YCLOAK

Vicheika Kann and Reaksmey Hul in Phnom Penh, and Chenda Hong in Washington contributed to this report.

In his most recent photos, Nuon Chea looks like somebody’s grandfather, wearing big dark glasses that suggest a sensitivity to light possibly tied to other medical problems.

Not that long ago, he’d gone from tottering as he walked to using a wheelchair. There were whispers of liver problems and kidney troubles and whatever else happens as a human body passes through its ninth decade.

That longevity eluded some 1.7 million Cambodians who died between 1975 to 1979, as the Khmer Rouge tried, and failed, to turn Cambodia into a self-sufficient agrarian utopia. Nuon Chea, known as Brother No. 2, is widely believed to have been the mastermind behind the development of a Maoist society without money, religion or intellectuals envisioned by the regime’s founder, Pol Pot, who died in 1998. 

Nuon Chea was appealing his Nov. 16, 2018, conviction for genocide when he died on Sunday in Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital in Phnom Penh. He had been in care since July 2. At age 93, he was serving a life sentence for a 2014 conviction for crimes against humanity. 

“He died easier than the people he killed,” said Sun Sitha, 58, a resident of Siem Reap who lost her father and three siblings to the Khmer Rouge. “He separated people from their families, and hurt them. He deserved to die.”

Silent as to actions

If Nuon Chea was the mastermind behind Cambodia’s genocide, the details died with him. He never spoke in court of how the Khmer Rouge executed their plan to achieve a new regime. He never admitted guilt. He maintained that the Khmer Rouge were nationalists, fighting Viet Nam, and the United States, which engaged “secret” bombings of Cambodia as it tracked the communist Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is a former Khmer Rouge fighter who has been in power since 1985. Hun Sen, the increasingly authoritarian leader of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, has spoken out against reopening investigations into that era.

Liv Sovanna, one of Noun Chea’s lawyers, said at a Sunday press conference in Phnom Penh after Nuon Chea’s death that his client was innocent because “when the defendant dies, the lawsuit is dissolved.” Thus, the verdict issued by the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts in Cambodia (ECCC), the tribunal that tried Nuon Chea and other Khmer Rouge leaders, “has no effect any longer because, based on the presumption of innocence, Nuon Chea is innocent.”

The controversial ECCC convicted Khmer Rouge torture center chief, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Comrade Duch in 2010 and found guilty Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan in 2014. In 2018, just as with Nuon Chea, they were sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity and genocide. Two other top suspects — Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith — died before their cases could be concluded.

Cambodia is a young country. Only about 10% of the population are, like Sun Sitha, in their 50s or older. Half its 16.5 million people are under the age of 22. If their parents survived the Khmer Rouge, they rarely speak of their experiences because many Cambodians believe that would transmit the suffering to their children. 

That means most Cambodians have no direct experience of the Khmer Rouge, who were known to execute teachers, doctors, ethnic Vietnamese, with pickaxes rather than spend money on bullets.

Knows history

Yuth Kunthea, a 25-year-old resident of Siem Reap, does know about Noun Chea and the Khmer Rouge.

“I’m not sorry that he died because he caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, he hurt people, and separated them from their family members,” she said, adding she learned about the regime in school. “We lost a lot of good Khmer people.”

The Khmer Rouge buried the bodies in mass graves, dubbed “killing fields,” like the one near Trung Bat, in northern Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge maintained a prison and a crematorium.

Many of the remains were ground down to make fertilizer in an effort to meet quotas for the rice crop. Others, like those found by soil excavators in 2012, were buried intact with arms bound behind them or weighed down by rocks, according to the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-CAM). 

“No one can forget him,” said Lat Lon, a 73-year-old monk from Teputhyvong Temple, the site of a mass grave, in Siem Reap province. “We have no peace of mind. They tortured people, so he deserved to die. People should have peace of mind.”

According to Buddhist beliefs, even though Noun Chea and other Khmer Rouge leaders are dead, the souls of their victims and those who survived still do not have a peaceful mind. 

“How can they have peace of mind?” Lat Lon asked. “According to the Dharma, dead people still miss their family members.”

‘He died with sin’

Youk Chhang, the DC-CAM executive director in Phnom Penh and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, told VOA Khmer by phone that Nuon Chea cannot escape his deeds in death despite the law’s presumption of innocence.

