The European Union and Britain saw their chances of reaching a full Brexit divorce deal by Thursday’s EU summit diminish by the hour Wednesday as legal issues centering on the Irish border frustrated negotiators. Hopes were increasingly turning toward getting a broad political commitment to a Brexit deal between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the 27 other EU leaders at this week’s summit, with the legal details hammered out later.   That could mean yet another delay to Britain’s departure, currently due to take place on Oct. 31. It also raises the prospect that the EU need to hold another Brexit summit before the end of the month.   “The 31st of October is still a few weeks away and there is a possibility of another summit before that if we need one,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said in Dublin.   The British government, meanwhile, insisted the U.K. would still leave the EU on Oct. 31 — but also promised to obey Parliament’s order that it must seek a delay to Britain’s Brexit departure date if no deal is in place by Saturday.    “I can confirm, as the prime minister has repeatedly set out, that … the government …

Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, along with the criticism and threats of sanctions brandished by fellow NATO members at Ankara over the offensive, is close to sparking a crisis at the world’s biggest military alliance. But despite the high political-military tensions, Turkey is very unlikely to be ejected from the 29-member alliance, for NATO has seen tense times and survived them before. From the Suez Canal crisis in 1956 to France leaving its military command structure in 1967, which forced the alliance to move its headquarters to Brussels in Belgium, to the deep split among allies over the Iraq war in 2003, NATO bonds have been tested. But no country has left the alliance or been forced out.   Beyond that, Turkey is of great strategic importance to NATO. The large, mainly Muslim country straddles the Bosporus Strait, making it vital bridge between Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. It’s also the only waterway in and out of the Black Sea, where Russia’s naval fleet is based.   Turkey has NATO’s second biggest army, after the United States, and keeping the country inside NATO helps keep a lid on Turkey’s historic tensions with its neighbor Greece.   NATO allies …

On the edge of a mountainside in Northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, several hundred young army recruits kick up the dust as they jog down a trail during early morning military drills. New recruits are joining groups such as the Arakan Army which has set up training camps in Kachin state, home to fellow Northern Alliance member, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The Arakan Army (AA) formed in 2009 and is currently fighting in Rakhine State against government forces in ongoing skirmishes that have escalated in recent months, amid faltering cease-fire talks. The AA is the armed wing of the United League of Arakan, headquartered in Laiza. Laiza is the capital of KIA – controlled Kachin State, bordering China. The Arakan Army say that they have a current force of 7,000 troops. Like most of the ethnic armed groups within the country who haven’t signed peace agreements, the Arakan army say they are fighting for more self-autonomy and control over their territory. “The reason I joined the Arakan Army and train as a female soldier is because I don’t want to see the Myanmar army oppress and kill Rakhine people anymore,” says female recruit Soe Soe, as she slings an AK-74 …

In Cameroon’s port city of Douala, most used cooking oil from hotels and restaurants was once dumped down the drain, where it fouled up plumbing systems and caused pollution.  A Cameroonian chemist decided to use his knowledge to change that practice.  Cameroonian chemist Martial Gervais Oden-Bella makes soap and detergents by turning a toxic ingredient ecologically friendly. He says the idea of recycling used cooking oil came when a hotel made the request after realizing that it produced huge quantities of used oil. At the time, the used cooking oil was discharged into nature, says Oden-Bella. Concerned to protect the environment, he says, the hotel asked him what he could do with the used oil. Oden-Bella began collecting used cooking oil in 2014 to convert into cleaning products. It’s now a business that produces 165 kilograms of soap and two tons of liquid detergent per month.   Even small businesses like donut maker Adeline Monkam have joined in recycling their oil. She says in the past she used to dump the used oil. But people told her that it’s polluting the environment, says Monkam, and that she can recycle it. So, she doesn’t dump it out anymore. Environmental scientists say …

