A major pharmaceutical company and three of the biggest drug distributors in the U.S. have reached a $260 million settlement with two counties in Ohio to avoid a trial over their role in the deadly opioid addiction crisis gripping America. The deal, struck Monday, came just hours before the opening arguments in a court in Cleveland, Ohio. The case has been viewed as a harbinger for similar lawsuits filed by more than  2,700 local and state governments across the country in hopes of recouping damages from the crisis. Drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen will pay $215 million in reparations. Israeli drug manufacturer Teva will pay $20 million in cash and also contribute $25 million worth of Suboxone, used to treat opioid addiction. “People can’t lose sight of the fact that the counties got a very good deal for themselves, but we also set an important national benchmark for the others,” said Hunter Shkolnik, a lawyer for Cuyahoga County. Cuyahoga and Summit counties had brought the lawsuit that accused the four companies of fueling a nationwide opioid crisis. According to U.S. government data, opioids have led to some 400,000 overdose deaths between 1997 and 2017. Lawyers say the settlement …

Facebook on Monday said it will apply lessons learned from America’s 2016 election to prevent manipulation of its platforms in the 2020 presidential contest. In a press release, Facebook said it is working to combat “Inauthentic Behavior” on its applications — a phenomenon widely documented in 2016 that has continued in years since. Facebook defines inauthentic behavior as “using deceptive behaviors to conceal the identity of the organization behind a campaign, make the organization or its activity appear more popular or trustworthy than it is, or evade (Facebook’s) enforcement efforts.” U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of creating fake accounts on Facebook and other platforms to spread falsehoods and divisive messaging that pitted U.S. voters against each other. The social media giant will start requiring pages and advertisements to show their “Confirmed Page Owner.” Pages with large U.S. audiences will need to add their owners first. The press release shared that Facebook had taken down four pages and groups on Facebook and Instagram that were linked to government-sponsored inauthentic behavior the morning of the press release. Three of them were linked to Iran, and one was in Russia. As part of its policy, Facebook said it will label media outlets that are …

The Russian military says two of its nuclear-capable bombers will visit South Africa in what appears to be the first-ever such deployment to the African continent. The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that sending the Tu-160 bombers is intended to help “develop bilateral military cooperation” and reflects a “strategic partnership” with one of Africa’s most developed economies. The mission comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host the first-ever Russia-Africa summit this week with 43 of the continent’s 54 heads of state or government in attendance. The remaining 11 countries will be represented by foreign ministers or other officials. As part of efforts to expand its clout in Africa, Russia has signed military cooperation agreements with at least 28 African countries, the majority in the past five years. …

China is asking the World Trade Organization for the right to impose $2.4 billion in annual penalties on the United States in a case over Chinese subsidies dating back years. A document published Monday showed China has called for the matter to be considered by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body next Monday. The matter would be referred to a WTO arbitrator if the U.S. objects to the amount China proposes. The request stems from a July WTO appellate decision in a case dating to before the Trump administration, and unrelated to the tariffs it has slapped on Chinese goods.   Washington criticized that decision, which it said recognizes that China uses state-owned enterprises to subsidize and distort its economy but contends the U.S. must use “distorted Chinese prices” to measure subsidies. …

Thousands of people demonstrated on Sunday in Port-au-Prince, demanding that Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise step down. “Jovenel is incapable and incompetent, he must pack his bags because Haiti must live,” said one of the protesters, Jean Ronald. “It is not normal to live in such an unequal country,” Ronald added, standing in front of the float of “Prophet Mackenson,” a popular and controversial Haitian religious leader. Mackenson Dorilas, a self-proclaimed “prophet,” was sanctioned by the Haitian ministry of faiths at the end of 2018 after saying he could cure AIDS with a bed bug remedy. The crowd of his faithful moved through streets of the capital, followed by large groups of demonstrators, praying and chanting slogans against the president. After repeated demonstrations and barricades regularly mounted by opponents of the president across major roads, many schools have closed their doors for more than a month. “I put on my uniform today, it is brand new, and the first chance I’ve had to put it on is in a demonstration,” says Nelly Delamet, 19. “Things have to change: Jovenel is not good.” Since coming to power in February 2017, Moise has had to face the anger of an opposition movement that …

Turkey’s economy minister has announced that a Turkish banker convicted in the United States of helping Iran evade economic sanctions has been appointed head of Turkey’s stock exchange. Banker Hakan Atilla, who was convicted in 2018, was released from prison in July and deported to Turkey. Turkey maintained Atilla’s innocence throughout the trial and called his conviction a “scandalous verdict.” The five-week trial strained Turkish-U.S. relations and featured testimony about corruption at the highest levels of the Turkish government Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak announced Atilla’s appointment in a tweet Monday. Albayrak tweeted: “The resting time of Hakan Atilla who joined his family and country following an unjust conviction has ended. He has been appointed Borsa Istanbul’s general manager.” …

