Are the West’s secrets safe in the hands of Britain’s politicians?

It is a question Britain’s intelligence officers are asking themselves — so, too, their counterparts in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing relationship that includes the U.S., Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It’s a tie-up that’s been called the most successful espionage alliance in history.

Not since the 1970s, when some British MI5 officers thought Labour Party leader Harold Wilson, who won four general elections, and his most trusted advisers were KGB assets have Britain’s spooks been so uneasy about their political masters. The worries about Wilson and his aides at that time provoked treasonous plots by conservative-leaning rogue elements of the security agencies, which even drew in members of Britain’s royal family.

As Britain heads into its most consequential election possibly in the last 100 years, a vote that will determine whether Britain will leave the European Union or not, fears are mounting within the country’s security circles that Britons can’t trust their own leaders. This includes both those at the top of the country’s main opposition Labour Party as well as among the ruling Conservatives, a party once synonymous with Queen and Country.

For the past year, a former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Dearlove, has led a chorus of intelligence warnings about Jeremy Corbyn, widely seen as Labour’s most leftwing leader since the 1920s, and his clique of advisers. Last month, Dearlove said in a TV interview he was “troubled” by Corbyn’s “past associations,” sparking a furious reaction from senior Labour lawmakers, who warned of ‘deep state’ meddling.

Britain’s Conservative-leaning newspapers have taken up the warnings, with The Sun newspaper headlining midweek: “Intelligence Services and Foreign Office ‘Fear Jeremy Corbyn Would Risk National Security’ if He Wins Election.”

Former intelligence chiefs and government insiders say the flow of secret information Britain is supplied from the “Five Eyes” network could start drying up because of a lack of trust by Western partners in Corbyn and his advisers.

Writing in The Times newspaper, retired Labour politician Jack Straw, a former foreign secretary, dismissed allegations of “deep state” interference and warned Western security agencies could “lessen intelligence co-operation with us,” if Corbyn wins the election. He warned Britain’s spooks also would be chary of disclosing some of their most sensitive information with a Downing Street occupied by Corbyn.

“This would not be any ‘deep-state conspiracy,’ but the human reaction of people who give their careers to keep us safe, sometimes at serious personal risk to their own lives,” Straw said.

A former defense secretary, John Hutton, who served in Labour governments, has underscored that a Corbyn premiership would affect the ‘Five Eyes’ espionage alliance and “place a major question mark over the continued operation of a vital source of intelligence.”

At the very least, Corbyn has a radical and what critics say is an anti-Western world-view, notably out of step, they add, with Labour’s previously more centrist leaders. He’s been a long-standing critic of NATO and has called for it to be disbanded, decrying it as an “instrument of Cold War manipulation.” He also has been an opponent of Britain possessing nuclear weapons. He’s voted as a lawmaker against every military action proposed by the government of the day, including intervention in Kosovo.

Corbyn dubs as “friends” Hamas and Hezbollah, and at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign he spoke at official commemorations to honor the Irish republican dead. And he was on the board of a far-left Labour publication that praised the IRA’s 1984 Brighton bombing, which nearly killed then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. In an editorial, the publication said, “It certainly appears to be the case that the British only sit up and take notice [of Ireland] when they are bombed into it.”

Last year, he provoked fury in the House of Commons when he questioned the British government’s blaming of the Kremlin for the Novichok poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the southern English cathedral town of Salisbury. Corbyn argued Russia should be involved in the investigation.

Dearlove accuses Corbyn of giving aid and comfort to Britain’s enemies. “He has enthusiastically associated himself with groups and interests which I would not say were the friends of the British nation,” Britain’s former top spy said last month.

The alarm of the security establishment is wider than just Corbyn, though, when it comes to the current top echelons of the Labour Party.  Seamus Milne, the Labour leader’s director of strategy and his closest adviser, has been an outspoken critic of Western policies throughout a long career as a columnist at the Guardian newspaper. He has argued Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea was “clearly defensive” and the consequence of a NATO manipulated breakup of the Soviet Union.

That insight earned Milne the rebuke of a fellow Guardian contributor, Oliver Bullough, an author of several books on Russia, who accused Milne of living in a “parallel universe.” He noted “the destruction of the USSR was not some Versailles-style treaty imposed from outside. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus did it themselves.”

Conservative lawmaker Bob Seely, a former British army officer and member of the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has accused Milne of echoing Kremlin propaganda. In 2014, Milne participated in a conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where he conducted an onstage discussion with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Some British intelligence insiders say in the event of a Labour election win, the heads of Britain’s security agencies likely would insist on withholding the most sensitive information from Milne, as well as another Corbyn policy adviser, Andrew Murray, a former member of the Communist Party, and regular contributor to Britain’s Communist newspaper, the Morning Star.

Speaking to VOA recently, Norman Roule, who was in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations for 34 years, and served as a division chief and chief of station, says “the U.S. intelligence relationship with the British is the closest on the planet.” He added: “We share so much information with each other, and it’s shared so deeply and immediately that if we have a difference of views, it’s usually because one of us hasn’t gotten around to seeing the other’s file yet,” he added.

Roule said the intelligence agencies would try to remain constant in their work regardless of who was in Downing Street. “You know we don’t really pay attention to what the policymakers argue about and would try to ignore policy differences that creep up and sooner or later the politicians will move on,” he added.

Other U.S. intelligence officials are less sanguine. One former top level CIA official told VOA: “If we have doubts or fears, we will avoid uploading especially sensitive data — some officers will just take it upon themselves to do it, whether there is an order from on high or not.”

Dearlove and other members of Britain’s security establishment have dismissed the idea of a “deep state” working against a Labour government, saying every government of whatever stripe has been loyally served by the British intelligence community.

But it isn’t only Labour that is prompting the anxiety of both British and other Western intelligence agencies. The Conservatives, too, are a cause for unease. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was blocked by his predecessor in Downing Street, Theresa May, from seeing top secret information when he served as foreign secretary on the grounds he couldn’t be trusted because of his tendency to be indiscrete.

As London mayor previously, he had let slip confidential information before it was due to be made public, angering May, who was then Home Secretary. The BBC reported that when Johnson became Foreign Secretary, Downing Street would sometimes convene smaller meetings, or ‘pre-meets,’ to discuss especially sensitive matters so as to exclude Johnson.

Additionally, Johnson’s Conservative Party has accepted large donations from London-based Russian oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin and Russia’s FSB security agency, according to a still-under-wraps cross-party parliamentary committee report. Last week, Downing Street prompted a political outcry by deciding to delay the publication of the report until after next month’s general election.

Downing Street has been accused of sitting on the report detailing the security threat posed by Russia to Britain. The 50-page dossier examines allegations that a Kremlin-sponsored influence campaign may have distorted the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum. The report raises concerns about the flow into the Conservative Party of Russian money from oligarchs linked to the Kremlin, along with a high level of Russian infiltration into the higher ranks of British politics, business, high society and the legal profession.

Members of the cross-party intelligence and security committee said they expected Johnson to approve publication ahead of the election. Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general who chairs the committee, said the report “comments directly on what has been seen as a perceived threat to our democratic processes.”

…

U.S. counterterrorism officials are increasingly worried Islamic State fighters captured as the terror group’s caliphate collapsed in Syria will find their way back to the battlefield.

The concern, they say, is most acute for the approximately 2,000 foreign fighters who are being kept in a state of limbo, held in makeshift prisons run by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as their home countries refuse to take them back.

“We’ve gotten kind of fatalistic about this,” Russell Travers, acting director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, said Friday.

“There’s a growing likelihood that eventually we could see many of these foreign fighters again when they’ve broken out of prison or been released,” he told an audience at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The greatest midterm concern is the retention of those prisoners and not bolstering the [Islamic State] ranks and not seeing a foreign fighter outflow from Syria.”

For months, U.S. officials at the State Department and the Pentagon have urged countries, especially those who joined the coalition to defeat IS, to repatriate and prosecute their citizens or residents who left to fight for the self-declared caliphate.

But those pleas have largely gone nowhere, as European countries especially have raised concerns, arguing their legal systems will not allow for the successful prosecution of IS fighters whose alleged crimes were committed thousands of kilometers away.

Turkish incursions

Making matters more precarious, Turkey’s incursions into northeast Syria last month forced the main U.S. partner on the ground, the mostly Kurdish SDF, to pull guards from the prisons to fight Turkish-backed forces.

Kurdish officials also said they were forced to evacuate some prisons and move captured IS fighters to makeshift facilities after some areas came under attack.

In the process, about 100 prisoners escaped. And there are fears that if Turkish forces drive deeper into Syrian territory, eventually there may not be anyone left to keep the remaining IS detainees under lock and key.

The question is a critical one for U.S. counterterrorism officials, who believe there are likely a total of 15,000 IS fighters in SDF custody, thousands more than suggested by previous estimates from U.S. military or diplomatic officials.

Should a significant portion get free, it could significantly alter the battlefield in Syria and Iraq, home now to at least 14,000 IS fighters.

“We think it’s substantially higher than that,” Travers said, adding, “That number is going to do nothing but grow.”