“He was born like all of us but he committed sins and he died with sin,” he said. 

Nuon Chea died without the dignity that comes with age, said Youk Chhang, and his death is drawing mixed reactions. 

“Some I asked immediately [after Nuon Chea died] said they are not happy because when he was alive, he was defiant about what he had done,” Youk Chhang said. “He did not … give a value of the history to the next generation.” Even after the verdict, “he was still defiant for what he did and he was responsible.”

Documentary filmmaker Thet Sambath interviewed Nuon Chea extensively in the late 1990s, and then co-produced the 2009 award-winning documentary “Enemies of the People,” about the Khmer Rouge leadership. Just after Nuon Chea’s death, Thet Sambath, who lives in Massachusetts, told VOA Khmer by phone that he was grateful to Nuon Chea for “giving me historical documents and secret stories about the Khmer Rouge,” he said. “It’s very lucky for Cambodian people” to have this information, he added.

…

China says it will take “countermeasures” if the United States deploys ground-based intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region.  

Fu Cong, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s arms control division, told reporters Tuesday that Beijing “will not stand idly by” if Washington follows through on a pledge made last weekend by new Defense Secretary Mark Esper to deploy the missiles in the region “sooner rather than later,” preferably within months. 

He urged China’s neighbors, specifically Japan, South Korea and Australia, to “exercise prudence” by refusing to deploy the U.S. missiles, adding that it would serve those countries national security interests.  

Fu did not specify what countermeasures China would take, but said “everything is on the table.” 

Secretary Esper’s stated goal to deploy ground-based missiles in the region came after the Trump administration formally pulled the U.S. out of the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty last week. The pact, reached with the former Soviet Union, bans ground-based nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles with a range between 500-5,000 kilometers. Washington said it withdrew from the INF because of continued violations by Moscow.  

Fu said China had no interest in taking part in trilateral talks with the United States and Russia due to the “huge gap” in the size of China’s nuclear arsenal compared to the other two nations.  

…

Chinese companies have stopped buying U.S. agricultural products, China’s Commerce Ministry said on Tuesday, a blow to U.S. farmers who have already seen their exports slashed by the more than year-old trade war.

China may impose additional tariffs on U.S. farm products bought shortly before the purchase ban took effect, China’s Commerce Ministry said. China also let the yuan weaken past the key 7-per-dollar level on Monday for the first time in more than a decade.

Before the trade war started, China bought $19.5 billion worth of farm goods in 2017, mainly soybeans, dairy, sorghum and pork. The trade war reduced those sales to $9.1 billion in 2018, according to the American Farm Bureau.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement it hoped the United States would keep its promises and create the “necessary conditions” for bilateral cooperation.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Beijing had not fulfilled a promise to buy large volumes of U.S. farm products and vowed to impose new tariffs on around $300 billion of Chinese goods, abruptly ending a truce in the Sino-U.S. trade war.

Earlier, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported an official from China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) as saying Trump’s accusations were “groundless.”

China is the world’s top buyer of soybeans, the most valuable U.S. export crop. The Trump administration has announced plans to spend up to $28 billion compensating U.S. farmers, a key Trump constituency, for lost income from trade disputes.

American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall called the announcement “a body blow to thousands of farmers and ranchers who are already struggling to get by.”

The National Pork Producers Council said in an email it was important to end the trade war so pork producers could “more fully participate in a historic sales opportunity.”

Farmers can start applying for the next round of trade aid this month, but trade uncertainty makes long-term planning difficult.

“We’ve been thankful for the aid payments. They have helped but we’d rather have open markets because it creates stability in our financial sectors,” said Derek Sawyer, 39, a corn, soybean, wheat and cattle farm from McPherson, Kansas. “There’s just so much volatility right now because nobody knows the rules of the game and nobody knows how to look at things going forward.”

China is buying more soybeans from Brazil. Its overall need for soybeans used to feed livestock has fallen as African Swine Fever kills millions of pigs. U.S. meat exporters had hoped to take advantage of the disease to export more pork to China but 62% retaliatory tariffs have limited exports.

Overall, China has purchased about 14.3 million tons of last season’s soybean crop, the least in 11 years, and some 3.7 million tons still need to be shipped, according to U.S. data.

China bought 32.9 million tons of U.S. soybeans in 2017, before the trade war.