From sea cucumbers to cancer research, Vietnam and Australia will start collaborating on science initiatives that are meant to show how innovation can be used to spread out the benefits of economic growth evenly to more of the population. The Australian government has given more than 1.6 million Australian dollars to the three winners of a competition it co hosted with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam as part of its so-called Aus4Innovation program. The winning teams are three different pairs of universities, one from Vietnam and one from Australia, that will work together on scientific research. “The innovation partnership between Australia and Vietnam has proven to be an effective mechanism for the two countries to share best practice and models to enhance the innovation systems in both countries,” Vice Minister Bui The Duy from the Ministry of Science and Technology said at the award ceremony in Hanoi last week. “We hope grants provided under the Aus4Innovation program will set examples of how innovation – particularly when it can jointly [be] developed and implemented – can transform our society and deliver economic, social and environmental sustainability.” One of the grants will center around sea cucumbers, a long spindly …

In Cameroon’s port city of Douala, most used cooking oil from hotels and restaurants was once dumped down the drain, where it fouled up plumbing systems and caused pollution. A Cameroonian chemist decided to use his knowledge to change that practice. Moki Edwin Kindzeka has this report by Anne Nzouankeu in Douala, Cameroon. …

An annual hip-hop festival in Ghana is celebrating the west African country’s take on the American culture and art movement. Performers use their music and art to represent culture and life in Ghana, infusing local languages, fashion, and sounds into hip-hop style. Stacey Knott reports from Accra.  …

Protesters and police clashed late on Tuesday in Barcelona during rallies against the jailing of nine Catalan separatist leaders, with the unusually tense confrontations turning into a major challenge for Spanish and regional authorities. Protesters threw cans, stones and flares at riot police, and set garbage containers and cardboard on fire in the middle of several streets in Barcelona, including a thoroughfare housing designer stores and the stock exchange. Fences were on fire next to La Pedrera, one of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi’s most famous buildings and one of the city’s main tourist attractions. Police charged several times through the crowd with batons and fired foam projectiles at the protesters. A spokesman for the regional Mossos police said they were trying to make space around the local headquarters of the Spanish government. Four people were detained, the spokesman said. A Reuters cameraman was hit by police in the leg while filming them charge at protesters. The cameraman, clearly identified as a journalist by a press armband, was hit from behind by a police baton. This was the second day of protests after the Supreme Court sentenced nine separatist leaders to nine to 13 years in jail over their role in …

Rescue workers in Japan searched for the missing on Wednesday as the death toll from one of the worst typhoons to hit the country rose to 74, public broadcaster NHK said, many drowned by flooding after scores of rivers burst their banks. Public broadcaster NHK said 12 were missing and more than 220 injured after Typhoon Hagibis lashed through the Japanese archipelago at the weekend. Throughout the eastern half of the main island of Honshu, 52 rivers had flooded over. Click to see an interactive graphic plotting the path of Typhoon Hagibis) Residents in Fukushima prefecture, which has seen the highest number of casualties, were busy dumping water-damaged furniture and rubbish onto the streets. Many elderly remained in evacuation centers, unable to clean up their homes. In Date city, not far from the site of the nuclear disaster in 2011, farmer Masao Hirayama piled damp books in the street in front of his house, adding to a mound of rubbish from the neighborhood. He said the water had reached about 2 meters (6.6 feet) deep in his house, when he and his son were rescued by boat and taken to an evacuation centre. His wife and grandchildren had stayed with relatives …

China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing resolutely opposed new measures passed by the U.S. House of Representatives related to the Hong Kong protests and urged lawmakers to stop interfering. China’s relationship with the United States will be damaged should the legislation become law, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, one of the measures passed by the House, would require the U.S. secretary of state to certify each year that Hong Kong retained its autonomy in order to receive special treatment as a major financial center. …