“There are already no-go areas at night. We see ISIS flags and we see small areas in which Sharia is being implemented,” he added, using an acronym for the terror group. “The insurgency is alive and kicking.”

The United States is not alone in its concern.

Voicing alarm

Officials from Iraqi Kurdistan have likewise been voicing alarm at the developments in Syria, worried that they could give the Islamic State insurgency a significant boost and give hope and inspiration to IS family members languishing in displaced-person camps across Syria and Iraq.

“These camps are a breeding ground. It’s a ticking time bomb,” said Bayan Sami Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government representative to the U.S.

“You have children growing up in this kind of atmosphere where the parents are unrepentant ISIS fighters, the mother and the father,” she told VOA. “I’m worried that in 10 years’ time, you and I will be having a conversation about a 5-year-old, who, by then, is 15 in these camps. And what will his mindset be?”

According to U.S. counterterrorism officials, the answer could come down, in part, to how IS decides to operate.

For now, officials say the terror group has played to expectations, rallying support around its new leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, after a U.S. raid killed former caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

As for who is #Qurashi? “We’re not at a point of having confirmation” says #NCTC acting Dir Travers, adding Hajji ‘Abdallah was seen as a “logical choice” to take over if/when Abu Bakr al #Baghdadi died

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) November 8, 2019

What comes next, though, may not be so easy to predict.

“ISIS is a learning organization,” said Travers of the National Counterterrorism Center. “In my own mind, I wonder if they would be content with conducting a prolonged insurgency and staying underground to avoid the kind of pressure they absorbed from the coalition.

“The more we draw down [U.S. forces], the more we siphon resources off to other very high-priority threats, the greater the likelihood we’re not going to understand that dynamic,” he said.

…

Since the start of the impeachment inquiry six weeks ago, more than a dozen current and former Trump administration officials have refused to testify before House of Representatives investigators, raising questions about Congress’ ability to summon key witnesses. 
 
In the latest instance, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney failed to show up for a scheduled deposition on Friday, despite a subpoena issued by the House Intelligence Committee.
 
Lawmakers’ strongest investigative tool is the subpoena — a legal order to appear before a congressional committee. But Congress has had mixed success over the years in utilizing this mechanism to compel testimony. 
 
While Mulvaney, a former Republican House member, is unlikely to cooperate, more than a dozen other officials have stepped forward, in many cases after being subpoenaed. 
 
With the testimony of these officials from the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon and other evidence, House Democrats appear confident they have enough to build a case that Trump abused his power when he pressed the president of Ukraine over the summer to investigate Trump’s political rivals while military aid to Ukraine was withheld. 
 
Here are four things you need to know about congressional subpoenas:  

What is a congressional subpoena? 
 
A congressional subpoena is similar to a grand jury subpoena, a legal order issued to a recalcitrant witness to produce testimony and documents in connection with an investigation. Witnesses — private citizens and government officials alike — are typically requested to provide information on a voluntary basis. When they refuse to do so, congressional committees can serve them with subpoenas to compel their compliance. 
 
What is the source of Congress’ subpoena power? 
 
While there are no constitutional provisions that explicitly give Congress the authority to investigate the executive branch and issue subpoenas, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution to imply a power to conduct such investigations, according to Kimberly Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore and author of “How to Read the Constitution.” 
 
“It’s implied in its power to make laws and its power to impeach,” Wehle said of Congress’ power to investigate. “It has to find facts in order to legislate and decide whether to take impeachment action.” 
 
As part of that broad authority, congressional committees can first ask witnesses to testify and produce documents and then subpoena them if they refuse to cooperate. 
 
Can subpoenas be ignored? 
 
Every recipient of a congressional subpoena has a legal obligation to comply. “There is no blanket immunity from having to show up,” Wehle said. 
 
However, while private citizens can find it hard to defy a congressional subpoena, administration officials unwilling to testify possess an oft-used evasive tool: executive privilege. 
 
“That is a constitutionally recognized doctrine which basically safeguards the communications of the president and senior officials and others that work in the executive branch,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. 
 
Nearly as many officials have simply ignored subpoenas in the impeachment inquiry as have complied, while a former deputy national security adviser, Charles Kupperman, has asked a federal judge to rule on whom he should obey: the White House or Congress.  

“A private citizen cannot sue Congress and try to avoid coming in when they’re served with a lawful subpoena,” Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said after Kupperman failed to show up for his scheduled deposition on Oct. 28. 
 
How does Congress enforce subpoenas? Are there penalties for noncompliance? 
 
Congress has a couple of mechanisms to enforce subpoenas issued to executive branch officials.It can petition a federal court and try to convince a judge that the executive branch official is legally obligated to comply. Alternatively, it can ask the Justice Department to bring contempt-of-Congress charges against the defiant party, although Democratic investigators likely would get a cool reception from Attorney General William Barr, a strong proponent of executive power. 

In theory, there is a third way for lawmakers to gain compliance: sending the House sergeant at arms to arrest anyone who refuses to comply. But that’s an option that hasn’t been in use since the early days of the American republic.

Members of Congress have floated various ideas about how to strengthen compliance over the years, including requiring courts to expedite subpoena enforcement lawsuits brought by Congress.

But, said von Spakovsky, Congress is unlikely to go down that route.

“This boils down to a basic constitutional fight, a political fight that involves the separation of powers between the congressional branch and the executive branch. Sometimes the executive branch wins. Sometimes the Congress wins,” he said.

…

The Libyan civil war has found a new battlefield: the halls of Washington. The eight-year conflict shows little sign of ending, and the warring governments are stepping up their efforts to influence policymakers in the United States.

Crucial to these efforts, and the Libyan conflict as a whole, is the country’s oil output. Production currently stands at more than a million barrels a day, and the revenue is crucial to all aspects of the conflict. It funds the weapons, the militias, and the lawyers lobbying officials in the United States.

Most of the oil is shipped to Western Europe, where Libyan oil retains an “outsized significance to the European market,” according to Dr. Cullen Hendrix, professor at the University of Denver and nonresident senior fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Under army’s control

Most of the oil facilities are located in territory controlled by the Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, even as the revenue generated goes to Libya’s state-owned oil company, the NOC. The oil funds are then distributed through Libya’s central bank, which supplies only the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).

The LNA, representing the Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR), is currently sieging the GNA’s capital of Tripoli. The U.N. estimates more than 1,000 people have been killed in the seven-month siege alone.

The siege is symptomatic of the international nature of the conflict. Foreign drones dot the air, Turkish and Emirati-made armored personnel carriers bring fighters to the battlefield, and recent reports indicate that Russian and Sudanese mercenaries now are fighting for the LNA.

While the United States officially backs the GNA, it is largely uninvolved outside counterterrorism efforts. Libya’s rival governments are seeking to change that.

In the past year, the rival governments of Libya penned millions of dollars’ worth of contracts with government relations firms in the United States. The U.N.-backed GNA hired Mercury Public Affairs for $2 million a year, not including a $500,000 initial payment. The contract came shortly after President Donald Trump called LNA chief Haftar.

Mercury’s activities are extensive. Its contract details its services as lobbying Congress and the executive branch, identifying interest groups, public relations and international affairs. According to records from the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Mercury contacted congressional offices over 380 times, press agencies upward of 110 times and the White House deputy chief of staff.

These contacts included requests to secure interviews for the Government of National Accord’s deputy prime minister, largely with major press organizations.

Oil exports

The GNA enlisted further help to lobby on behalf of Libya’s oil exports, hiring the international law firm Gerstman Schwartz in August of this year. Gerstman’s efforts are centered on modifying the sanctions surrounding a fund built up by oil exports that is earmarked for Libya’s reconstruction.

The windfall from the export revenue will be crucial to rebuilding efforts, but current sanctions don’t allow the funds to collect any interest. As a result, banks are siphoning money through fees, draining a fund that would be best used in the extensive rebuild Libya will have to undergo after the conflict is resolved.

In September, Tripoli retained another firm, Gotham Government Relations, where Gerstman and Schwartz are partners. According to the contract, Gotham will “highlight the [GNA]’s contributions to combating terrorism; counsel GNA regarding outreach to U.S. and foreign think tanks; and prepare reports on Haftar’s human rights violations and crimes against the Libyan people.”

The contract is worth $1.5 million for the year.

On the other side of the conflict is the Libyan National Army and its nominal government, the eastern-based House of Representatives. In May the two signed a new contract with Linden Strategies after parting ways with the firm Dickens & Madson.

Ari Ben Menashe, the president of Dickens & Madson, described his role as “arranging meetings” between Haftar and officials in Russia and the United States. Menashe “advised Haftar against” the siege of Tripoli, and said he dedicated his time to mediation efforts. The eastern-based government paid handsomely for Dickens & Madson’s services, with a contract totaling $6 million.

Trip to U.S.

Since then, Linden has taken the torch and organized a trip for representatives of the eastern government to the United States. In conjunction with this trip, Linden contacted members of Congress, officials at the State and Defense departments, the National Security Council and the White House.