China applied a 25% tariff on soybeans in July of last year in response to U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

China is honoring agreements signed earlier to import U.S. soybeans, according to Cong Liang, secretary general of China’s NDRC, CCTV reported. The report said that 2.27 million tons of U.S. soybeans had been loaded and shipped to China in July, since Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Osaka at the G20 summit at the end of June.

China bought 130,000 tons of soybeans, 120,000 tons of sorghum, 60,000 tons of wheat, 40,000 tons of pork and products, and 25,000 tons of cotton from the United States between July 19 and Aug. 2, Cong said according to the report.

Weekly U.S. data on Aug. 1 confirmed the first new U.S. soybean sale to China since June, of 68,000 tons from the crop that will be harvested this fall. Additional sales through Aug. 1 could be recorded in the next U.S. government export sales report on Thursday.

Two million tons of U.S. soybeans destined for China will be loaded in August, followed by another 300,000 tons in September, Cong said.

However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Monday less than 600,000 tons of soybeans were inspected for export to China the week ended Aug. 1, fewer than the previous week.

…

High school classmates of the gunman who killed nine people early Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, say he was suspended for compiling a “hit list” of those he wanted to kill and a “rape list” of girls he wanted to sexually assault.

The accounts by two former classmates emerged after police said there was nothing in the background of 24-year-old Connor Betts that would have prevented him from purchasing the .223-caliber rifle with extended ammunition magazines that he used to open fire outside a crowded bar. Police on patrol in the entertainment district fatally shot him less than a minute later.

Both former classmates told The Associated Press that Betts was suspended during their junior year at suburban Bellbrook High School after a hit list was found scrawled in a school bathroom. That followed an earlier suspension after Betts came to school with a list of female students he wanted to sexually assault, according to the two classmates, a man and a woman who are both now 24 and spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern they might face harassment.

“There was a kill list and a rape list, and my name was on the rape list,” said the female classmate.

A former cheerleader, the woman said she didn’t really know Betts and was surprised when a police officer called her cellphone during her freshman year to tell her that her name was included on a list of potential targets.

“The officer said he wouldn’t be at school for a while,” she said. “But after some time passed he was back, walking the halls. They didn’t give us any warning that he was returning to school.”

Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Schools officials declined to comment on those accounts, only confirming that Betts attended schools in the district.

The discovery of the hit list early in 2012 sparked a police investigation, and roughly one-third of Bellbrook students skipped school out of fear, according to an article in the Dayton Daily News.

It’s not clear what became of that investigation. Chief Michael Brown in Sugarcreek Township, which has jurisdiction over the Bellbrook school, did not return calls Sunday about whether his agency investigated the hit list.

Though Betts, who was 17 at the time, was not named publicly by authorities at the time as the author of the list, the former classmates said it was common knowledge within the school he was the one suspended over the incident.

Drew Gainey was among those who went on social media Sunday to say red flags were raised about Betts’ behavior years ago.

“There was an incident in high school with this shooter that should have prevented him from ever getting his hands on a weapon. This was a tragedy that was 100% avoidable,” he wrote on in a Twitter post on Sunday.

Gainey did not respond to messages from AP seeking further comment, but the name on his account matches that of a former Bellbrook student who was on the track team with Betts.

Former Bellbrook Principal Chris Baker said he “would not dispute that information” when the Daily News asked him Sunday about the hit list suspension. He declined to comment further to the newspaper and the AP was unable to reach him.

Betts had no apparent criminal record as an adult, though if he had been charged as a juvenile that would typically be sealed under state law.

“There’s nothing in this individual’s record that would have precluded him from getting these weapons,” Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl said Sunday.

Not everyone who went to school with Betts had bad things to say. Brad Howard told reporters in Bellbrook on Sunday that he was friends with Betts from preschool through their high school graduation.

“Connor Betts that I knew was a nice kid. The Connor Betts that I talked to, I always got along with well,” Howard said.

Mike Kern, a customer at the gas station where Betts used to work in Bellbrook, said he hasn’t seen Betts in about a year.

“He was the nicest kid you could imagine,” always friendly, Kern said. “I never heard him talk about violence, say a racist word, or anything like that.”

He said they sometimes played trivia at a bar near the gas station, and Betts often knew the answers on questions about current events and pop culture.

“He was real smart,” Kern said. “He knew all the answers.”