European Union officials hoped to sketch out a Brexit deal with Britain within hours, but negotiations stretched into early Wednesday in the latest effort at producing an agreement in more than three years of false starts and sudden reversals.   The bloc said it might be possible to strike a divorce deal by Thursday’s EU leaders’ summit, which comes just two weeks before the U.K’s scheduled departure date of Oct. 31. One major proviso: The British government must make more compromises to seal an agreement in the coming hours.   Britain and the EU have been here before – within sight of a deal only to see it dashed – but a surge in the British pound Tuesday indicated hope that this time could be different. The currency rose against the dollar to its highest level in months.   Even though many questions remain, diplomats made it clear that both sides were within touching distance of a deal for the first time since a U.K. withdrawal plan fell apart in the British House of Commons in March.   Still, talks that first lingered into Tuesday night turned into negotiating past midnight as no deal materialized between experts from both sides holed up …

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF, announced that it would be suspending its operations in northeastern Syria due to “extreme volatility in the region.” Since Oct. 9, MSF has evacuated its staffs from hospitals in the Kurdistan region of Syria after the start of Turkish military operations in the area. Robert Onus, MSF emergency manager for Syria, said  the Turkish military engagement will “increase the need for humanitarian assistance” but that the organization could not provide it with the current “insecurity.” “We cannot operate at scale until we can gain the assurances and acceptance of all parties to the conflict that we can operate safely,” said Onus. According to MSF, the Syrian government has not authorizated the organization to operate in the country. With The Syrian Democratic Forces entering an alliance with the government, MSF’s lack of authorization could continue be an issue. A Turkish forces truck transporting armored personnel carriers, crosses the border with Syria in Karkamis, Gaziantep province, southeastern Turkey, Oct. 15, 2019. Most of the towns and cities that hosted MSF facilities and doctors were cities controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. Many of the locations were liberated from Islamic States of …

Twelve U.S. Democratic presidential candidates squared off in a spirited debate Tuesday night, all looking to confront President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, even as their Democratic congressional cohorts have accused Trump of political wrongdoing and opened an impeachment inquiry against him.    The dozen challengers all support the four-week-old impeachment probe, although Trump’s removal through impeachment remains unlikely. The candidates, however, wasted no time before telling a national television audience why Trump should be impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives to face trial in the Republican-majority Senate.  Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, and former Vice President Joe Biden participate in a Democratic presidential candidates debate hosted by CNN/New York Times at Otterbein University, Oct. 15, 2019, in Westerville, Ohio. In his opening statement, former Vice President Joe Biden, one of Trump’s top challengers, declared, “This president is the most corrupt … in all our history,” an assessment echoed across the debate stage.  ‘No one is above the law’ Another leading candidate, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, said, “Sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics. Donald Trump broke the law. No one is above the law. Impeachment must go forward.”    Trump’s opponents hurled some of their …

“Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman — aka prisoner No. 77806-112 — reported Tuesday to a federal prison in California to serve a two-week sentence in a college admissions scandal that ensnared dozens of wealthy mothers and fathers trying to get their children into elite schools.    Huffman’s husband, actor William H. Macy, dropped her off at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, a low-security prison for women in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to TASC Group, which represents Huffman.    The prison has been described by media as “Club Fed,” making its way onto a Forbes list in 2009 of America’s 10 Cushiest Prisons.     Like all inmates, Huffman would be issued a prison uniform and underwear and referred to by her number once inside the prison, where she will share a room and open toilet with three other inmates, according to a TASC Group publicist who declined to be named in accordance with company policy.     Huffman, 56, “is prepared to serve the term of imprisonment Judge [Indira] Talwani ordered as one part of the punishment she imposed for Ms. Huffman’s actions,” the TASC Group said in a statement that provided no further details.    Officials at the prison did not immediately return …

Eight-year-old Sara hardly speaks anymore. She spends most of her time watching cartoons on a mobile phone in a rugged pink cover.      One of her legs is severed above the knee, the other is broken.    On Thursday, about 15 minutes after her family decided to flee the area, a bomb fell about 8 meters from Sara and her three siblings.      Doctors say hospitals in northeastern Syria are already working beyond their capacity, as aid organizations evacuate their foreign staff.  As Turkey continues to fight for a strip of land along its southern border, doctors say this war is turning into an unmitigated health disaster.    “Any further crisis will destroy us,” said Dr. Furat Maqdesi Elias, who heads the Al Salam Hospital in Qamishli, a city on the Syrian border with Turkey. “What do NGOs and the U.N. give us?  They give us zero.”    Many Syrians here blame the United States for abandoning this region, after supporting Kurdish-led fighters against Islamic State militants for years. Turkey has long maintained it would create a buffer zone between it and the once-U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces vigorously if it had to. It began assaults on the Kurdish region nearly a week …

