California rock climber Brad Gobright reportedly reached the top of a highly challenging rock face in northern Mexico and was rappelling down with a companion when he fell to his death. Climber Aidan Jacobson of Phoenix, Arizona, told Outside magazine he was with Gobright, and said they had just performed an ascent of the Sendero Luminoso route in the El Potrero Chico area near the northern city of Monterrey. Jacobson also fell, but a shorter distance, after something went wrong in the “simul-rappelling” descent, the magazine said. The technique involves two climbers balancing each other’s weight off an anchor point. In online forums, many climbers described the technique as difficult and potentially dangerous. Civil defense officials in Nuevo Leon state said Gobright, 31, fell about 300 meters (328 yards) to his death on Wednesday. The magazine account described the fall as 600 feet (about 200 meters). Jacobson suffered minor injuries, officials said. Gobright’s body was recovered Thursday. The publication Rock and Ice described Gobright as “one of the most accomplished free solo climbers in the world.” Friends on Friday described him as a dedicated climber who would travel the West Coast, living out of his Honda Civic, following the weather …

Black Friday enthusiasts woke up before dawn and traveled cross-state to their favorite malls in search of hot deals, kicking off a shortened shopping season that intensified the scramble between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But the ever-growing popularity of online shopping and holiday discounts that started weeks earlier dampened the frenzy. This year, more people got a head start on gift-hunting, lured by deals from retailers trying to compensate for the shorter season. The shopping season is the shortest since 2013 because Thanksgiving fell on the last Thursday in November — the latest possible date it could be. Shoppers up since the wee hours slept in chairs at Nashville’s Opry Mills mall, known for its outlet stores. Outside, deal-seekers were still fighting for parking spots by midmorning. Haley Wright left Alabama at 4 a.m. to arrive at the Tennessee mall by 7 a.m. She makes the annual trip because she says the stores offer better deals and a more fun environment than the shops back home. “I let my husband do the online shopping; I do Black Friday,” she said. The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, baked the shorter season into its forecast, but it says the …

U.S. border protection officials in San Diego said Friday that 20 people had been rescued from flooded drainage pipes west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.  A Border Patrol agent found three people trying to enter the United States illegally late Thursday near a drainage tube about 3 kilometers west of the port of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency. In a release, CBP said the three people told agents there were people trapped inside the drainage tubes, with water rising because of heavy rain in the area.  After a search, local emergency officials aided CBP agents in recovering 17 people, sending seven of them to a nearby hospital for medical care. About an hour later, three more people were discovered in the drainage tubes and were taken into custody. One was sent to the hospital. CBP said it apprehended 15 men, three women and one juvenile male from Mexico, and one Guatemalan man. It said all would be processed for illegally entering the United States.  …

Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey has wrapped up of a trip to Africa by pledging to reside on the continent next year for up to six months.  Dorsey tweeted this week: “Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020.” The CEO of the social media giant did not say what he planned to do on the African continent. Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, did not offer more details on Dorsey’s plans.  On Dorsey’s recent trip, he visited entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa.  Dorsey, 43, co-founded Twitter with several other entrepreneurs in 2006. He ran the company until he was ousted in 2008 but was brought back seven years later to again lead the platform. Dorsey also co-founded the payment processing app Square and is also CEO of that operation. The tech exec holds millions of stock shares in both companies, and Forbes estimates his net worth at $4.3 billion. Twitter, along with other social media companies, has faced criticism of its handling of misinformation and has come under scrutiny ahead of next year’s U.S. presidential election. Dorsey announced in October that Twitter would ban …

The conflict in Syria created a global humanitarian crisis, with millions displaced and millions more fleeing to other countries. Turkish military operations that began in early October may be creating a new wave of displacement. Where are these Syrians going? VOA’s Turkish service filed this report, narrated by Ege Sacikara.  …