…

China allowed its yuan to fall below the politically sensitive level of seven to the U.S. dollar on Monday for the first time in 11 years, prompting concern Beijing might use devaluation as a weapon in a tariff war with Washington.
 
The central bank blamed the exchange rate’s decline on “trade protectionism.” That followed President Donald Trump’s threat last week of more tariff hikes on Chinese goods in a bruising fight over Beijing’s trade surplus and technology policies.

The currency weakened to 7.0391 to the dollar by late afternoon, making one yuan worth 14.2 cents, its lowest level since February 2008.

“The thought of a currency war is crossing more than a few traders’ minds,” Stephen Innes of VM Markets said in a report.

The weakness of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, or “people’s money,” is among U.S. grievances against Beijing. American officials complain it makes Chinese export prices unfairly low, hurting foreign competitors and swelling Beijing’s trade surplus.

China’s central bank sets the exchange rate each morning and allows the yuan to fluctuate by 2% against the dollar during the day. The central bank can buy or sell currency or order commercial banks to do so to dampen price movements.

It appears “the currency is now also considered part of the arsenal to be drawn upon,” Robert Carnell of ING said in a report. He said Monday’s move might be part of “a concerted series of steps aimed at pushing back at the latest U.S. tariffs.”

The level of seven yuan to the dollar has no economic significance, but could revive U.S. attention to the exchange rate.
Until now, economists said the potential jolt to financial markets of falling beyond that level was big enough that the People’s Bank of China would step in to put a floor under the currency.
 
A central bank statement Monday blamed “unilateralism and trade protectionism measures,” a reference to Trump’s tariff hikes. But it tried to play down the significance of “breaking seven.”
 
“It is normal to rise and fall,” the statement said. It promised to “maintain stable operation of the foreign exchange market.”
 
Chinese leaders have promised to avoid “competitive devaluation” to boost exports by making them less expensive abroad _ a pledge the central bank governor, Yi Gang, affirmed in March. But regulators are trying to make the state-controlled exchange rate more responsive to market forces, which are pushing the yuan lower.

Trump’s tariff hikes have put downward pressure on the yuan by fueling fears economic growth might weaken.

The U.S. Treasury Department declined in May to label China a currency manipulator but said it was closely watching Beijing.
 
The yuan has lost 5% since hitting a high in February of 6.6862 to the dollar.
 
That helps exporters cope with tariffs of up to 25% imposed by Trump on billions of dollars of Chinese goods. But it raises the risk of inflaming American complaints.
 
Trump rattled financial markets Thursday by announcing plans for 10% tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods, effective Sept. 1. That would extend penalty duties to almost all U.S. imports from China.
 
The Treasury report in May urged Beijing to take steps “to avoid a persistently weak currency.”
 
A weaker yuan also might disrupt Chinese efforts to shore up cooling economic growth. It would raise borrowing costs by encouraging an outflow of capital from the world’s second-largest economy.
 
Globally, a weaker yuan might lead to more volatility in currency markets and pressure for the dollar to strengthen, Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics said in a report. That would be “unwelcome in Washington,” where Trump has threatened to weaken the dollar to boost exports.
A weaker dollar “would be bad news” for Europe and Japan, hurting demand for their exports at a time of cooling economic growth, Kuijs said.

The Chinese central bank tried to discourage speculation last August by imposing a requirement that traders post deposits for contracts to buy or sell yuan. That allows trading to continue but raises the cost.
 
Beijing imposed similar controls in October 2015 after a change in the exchange rate mechanism prompted markets to bet the yuan would fall. The currency temporarily steadied but fell the following year.

…

South Korea’s president on Monday described the country’s escalating trade war with Japan as a wake-up call to revamp its economy and issued a nationalistic call for economic cooperation with North Korea, which he said would allow the Koreas to erase Japan’s economic superiority in “one burst.”

President Moon Jae-in’s comments were made during a meeting with senior aides to discuss Japan’s imposing of trade curbs on South Korea. They came as a surprise as North Korea has raised tensions in recent weeks with tests of new short-range weapons that experts say pose a serious threat to the South Korea’s security.
 
“The advantage Japan’s economy has over us is the size of its [overall] economy and domestic market. If the South and North could create a peace economy through economic cooperation, we can catch up with Japan’s superiority in one burst,” Moon said during the meeting at Seoul’s presidential Blue House.
 
 “Japan absolutely cannot prevent our economy from taking a leap. Rather, [Japan] will serve as a stimulant that strengthens our determination to become an economic power,” he said.
 