The Libyan delegation met with these same officials. During these meetings, Linden did not press for U.S. intervention, though it did welcome “continued cooperation” in fighting terrorist elements in Libya, such as Islamic State and al-Qaida. The fees for this agreement reached $5.4 million.

If officials in the U.S. choose to put Washington’s formidable clout to use, these millions of dollars in lobbying contracts will be money well spent.

…

A student at a Hong Kong university who fell during protests earlier this week died Friday, the first student death in months of anti-government demonstrations in the Chinese-ruled city that is likely to be a trigger for fresh unrest.

Chow Tsz-lok, 22, an undergraduate student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, died of injuries sustained early Monday. The circumstances of how he was injured were unclear, but authorities said he was believed to have fallen from the third to the second floor in a parking garage when police dispersed crowds in a district east of the Kowloon Peninsula.

Chow’s death is expected to spark fresh protests and fuel anger and resentment against the police, who are already under pressure amid accusations of excessive force as the city grapples with its worst political crisis in decades.

Demonstrators had thronged the hospital this week to pray for Chow, leaving flowers and hundreds of get-well messages on walls and notice boards inside the building. Students also staged rallies at universities across the former British colony.

“Wake up soon. Remember we need to meet under the LegCo,” said one message, referring to the territory’s Legislative Council, one of the targets of the protest rallies. “There are still lots of things for you to experience in your life.”

Another read: “Please add oil and stay well,” a slogan meaning “keep your strength up” that has become a rallying cry of the protest movement.

Leading the protests

Students and young people have been at the forefront of the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets since June to press for greater democracy, among other demands, and rally against perceived Chinese meddling in the Asian financial hub.

The protests, ignited by a now-scrapped extradition bill for people to be sent to mainland China for trial, have evolved into wider calls for democracy, posing one of the biggest challenges for Chinese President Xi Jinping since he took charge in 2012.

Protesters have thrown petrol bombs and vandalized banks, stores and metro stations, while police have fired rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannon and, in some cases, live ammunition in scenes of chaos.

In June, Marco Leung, 35, fell to his death from construction scaffolding after unfurling banners against the extradition bill. Several young people who have taken their own lives in recent months have been linked to the protests.

Graduation day

Chow, an active netball and basketball player according to his university peers, had been studying a two-year undergraduate degree in computer science.

Chow’s death came on graduation day for many students at his university, located in the city’s Clear Water Bay district.

Hundreds of students, some in their black graduation gowns and many wearing now banned face masks, held a silent gathering in the main piazza of the campus after receiving their degrees. Some were in tears.

They later moved to a stage where the graduation ceremonies had been held. Chanting “Stand with Hong Kong” and “Five demands and not one less,” they spray painted Chow’s name and pinned photos and signs of him on nearby walls.

“I can’t put a smile on my face thinking about what has happened,” said Chen, a female graduate in biochemistry, who was wearing a formal gown and holding bouquets of flowers.

A memorial at the carpark where Chow fell and a vigil on campus are planned by students for Friday night.

Hong Kong’s government said in a statement that it expressed “great sorrow and regret” and that the crime unit was conducting a “comprehensive investigation” into Chow’s death.

Further rallies

At a separate event, around 1,000 people rallied in the city’s main financial district to protest against alleged police brutality and actions. Many held white flowers in memory of Chow.

“I am very sad over Chow’s death. If we don’t come out now, more people might need to sacrifice (themselves) in the future,” said Peggy, an 18-year-old university student at the University of Hong Kong.

High school pupils are also planning a rally in the eastern district of Kwun Tong, they said in advertisements before Chow’s death.

Protests scheduled over the weekend include “Shopping Sunday” centered on prominent shopping malls, some of which have previously descended into chaos as riot police stormed areas crowded with families and children.

Last weekend, anti-government protesters crowded a shopping mall in running clashes with police that saw a man slash people with a knife and bite off part of the ear of a local politician.

Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula, allowing it colonial freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland, including an independent judiciary and the right to protest.

China denies interfering in Hong Kong and has blamed Western countries for stirring up trouble.

…

U.S.-Chinese trade contracted again in October, despite optimism about possible progress in talks aimed at ending a tariff war that threatens global economic growth.

Chinese imports of U.S. goods fell 14.3% from a year earlier to $9.4 billion, customs data showed Friday. Exports to the United States sank 16.2% to $35.8 billion.

President Donald Trump announced a tentative deal Oct. 12 and suspended a planned tariff hike on Chinese imports. But details have yet to be agreed on and earlier penalties stayed in place. That is depressing trade in goods from soybeans to medical equipment.

Beijing announced Thursday the two sides agreed to a gradual reduction in punitive tariffs if talks on the “Phase 1” deal make progress. However, there has been no sign of progress on major disputes about China’s trade surplus and technology ambitions.

Optimism about the talks “could improve the climate for exports in the coming months by improving global sentiment and trade. But we remain cautious,” said Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics in a report.

“It is unlikely that the bulk of existing tariffs will be removed soon,” Kuijs said. He said a “substantial gap” in perceptions about what each side is gaining means “there is a substantial risk of re-escalation of tensions in 2020.”

China’s global exports declined 0.9% to $212.9 billion, a slight improvement over September’s 3% contraction. Imports tumbled 6.4% to $170.1 billion, adding to signs Chinese demand also is cooling.

…

A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck northwestern Iran early Friday, killing at least five people and injuring more than 300 others, officials said.

The temblor struck Tark county in Iran’s Eastern Azerbaijan province at 2:17 a.m., Iran’s seismological center said. The area is about 400 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of Iran’s capital, Tehran.

More than 40 aftershocks rattled the rural region nestled in the Alborz Mountains, and residents rushed out of their homes in fear. The quake injured at least 312 people, state television reported, though only 13 needed to be hospitalized. It described many of the injuries happening when people fled in panic.

The head of Iran’s emergency medical services, Pirhossein Koulivand, gave the casualty figures to state television. There were no immediate video or images broadcast from the area.

Rescuers have been dispatched to the region, officials said. State TV reported the earthquake destroyed 30 homes at its epicenter.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake’s epicenter was at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). Shallow earthquakes tend to cause more damage.

Iran sits on major seismic faults and experiences one earthquake a day on average. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake flattened the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people.

A magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran in 2017 killed more than 600 people and injured more than 9,000.

…

When billboards in Chinese start appearing, along with Korean and Japanese grocery stores and restaurants that span tastes from almost all of Asia, they are signs that you have entered California’s San Gabriel Valley.

For some people, it is a bedroom community of Los Angeles. For others, the Asian enclave is a home away from home.

Known to the locals as the “SGV,” San Gabriel Valley spans 36 kilometers east of downtown Los Angeles, with close to half a million Asians living there. Nine cities in the area are majority-Asian.

They include the city of Walnut, where Mike Chou’s family settled in 1989 when they immigrated from Taiwan. Walnut already had an established Chinese community.

“My parents, they didn’t speak English at the time, so it’s made it easier for them to kind of get around,” said Chou, who was 5 when his family arrived in the United States. “It’s so close to all the shopping. It’s so close to the (Chinese) grocery stores. It made fitting in there a lot easier.”

Chinese arrived in 1970s

According to the 2019 San Gabriel Valley Economic Forecast and Regional Overview Report, the SGV has a large ethnic Chinese population that started in the 1970s, with a flood of immigrants from Taiwan.

Chou is now a real estate agent with an 80% Asian clientele — half of them Chinese. Speaking fluent Mandarin and English, Chou has been so successful in real estate that he now leads a multilingual team of agents, including Roxane Sheng, who immigrated to the United States from China in 2005 for graduate school and stayed.

“Most of my clients are Mandarin-speaking Chinese,” Sheng said. “But they’re either living here and work here, or study here. Or they come to United States just to reinvest, to buy investment property. But they still go back to China and live there.”

In the past 10 to 15 years, Chou said people from mainland China have become the new immigrants to the SGV.

WATCH: California’s San Gabriel Valley a Mecca for Asian Americans

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Mild climate, lots of land

Sheng said the area’s mild climate and the relatively close distance to China make Southern California attractive to Chinese homebuyers. A common language is another attraction.

“Everyone speaks Mandarin.” Sheng said. “They can walk into a bank, post office, grocery stores — they can do everything without speaking English.”

For immigrants who largely lived in expensive high-rise apartments in China, the San Gabriel Valley offers an additional perk.

“We have plenty of single-family homes,” Sheng explained. “They just find a house. They get the land. They get the yard, and they have no neighbors up or down below them. And home prices are still cheaper if they move from Beijing or Shanghai.”

Beyond Chinese

Immigrants from other Southeast Asian countries also live in the region.

Annie Xu, another agent on Chou’s real estate team, was raised in the Philippines of ethnic Chinese parents. She speaks Tagalog, Hokkien, Mandarin and English.

“I’ve been doing real estate for three years, because I used to be a stay-at-home mom,” said Xu, who came to the U.S. with her husband. “And then when my youngest turned 2, I decided that I want to do something. Real estate is a business that you don’t need a lot of startup costs.”