Anti-government violence raged on in southern Iraq on Friday, despite the announced resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. At least 21 people were killed in the southern part of the country, and one protester was killed in central Baghdad as demonstrations continued here, including a thousands-strong sit-in at Tahrir Square. Abdul Mahdi’s announcement came after the country’s senior Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged lawmakers to reconsider their support for a government rocked by weeks of deadly anti-establishment unrest. “In response to this [the cleric’s] call, and in order to facilitate it as quickly as possible, I will present to parliament a demand [to accept] my resignation from the leadership of the current government,” a statement signed by Abdul Mahdi said.  FILE – A still image taken from a video shows Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi delivering a speech on reforms, in Baghdad, Iraq Oct. 25, 2019. The statement did not say when he would resign. Parliament is to convene an emergency session on Sunday to discuss the crisis.  For weeks, young, unemployed and unarmed protesters have led calls for an overhaul of a political system they say is endemically corrupt and serves foreign powers, especially Tehran. Protesters celebrated the imminent departure of Abdul Mahdi, but said they would not stop their demonstrations until the whole …

The French government summoned the Turkish ambassador Friday to seek explanations after his president described French President Emmanuel Macron as “brain dead.” Ahead of a NATO summit next week that both men will attend, tensions have mounted around Turkey’s military operation in Syria, and its role within the trans-Atlantic defense alliance, which is also a member of the fight against so-called Islamic State. Macron, complaining of a U.S. leadership vacuum, recently lamented the “brain death” of NATO and says the allies need “a wake-up call.” And on Thursday, he reiterated criticism of Turkey’s operation in northeast Syria against Kurdish fighters who were crucial in the international fight against IS extremists. “I respect the security interests of our Turkish ally … but one can’t say that we are allies and demand solidarity, and on the other hand, present allies with a fait accompli by a military intervention which jeopardizes the action of the coalition against IS,” Macron said at a meeting with the NATO chief, Jens Stoltenberg. The comments angered Turkey’s leadership and prompted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to shoot back Friday: “You should get checked whether you’re brain dead.” “Kicking Turkey out of NATO or not, how is that up …

China’s ambassador to Canada on Friday called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to “correct its mistake” of detaining Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou last year on a US extradition warrant. Ambassador Cong Peiwu issued the statement after visiting Meng at her mansion in Vancouver, where she is under house arrest pending an extradition trial scheduled to start in January. Cong said that he stressed to Meng that Beijing is “determined to protect the just and legitimate rights and interests of its citizens and enterprises, and will continue to urge the Canadian side to correct its mistake and take measures to solve the issue as soon as possible.” “We expect (Meng) to go back to China safe and sound at an early date,” he said. Meng’s arrest last December during a layover at Vancouver’s international airport triggered an escalating diplomatic row between Canada and China. Within days, China detained two Canadians — former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor — in apparent retaliation, and subsequently blocked billions of dollars worth of Canadian canola and meat shipments, before restoring imports of the country’s beef and pork earlier this month. Canada, meanwhile, enlisted the support of allies such as Britain, France, Germany, …

Anisa Ibrahim was six years old when she came to the United States as a Somali refugee in 1993. The family settled in Seattle, in the northwestern state of Washington, where the girl and her four siblings got health care at the Harborview Medical Center Pediatric Clinic. Now a pediatrician herself, Ibrahim is medical director of the clinic, overseeing a dozen other doctors whose patients, like hers, include many immigrants. When she got the promotion in September, “it felt like everything that I had been working for had come to fruition and my story had really, really come full circle,” Ibrahim, 32, told VOA’s Somali Service in a phone interview. “I really thought back [on] everyone and everything that made this moment possible for me.” Among those Ibrahim credits is the doctor who treated her in childhood, after her family had moved from a Kenyan refugee camp where they’d sought relief from Somalia’s civil war in 1992. She had told her pediatrician, Elinor Graham, that she wanted to follow in that profession. Graham’s response “really stuck with me,” said Ibrahim, repeating the words she’d heard long ago: ” ‘You know, Anisa, I want you to become a pediatrician as well. …

