A supporter of Iraqi anti-government demonstrators was gunned down in Baghdad, a police source said Sunday, the fourth backer of the protest movement to be killed in two weeks. Mohammed al-Doujaili, 24, was shot in the back near the Tahrir Square protest hub on Saturday night, the police source said. Another man who was with him was wounded in the same attack, and al-Doujaili died of his wounds at a Baghdad hospital Sunday morning, relatives said. Doujaili, who helped distribute food to protesters encamped in Tahrir Square, was buried in Baghdad’s Shiite-dominated district of Sadr City. He is the fourth protester to be killed by unidentified assailants over the past two weeks. Father of five Ali al-Lami was shot and killed by several bullets to the head earlier this week and prominent civil society activist Fahem al-Tai was killed in a drive-by shooting in Iraq’s shrine city of Karbala. In one particularly gruesome case, the bruised body of 19-year-old Zahra Ali was found on December 2 outside her family home in Baghdad, hours after she had gone missing. Iraq’s capital and its Shiite-majority south have been gripped by more than two months of rallies against corruption, poor public services and …

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, a thorn in the side of China, saw her approval rating plunge to 24% about a year ago. Now the leader who continues to resist Beijing enjoys a more than 55% approval rating – a month before she stands for reelection. The 63-year-old law scholar made the comeback on tailwinds from the Hong Kong mass protests since June and support from the government of U.S. President Donald Trump as he resists China for his own reasons, people watching the election campaign say. The protests and Trump effectively confirm Tsai’s agenda of minimizing Beijing’s influence over Taiwan, they say. “Tsai Ing-wen’s actions of rejecting mainland China, blocking mainland China and rejecting exchanges with mainland China have suddenly changed from being questioned by a lot of people to where some people think those actions might be safer in the short term,” said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei. Tsai, first elected in 2016, will go up for reelection January 11 against Han Kuo-yu, a southern Taiwan mayor backed by Taiwan’s more China-friendly Nationalist Party. China and Taiwan have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, …

With no end in sight to the Zimbabwe doctors’ strike over salaries and poor working conditions, desperate patients have looked to church-run mission hospitals for much-needed healthcare. Karanda Mission Hospital, about 200 kilometers north of the capital Harare, is overwhelmed by patients seeking treatment. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Mount Darwin, Zimbabwe. …

Police fired tear gas against protesters in Hong Kong before meetings Monday between the territory’s leader and Communist Party officials in Beijing, ending a lull in what have become regular clashes between riot squads and demonstrators. Police said they fired the choking gas after unrest erupted Sunday night in the Mongkok district of Kowloon. Protesters threw bricks at officers and tossed traffic cones at a police vehicle, police said. They also set fires, blocked roads and smashed traffic lights with hammers. Video footage showed truncheon-wielding riot officers squirting pepper spray at a man in a group of journalists and ganging up to beat and manhandle him. The violence and scattered confrontations in shopping malls earlier Sunday, where police also squirted pepper spray and made several arrests, ended what had been a lull of a couple of weeks in clashes between police and protesters. The uptick in tension came as Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam was in Beijing on Monday to brief President Xi Jinping on the situation in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. Hong Kong’s protest movement erupted in June against now-scrapped legislation that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited for trial in Communist Party-controlled courts in mainland China. …

The top US representative in talks with North Korea on Monday slammed Pyongyang’s demands as hostile and unnecessary as its end-of-year deadline approaches, but held open the door for fresh negotiations. North Korea has insisted that Washington offer it new concessions by the end of 2019 with the process largely deadlocked since the collapse of a summit in Hanoi in February. Pyongyang has issued a series of increasingly strident declarations in recent weeks, and US special representative Stephen Biegun told reporters in Seoul: “We have heard them all.” “It is regrettable that the tone of these statements towards the United States, the Republic of Korea, Japan and our friends in Europe have been so hostile and negative and so unnecessary,” he said. “The US does not have a deadline, we have a goal.” Pyongyang has said that if Washington fails to make it an acceptable offer, it will adopt a so-far-unspecified “new way.” It has also carried out a series of static tests at its Sohae rocket facility this month, after a number of weapons launches in recent weeks, some of them described as ballistic missiles by Japan and others — which Pyongyang is banned from testing under UN sanctions. …