As a real estate agent, she has worked with immigrants from China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

One of her clients is Shabana Khan, a half-Pakistani Indian immigrant seeking a house with a yard. Khan moved to the San Gabriel Valley from New York.

“New York has the vibe of the energy and stuff, but you can get it here, too,” Khan said. “But as soon as you have kids, I think California is the best place to settle down. San Gabriel Valley is amazing. You have so many different cultures within Asia.”

Many immigrants, some undocumented

South Asians are among the fastest-growing Asian American groups in the SGV, according to a 2018 report by the civil rights group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles.

Using numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, Advancing Justice also found that more than 67% of Asian Americans in the SGV are immigrants, including an estimated 58,000 people who are undocumented. Close to a third in the region are low income, according to the report.

“Some of them just immigrated here, and they haven’t found a stable job. Or their English is not good enough that they have to compromise for a job that’s not ideal for them,” Sheng said.

Regardless of socioeconomic status, the report found that San Gabriel Valley’s Asian population continues to grow.

“You have a lot of restaurants and grocery stores that are in Chinese. And some of the workers, they only speak Chinese, so they don’t speak English. It makes it easy if you’re an immigrant to come here and just kind of feel very much at home,” Chou said.

…

French actress Catherine Deneuve, 76, was admitted to hospital in Paris after suffering a “limited” stroke, French media reported.

“Catherine Deneuve has suffered a very limited and therefore reversible ischemic stroke. Happily, her motor control has not been affected. She will need a few days’ rest,” French news wire AFP and French daily Le Parisien reported, quoting from a Deneuve family statement.

A spokeswoman for Deneuve declined to comment.

Nicknamed the “Ice Maiden” because of her exquisite, fragile beauty and detached manner, Deneuve became France’s leading screen actress and a top international star in the 1960s.

She won fame for her portrayal of an umbrella seller’s daughter in Jacques Demy’s 1963 musical “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg” (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) for which she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 1965, she triumphed as a frigid, schizophrenic woman in Polish director Roman Polanski’s harrowing “Repulsion” and in 1968, she was nominated for a BAFTA Best Actress award for her role in “Belle de Jour.” In 1993, she was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for her role in “Indochine.”

Often described as the embodiment of French womanhood, Deneuve is a fixture at Paris fashion shows and is known for her biting wit.

Last year, she and 99 other French women denounced a backlash against men following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, saying the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment amounted to “puritanism.”

Deneuve remained active as an actress in recent years and was working on a film this month.

“Either you do cinema or you don’t,” she told Le Parisien newspaper in an interview in September.

“My mother will turn 108 in a few days. My sisters and I have her genes,” she added.
 

…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to tap Steve Biegun, the special representative for North Korea, as deputy secretary of state could spur Washington’s denuclearization talks with Pyongyang, said experts.

“[Biegun’s] in a position now where he will have much more influence, and he will be able to guide things from a senior level at the State Department to really help shape policy, even more than as … a special representative for North Korea,” said David Maxwell, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The White House announced Trump has nominated Biegun for the No. 2 spot at the State Department on Thursday, and soon after announced the Biegun nomination had been sent to the Senate.

If the Senate approves his nomination, Biegun will replace John Sullivan, who was nominated to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia. Biegun would then be the second highest-ranking official at the State Department after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

If Pompeo steps down from his post to run for a Senate seat as widely speculated, then Biegun would serve as acting secretary of state.

As the deputy secretary, Biegun will continue in his role of overseeing diplomacy with North Korea, a senior U.S. official said.

Experts think Biegun’s nomination signals the Trump administration’s effort to elevate the significance of engaging in talks with North Korea.

“Making him the deputy secretary of state raises his stature and so it naturally raises the level of working level negotiations that he will continue to lead,” said Maxwell.

Joseph DeTrani, who served as the Special Envoy for the six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration, said, “I think that means the president and our secretary of state are putting more attention to the issue of North Korea.”

Biegun has been leading working-level talks with North Korea since his appointment as the special representative for North Korea in August 2018. Progress in the talks between Washington and North Korea have been slow due to their differences over the process of denuclearization and sanctions relief.

Working-level talks resumed in Stockholm in early October after months of stalled negotiations since the breakdown of the second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi in February. But the Stockholm talks fell apart after North Korea walked away from the negotiating table.

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After North Korea Walks Away From Talks, Experts See Familiar Tactic

Pyongyang ‘greatly disappointed’ with US approach in Stockholm

Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said no matter who leads diplomatic efforts for the U.S, North Korea will not give up nuclear weapons.

“Kim is not testing all these missiles and quietly working on improving his nuclear weapons because he wants to give everything away,” said Manning.

North Korea conducted what it called “super-large multiple rocket launchers” on Friday in its 12th missile test since May. The short-range missiles that North Korea has been testing this summer are considered more advanced than those tested prior to its diplomatic outreach toward the U.S. in 2018.

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Experts: N. Korea’s New Missiles Designed to Dodge Preemptive Strikes 

The missiles launched most recently by Pyongyang are technologically advanced enough to avoid detection and destruction prior to launch. 

Manning thinks Biegun’s nomination could suggest that the Trump administration anticipates the talks with North Korea will continue to make slow progress.

“There may be a subtle message in his promotion to deputy secretary – which I think will be a great benefit to the Department of State – which is that they don’t expect the North Korea diplomacy to move very quickly,” said Manning.

However, Maxwell thinks Biegun will be able to create the right conditions for diplomacy to induce North Korea to denuclearize.

“If anyone can create the conditions, the diplomatic conditions for Kim Jong Un to make the right strategic decision to give up its nuclear weapons, it’s Steve Biegun,” said Maxwell, adding, “the ball is in Kim Jong Un’s court.”

Biegun’s nomination comes with a wide-ranging support from former U.S. officials and North Korea experts, according to the endorsement list issued by the State Department on Thursday.

Ashton Carter, who served as secretary of defense under the Obama administration, said “Steve Biegun is a man of integrity and breadth of vision who has always represented the best of American policymaking.”

Joel Wit, senior fellow at the Stimson Center who was involved in past negotiations with the North Koreans while at the State Department, said, “I fully support Stephen Biegun’s nomination. As special representative for North Korea, Steve has carried out his duties with great skill and determination, ably representing U.S. interests with the North Koreans, working closely with our allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and seeking to build support from other important countries, China and Russia, for American policy. I believe these same diplomatic skills make Steve the right choice to be our new Deputy Secretary of State.”

Previously, Biegun served as executive secretary of the National Security Council and chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prior to serving as Trump’s North Korea envoy, Biegun worked as vice president of international governmental relations for Ford Motor Company. 

…

North Korea on Tuesday lashed out at the United States for mentioning Pyongyang in its annual report on state sponsors of terrorism, saying the report is an example of Washington’s “hostile policy” that is limiting chances for dialogue.

The U.S. State Department on Friday published its 2018 Country Reports on Terrorism. Though the report scaled back its criticism of North Korea from the previous year, it mentioned that the U.S. re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terror in 2017. 

North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the report as a “grave politically motivated provocation,” according to a statement in the state-run Korean Central News Agency. 

“This proves once again that the U.S. preoccupied with inveterate repugnancy toward (North Korea) is invariably seeking its hostile policy towards the latter,” the statement said. 

North Korea last month walked away from working-level nuclear talks, blaming the United States for not offering enough concessions. It has since threatened to resume nuclear or long-range missile tests. 

The North Korean statement on Tuesday said it is an “insult” that the U.S. would issue the terrorism report, especially while U.S.-North Korea dialogue “is at a stalemate.” 

“The channel of the dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S. is more and more narrowing due to such attitude and stand of the U.S.,” the North Korean foreign ministry said, using an abbreviation for the country’s official name. 

North Korea was originally designated as a state sponsor of terror in 1988, following its involvement in the bombing of a Korean Airlines passenger flight a year earlier. The U.S. removed North Korea from the list in 2008 during a period of dialogue.

In 2017, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism during a period of heightened tensions. 

“The Secretary determined that the DPRK government repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism, as the DPRK was implicated in assassinations on foreign soil,” the latest State Department report said. 

The North Korean entry contained less than half as many words as the previous year’s report. It also removed descriptions of North Korea’s “dangerous and malicious behavior.” 

But North Korea still took issue with its inclusion on the state sponsors of terrorism list, which imposes unilateral sanctions. 

“This is an insult to and perfidy against the DPRK, dialogue partner,” North Korea’s foreign ministry insisted. 

North Korea is looking for sanctions relief and other concessions from the United States. It has given Washington until the end of the year to change its approach, after which it has warned of “dangerous” consequences. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump have met three times since last June. Though they have agreed to “work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” the two sides have not been able to agree on the first steps toward doing so.
 

…

Newly-announced U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s construction sector have drawn a skeptical response from some Iran analysts who foresee the measures doing only limited harm to one of its top industries.

In an Oct. 31 announcement, the Trump administration said it had imposed sanctions on Iran’s construction sector for being controlled “directly or indirectly” by the nation’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a military branch designated by U.S. officials as a terrorist organization earlier this year.