Some analysts say Moon is getting desperate to find any leverage against Japan, which for decades has maintained a huge trade surplus with South Korea, and they question whether there could be any possible way for Seoul to use inter-Korean relations to boost its position against Tokyo.
 
Even if inter-Korean economic cooperation is fully resumed after quick progress in nuclear diplomacy — a possibility that looks increasingly unlikely — rebuilding the North’s dismal economy following decades of isolation and policy blunders could be a long and excruciating process.
 
Moon has described Japan’s moves to downgrade South Korea’s trade status and tighten controls on exports to South Korean manufacturers as a deliberate attempt to damage his country’s export-dependent economy. He has accused Tokyo of weaponizing trade to retaliate over political disputes surrounding the countries’ bitter wartime history.
 
Tokyo says its measures are based on national security concerns and, without providing specific evidence, has questioned the credibility of South Korea’s export controls on sensitive products. Japanese officials have also claimed that South Korea could not be trusted to faithfully implement sanctions against North Korea and suggested that the South may have allowed sensitive materials to reach the North.
 
North Korea and Japan didn’t immediately respond to Moon’s comments. The North has been demanding that Seoul turn away from Washington and restart inter-Korean economic projects held back by U.S.-led sanctions against the North. The U.S. has said the sanctions should stay in place until the North takes concrete steps to relinquish its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
 
The North has significantly reduced its diplomatic activity with the South amid a stalemate in the larger nuclear negotiations with the U.S. It has been ramping up its weapons tests, including two test firings of what it described as a new rocket artillery system last week, while expressing frustration over the slow pace of diplomacy and the continuance of U.S.-South Korea military drills that it sees as an invasion rehearsal.
 
Choi Kang, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said Moon’s comments Monday could create friction with Washington and also send a wrong message to North Korea, which may think that its brinkmanship is working and push further to increase pressure on Seoul.
 
He said Moon’s comments are “a confession that Seoul doesn’t have many cards in its hands.”
 
He said it was unclear whether Moon’s suggestion that he could create a breakthrough in the trade row with Japan through inter-Korean relations was be realistic.
 
Choi also said Moon’s words would strengthen views that the trade dispute between South Korea and Japan may signal a larger geopolitical divergence between the U.S. allies over North Korea and other security issues. He said that may complicate Washington’s efforts to maintain cooperation to deal with the North’s nuclear threat and counter the regional influence of China.
 
Moon met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times last year and the leaders agreed to resume economic cooperation when possible, voicing optimism that international sanctions could end to allow such activity. But the inter-Korean peace process has halted since the collapse of a nuclear summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in February over disagreements in exchanging sanctions relief and disarmament.
 
Earlier on Monday, South Korea said it plans to spend 7.8 trillion won ($6.5 billion) over the next seven years to develop technologies for industrial materials and parts as it moves to reduce its dependence on imports. The government will also financially support South Korean companies in mergers and acquisitions of foreign companies and expand tax benefits to lure more international investment, while easing labor and environmental regulations so that local companies could boost their production, the country’s trade ministry said.
 
 South Korea’s plans are aimed at stabilizing the supply of 100 key materials and parts in semiconductors, display screens, automobiles and other major export sectors, where its companies have heavily relied on Japanese imports to produce finished products.
 
On Friday, Japan’s Cabinet approved the removal of South Korea from a list of countries with preferential trade status, which would require Japanese companies to apply for case-by-case approvals for exports to South Korea of hundreds of items deemed sensitive.
 
The decision followed a July measure to strengthen controls on certain technology exports to South Korean companies that rely on Japanese materials to produce computer chips and displays used in smartphones and TVs, which are key South Korean export products.
 
South Korean officials have vowed retaliation, including taking Japan off its own “whitelist” of nations receiving preferential treatment in trade. Moon’s office said it will also consider ending its military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan as part of its countermeasures, saying it could be difficult to share sensitive information considering the deterioration of trust between the countries.

…

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has slammed China’s “destabilizing” actions in the Indo-Pacific region during his first trip to the region.

Speaking to reporters in Sydney with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and their Australian counterparts, Esper said the United States is “firmly against a disturbing pattern of aggressive behavior, destabilizing behavior from China.”

Esper and Pompeo pointed to Beijing’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea and accused it of promoting the state-sponsored theft of other nation’s intellectual property, and “predatory economics.”