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement is gaining support among South Korean college students, who see some overlap with their country’s own struggle for democracy in the 1980s. In recent months, Seoul has seen regular rallies with hundreds of students, many wearing black in solidarity with the Hong Kong protesters and carrying signs reading “Stand for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong” and “Stop Police Brutality.” “South Korea experienced political oppression in the 1980s and so does Hong Kong in recent years,” says Ahn Ji-sun, a junior political science major at Sogang University in Seoul, who organized a group to support Hong Kong’s democratization. The protests have led to conflicts between South Korean students and those from mainland China, who view the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters as violent radicals. At many universities in Seoul, mainland Chinese students have vandalized “Lennon Walls,” which contain messages of support for the Hong Kong protesters. In some cases, Chinese students have attacked their South Korean classmates and accused them of interfering in China’s internal affairs. “Many posters got damaged, and we also discovered that the personal profiles of protesters are spread over the private chat rooms of Chinese students,” Ahn said. South Korean college students and activists …

The leader of a prominent rights group in Pakistan has welcomed the United States’ decision this week to sanction a former Pakistani law enforcement official for human rights violations. Manzoor Pashteen, the leader of Pakistan’s Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) , which advocates for Pashtun rights and an end to military in Pashtun-populated regions in the country, told VOA that his movement welcomes the decision and looks up to the U.S. for “upholding justice.” “The decision by U.S. Treasury Department to blacklist Rao Anwar and place economic sanctions on him was a good step. Pashtuns feel that America will take steps to uphold justice,” Pashteen told VOA. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) last week took action against 18 individuals from six countries, sanctioning them for their roles in human rights abuses. Sanctioned Among those sanctioned was Anwar, a retired Pakistani police officer. “Rao Anwar is designated for being responsible for or complicit in or having directly or indirectly engaged in serious human rights abuse,” the U.S. Treasury said in a statement released on International Human Rights Day, December 10. In reaction to Anwar’s designation, Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) said this week that he is …

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is holding a first-ever forum in an effort to drum up international support for tens of millions of people displaced by war, poverty, repression and other woes. The Global Refugee Forum, taking place December 16-18 in Geneva, will seek to gather leaders from governments, business and civil society to work together to find solutions for the unprecedented number of people — more than 70 million, according to the U.N. — displaced in their home countries or abroad. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more. …

The full House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on two articles of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee. It is likely that Donald Trump will become the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, with a Senate trial expected next year. Democrats have accused him of abusing the power of the presidency by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers and of blocking Congress to investigate. Trump and his supporters insist he did nothing wrong. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …

Leaders of the G5 Sahel nations held summit talks in Niamey Sunday, after the death last week of 71 Niger soldiers in a jihadist attack, calling for closer cooperation and international support in the battle against the Islamist threat. Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the regional G5 group, called for a minute’s silence for the victims of Tuesday’s attack at a military camp in Inates, near the Mali border. “These endless attacks carried out by terrorist groups in our region remind us not only of the gravity of the situation, but also the urgency for us to work more closely together,” said Kabore. “The terrorist threat against the Sahel countries is getting worse,” said Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou, the host of the summit. The attacks were aimed not just at military targets but increasingly “civilian populations, notably traditional local leaders”. Earlier four of the five Sahel leaders paid homage at the graves of 71 Niger military personnel killed. Kabore and Issoufou attended along with Mali’s Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, Chad’s Idriss Deby Itno for the short ceremony at an air base in Niamey. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the assault, …

Human remains discovered last month at a farm outside the city of Guadalajara have been confirmed as belonging to at least 50 people, authorities in Mexico’s west-central state of Jalisco reported. Jalisco state prosecutors said recovery work at the farm in Tlajomulco de Zuniga, which began Nov. 22 after the initial discovery, concluded Friday as experts determined there was no more evidence to be gathered from the scene. The office said in a Saturday statement that there was a “preliminary” indication that the remains corresponded to 50 individuals. Prosecutors said they had identified 13 people so far — 12 male and one female, all of whom were previously listed as missing. The state forensic sciences institute will seek to determine the sex of the rest and cause of death. The investigation continues, with the goal of identifying more victims as well as “those responsible for this crime which gravely harms society,” the statement said. The state is home to Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s bloodiest and most ruthless drug cartels. In July, Jalisco prosecutors announced 21 bodies had been found in excavations in the yard of a house near Guadalajara. In May, authorities discovered the remains of at least …