Iran sees itself as a victim, rather than a perpetrator, of terrorism. In a Saturday statement, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi denounced the U.S. sanctions on the nation’s construction industry as “economic terrorism” and said they reflected “weakness” and “failure in (American) diplomacy.”

IRGC-controlled companies such as Khatam al-Anbiya dominate Iran’s construction sector. Previous U.S. administrations sanctioned Khatam al-Anbiya in 2007 and four of its affiliates in 2010.

A State Department fact sheet said the new sanctions target international transactions with Iranian construction companies involving four specific commodities and products: raw and semi-finished metals, graphite, coal, and software for integrating industrial purposes.

“If you look at this designation of Iran’s construction sector, it is very limited,” said Saeed Ghasseminejad, a researcher on Iran’s economy and financial markets at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). 

Speaking to VOA Persian, Ghasseminejad said Iranian construction companies typically produce their own basic commodities such as steel and cement rather than relying on certain imports targeted by the new U.S. sanctions. He said Iran also commonly imports other construction commodities and products not targeted by the sanctions, such Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), a thermoplastic, and tiles used in upper- and middle-class homes.

“So there still are items that can be designated which are not,” he said.

Ghasseminejad also noted that many Iranian construction companies linked to Iran’s Islamist rulers have not faced the type of specific U.S. sanctions previously applied to IRGC-controlled Khatam al-Anbiya and its affiliates. He said other organizations involved in construction and controlled by IRGC or by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have a big share of the construction market, such as the Mostazafan Foundation and Astan Quds Razavi, two charitable trusts led by Khamenei appointees.

Iran also has an unknown number of private construction companies, some of which have connections to Iranian government bodies, according to Ghasseminejad.

“There still is a lot to sanction in the construction sector,” said Ghasseminejad. “The Trump administration should designate the whole sector by saying that any kinds of dealings with it are prohibited.”

FDD has said such a step is necessary not only because of IRGC dominance of the construction industry but also because it supplies key products for Iran’s missile program.

Campaign of ‘maximum pressure’

Trump has been tightening U.S. sanctions against Iran since last year as part of his campaign of “maximum pressure” on the Islamic republic to end its missile and other perceived malign activities.

Iran analyst Ali Vaez of the Belgium-based International Crisis Group said previous rounds of sanctions imposed by Trump and his predecessors have weakened Iran’s economy and its construction sector to the point where the new sanctions are unlikely to hurt the sector much further.

“The important point here is because of the economic downturn in Iran, generally there is a slowdown in the construction business, and as a result, Iran needs less raw material than before,” Vaez told VOA Persian. “There is less demand for new construction than in the past, and as such, whatever impacts the previous U.S. sanctions had on the construction sector in Iran, I think they already have been felt and absorbed in the sector.”

Data published by the Statistical Center of Iran show the nation’s construction sector contributed 2.9% to gross domestic product for the last Persian year that ended in March, around the same level as in the previous two years. Prior to that, the contribution of construction to Iran’s GDP had been on a steady decline from a level of 5% in the year that ended March 2012.

Ownership and activities 

Another factor that could limit the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s construction sector is a lack of information available to U.S. authorities regarding the ownership and activities of many companies.

In messages sent to VOA Persian, economist Mahdi Ghodsi of the Vienna Institute of International Economic Studies said he found only 144 large Iranian construction companies registered in Orbis, a Moody’s Analytics database of financial statements of companies around the world. He said that the estimated turnover of 113 of those companies amounted to 0.5% of Iran’s GDP, only a small part of the total construction activity in the country.

“The rest of the construction sector in Iran is not transparent. The reason could be simply to avoid the sanctions radar of the U.S. Treasury,” Ghodsi wrote.

Further complicating the challenge of sanctioning Iranian construction companies is their involvement in reconstruction efforts in war-torn Syria and in other projects in Iraq, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America.

“Most of the Iranian companies engaged in these kinds of activities do not publicize them,” said Vaez. “Sometimes they use shell companies so that you don’t know that a particular company is of Iranian origin. At the end of the day, this is a very elaborate game of cat and mouse, with the Iranians trying to obfuscate and operate in the shadows, and the U.S. Treasury trying to spotlight and designate them.”

Ghasseminejad said the new U.S. sanctions also may not do much to stop the activities of Chinese and other foreign construction companies in Iran.

“Since the entire Iranian construction sector has not been designated, the pressure on foreign companies to leave the Iranian market has not been that big,” Ghasseminejad said. “If the U.S. actually sanctions the whole industry, and enforces that policy, it will impact the presence in Iran of foreign firms that bring investment, equipment and expertise, and it will impact one of Iran’s few economic sectors that exports services to other countries, where they go and build things.” 

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. 
 

…

Smuggling gangs in Mexico are cutting through the “virtually impenetrable” wall President Donald Trump is building along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep migrants and drugs out of the country, but Trump says he is not concerned.

“We have a very powerful wall,” Trump told reporters Saturday at the White House. “But no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness. But we have a lot of people watching. You know cutting, cutting is one thing, but it’s easily fixed. One of the reasons we did it the way we did it, it’s very easily fixed. You put the chunk back in.”

Trump offered his thoughts after The Washington Post disclosed that gangs have repeatedly sawed through the border wall in recent months using a reciprocating saw, a popular household tool that sells for as little as $100 at hardware stores.

When equipped with specialized blades, the saws can cut through the steel-and-concrete bollards within minutes, according to border agents. 

Once bases of the bollards have been cut, smugglers have been able to push them aside, creating a space wide enough for migrants and smugglers to enter. It has not been disclosed how many times the breaches have occurred.

One of Trump’s favorite 2016 election campaign themes was that he would build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to thwart illegal immigration – and that Mexico would pay for it. 

But with his 2020 re-election bid a year away, the wall remains a work in progress. Trump long ago abandoned efforts to get Mexico to pay for it, but also never won congressional approval of the tens of billion of dollars that would be required to build it.

Trump instead declared a national emergency at the southern border and, over the objection of critics in Congress, transferred money from other projects to fund wall construction.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that overall $9.8 billion has been secured in the last three years to build more than 800 kilometers of a “new border wall system.”

To date, however, no “new wall” — an extension to an existing barrier — has been built.

But about 90 kilometers of replacement barrier and 14 kilometers of new secondary barriers have been constructed.

…

The song “Baby Shark” blared over loudspeakers and a wave of red washed across this politically blue capital Saturday as Nationals fans rejoiced at a parade marking Washington’s first World Series victory since 1924. 

“They say good things come to those who wait. Ninety-five years is a pretty long wait,” Nationals owner Ted Lerner told the cheering crowd. “But I’ll tell you, this is worth the wait.” 

As buses carrying the players and team officials wended their way along the parade route, pitcher Max Scherzer at one point hoisted the World Series trophy to the cheers of the crowd. 

At a rally just blocks from the Capitol, Scherzer said that early in the season his teammates battled hard to “stay in the fight.” And then, after backup outfielder Gerardo Parra joined the team, he said, they started dancing and having fun. And they started hitting. “Never in this town have you seen a team compete with so much heart and so much fight,” he said. 

And then the Nats danced. 

‘I trusted these guys’

Team officials, Nationals manager Dave Martinez and several players thanked the fans for their support through the best of times and staying with them even after a dismal 19-31 start to the season. “I created the circle of trust and I trusted these guys,” Martinez said. 

The camaraderie among the players was a theme heard throughout the rally. “It took all 25 of us. Every single day we were pulling for each other,” said pitcher Stephen Strasburg, named the World Series’ Most Valuable Player. 

Veteran slugger Howie Kendrick, 36, said that when he came to the Nationals in 2017, “I was thinking about retiring. This city taught me to love baseball again.” 

Mayor Muriel Bowser declared D.C. the “District of Champions.” The Capitals won Stanley Cup in 2018, the Mystics won the WNBA championship this year, and now the Nationals are baseball’s best. 

The Nationals won the best-of-seven series against the Houston Astros, with the clincher coming on the road Wednesday night. 

“I just wish they could have won in D.C.,” said Ronald Saunders of Washington, who came with a Little League team that was marching in the parade. 

Nick Hashimoto of Dulles, Virginia, was among those who arrived at 5 a.m. to snag a front-row spot for the parade. He brought his own baby shark toy in honor of Parra’s walk-up song, which began as a parental tribute to the musical taste of his 2-year-old daughter and ended up as a rallying cry that united fans at Nationals Park and his teammates. 

As “Baby Shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo” played on a crisp morning, early risers joined in with the trademark response — arms extended in a chomping motion. Chants of “Let’s go, Nats!” resonated from the crowd hours before the rally. 

‘Fight Finished’

A packed crowd lined the parade route. Cheers went up and fans waved red streamers, hand towels and signs that said “Fight Finished” as the players rode by on the open tops of double-decker buses. General Manager Mike Rizzo, a cigar in his mouth, jumped off with the World Series trophy to show the fans lining the barricades and slap high-fives.  

“We know what this title means to D.C., a true baseball town, from the Senators to the Grays and now the Nationals,” Bowser said at the rally. “By finishing the fight you have brought a tremendous amount of joy to our town and inspired a new generation of players and Nationals fans.” 