The last was an apparent reference to so-called “debt traps” like a 2017 arrangement that gave China control of a port in Sri Lanka. After failing to keep up with its debt payments to China, Sri Lanka handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land to the Chinese government for 99 years.

China has arguably undertaken the largest transfer of intellectual property in human history, according to Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Bowman told VOA that intellectual property stolen by Beijing has been used to modernize Chinese weapons which, in the event of a future military conflict, would be used to kill Americans and their allies.

“The United States will not stand by idly while any one nation attempts to reshape the region to its favor at the expense of others,” Esper said.

Pompeo said Sunday the United States was not asking nations to “choose” between the U.S. and China.

However, allies in the region have grown increasingly worried amid increasing economic and military tensions between China and the United States.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne praised the strong “mateship” between the United States and Australia, but added that China is also a vitally important partner for her country.

“It’s in no one’s interest for the Indo-Pacific to become more competitive or adversarial in character,” she said.

Southeast Asian nations grappled with the prospect of choosing sides in June during the annual Shangri-la Dialogue defense forum in Singapore. The question loomed so large that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned of smaller countries being “forced” to take sides.

…

Updated Aug.4, 2:10PM

In 13 hours of carnage in the United States, two shooters in separate incidents killed 29 people and injured dozens, leaving authorities searching for motives behind the mayhem.

A gunman wearing body armor and carrying extra magazines of ammunition was shot to death by police less than a minute after he opened fire early Sunday in a popular nightlife area in the Midwest city of Dayton, Ohio. The man killed nine people including his own sister and injured at least 27, four of them seriously.

Police said they believe there was only one shooter in the incident, but have yet to suggest a motive. News accounts identified the shooter as 24-year-old Connor Betts, who identifies himself on social media as a psychology student at a community college in the Dayton area.

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said the quick response by police “saved literally hundreds of lives” in the crowded Oregon district of the city filled with bars, restaurants and theaters.

She said the gunman was carrying a .223-caliber semi-automatic weapon, the same-sized weapon a gunman employed in the one of the most horrific mass shootings in the U.S. in recent years, the assault in which 20 school children and six adults were killed in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

The Ohio bloodshed occurred about 13 hours after police in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, Texas, say a gunman opened fired at a Walmart store, killing at least 20 people and wounding 26 — an attack authorities say they are investigating as a possible hate crime targeting Hispanics.

The El Paso and Dayton incidents are the nation’s 21st and 22nd mass killing incidents this year, according to a database compiled by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. The archive defines a mass killing as four or more people shot dead, excluding the gunman, at one location. A separate database counts more than 250 incidents this year in which four or more people have been killed or wounded.

The latest incidents occurred a week after a gunman killed three at a food festival in California and followed the killing of 58 at a country music festival in 2017 in California, 49 at an Orlando, Fla., night club in 2016 and 25 at a Texas church in 2017.

U.S. authorities occasionally try to figure out ways to stop the slaughter of innocents in a country where gun ownership is enshrined as a constitutional right. Some lawmakers have attempted to curb gun ownership or stiffen the regulations surrounding gun sales, but have generally been rebuffed by other lawmakers opposed to new restrictions.

After the Dayton attack, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said he was angered that state and national lawmakers won’t approve more gun controls, saying politicians’ “thoughts and prayers are not enough” of a response to mass killings.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday on Twitter, “The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio. Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton. Much has already be learned in El Paso. Law enforcement was very rapid in both instances. Updates will be given throughout the day!”

The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio. Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton. Much has already be learned in El Paso. Law enforcement was very rapid in both instances. Updates will be given throughout the day!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2019

“God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio,” he implored.

God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2019

Several Democratic presidential candidates — Sens. Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke — blamed Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric for fostering a climate of hate leading to the El Paso shooting.

 “Donald Trump is responsible for this,” Booker told CNN. “He is responsible because he is stoking fears and hatred and bigotry.”

But acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney rejected any attempt to blame Trump.

“I blame the people who are sick,” Mulvaney told NBC’s Meet the Press interview show. “People are going to hear what they want to hear,” but added: “This was a political motive by a crazy person.”

In El Paso, police chief Greg Allen said police are seeking to confirm that the 21-year-old white male suspect now in custody was the author of an online posting predicting a shooting spree intended to target Hispanics.