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday threatened to close two strategic military bases used by the United States in Turkey, after Washington warned of sanctions over Ankara buying Russian arms. “If necessary, we can close Incirlik and we can close Kurecik,” Erdogan on the pro-government A Haber television channel. The two bases sit on Turkey’s southwest coast, near the border with Syria. Erdogan has regularly raised this possibility in the past, at times of tension between the two countries. The U.S. Air Force uses the airbase at Incirlik for raids on positions held by the  so-called Islamic State group in Syria. The Kurecik base houses a major NATO radar station. FILE – U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II fighter jets (foreground) are pictured at Incirlik Air Base, near Adana, Turkey, Dec. 11, 2015. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu raised the issue of the bases last week. Responding to the U.S. threat of fresh sanctions, he warned that their closure could be “put on the table”. Turkey faces U.S. sanctions over its decision to buy the Russian S-400 missile defense system, despite warnings from Washington. And on Friday, Turkey summoned the U.S. ambassador after the U.S. Senate followed the lower house …

Libya has two governments. They are at war with each other and both have TV news channels. On a channel supporting the Libyan National Army, which controls Libya’s east, a presenter in military fatigues on Sunday sat in front of pictures of soldiers, weapons, and a view the Libyan capital. “We are getting inside Tripoli,” he said. On a channel supporting the Government of National Accord, which holds the west, including the capital Tripoli, a spokesperson proclaimed the assault had failed, and eastern forces remained in the suburbs. “They were not able to enter,” he said. A soldier near Tripoli, Libya, runs as a mortar hits a nearby berm, Dec. 2019 (Courtesy – GNA soldiers) Tripoli residents say besides the dangers, ongoing battles have kept Libya in a state of financial crisis and stymied attempts to develop new businesses or attract investors. On a break from the frontlines to celebrate a wedding in Tripoli, Mohammad Bashir, a soldier with the GNA, said the fighting had subsided by Sunday morning, but nine months of war have already had a lasting impact on his life. “This war has kidnapped my youth,” he said. International supporters The LNA is supported by the United …

Protests in New Delhi against a controversial citizenship law turned violent Sunday when police entered a university campus and used tear gas against students demonstrating. Students at Jamia Millia Islamia University reported police firing tear gas in their library and beating up students with batons before sealing all campus gates. At least two dozen students are currently being treated at a Delhi hospital. Student organizers blamed outsiders for the violence, saying in a statement that they only endorsed peaceful, nonviolent protests. Earlier in the day, three buses in New Delhi were set on fire. Police said six officers were injured in the melee. At least 15 metro stations in Delhi were closed on Sunday as a result of violent protests. Activists on Twitter have called for protests outside the police station, spreading information on how to travel despite the closures. As many as a thousand protesters are said to be in the streets Sunday evening. Yogendra Yadav, prominent activist and leader of Swaraj India, said 125 injured people had been brought to two hospitals near Jamia and 44 students have been detained at two nearby police stations.#JamiaProtest LIVE: https://t.co/aLz74785Lf — scroll.in (@scroll_in) December 15, 2019 The protests in the capital …

Chinese state television pulled the scheduled live broadcast of a football (soccer) game following one of the players’ comments online criticizing the government’s treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority. China’s CCTV was scheduled to broadcast the football game between Arsenal and Manchester United, but instead decided to show a taped game between Tottenham Hotspur and the Wolverhampton Wanderers. Arsenal footballer Mesut Ozil posted on Twitter Friday comments condemning China’s crackdown on Muslim minorities in the Western region, while also criticizing other Muslim countries for not speaking up against abuses. “Korans are being burnt…Mosques are being shut down…Muslim schools are being banned…Religious scholars are being killed one by one…Brothers are forcefully being sent to camps,” Ozil wrote in Turkish on his Twitter account Friday. #HayırlıCumalarDoğuTürkistan 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/dJgeK4KSIk — Mesut Özil (@MesutOzil1088) December 13, 2019 The U.S., the United Nations and various human rights groups have accused China of detaining an estimated one million ethnic Muslims in so-called “re-education camps” in the remote Western province of Xinjiang in an attempt to force them to renounce their religion and heritage. Chia’s state-run Global Times said on its Twitter account Sunday that CCTV made the decision to pull the game after Ozil’s comments had …