Bowser added: “We are deeply proud of you and I think we should do it again next year. What do you think?” Then she started a chant of “Back to back! Back to back!” 

Martinez said he liked to hear the mayor pushing for back-to-back championships and said: “I get it. I’m all in. But let me enjoy this one first. I don’t know if my heart can take any more of this right now. I need to just step back and enjoy this.” 

Martinez, who underwent a heart procedure recently, said that during the series, as things heated up, players and fans shouted at him to watch out for his heart. “All this right here has cured my heart,” he said. 

And as the “Baby Shark” theme played once more, team owner Lerner told the team’s veterans, “From now on, you can call me `Grandpa Shark.’ ”   

…

Thousands of Lebanese flocked together Saturday in Tripoli to keep a protest movement alive in a city dubbed “the bride of the revolution.” 

Despite its reputation for conservatism, impoverished Tripoli has emerged as a festive nerve center of anti-graft demonstrations across Lebanon since Oct. 17. 
 
The movement has lost momentum in Beirut since the government resigned this week, but in the Sunni-majority city of Tripoli late Saturday, it was still going strong. 
 
In the main square, protesters waved Lebanese flags and held aloft mobile phones as lights, before bellowing out the national anthem in unison, an AFP reporter said. 

‘Everyone’ urged to go

“Everyone means everyone,” one poster read, reiterating a common slogan calling for all political leaders from across the sectarian spectrum to step down. 
 
Many people had journeyed from other parts of the country to join in. 
 
Ragheed Chehayeb, 38, said he had driven in from the central town of Aley. 
 
“I came to Tripoli to stand by their side because they’re the only ones continuing the revolution,” he said. 
 
Leila Fadl, 50, said she had traveled from the Shiite town of Nabatiyeh south of Beirut to show her support. 
 
“We feel the demands are the same, the suffering is the same,” she said. 
 
More than half of Tripoli residents live at or below the poverty line, and 26 percent suffer from extreme poverty, a U.N. study found in 2015. 

Future uncertain
 
On Tuesday, embattled Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his cabinet would step down. 

But it was still unclear what a new government would look like and whether it would meet protesters’ demands that it include independent experts. 
 
Roads and banks have reopened after nearly two weeks of nationwide paralysis. 
 
Fahmy Karame, 49, called for a “rapid solution to the economic crisis.” 
 
“We’re waiting for a government of technocrats,” he said.  

In Beirut, hundreds protested Saturday evening after a day of rain. 
 
“Down with the rule of the central bank,” they shouted at the tops of their lungs, clapping their hands near the institution’s headquarters. 
 
Economic growth in Lebanon has stalled in recent years in the wake of repeated political crises, compounded by an eight-year civil war in neighboring Syria. 

…

Newly released documents show a Trump campaign official told the FBI that during the 2016 presidential race, the campaign’s chairman, Paul Manafort, pushed the idea that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s servers. 
 
That unsubstantiated theory was advanced by President Donald Trump even after he took office, and it would later help trigger the impeachment inquiry now consuming the White House. 
 
Notes from an FBI interview were released Saturday after a lawsuit by BuzzFeed News that led to public access to hundreds of pages of documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 
 
Information related to Ukraine has taken on renewed interest after calls for impeachment based on efforts by Trump and his administration to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, when speaking with Ukraine’s new president in July, asked about the server in the same phone call in which he pushed for an investigation into Biden. 
 
Manafort speculated about Ukraine’s responsibility as the campaign sought to capitalize on DNC email disclosures and as associates discussed how they could get hold of the material themselves, deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates told investigators, according to the notes. 
 
Gates said Manafort’s assertion that Ukraine might have done it echoed the position of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business associate who had also speculated that the hack could have been carried out by Russian operatives in Ukraine. U.S. authorities have assessed that Kilimnik, who was also charged in Mueller’s investigation, has ties to Russian intelligence. 
 
Gates also said the campaign believed that Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s first national security adviser, would be in the best position to obtain Hillary Clinton’s missing emails because of his Russia connections. Flynn himself was adamant that Russia could not have been responsible for the hack. 

…

China’s direct investment in the U.S. has slowed to a trickle, dropping by 80% from 2016 to 2018, according to New York-based research provider Rhodium Group. 

Among the hardest-hit sectors are real estate and hospitality, with Chinese investors no longer scrambling to buy prime properties in cities such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Chinese real estate investment in the U.S. tripled from 2015 to 2016, reaching a record $16.5 billion. In contrast, not one real estate and hospitality investment reached more than $100 million during 2018, the Rhodium Group found. 

Chinese developer Oceanwide Holdings’ U.S. footprint includes prime properties in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Construction reportedly has been suspended on one of the towers at the San Francisco Oceanwide Center, while construction has come to a standstill at the Los Angeles Oceanwide Plaza.

“The skylines are no longer filled with cranes, really supplied by Chinese investments coming over here in the downtown region,” said Stephen Cheung, president of World Trade Center Los Angeles and executive vice president of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.  

“What we’re worried about [is] the construction that’s already here that cannot be finished because of the financing situations,” Cheung said.

Construction work stalled

The billion-dollar Oceanwide Plaza is located in a prized location near the Los Angeles convention center and the complex where the Lakers and Clippers play basketball. Construction stalled in January for the condo, hotel and retail space, and Cheung said he has seen very little activity since then.

The standstill at Oceanwide Plaza is but one sign of a sharp drop in capital flowing from China at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing.  

Overall, direct foreign investment between the two superpowers peaked in 2016 to a record $60 billion, then dropped drastically, according to the Rhodium Group.

One reason for the decline is a change in China’s monetary policy.

“There were the currency controls out of China, where a lot of companies were parking money. I think it was probably to get money out of China into a safe investment. And at the end of the day, the Chinese cracked down,” said Dale Goldsmith, a land use lawyer and managing partner at Armbruster Goldsmith & Delvac LLP.

“The Chinese companies couldn’t get the money out of China even though they committed to certain projects. So certain projects here we’ve seen stalled,” Cheung said.

Another reason for the drop in direct Chinese investment is increased vigilance by a federal watchdog organization, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The Rhodium Group estimates the committee’s scrutiny has led Chinese investors to abandon more than $2.5 billion in U.S. deals.

A relatively strong U.S. economy is another factor.

“The dollar has been very strong, making investment a lot less attractive for the Chinese and in the states. On top of it, you’d have skyrocketing construction costs,” Goldsmith said.

To top it all off, a trade war persists between the U.S. and China, sowing uncertainty in an already challenging investment climate.

“As the tension is escalating, I think a lot of the Chinese companies are wary in terms of whether they should enter the U.S. market,” Cheung added.

Southeast Asia gains

The trade war is creating another trend: to avoid high tariffs, international companies are moving manufacturing out of China and into Southeast Asian countries.

US-China Trade War is Good News for Some Countries

Teaser Description

The continuing trade war between the U.S. and China may be causing businesses in both countries extreme anxiety, but the trade dispute is good news for businesses in other countries as many companies have or are moving their manufacturing away from China. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details on why Vietnam is attractive to one company in Southern California.

In some countries, such as Vietnam, the trade war is creating new wealth.

To offset a potentially negative impact of the trade war in a country such as Indonesia, Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, a research associate at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance in Jakarta, advised in an op-ed he co-authored in that Indonesia increase its direct foreign investment. 

In Los Angeles, Cheung said he is seeing a “massive influx” of interests from Southeast Asian countries.

“Vietnam is now looking very carefully into the Los Angeles region, given the Southern California region has such a large Vietnamese population,” he said. “We’re also working with our partners in Singapore and Indonesia and Thailand to really expand those opportunities, because we have been dependent on China for such a long time.

“We really have to look for alternate solutions as this trade war continues, that trade tension continues, and investment is slowing down significantly,” Cheung added.

So long as economic tensions remain high between Washington and Beijing, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities will have to look elsewhere for investment capital.

…

Ten Southeast Asian heads of state will hold their landmark annual meeting next week, and four are enmeshed in a maritime sovereignty dispute with their more powerful neighbor China. But the event is widely expected to produce a statement that avoids condemning Beijing.

That’s because those leaders, even in Vietnam and the Philippines where frustration is running high this year after a series of incidents, hope China will eventually sign a code of conduct aimed at preventing maritime accidents and because some of the 10 countries need Chinese economic aid, scholars say.

Heads of state from the 10 countries, who will convene October 31-November 4 at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, will probably issue a statement that avoids fingering China directly and instead plays up common values, the experts believe.

“The summit itself is very cautious,” said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at The University of New South Wales in Australia. “I expect a boilerplate, ‘freedom of navigation, settle matters peacefully.’”

Spirit of cooperation despite hostilities

ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam dispute with Beijing’s Communist leadership parts of the South China Sea, a 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway that’s rich in fisheries and fossil fuel reserves. China has taken a lead over the past decade by landfilling small islets for military use.

A Chinese survey ship spent months this year in waters where Vietnam is looking fuel under the sea. Chinese coast guard ships patrolled Malaysian-claimed waters for 258 days over the year ending in September, one think tank found. In early 2019, hundreds of Chinese boats surrounded disputed islets occupied by the Philippines.