The suspect was identified by police as Patrick Crusius, who lived in the Dallas area, hundreds of kilometers away from El Paso.

The post appeared online about an hour before the shooting and included language that complained about the “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. The author of the manifesto wrote that he expected to be killed during the attack.

The writer of the manifesto denied that he was a white supremacist, but decried “race mixing” in the United States, calling instead for territorial enclaves separated by race. The first sentence of the document expressed support for the man accused of killing 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, after he had posted his own conspiracy theory that non-white migrants were replacing whites.

Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said in a statement that in El Paso, “This vile act of terrorism against Hispanic Americans was inspired by divisive racial and ethnic rhetoric and enabled by weapons of war. The language in the shooter’s manifesto is consistent with President Donald Trump’s description of Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.'”

Castro, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said, “Today’s shooting is a stark reminder of the dangers of such rhetoric.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were killed in the shooting and six Mexicans were wounded.
 
Trump said Saturday that he and first lady Melania Trump “send our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the great people of Texas.”

He also tweeted: “Today’s shooting in El Paso, Texas was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice.  I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people.”
 
Police began receiving calls about 10:39 a.m. local time with multiple reports of a shooting at Walmart and the nearby Cielo Vista Mall complex on the east side of the city.

 
Sgt. Robert Gomez, a spokesman with the El Paso Police Department, said most of the shootings occurred at the Walmart, where there were more than 1,000 shoppers and 100 employees. Many families were taking advantage of a sales-tax holiday to shop for back-to-school supplies, officials said.
 
“This is unprecedented in El Paso,” Gomez said of the mass shooting.
 
Gomez said an assault-style rifle was used in the shooting.

El Paso, a city of about 680,000 people in western Texas, shares the border with Juarez, Mexico.

…

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is crisscrossing the Asia-Pacific region on his first international trip as head of the Defense Department. The trip began as the U.S. withdrew from a decades-old arms control pact with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The withdrawal means Washington and Moscow are free to develop ground-based missiles with a range of 500-5,500km. And that could be bad news for a country that was never even part of the pact–China. Our VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb is traveling with Esper and explains why.

…

Mexican officials said Saturday they would investigate the killing of a journalist in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz who was the third reporter to be killed in a week in Mexico as the country grapples with a record homicide rate.

Jorge Ruiz Vazquez, a reporter at the Grafico de Xalapa newspaper in Veracruz’s capital, died in spite of procedures in place to protect him, the state prosecutor’s office said.

“The prosecutor will investigate why protection measures granted to the victim and his family, which were active, were not enforced,” the entity said in a statement.

Ruiz’s death brings the number of Mexican journalists this year to at least eight compared with nine last year, according to free-speech advocacy group Article 19.

A reporter in Guerrero state who also served as a municipal official was shot and killed Friday, while earlier last week, a reporter who covered the police in the same state was found dead in the trunk of a vehicle with signs he had been shot and tortured.

Homicides in Mexico jumped in the first half of the year to the highest on record, according to official data. The spiraling violence underscores the challenges President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has faced since taking office in December with a vow to reduce violence in the country ravaged by notorious drug cartels.

Ruiz had reported death threats in October and November of 2018, said Ana Laura Perez, president of Veracruz’s commission to protect journalists (CEAPP), in an interview with Veracruz news outlet XEU Noticias.

She added that Ruiz had been shot and killed at his home in a municipality near Xalapa.

Veracruz’s governor, Cuitlahuac Garcia, said Friday evening that efforts were underway to find the people responsible for Ruiz’s death.

“We condemn the cowardly murder of a reporter from a local outlet, Jorge Ruiz,” he said on Twitter. “His killing will not go unpunished.”

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LONDON — Lawmakers will be unable to stop a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31 by bringing down Britain’s government in a vote of no confidence next month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aide has advised, according to the Sunday Telegraph. 

Dominic Cummings, one of architects of the 2016 campaign to leave the European Union, told ministers that Johnson could schedule a general election after the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline if he loses a vote of no confidence in parliament, the newspaper said, citing sources. 

Johnson has promised to lead Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal but has a working majority of just one after his Conservative Party lost a parliamentary seat on Friday. 

Some of his lawmakers have hinted they would vote against him to prevent a no-deal Brexit — a rising prospect that has sent the pound tumbling to 30-month lows against the dollar over the last few days. 