Sunbathers have assisted two dozen exhausted migrants who arrived by boat to a beach in Spain’s Canary Islands.                     The boat landed early Friday at a beach in San Bartolome de Tirajana on the island of Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s seven Canary Islands located off the northwest coast of Africa.                     Television images showed bathers giving the migrants water and food and wrapping them in towels.                    Emergency services said the Spanish Red Cross later looked after the migrants _ 12 men, eight women and three children _ six of whom were treated at a local hospital. None were reported to be in serious condition.                     Private Spanish news agency Europa Press said the North African and sub Saharan migrants had been aboard the boat for several days. …

Angry motorists blocked roads with their vehicles in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon on Friday, creating traffic jams to protest a strike by owners of gas stations demanding an increase in gasoline prices as the local currency drops and the nation slides deeper into a financial crisis. The road closures around Lebanon came as President Michel Aoun headed a meeting of the country’s top economic officials to discuss the rapidly deteriorating economic and financial situation in the country. Nationwide protests that began Oct. 17 over widespread corruption and mismanagement have worsened Lebanon’s worst economic and financial crises since the 1975-90 civil war ended, as did the resignation of the government late last month. Although Hariri resigned his government on Oct. 29, Aoun has not yet set a date for binding consultations with heads of parliamentary blocs to name a new premier. The protests were initially sparked by new taxes but quickly evolved into calls for the entire political elite to step aside. Friday’s meeting was attended by the ministers of economy and finance as well as the Central Bank’s chief and the head of the banking association as well as the economic adviser of outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri. …

The 164 signatory countries to the Mine Ban Treaty (MBT) agreed Friday to accelerate the work to achieve the goal of a “mine-free” world in 2025, Norway’s foreign ministry said. “Countries have now agreed that it is necessary to speed up mine clearance over the next five years,” Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Soreide said in a statement following a meeting in Oslo. According to Landmine Monitor, an annual report by the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, 6,897 people were killed or injured by mines and other explosive remnants of war in 2018 and the report noted that it was the fourth year in a row with “exceptionally high numbers of recorded casualties.” Of those, 3,789 were victims of so-called improvised mines, the highest recorded number to date. Under the Oslo Action Plan, adopted Friday, states undertake to “identify mined areas and put in place national plans for mine clearance.” They also commit to measuring their progress in the final stretch before 2025, the goal set by the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention or Ottawa Treaty in 1997, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. FILE – Zimbabwean citizens work on a mined beach in Stanley, …

British police shot dead a man on London Bridge on Friday, Sky news reported. The BBC said two shots had been fired. Videos and photographs on Twitter showed several police cars and buses on the bridge and a truck straddling several lanes. “We are in the early stages of dealing with an incident at London Bridge,” police said in a statement. A spokesman said: “It appears somebody has been shot.” Police were called at 1:58pm to a stabbing at premises near to London Bridge. Emergency services attended, including officers from the Met and @CoLP A man has been detained by police. We believe a number of people have been injured. Further info to follow. — Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) November 29, 2019 The ambulance service said it had crews at the scene. London Bridge was the scene of an attack in June 2017 when three militants drove a van into pedestrians and then attacked people in the surrounding area, killing eight people. Earlier this month, Britain lowered its national terrorism threat level to “substantial” from “severe,” its lowest level since 2014. …

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday that European allies and Canada are spending even more than previously thought on defense, just days before U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to demand once more that other leaders boost their military budgets. Trump meets with his NATO counterparts in London on Dec. 3-4. The previous two NATO summits were dominated by his allegations that other allies are not pulling their weight. While they do not owe the United States any money, Washington does spend more on defense than all its allies combined. In what appears to be a pre-emptive political strike, Stoltenberg said that European allies and Canada are now projected to increase spending on their national military budgets by around $130 billion between 2016 and 2020. Previously, the figure was forecast to be “more than $100 billion.” “The trend is up. Year by year we are increasing, and year by year we are adding billions to our defense spending,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels, where the 29-member trans-Atlantic military alliance has a new billion-dollar headquarters. NATO countries agreed in 2014 to halt the defense spending cuts they introduced after the Cold War and boost their budgets in response to Russian President …