But ASEAN’s 2019 chair Thailand hopes to “disarm” China, Thayer said. Thai officials may have worked behind the scenes to pick friendly wording for any summit statements next week, he said.

Beijing, if feeling welcome, might push harder for an ASEAN-China code of conduct covering the contested sea. China has suggested it could be finished by 2021 despite past fears that the code would weaken its sovereignty claims. China had stalled talks on a code before 2016. Analysts say sovereignty disputes still make it hard to craft a legally binding document.

A code might use vague language, for example, on the scope of the sea in question and discourage involvement from neutral states outside Asia, Thayer said.

This year’s summit statement may note concern about recent events in the sea and reiterate intent to keep working on the code of conduct, Thayer said.

Outspoken Vietnam

Vietnam probably wants sterner language in the 2019 summit statement, said Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Vietnam speaks out regularly against China due to deep historical differences over territory.

“I think that Vietnam is pushing the multilateral framework as the battlefront for Vietnam to exert sovereignty in the South China Sea and to denounce or to condemn any behavior that can go against Vietnam’s sovereignty.” Nguyen said.

Cambodia could block ASEAN from blaming China, he said. Three years ago, the longtime friend of Beijing stopped ASEAN from mentioning that year’s international arbitration court ruling against China, over the legal basis of its maritime claims. Cambodia lacks a South China Sea claim and accepts Chinese development aid.

Vietnam will have more sway over ASEAN next year when it becomes the chair. China will find it harder at that point to avoid criticism, Thayer said.

Eventually progress on a code may fall to meetings between China and individual ASEAN countries, Thayer said.

Philippine wildcard

Suspicion among Filipinos is mounting this year over China’s growing presence in the disputed sea’s Spratly Islands where Manila controls 10 features. The Philippine foreign minister called this month for a formal protest against China for making “multiple passes” near one Philippine-held islet, Second Thomas Shoal.

However, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte takes a friendly view toward China, landing his country pledges of $24 billion in Chinese aid and investment. China agreed this year to explore jointly with the Philippines for undersea oil and take just 40% of any discoveries.

“For the Philippines, there’s already agreement to go ahead with a joint exploration, so I don’t think the Philippines would want to be seen as an unfriendly country towards China,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.

The Philippines will instead hope ASEAN focuses its 2019 statement on speeding up the code of conduct, Araral said. A June 9 collision between Philippine and Chinese vessels added impetus to signing the code.

Elsewhere around the sea, China with the world’s second largest economy is helping Brunei’s economy diversify away from selling oil. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad joined a Chinese Belt and Road Initiative summit earlier this year, meaning his country would be in line for Chinese infrastructure aid.

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Former President Jimmy Carter will miss a second week teaching Sunday school as he recovers from a fall that resulted in a broken pelvis.

Maranatha Baptist Church posted an update late Monday requesting prayers for the 95-year-old Carter and his family during the healing process.

Carter has been teaching Sunday school for decades, and big crowds typically show up at his small church in Plains, Georgia, to hear his lessons.

But Carter was injured when he fell on Oct. 21, and aides say he’s recovering at home following a hospital stay.

Carter is the oldest living U.S. ex-president ever, and he has fallen at least three times this year. The first fall in the spring required hip replacement surgery.

Carter’s niece, Kim Fuller, will substitute for him in class.

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Over the last year Russia has sent Cuba 1,000 minibuses, 50 locomotives, tens of thousands of tourists and a promise to upgrade the island’s power grid with a multi-million dollar improvement plan.

Russian-Cuban trade has more than doubled since 2013, to an expected $500 million this year, mostly in Russian exports to Cuba. And a string of high-ranking Russian officials have visited their former ally in the Caribbean, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. On Tuesday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel lands in Moscow for meetings with officials including President Vladimir Putin, with the expectation that they will move forward on deals for more trade and cooperation.

Russian-Cuban ties are far from the Cold War era of near-total Cuban dependence on the Soviet bloc, which saw this island as a forward operating base in the Americas then largely abandoned it in the 1990s. But observers of Cuban and Russian foreign policy say there is a significant warming between the former partners prompted in part by the Trump administration’s reversal of President Barack Obama’s opening to Cuba. Cuba and Russia are also heavily supporting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the U.S. has been trying to overthrow.

“We did make huge mistakes in the 1990s while turning our backs on Cuba. That time is definitely over, and I’m absolutely sure that our relations deserve better attention from Russia,” said Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament. “They deserve more investments from Russia both in terms of finances and equipment of course, but also human resources. And definitely we should assist, we should help, Cuba; we should support Cuba as long as it’s discriminated against, as long as it’s sanctioned, as long as it’s blockaded by the United States.”

Neither country provides many details about their improving relations, but Russian products being exported to Cuba include new-model Lada automobiles and Kamaz trucks. There’s a new Cuban-Russian joint venture to produce constructions materials, and when Medvedev visited Cuba this month, he inaugurated a petroleum products plant and signed deals to repair three Soviet-era power plants.

As tourism from the U.S. slackens, Russian visits rose 30% in 2018, to 137,000.

“Russia is trying to preserve the zone of influence it had during the era of the Soviet Union, looking for partners in Latin America and letting Washington know that it’s still a great power,” said Arturo López-Levy, a Cuban-born assistant professor of international relations and politics at Holy Names University in Oakland, California. “Cuba’s signing up for projects that can benefit it, and are already showing results on the island.”

Russia is making no secret of its desire to play reliable partner to an island facing hostility from the United States, including sanctions on ships bringing oil from Venezuela.

“It’s obvious, the U.S. desire to create a toxic atmosphere around cooperation with Cuba, to frighten investors and block the flow of energy,” Medvedev said during his trip to Havana. “Cuba can always count on Russia’s support.”

During the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s, Cuba was filled with Soviet products and citizens, who worked alongside Cubans in chemical plants, mines and army bases. Moscow sent billions in aid before the fall of the Soviet Union caused a disastrous 30% drop in gross domestic product.

Cuba emerged with $35 billion in debt to the Soviet Union, 90 percent of which Russia forgave in 2014, an event that Cuban-Russian anthropologist Dmitri Prieto Samsónov called the start of the modern era of relations between the two countries.

“Russia started to think more about its business and government interests and a new relationship with Cuba emerged on the foundation of the old brotherly relations,” Prieto said.

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The Jaipur Literature Festival began in the city of Jaipur, India. With 300 speakers and over 500 million visitors every year, it is the world’s largest free literary festival. The festival also travels internationally. One stop is Boulder, Colorado. Shelley Schlender reports.
 

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BOSASO, Somalia / WASHINGTON / PENTAGON — A U.S. drone strike intended to hit an Islamic State (IS) hideout in Somalia’s northeastern region of Puntland mistakenly killed two frankincense collectors, according to local elders and a survivor who spoke Saturday with VOA.

The Friday afternoon attack also injured another person after the drone strike hit the men, who were in the process of collecting frankincense near the remote Ameyra village in the Golis Mountain region of Somalia’s Northeastern Bari province, multiple local elders told VOA.

Sa’id Abshir Mohamud, a local elder at Timishe village near the target of the strikes, told VOA Somalia about the reported civilian casualties.

“Men sent to the location of the strike brought back the dead bodies of two locally known villagers who went there to collect frankincense,” the elder said.

He identified the victims as Salad Mohamud Barre and Ayanle Ibrahim Mohamud.

“One of the bodies was mutilated,” the elder said.

US AFRICOM denial

U.S. Africa Command said it conducted the airstrike and targeted IS terrorists in region. Despite the local elders’ claims, a statement from U.S. AFRICOM said Friday it killed three terrorists and no civilian were harmed. 

“At this time, it is assessed the airstrike killed three (3) terrorists. Currently, we assess no civilians were injured or killed as a result of this airstrike,” the statement said.

To boost their ranks and mislead the locals, terrorists in Somalia routinely spread propaganda saying U.S. military drones target civilians. Additionally, the terrorist groups are known to use civilians as human shields.

The prevalence of the militants’ anti-Western smear campaign makes it difficult to immediately prove the complicity or innocence of those targeted by such drone attacks in remote villages.

In an exclusive interview Friday with VOA, Africa Command Director of Public Affairs Col. Chris Karns also stressed the importance of the U.S. strikes in Somalia.

“Oftentimes people will see the airstrikes, which are important because they help the disrupt al-Shabab. They create organizational confusion, they essentially, the airstrikes prevent them [the terrorists] from maneuvering. So they set the conditions for development. They set the conditions for governance, and they’re foundational to the progress that’s being made,” Karns said.

Survivor’s description

Mohamed Mohamud Barre, a man claiming to be a survivor of the strike, described to VOA what he said he witnessed.

“The three of us went there to collect frankincense days ago. A missile surprisingly targeted where we were, killing the two other men. I ran through a dark smoke and the debris of the mountain rocks and crawled under a nearby mountain cave, then another missile was targeted at my location but the cave and Allah saved me. In the cave, I found out that I had sustained shrapnel injuries and remained there until midnight Friday. I am bleeding and I feel kidney pain,” Barre told VOA on the phone.