Lawmakers are unable to table a motion of no confidence before next month because the House of Commons is in recess until Sept. 3. 

“[Lawmakers] don’t realize that if there is a no-confidence vote in September or October, we’ll call an election for after the 31st and leave anyway,” Cummings was quoted by one of the Sunday Telegraph’s sources as saying. 

Johnson has said he would prefer to the leave the EU with a deal but has rejected the Irish backstop — an insurance policy to prevent the return of a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland — which the EU says is key to any agreement. 

The main opposition Labour Party has said it will oppose any Brexit deal brought forward by Johnson if it does not protect jobs, workers’ rights and the environment. 

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MEXICO CITY — U.S. federal prosecutors have accused the Honduran government of essentially functioning as a narco-state, with the current and former presidents having received campaign contributions from cocaine traffickers in exchange for protection. 
 
A 49-page document filed in New York’s southern district on Friday refers to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez as a co-conspirator who worked with his brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, and former President Porfirio Lobo “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras.” 
 
It says that the president and his predecessor “relied on drug proceeds” to fund political campaigns and cites “evidence of high-level political corruption.” 
 
The filing came months after other U.S. federal court documents showed the current president and some of his closest advisers were among the targets of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, casting further doubt on the United States’ assertion that Honduras has helped stop the flow of drugs.  

U.S. support 
  
The U.S. government has been a staunch supporter of Hernandez’s government, pouring millions of dollars into security cooperation to stop cocaine headed to the U.S. from South America. 
 
The office of the Honduran president said via Twitter on Saturday that Hernandez “categorically denies the false and perverse accusations.”  
  
It later issued a separate, lengthier statement suggesting that the allegations in New York were put forward by drug dealers seeking retaliation against the president, who was head of the Central American country’s congress in 2012 when the legislature authorized extradition of Honduran nationals to face drug-trafficking charges in the U.S. 
 
Since then, the president’s office said, more than 40 Hondurans have been extradited and others have negotiated plea deals with U.S. officials in exchange for information. 
 
“President Hernandez has been relentless in the fight against drug traffickers despite predictable reprisals, to the point that one of his 17 siblings, a younger brother, is now being tried in New York,” the office said.  
  
Specifically, New York prosecutors allege that the president used $1.5 million in drug trafficking proceeds to help secure power in 2013. That campaign support came via cash bribes to Honduran officials as well as gifts and favors to local politicians, prosecutors argue. Hernandez won re-election in 2017, despite term limits in Honduras and widespread allegations of election fraud. 
 

The filing also alludes to multiple payments of $1 million or more from drug dealers to Lobo. 
 
Lobo’s wife was arrested by Honduran officials in 2018 on charges of diverting $700,000 in public funds. His son, Fabio, was sentenced in the U.S. to 24 years in prison in 2017 for drug trafficking. 
 
Lobo was Hernandez’s mentor and oversaw his rise to power.  
  
Upcoming case

The filing forms part of pre-trial documents in an upcoming case against Tony Hernandez, who was arrested in 2018 in Miami on charges of smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. 
 
Prosecutors describe Tony Hernandez as a “violent, multi-ton drug trafficker” with significant influence over high-ranking Honduran officials, who in turn protected his shipments and turf. They also say that members of the Honduran National Police escorted his cocaine through the country’s waters and airspace, while Lobo once deployed military personnel to the nation’s border with Guatemala to deter another drug trafficker from encroaching on territory in western Honduras. 
 
On at least two occasions, prosecutors say Tony Hernandez helped arrange murders of drug-trafficking rivals, one of whom he had executed by a member of the national police. That hit man was later promoted to chief of police, they say. 
 
The court filing included an image of a kilo of cocaine monogrammed with the initials TH, which prosecutors say stood for Tony Hernandez. 
 
The DEA says Tony Hernandez’s trafficking career began in 2004 and continued after he won a seat in Honduras’ congress in 2014. It’s unclear why Hernandez was in Miami when U.S. officials arrested him last year. 
 
Separately, on Friday, a New York judged sentenced Honduran Hector Emilio Fernandez Rosa to life in prison for drug trafficking.  
  
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, who is also handling the Tony Hernandez case, said Fernandez paid millions of dollars in bribes to Honduran officials during his career, including a $2 million payment to former President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales. 
 
Zelaya was forced out of office via a 2009 coup, after which Lobo was elected president. 

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