A volunteer firefighter in Australia has been accused of arson following an unprecedented bushfire crisis.   Fire chiefs say the alleged arson south of Sydney was the “ultimate betrayal” of emergency crews risking their lives on the front line.  They said the accusations could tarnish the reputation of the entire service.  Investigators believe the teenage suspect lit the blazes and then later returned as part of his duties as a volunteer firefighter.  Dozens of fires continue to burn in the states of Queensland and New South Wales, where more than 50 people have been charged with arson since August. Another 150 suspects are being interviewed by investigators. More than 2 million hectares of land, including vast areas of forest, have been scorched in eastern Australia’s bushfire crisis.   Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and six people have died. The Australian Institute of Criminology has estimated that around half of the nation’s bushfires are either arson or suspected arson. Most offenders are male.  Many are children.  Some have been the victims of sexual or physical abuse, while much work has been done to explore the motivations of adult firebugs.  “Usually they are marginalized, they are confused. It is thought that …

A South Korean court sentenced two K-pop stars to prison terms Friday for sexual relations with a woman who was unable to resist. Thirty-year old Jung Joon-young and 29 year old Choi Jong-hoon were convicted of committing “special quasi-raping,” which means multiple people collaborating to have illicit sexual intercourse with a person who was unconscious or unable to resist, the Seoul Central District Court said in a statement. Jung who was sentenced to six years behind bars, was convicted of raping the woman, filming the act, and sharing it with friends in a group chat.   Choi was sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in the crime. The two singers were also ordered to undergo 80 hours of sex offender treatment programs. South Korea’s lucrative entertainment industry has produced pop songs, TV dramas and films hugely popular in Asia and beyond, but many sexual scandals in recent years have revealed its dark side.   …

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Sydney, Australia Friday to kick off a fresh round of global demonstrations urging more action to curb climate change.          The protesters gathered outside the New South Wales Liberal Party headquarters to demand the government reject any new coal, oil or gas projects, as protesters in several other Asia-Pacific cities echoed the call to action from 16-year-old Swedish climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg. The protests in Australia are taking place as the country’s southeast has been devastated by hundreds of damaging bushfires in recent weeks. Groups of young Americans have planned a “Black Friday Strike”, from Los Angeles to New York, to boycott the celebration of consumer discount shopping and to call for changes to business-as-usual to confront the climate crisis. As protests against climate change are widening around the world on Friday analysts warn that the United Nations climate conference taking place over the coming two weeks in Madrid, Spain, will likely fall short of their expectations. …

For medieval history buffs, the Czech town of Kutna Hora has two great attractions: St. Barbara’s Church, often called a cathedral because of its grandeur, and the Sedlec Ossuary, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints outside the town. St. Barbara’s is one of the best examples of Gothic architecture in central Europe and is a UNESCO world heritage site. But visitors are more attracted to the ossuary, a chapel containing bones of more than 40,000 people, arranged in decorative patterns. Those decorations are now being dismantled so that the centuries-old bones can be cleaned while the church undergoes a renovation. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports how it is done.   …

The Taliban said Friday they were ready to restart peace talks with the United States, a day after President Donald Trump made a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and said he believed the radical group would agree to a cease-fire. Trump’s Thanksgiving Day visit was his first to Afghanistan since becoming president and came a week after a prisoner swap between Washington and Kabul that has raised hopes for a long elusive peace deal to end the 18-year war. “The Taliban wants to make a deal and we are meeting with them,” Trump told reporters after arriving in Afghanistan Thursday. “We say it has to be a cease-fire and they didn’t want to do a cease-fire and now they want to do a cease-fire, I believe. It will probably work out that way,” he said. Meetings with US officials Taliban leaders have told Reuters that the group has been holding meetings with senior U.S. officials in Doha since last weekend, adding they could soon resume formal peace talks. On Friday, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the hardline Islamist insurgent group, said they were “ready to restart the talks” that collapsed after Trump had called them off earlier this …