Two unrelated earthquakes have rattled California in a little more than a 12-hour period. A  magnitude-4.7 earthquake hit a remote mountainous region in central California, 25 kilometers southeast of Hollister, just after noon on Tuesday. It followed a 4.5 magnitude temblor near Pleasant Hill, northeast of San Francisco, late Monday. Despite having occurred within a short time of each other, the quakes were centered too far apart to have been related, seismologist Lucy Jones said on Twitter.   Today’s M4.8 near Hollister is too far from yesterday’s M4.5 to be connected. When we look for patterns between quakes at long distances, we see triggering for ~3x length of the fault. The fault length in a M4.5 is less than 1 km. — Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones) October 15, 2019 The quakes come just three days before the 30th anniversary of one of the deadliest in San Francisco Bay Area history.  In 1989, the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake killed 69 people and injured thousands.       …

Hasan Muhammed was among more than 3 million Syrian refugees who fled their homes to escape war and seek safety in Turkey. He recently died in the Turkish area of Mardin amid clashes between the Turkish military and Kurdish forces. …

Embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday ruled out making any concessions to pro-democracy protesters in the face of escalating violence, which police said was now “life threatening” citing the detonation of a small bomb.  “I have said on many occasions that violence will not give us the solution. Violence would only breed more violence,” Lam told a news conference. “For concessions to be made simply because of escalating violence will only make the situation worse. On the other hand, we should consider every means to end the violence.” Protesters have five main demands, which include universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into what they say has been excessive force by police in dealing with the demonstrations. Hong Kong has been rocked by four months of unrest, with massive marches and at times violent protests involving tear gas, petrol bombs and live rounds, over concerns Beijing is tightening its grip on the city and eroding democratic rights. Beijing rejects the charge and accuses Western countries, like the United States and Britain, of stirring up trouble. The unrest poses the biggest popular challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012. He has warned that any …

Mexico’s Senate will vote for a bill to fully legalize marijuana in the next few days, a key lawmaker told Reuters, marking a major step toward changing the country’s approach to the drug by removing it as a source of income for violent drug gangs. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a leftist critic of Mexico’s long-standing drug war, has since last year signaled his openness to the decriminalization of marijuana as part of a broader shift on security policy. Sen. Ricardo Monreal, the leader of Lopez Obrador’s MORENA party in the upper chamber of Congress, said in an interview late Monday that a vote on the proposal would take place later this week or next week. “The end of the prohibitionist policy is good for the country,” he said, adding that the bill would regulate personal use and sale of marijuana as well as research into the plant. It also contemplates creation of cooperatives that would grow marijuana, plus a new regulatory agency. If approved by the Senate, the proposal would proceed to the lower house for a vote. MORENA and its allies hold majorities in both chambers. Late last year, the Supreme Court said lawmakers had until Oct. 24 to legalize marijuana, after the court ruled in several cases that prohibition of the recreational use of the drug …

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday that he would not comply with a subpoena issued by U.S. House of Representatives Democrats seeking documents as part of their impeachment inquiry into the president. A letter from a lawyer representing Giuliani sent to a lawyer for House leaders called the inquiry illegitimate and said the information sought by lawmakers relating to his work in Ukraine was protected by attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. The move represents the latest effort by Trump and those close to him to refuse any cooperation with the inquiry. “In addition, the subpoena is overbroad, unduly burdensome and seeks documents beyond the scope of legitimate inquiry,” Jon Sale, the lawyer for Giuliani, wrote. Attorney-client privilege is a legal principle in which certain confidential communications between a lawyer and client are kept secret. Executive privilege is a legal doctrine under which a president can keep certain information from other branches of government. FILE – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump face reporters during a meeting on the sidelines of the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 25, 2019. The House Intelligence Committee had demanded that Giuliani hand over by Tuesday documents related to Trump’s effort to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, a top contender …