Hours before the official result was complete for Britain’s general election, U.S. Democrats on the other side of the Atlantic were taking to social-media sites to draw quick conclusions on what Labour’s catastrophic defeat might mean for them and the electoral challenge they face with the 2020 White House contest. Forewarned by an exit poll, which suggested Britain’s storied Labour Party was heading for its worst election rebuff since 1935, one of the first Democrats to hit the send button was Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor to Barack Obama. He tweeted: “There are a lot of factors that went into this massive defeat, but progressives have to learn from them to do better on both sides of the Atlantic.” But that begs the crucial question: what lessons? Britain’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is seen near his home in London, Britain, December 14, 2019. REUTERS/Toby Melville On the British side of the Atlantic, Labour politicians can’t agree about what went wrong for them in what’s likely to be seen as the most consequential British election for a quarter-of-a-century, with some, including defeated party leader Jeremy Corbyn, insisting that the radical socialist policies he advocated, including the nationalization …

Officials in Afghanistan confirmed Sunday the United States plans to withdraw thousands of troops from the country, insisting the move stemmed from a mutual understanding between the two allied nations. Sources in Kabul went on to tell VOA the drawdown process is expected to start in three months, though no official confirmation was available immediately about the timeline. On Saturday, U.S. media reported that President Donald Trump’s administration intends to announce as early as later this week plans to reduce the number of American forces in Afghanistan by around 4,000. A spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani insisted the troop reduction plan is not tied to the ongoing peace negotiations between Washington and the Taliban insurgency aimed at ending the 18-year-old war. “The matter regarding the withdrawal of 4,000 troops had already been agreed upon in principle between the governments of Afghanistan and the United States,” Dawa Khan Meenapal told VOA. He shared no further details. Currently around 13,000 U.S. troops are deployed to Afghanistan who are conducting counterterrorism missions in addition to advising and training Afghan security forces battling the Taliban. Trump had told an American broadcaster (Fox News Radio) in a recent interview he might reduce the number …

The rancor from the imminent impeachment of President Donald Trump played out on Sunday’s news talk shows in the U.S., with no political agreement on the merits of the case against him. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is set by mid-week to make the Republican president only the third American leader to be impeached in the country’s 243-year history, even though his conviction at a trial next month in the Republican-majority Senate and removal from office remains unlikely. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., gavels a recess of a House Judiciary Committee markup of the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. “We will have done our duty in the House,” Congressman Jerrold Nadler told ABC’s “This Week” show, two days after the House Judiciary Committee he chairs approved two articles of impeachment against Trump, sending the allegations to the full House, with a Wednesday vote possible.  The Democratic-majority panel, over unified Republican opposition, accused Trump of abusing the power of the presidency by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and then obstructing congressional review of his actions by refusing to turn over thousands of pages of documents …

More than 2,000 Government, U.N., and business leaders as well as representatives from civil society and humanitarian agencies are gathering in Geneva to attend the first-ever Global Refugee Forum. The three-day event, which opens Monday, aims to generate new approaches and long-term commitments to help refugees and the communities that host them. Organizers of the Forum will be rolling out the red carpet for heads of State from Germany, Turkey, Pakistan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Somalia as well as other prominent individuals who will be arriving for this seminal event. Much is at stake. More than 70 million people worldwide are forcibly displaced by war, conflict and persecution. Among them are over 25 million refugees, who have fled across international borders and are unable to return to their homes.   The U.N. refugee agency says more than two thirds of all refugees worldwide came from just five countries: Syria (6.7 million), Afghanistan (2,7 million), South Sudan (2.3 million), Myanmar (1.1 million), and Somalia (0.9 million).  It says the latest figures show Turkey has hosted the largest number of refugees, with 3,7 million, mainly those who have fled Syria. The UNHCR says it hopes this gathering this week in Geneva will prove …