In a British election dominated by Brexit, young voters who had no say in the country’s decision to leave the European Union could hold the key to victory. That is, if they can be bothered to vote. It has long been a truth in British politics that young people vote in lower numbers than older ones. In the last election in 2017, just more than half of under-35s voted, compared to more than 70% of those older than 60. But that may be changing. According to official figures, 3.85 million people registered to vote between the day the election was called on Oct. 29 and Tuesday’s registration deadline _ two-thirds of them under 35. The number of new registrations is almost a third higher than in 2017. Amy Heley of Vote for your Future, a group working to increase youth participation, says the figure is “really encouraging, and shows that politics has been so high profile recently that it is encouraging more young people to vote.” Moderator Julie Etchingham addresses Conservative leader Boris Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, left, during a televised debate ahead of the general election in London, Nov. 19, 2019. New voters are unimpressed That doesn’t …

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, a giant of his country’s post-World War II politics who pushed for a more assertive Japan while strengthening military ties with the United States, has died. He was 101. The office of his son, Hirofumi Nakasone, confirmed that Nakasone died Friday at a Tokyo hospital where he was recently treated. As a World War II navy officer, Yasuhiro Nakasone witnessed the depths of his country’s utter defeat and devastation. Four decades later, he presided over Japan in the 1980s at the pinnacle of its economic success. In recent years, he lobbied for revision of the war-renouncing U.S.-drafted constitution, a longtime cause that no postwar leader has achieved to date. FILE – U.S. President Ronald Reagan, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone attend their meeting at the Cipriani Hotel, in Venice, June 8, 1987. From US critic to ally Nakasone began his political career as a fiery nationalist denouncing the U.S. occupation that lasted from 1945 to 1952, but by the 1980s he was a stalwart ally of America known for his warm relations with President Ronald Reagan. He boosted defense spending, tried to revise Japan’s U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution and drew criticism for his …

Donald Trump faces a process that could end with his removal as President of the United States. Impeachment hearings underway now in the House of Representatives are just the start of what is prescribed by the U.S. Constitution. In today’s installment of American Impeachment, VOA’s Steve Redisch has an overview of what is taking place.   …

A former Buddhist monk has died in eastern Tibet after setting himself on fire this week to protest China’s repressive rule, a spokesperson for the monastery told VOA Tibetan Service. Yonten, a 24-year-old former monk at Kirti Monastery in Amdo Ngaba, in the western China province of Sichuan, carried out his self-immolation Tuesday in Meruma township, spokesperson Kanyag Tsering said. He said China had imposed restrictions in the area, including cellphone use, slowing the gathering and dissemination of information about the incident. “We have no further information on whether the body of the deceased has been handed over to the family or not since all channels are now blocked,” the monastery said in a statement. There have been 156 self-immolations across Tibet over the past decade, 44 of which took place in Amdo Ngaba. Once a monk, Yonten later disrobed and settled as a nomad. Meruma township has been the scene of multiple self-immolation protests, most recently in March 2018. In a statement, Free Tibet communications manager John Jones said, “Yonten lived his life under occupation. In his 24 years, he would have seen Chinese police and military suppress protests in his homeland, seen his culture, language and religion come …

NATO leaders are preparing to gather in London for a two-day meeting Tuesday to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the alliance, but growing tensions among members could overshadow the celebrations. The war in Syria and the ongoing Russian threat will serve as the backdrop to the summit. Fellow NATO members the United States and Turkey came close to confrontation in northern Syria last month, rattling the alliance. “The position of Turkey in the North Atlantic alliance is a difficult one,” said Jonathan Eyal of the Royal United Services Institute in London in an interview with VOA this week. “Turkey’s decision to become involved in military operations in the Middle East against the wishes of most of its allies, including the United States, [and] Turkey’s decision to buy Russian military equipment … [are] riling with many countries in Europe.” NATO members say it’s better to have Turkey inside than outside the alliance. “NATO is about European security, it’s not about coordinating policies in the Middle East,” Eyal said. Where American troops once kept the peace, Russian forces now patrol northern Syria. The U.S. withdrawal has fueled concerns over America’s commitment to NATO. French President Emmanuel Macron recently called …