Nigeria has closed its land borders to all movement of goods and has no timeline for reopening them, the head of the nation’s customs agency said, as part of an effort to curb smuggling. “All goods for now are banned from being exported or imported through our land borders and that is to ensure we have total control over what comes in,” Hameed Ali, comptroller-general of the Nigerian Customs Service, told reporters in Abuja on Monday.  Africa’s largest economy launched a partial border closure in August as part of an effort to thwart smuggling of rice and other goods, and there had been widespread local media reports of a broader closure. But Ali’s announcement was the first official confirmation of a total shutdown in trade across Nigeria’s land borders — including goods that had been moving legally. “We are strategizing on how best the goods can be handled when we eventually get to the point where this operation will relax for the influx of goods,” he said. He did not give a timeline for any relaxation of the controls. The closure has no impact on Nigeria’s economically crucial oil exports, which are shipped out almost entirely via the nation’s seaports …

Dutch authorities were Tuesday trying to piece together the story of a family found living isolated from the outside world in the rural east of the Netherlands. Mayor Roger de Groot said that the six-member family is believed to have lived for nine years on a farm in Ruinerwold, 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Amsterdam. Drone images of the farm showed a cluster of buildings with a large vegetable garden on one side. The small property appeared to be ringed by a fence and largely obscured by trees. Dutch media reported that the family was made up of five adult siblings and their father. De Groot told reporters the siblings were aged from 18-25. He said their mother is believed to have died “a number of years ago.” Local police said in a tweet that officers visited the farm after being alerted by somebody “concerned about the living conditions” of its residents. Police said they arrested a 58-year-old man who rented the property, but it wasn’t immediately clear why or what his relationship was to the family. Police said he wasn’t the father. Police investigating the farm found “a number of improvised rooms where a family lived a withdrawn …

Dodging waves at low tide, a barefooted, shirtless Mixtec man is carefully walking along the Pacific Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. He navigates his way through the gray rocks on a quest to catch a particular kind of snail, Purpura pansa. When he catches one, he presses just the right part of the snail’s foot to encourage it to secrete a neurotoxin directly onto a skein of cotton yarn. The milky liquid stains the yarn in a greenish color. As it oxidizes, the color turns blue and finally becomes a brilliant reddish-purple hue. FILE – A laborer collects thread that has been dyed and left to dry in the sun, in Calcutta, India, June 1, 2005. Extracting colors from snails is an ancient dyeing method that the Mixtec people have been practicing for around 1,500 years. Like their ancestors, Mixtec dyers do not hurt the snails. They carefully return them to their habitat. They give them time to recover and recharge. They also stay away from the snails during the mating season. This group of Mixtec dyers is among more than two dozen artisans whom author Keith Recker profiled in his book, True Colors — World Masters of Natural Dyes and …

The remains of 28 of the 32 Kenyans killed in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March have arrived in Nairobi.  Hearses lined up at the VIP section of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport early Monday morning as family members streamed in. A somber mood engulfed the airport as victims’ families, most dressed in black, waited to receive their loved ones. Kenya’s Cabinet secretary for foreign affairs, Monica Juma, was among the top government officials greeting the families. “We have had a chance to meet with the families,” Juma said. “We have had a chance to give them a final service, interdenominational service, so that they can bring closure to seven months of grieving, of sorrow, of sadness.” She said all the bodies of Kenyans killed in the crash have been accounted for; the four bodies not returned Monday were either cremated or interred privately by their families. Pallbearers receive coffins of the victims of the March 10 plane crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, as they arrive at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 14, 2019. After prayers Monday at the airport, the victims’ remains were turned over to family members. Three hours later, a …