The Office of the U.N.’s top human rights official is urging India to scrap its new Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which it says discriminates against Muslims. Violent protests erupted in the Indian states of Assam and Tripura in the wake of last week’s passage of India’s new citizenship law, killing three people and Injuring many others, including police officers. The U.N. human rights office says it deplores the government’s brutal crackdown on those protesting the enactment of the law, which it calls fundamentally discriminatory.  The amended legislation grants citizenship rights to six religious minorities fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. But human rights spokesman, Jeremy Laurence, says the law does not extend the same protection to Muslims. “The amended law would appear to undermine the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in India’s constitution and India’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention for the elimination of Racial Discrimination, to which India is a state party,” he said.  Laurence says India’s Citizenship Act could violate these international covenants, which prohibit racial, ethnic or religious discrimination.   “Although India’s broader naturalization laws remain in place, these amendments will have a discriminatory effect on people’s …

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has tweeted a photo of herself sitting on the floor of a German train surrounded by lots of bags – an image that has drawn plenty of comment online about the performance of German railways. Thunberg posted the tweet late Saturday with the comment “traveling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I’m finally on my way home!” Traveling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I’m finally on my way home! pic.twitter.com/ssfLCPsR8o — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 14, 2019 Some Twitter users pitied the 16-year-old Swedish activist for not being able to get a proper seat on the train for the long ride home from Madrid, where she was attending the U.N. climate change conference. Others wished her a safe trip home after months of traveling by trains and boats to different climate events in Europe and the United States. Thunberg doesn’t fly on planes because it’s considered harmful to the climate. Last week she was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for her efforts to prod government and others to take faster actions in fighting climate change. German railways Deutsche Bahn, which used to be famous for its punctuality, has come under fire in recent …

Attackers in northern Lebanon set fire to the offices of two major political parties on Sunday, the state-run National News Agency said. The assaults came just hours after the capital Beirut was rocked by the most violent government crackdown on protesters since nationwide demonstrations began two months ago. Lebanese security forces fired rubber bullets, tear gas and used water cannons throughout the night to disperse anti-government protesters from the city center – the epicenter of the protest movement in Beirut – and around parliament. The overnight confrontations in Beirut left more than 130 people injured, according to the Red Cross and the Lebanese Civil Defense. In the northern Akkar district on Sunday, attackers broke the windows and torched the local office for resigned Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s political party in the town of Kharibet al-Jindi. In a separate attack in Akkar district, assailants stormed the local office of the largest party in parliament, affiliated with President Michel Aoun and headed by Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil. The party said the contents of the office in the town of Jedidat al-Juma had also been smashed and burned. Lebanon is facing one of its worst economic crises in decades, and the protesters accuse …

Britain’s main opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn apologized Sunday for waging a disastrous campaign that handed Prime Minister Boris Johnson a mandate to take the UK out of the EU next month. But the veteran socialist defended his far-left platform and blamed the media for helping relegate his century-old party to its worst performance since before World War II. “I will make no bones about it. The election result on Thursday was a body blow for everyone who so desperately needs real change in our country,” Corbyn wrote in the Sunday Mirror newspaper. “I wanted to unite the country that I love but I’m sorry that we came up short and I take my responsibility for it.” Thursday’s snap general election turned into a re-run of the 2016 EU membership referendum in which Johnson championed the Brexit cause. Johnson now commands an 80-vote majority in the 650-seat House of Commons  — a margin last enjoyed by the late Tory icon Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. A sombre but combative Corbyn said Friday that he will step aside once Labour completes a period of “reflection” about its mistakes. The party is expected to have a new leader in place before England votes …

Boko Haram jihadists gunned down 19 cattle herders Saturday in northeast Nigeria, civilian militia sources and residents told AFP on Sunday. Ethnic Fulani herders, besieged by a spate of armed attacks targeting their cattle, pursued Boko Haram, sparking a fierce gunfight outside Fuhe village, near Ngala close to the border with Cameroon. “The insurgents killed 19 of the herdsmen in the fight,” anti-jihadist militia leader Umar Kachalla told AFP. Bodies of the slain herders were brought to the police by militiamen, Kachalla said.   The herders had earlier repelled an attack by Boko Haram fighters who invaded the village to steal livestock, killing one of the militants, Mada said. The herders then decided to pursue the jihadists and fight them “once and for all”, Mada said, but were overwhelmed. “The herdsmen were subdued by the better armed Boko Haram gunmen,” he said. Jihadists then returned to Fuhe village and burnt homes and food supplies while herds fled, according to Ngala resident Abubakar Yusuf, who saw the dead bodies at the police station.   Boko Haram has increasingly targeted farmers, herders and loggers, accusing them of spying and passing information to the military and the local militia fighting them. They have …