as a couple whose relationship is altered after they escape an avalanche.

Zeitlin will unveil “Wendy,” a “Peter Pan”-inspired adventure shot in the West Indies. It’s his first movie since his Oscar-nominated debut, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a sensation at 2012’s Sundance.

Also on tap for are Rees’ Joan Didion adaptation “The Last Thing He Wanted,” with Anne Hathaway and Ben Affleck; Michael Almereyda’s Nikola Tesla biopic “Tesla,” starring Ethan Hawke as the engineer-inventor; Florian Zeller’s “The Father,” with Anthony Hopkins as an aged man who moves to Paris, co-starring Olivia Colman; and Garbus’ debut “Lost Girls,” a missing-child drama with Amy Ryan and Thomasin McKenzie.

Other notables include Julie Taymor’s nontraditional Gloria Steinem biopic, with Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Bette Midler and Janelle Monae; Justin Simien’s horror satire “Bad Hair”; Dominic Cooke’s Cuban Missile Crisis drama “Ironbark,” with Benedict Cumberbatch; Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman,” a revenge tale led by Carey Mulligan; Sean Durkin’s ‘80s-set marriage tale “The Nest,” with Jude Law and Carrie Coon; Josephine Decker’s Shirley Jackson biopic “Shirley,” starring Elisabeth Moss as the “The Lottery” author; Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut “Falling”; and Miranda July’s “Kajillionaire.”

Documentaries

Other documentaries coming to Sundance include Ron Howard’s “Rebuilding Paradise,” about the aftermath of the devastating 2018 California wildfire; “The Fight,” about the ACLU’s legal battles with President Donald Trump; the Deepwater Horizon oil spill expose “The Cost of Silence”; and Kim A. Snyder’s “Us Kids,” about the teenage survivors of Parkland, Florida.

This will be the last Sundance overseen by its longtime director, John Cooper. He is stepping down next year to take on the role of emeritus director.

“The program this year, my last as director, is a celebration: of art and artists, yes, but also of the community that makes the annual pilgrimage to Park City to see the most exciting new work being made today,” said Cooper.

…

France is preparing for nationwide strikes beginning Thursday that could bring the country to a standstill.

French labor unions have called for walkouts over President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to overhaul the retirement system.

In Paris, the unions plan to march Thursday, prompting police to order all shops, cafes and restaurants along the route to close for the day.

Hotels in Paris reported receiving numerous cancellations, as tourists were rethinking their travel plans. Most of the Paris Metro system will be shut down, as well as all national and international train services.

Most flights will be affected, since air traffic controllers have announced plans to join the protests through Saturday. Teachers unions, postal workers and most civil servants also plan to participate.

Paris police Chief Didier Lallement said 6,000 officers will be on duty amid fears of violence and destruction of property. Protests are banned on the Champs-Elysees around the presidential palace, Parliament and Notre Dame Cathedral.

The protests have the potential to be more destabilizing than other strikes in recent years, including the “yellow vest” demonstrations.

France’s retirement system has long been considered sacrosanct. The last time the government tried to overhaul it was in 1995 when protests brought the country to a three-week halt until then-President Jacques Chirac conceded defeat.

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Riots in Islamabad

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

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

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

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

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

Rights Groups Reactions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Local reaction

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

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

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

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

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

Government involvement

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Defends Xi’s government

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

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

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

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

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

Avoids China human rights issues

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

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

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

Differs from Warren and Sanders

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

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

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

Buttigieg far more critical of tariffs

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

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

Biden sanguine about China threat

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

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

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

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

Bloomberg’s reticence

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

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

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