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper arrived Monday in Saudi Arabia, state television said, days after the Pentagon said it was bolstering its forces in the kingdom amid tensions with Iran. Al-Ekhbariyah television gave no details on the previously unannounced visit, which comes after Esper visited Afghanistan. On October 11, the Pentagon said it was deploying new US troops to Saudi Arabia after Riyadh asked for reinforcements following a mid-September drone and missile attack on Saudi oil plants, which Washington blames on Iran. Esper said that two fighter squadrons and additional missile defense batteries were being sent to Saudi Arabia, bringing to about 3,000 the total number of troops deployed there since last month. The September 14 attack knocked out two major processing facilities of state oil giant Aramco in Khurais and Abqaiq, roughly halving Saudi Arabia’s oil production. Washington condemned the attacks as a “act of war” but neither the Saudis nor the United States have overtly retaliated. Tensions have soared in the Gulf in recent months with a series of attacks on oil infrastructure and tankers, raising fears of a war between the arch-rivals. Iran has denied any involvement. …

The U.S. is considering keeping some troops near oil fields in northeastern Syria to protect them from being captured by Islamic State militants, Defense chief Mark Esper said Monday. A convoy of more than 100 vehicles with U.S. troops crossed into Iraq  from Syria on Monday, part of the broader withdrawal from northern Syria ordered by President Donald Trump. But Esper said that some American forces were still patrolling near the oil fields alongside Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The Pentagon leader said no long-term decision has been made “with regard to numbers or anything like that” and no plan presented to Trump. On Sunday, Trump said on Twitter, “We have secured the oil.” A U.S. military vehicle, part of a convoy, arrives near Dahuk, Iraqi, Oct. 21, 2019. Esper said, “We presently have troops in a couple of cities that [are] located right near that area. The purpose is to deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS [Islamic State] and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities.” Trump’s troop withdrawal has angered Kurds in northern Syria, where Kurdish fighters have fought alongside U.S. forces against Islamic State terrorists. But Trump said the …

New global rules forcing ships to reduce air pollution by using cleaner fuels will see more sulphur and nitrates dumped into the oceans, analysts and civil society leaders say. From January 2020, the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) will ban ships from using fuels with a sulphur content above 0.5%, compared with 3.5% now. The rules herald the biggest leap in how ships are powered since they switched from burning coal to oil over a century ago, but vessels will still be allowed to use higher-sulphur fuel if fitted with cleaning devices called scrubbers. Closed-loop scrubbers keep most of the water used for sulphur removal onboard for disposal at port. Open-loop systems, however, remove sulphur coming through a ship’s smokestack with water that can then be pumped overboard. “Were open-looped scrubbers ever a really good idea?” Bill Hemmings of the Clean Shipping Coalition told industry figures at the IMO’s headquarters in London. Such systems could provide a cautionary tale on half-measures to tackle emissions, he said. “Maybe in hindsight, we need to ask whether we would do things the same way and whether there are any lessons to be learned for climate change.” BLIND SPOT Years of studies have …

Australia’s biggest newspapers ran front pages on Monday made up to appear heavily redacted, in a protest against legislation that restricts press freedoms, a rare show of unity by the usually partisan media industry. Australia has no constitutional safeguards for free speech, although the government added a provision to protect whistleblowers when it strengthened counter-espionage laws in 2018. Media groups say press freedoms remain restricted. Mastheads from the domestic unit of Rupert Murdoch’s conservative News Corp  and fierce newspaper rivals at Nine Entertainment ran front pages with most of the words blacked out, giving the impression the copy had been censored, in the manner of a classified government document. Richard Baker is a journalist at The Age newspaper in Melbourne.   “It is really the media standing up on behalf of the people we try to serve, which is the public to say, ‘Hey, we work in this space so the public are informed and can make decisions about, you know, really important stuff that government does in their name and when we cannot do that we feel like we are failing.’” Parliament has long been passing laws in the guise of national security that impeded the public’s right to …

Canadians began voting in a general election Monday, with surveys predicting a minority government as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party risks losing its majority or even being kicked out of office. The Liberals and the Conservatives, led by Andrew Scheer, could be set for a near dead heat with pundits calling it one Canada’s closest elections ever. Polls opened at 1100 GMT in the provinces of Labrador and Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, the first of the country’s six time zones. Polls will remain open in far western British Columbia until 0200 GMT Tuesday, although the first results are expected starting at 2300 GMT. Some 27.4 million Canadians are eligible to elect 338 members of parliament after a tense and sometimes bitter election campaign. Campaigning ended as it began some 40 days earlier, with polls showing a near perfect equilibrium. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives — the parties that have led Canada since Confederation in 1867 — is forecast to win enough support to secure an absolute majority of seats in parliament. Faded golden boy At final campaign stops in westernmost British Columbia on Sunday, former golden boy Trudeau made an emotional appeal to voters to enable him to …