VOA could not fully verify Barre’s claim but Isse Jama Mohamed, a revered local traditional elder, who later contacted VOA, confirmed the man’s claim and called for the Somali federal government to investigate the incident so the victims’ families could pursue their rights for compensation.

“One of the dead men left eight orphans and the other, five. I think they were mistakenly targeted. I call for the federal government and the government of Puntland Regional State to look into the incident,” Mohamed said.

He said one of the dead men left Bosaso, the port and the commercial hub of Puntland, three days ago to collect frankincense to pay medical bills for his pregnant wife.

“He took his pregnant wife to Bosaso for medical care but he could not afford to pay the bills. He decided to go the mountains and collect frankincense to sell and then pay the surgery bills for his wife, who is carrying twin babies, one of them dead,” the elder said.

Targeted area

The area where the latest U.S. strike occurred is a known hideout for IS militants in Somalia. It is a hot and dry rocky land, where locals historically have harvested gold and frankincense, which is used in traditional Sufi religious ceremonies.

One attack in the area in April killed the deputy leader of Somalia’s IS group, Abdulhakim Dhuqub, who was responsible for the extremist group’s daily operations, attack planning and resource procurement.

Another airstrike in May killed 13 of the group’s fighters.

There have been incidents in which the U.S. military has been accidentally responsible for the deaths of civilians and subsequently admitted so after an investigation.

Earlier this year, a civilian casualty report issued by human rights group Amnesty International concluded there was credible evidence that five U.S. airstrikes were responsible for the death of 14 civilians killed between 2017 and 2018.

The U.S. military initially denied Amnesty International’s reporting but later admitted that a woman and child were killed in one incident in April 2018, near the town of Elbur, in the central Somali region of Galgudud.

Officials said they missed the incident because it was not reported to them.

The acknowledgement marked the first time the U.S. admitted to causing civilian casualties during its air campaign in Somalia, which began in 2011 under the direction of President Barack Obama.

Since the election of President Donald Trump, the number of strikes in the region has risen sharply.

U.S. AFRICOM has said repeatedly the precision airstrikes it carries out in Somalia are to support Somali government security forces and create safe space for increased governance in the nation.

“In support of the federal government of Somalia, U.S. forces will use all effective and appropriate methods to assist in the protection of the Somali people, including partnered military counterterrorism operations with the Federal Government of Somalia, AMISOM [the African Union Mission in Somalia], and Somali National Army forces,” the latest U.S. AFRICOM statement said.

Fadumo Yasiin Jama contributed to this story from Bosaso, Somalia; VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb

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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of the Islamic State group who presided over its global jihad and became arguably the world’s most wanted man, is believed dead after being targeted by a U.S. military raid in Syria.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press late Saturday that al-Baghdadi was targeted in Syria’s Idlib province. The official said confirmation that the IS chief was killed in an explosion is pending. No other details were available.

Both Iraq and Iran told Reuters Sunday that they had been informed by sources in Syria that al-Baghdadi had been killed.

“Our sources from inside Syria have confirmed to the Iraqi intelligence team tasked with pursuing Baghdadi that he has been killed alongside his personal bodyguard in Idlib after his hiding place was discovered when he tried to get his family out of Idlib towards the Turkish border,” said one of the Iraqi security sources.

Reports #ISIS leader Abu Bakr al #Baghdadi may have been killed in #Idlib#Syria shouldn’t come as a complete surprise-at least the location

In July, a @UN report warned senior ISIS leaders “are among those who have made their way to the #Idlib area…”https://t.co/4ixEKW0xT2pic.twitter.com/xEFrnTjy8h

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 27, 2019

President Donald Trump teased a major announcement, tweeting Saturday night that “Something very big has just happened!” A White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, would say only that the president would be making a “major statement” at 9 a.m. EDT Sunday.

From @ABC: https://t.co/RaE2cRAPov#ISIS

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 27, 2019

The strike came amid concerns that a recent American pullback from northeastern Syria could infuse new strength into the militant group, which had lost vast stretches of territory it had once controlled.

U.S. officials feared IS would seek to capitalize on the upheaval in Syria. But they also saw a potential opportunity: that Islamic State leaders might break from more secretive routines to communicate with operatives, potentially creating a chance for the United States and its allies to detect them.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syria war monitor, reported an attack carried out by a squadron of eight helicopters accompanied by a warplane belonging to the international coalition on positions of the Hurras al-Deen (al-Qaida affiliated group, Guardians of the Jihad) and where IS operatives are believed to be hiding in the Barisha area north of Idlib city, after midnight Saturday.

It said the helicopters targeted IS positions with heavy strikes for about 120 minutes, during which jihadists targeted the helicopters with heavy weapons. The Syrian Observatory documented the death of 9 people as a result of the coalition helicopter attack. It is not yet known whether al-Baghdadi is one of them, it said, adding that the death toll is likely to rise due to the presence of a large number of wounded.

Rise and fall of caliphate

Al-Baghdadi led IS for the last five years, presiding over its ascendancy as it cultivated a reputation for beheadings and attracted hundreds of thousands of followers to a sprawling and self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria. He remained among the few IS commanders still at large despite multiple claims in recent years about his death and even as his so-called caliphate dramatically shrank, with many supporters who joined the cause either imprisoned or jailed. He had long been thought to be hiding somewhere along the Iraq-Syria border.

His exhortations were instrumental in inspiring terrorist attacks in the heart of Europe and in the United States. Shifting away from the airline hijackings and other mass-casualty attacks that came to define al-Qaida, al-Baghdadi and other IS leaders supported smaller-scale acts of violence that would be harder for law enforcement to prepare for and prevent.

They encouraged jihadists who could not travel to the caliphate to kill where they were, with whatever weapon they had at their disposal. In the U.S., multiple extremists have pledged their allegiance to al-Baghdadi on social media, including a woman who along with her husband committed a 2015 massacre at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California.

$25 million bounty

With a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, al-Baghdadi had been far less visible in recent years, releasing only sporadic audio recordings, including one just last month in which he called on members of the extremist group to do all they could to free IS detainees and women held in jails and camps.

The purported audio was his first public statement since last April, when he appeared in a video for the first time in five years.

#ISIS supporters urging patience as unconfirmed reports come in that Abu Bakr al Baghdadi may have died in a US-led raid in #Syria… https://t.co/hjJmysXpG2

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 27, 2019

Per @JihadoScope, #ISIS supporters on social media warning other followers to be wary of Western news reports…but that if the reports are true, #Baghdadi fulfilled his duty for martyrdomhttps://t.co/FDXoU9nOl5

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 27, 2019

In 2014, he was a black-robed figure delivering a sermon from the pulpit of Mosul’s Great Mosque of al-Nuri, his only known public appearance. He urged Muslims around the world to swear allegiance to the caliphate and obey him as its leader.

“It is a burden to accept this responsibility to be in charge of you,” he said in the video. “I am not better than you or more virtuous than you. If you see me on the right path, help me. If you see me on the wrong path, advise me and halt me. And obey me as far as I obey God.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Syrian troops reached a key area near Turkey’s border Saturday after sending further reinforcements to the region, in what a war monitor said was its largest deployment there in years.

Syrian regime forces entered the provincial borders of the town of Ras al-Ain, state news agency SANA said.

The regime forces entered the area, which was taken by Turkish forces following a weeks-long offensive against Syria’s Kurds.

Troops also deployed along a road stretching some 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of the frontier, SANA added.

Turkey and its Syrian proxies on October 9 launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish-held areas, grabbing a 120-kilometer-long (70-mile) swathe of Syrian land along the frontier.

The incursion left hundreds dead and caused 300,000 people to flee their homes, in the latest humanitarian crisis in Syria’s brutal eight-year war.

This week, Turkey and Russia struck a deal in Sochi for more Kurdish forces to withdraw from the frontier on both sides of that Turkish-held area under the supervision of Russian and Syrian forces.

On Saturday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some 2,000 Syrian troops and hundreds of military vehicles were deploying around what Turkey calls its “safe zone.”

In the army’s “largest deployment” in the area in years, regime forces were being accompanied by Russia military police, the Observatory said.

Moscow has said 300 Russian military police had arrived in Syria to help ensure Kurdish forces withdraw to a line 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border in keeping with Tuesday’s agreement.

Despite Saturday’s deployment, the Observatory said that Kurdish fighters and Ankara’s Syrian proxies traded artillery fire in the region.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Under the Sochi deal, Kurdish forces have until late Tuesday to withdraw from border areas at either end of the Turkish-held area, before joint Turkish-Russian start patrols in a 10-kilometer (six-mile) strip there.

Ankara eventually wants to set up a buffer zone on Syrian soil along the entire length of its 440-kilometre-long border, including to resettle some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has objected to some provisions of the Sochi agreement and it has so far maintained several border posts.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Saturday that Ankara would “clear terrorists” on its border if the Kurdish forces, which his country view as an offshoot of its own banned insurgency, did not withdraw by the deadline.

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