Four drug companies reached a last-minute legal settlement over their role in the opioid addiction epidemic, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Drug distributors AmerisourceBergen Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and McKesson Corp and Israel-based drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd will announce the settlement on Monday, according to the report. It was unclear if the fifth defendant, pharmacy chain operator Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, had reached a settlement with the two Ohio counties that were the plaintiffs in the trial set to begin Monday morning. …

Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani has met with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a group of American lawmakers in an unannounced visit to the country.   The Afghan government’s statement says that Ghani thanked Sunday the delegation for the U.S.’s continued financial and political support for Afghanistan over the past 18 years.   The delegation met with Ghani and Chief Executive Abdallah Abdallah.   Pelosi on her twitter account said her visit to Afghanistan focused on security, governance and economic development.   The U.S. has approximately 14,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of training and advising mission, and to conduct counterterrorism operations against insurgents.   The delegation had visited key U.S. ally Jordan the day before.   President Donald Trump’s policies in both the Mideast and Afghanistan have recently drawn bipartisan criticism in Washington.     …

In African slums, boxing clubs are seen as a good way to keep young men off the streets, let them take out their frustrations through sport rather than crime, and provide a way out of poverty. In Uganda, though, one woman has stepped into the ring to not only win medals on the continent, but also empower young women to stay off the streets and defend themselves.  Hellen Baleke was walking one night in Katanga slum, her Kampala neighborhood, when a young man approached her and started touching her. She says she didn’t like boys touching her because, if they did, the end result would be pregnancy and HIV. So, when he groped me, says Baleke, I wanted to fight.  But he beat me up. Hellen Baleke and other women warming up at Rhino boxing Club in Katanga slum, Kampala-Uganda. Baleke returned home with a bloody nose. She did not tell her mother about the attack or how she planned to deal with it.     Baleke began sneaking out of the house early in the morning to train – as a boxer. Her mother, Sarah Bagoole, noticed Baleke’s disappearance acts and confronted her. She says she waited for Baleke …

Russia has been busy on the African continent in recent years. Russian officials acknowledged Russians were on board an Antonov An-72 transport which crashed last week in  a remote Congolese forest. There have also been reports of Russians killed in civlil war battles in Libya recently. And Russia has been making deals and spending money and making commitments all over Africa.   But this week the more savory aspects of Russia’s reengagement in Africa will be showcased. President Vladimir Putin will welcome dozens of African national leaders midweek to the resort town of Sochi for a two-day conference, the first major gathering of African leaders in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The summit is being held at Sochi’s Olympic Park, the jewel in the crown in the billion-and-half dollar makeover of the town for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. As far as Kremlin officials are concerned the event will underline the reversal of Russia’s retreat from the continent and demonstrate the country is no longer a defunct World power.  “This is a very important continent,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters last week. “Russia has things to offer in terms of mutually beneficial cooperation to African …

U.S. troops have crossed into Iraq from Syria, Reuters reported Monday. The news agency said the troops traveled over the Sahela border to Iraq’s northern province of Dohuk. A Reuters cameraman and an Iraqi Kurdish security source told Reuters that they had seen a convoy of U.S. military vehicles crossing the border into the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. A security source in Mosul also told Reuters that the U.S. troops had crossed into Iraq from Sahela. U.S. troops withdrew from their largest base in northern Syria Sunday, with defense chief Mark Esper saying all American forces leaving Syria would be deployed to western Iraq to carry out anti-terrorist operations against Islamic State. Esper said more than 700 U.S. troops would be moved to Iraq and not come “home” as U.S. President Donald Trump had tweeted they would. Esper did not rule out possible U.S. counterterrorism raids from Iraq into Syria. But he said plans would be developed over time and include discussions with NATO allies in the coming days. He said if U.S. forces return to Syria they would be protected by American aircraft. The U.S. currently has about 5,000 troops in Iraq under an agreement between Baghdad and …

Egypt has unveiled the contents of 30 ancient wooden coffins recently discovered in Luxor in what officials call the country’s largest archaeological find in more than a century. Officials say the 3,000-year-old coffins shown to the media Saturday are just a small part of what is yet to come as the archeological excavations resume after years of decline. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports. …

President Evo Morales led in early returns from the first round of Sunday’s presidential election, but he appeared to have failed to get enough votes to avoid a runoff in the tightest political race of his life. The Andean country’s top electoral authority said Sunday night that a preliminary count of 84% of the votes showed Morales on top with 45.3%, followed by 38.2% for his closest rival, former President Carlos Mesa. If the results hold, the two men will face off in December and Morales could be vulnerable to a united opposition in the first runoff in his nearly 14 years in power. Mesa told supporters shortly after the first results were announced that his coalition had scored “an unquestionable triumph,” and he urged others parties to join him for a “definitive triumph” in the second round. Morales claimed a victory for himself, saying that “the people have again imposed their will.” “We are not alone. That is why we have won again,” he told supporters at the presidential palace. To avoid a runoff and win outright, Morales would have needed to get 50% of the votes plus one or have 40% and finish 10 percentage points ahead of …

Mark Esper sought a firsthand assessment Sunday of the U.S. military’s future role in America’s longest war as he made his initial visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief. Stalled peace talks with the Taliban and unrelenting attacks by the insurgent group and Islamic State militants have complicated the Trump administration’s pledge to withdraw more than 5,000 American troops. Esper told reporters traveling with him that he believes the U.S. can reduce its force in Afghanistan to 8,600 without hurting the counterterrorism fight against al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. But he said any withdrawal would happen as part of a peace agreement with the Taliban. The U.S. has about 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan as part of the American-led coalition. U.S. forces are training and advising Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations against extremists. President Donald Trump had ordered a troop withdrawal in conjunction with the peace talks that would have left about 8,600 American forces in the country. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had a preliminary peace deal with the Taliban, but a surge in Taliban violence and the death of an American soldier last month prompted Trump to cancel a secret Camp David meeting where the peace deal would …

At least 12 white supremacists have been arrested on allegations of plotting, threatening or carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. since the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly one year ago, a Jewish civil rights group reported Sunday. The Anti-Defamation League also counted at least 50 incidents in which white supremacists are accused of targeting Jewish institutions’ property since a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Those incidents include 12 cases of vandalism involving white supremacist symbols and 35 cases in which white supremacist propaganda was distributed. The ADL said its nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents remains near record levels. It has counted 780 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2019, compared to 785 incidents during the same period in 2018. The ADL’s tally of 12 arrests for white supremacist plots, threats and attacks against Jewish institutions includes the April 2019 capture of John T. Earnest, who is charged with killing one person and wounding three others in a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. The group said many of the cases it counted, including the Poway shooting, were inspired by previous white supremist attacks. In online posts, …

A committee guiding OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy has suggested other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains use Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for the national opioid crisis. The committee of unsecured creditors said in a letter sent Sunday to the parties and obtained by The Associated Press that the country “is in the grips of a crisis that must be addressed, and that doing so may require creative approaches.” It’s calling for all the companies to put money into a fund in exchange for having all their lawsuits resolved. The committee includes victims of the opioid crisis plus a medical center, a health insurer, a prescription benefit management company, the manufacturer of an addiction treatment drug and a pension insurer. It says that the concept may not be feasible but invited further discussion. It does not give a size of contributions from the company. The same committee has been aggressive in Purdue’s bankruptcy, saying it would support pausing litigation against members of the Sackler family who own Purdue in exchange for a $200 million fund from the company to help fight the opioid crisis. Paul Hanly, a lead lawyer …

 The still popular former mayor of Baltimore and brother of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Thomas D’Alesandro III, died Sunday at 90. The family said he had been suffering from complications from a stroke. Pelosi, who is leading a congressional delegation in Jordan, issued a statement calling her brother “the finest public servant I have ever known…a leader of dignity, compassion, and extraordinary courage.” D’Alesandro was known around Baltimore as “Young Tommy,” because his father, “Big Tommy,” was also mayor and a U.S. congressman. “Young Tommy” was president of the Baltimore City Council and was elected mayor in 1967, leading Baltimore through four of the most tumultuous years in the city’s history. His challenges included a number of labor strikes that paralyzed city services, the push for urban renewal, and the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 from which Baltimore has never fully recovered. D’Alesandro was also the first Baltimore mayor to appoint African-Americans to important city positions. After deciding not to run for a second term in 1971, D’Alesandro went into private law practice and could still be seen dining in Italian restaurants and attending Baltimore Oriole baseball games until just before his death.   …

Protests and violence in Chile spilled over into a new day Sunday even after the president cancelled a subway fare hike that prompted massive and violent demonstrations. Officials in the Santiago region said three people died in a fire at a looted supermarket early Sunday — one of 60 Walmart-owned outlets that have been vandalized, and the company said many stores did not open during the day. At least two airlines cancelled or rescheduled flights into the capital, affecting more than 1,400 passengers Sunday and Monday. President Sebastián Piñera, facing the worst crisis of his second term as head of the South American country, announced Saturday night he was cancelling a subway fare hike imposed two weeks ago. It had led to major protests that included rioting that caused millions of dollars in damage to burned buses and vandalized subway stops, office buildings and stores. Troops patrolled the streets and a state of emergency and curfew remained in effect for six Chilean cities, but renewed protests continued after daybreak. Security forces used tear gas and jets of water to try disperse crowds. Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick reported that 62 police and 11 civilians were injured in the latest disturbances and …