Apple says it will reevaluate how it identifies “disputed borders” after receiving criticism for displaying Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula as part of Russia on maps and weather apps for Russian users. 
 
Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told Reuters on Friday that the U.S. technology giant was “taking a deeper look at how we handle disputed borders.” 
 
Muller said Apple made the change for Russian users because of a new law that went into effect inside Russia and that it had not made any changes to its maps outside the country. 
Review of law
 
“We review international law as well as relevant U.S. and other domestic laws before making a determination in labeling on our maps and make changes if required by law,” she told Reuters. 
 
Muller added that Apple “may make changes in the future as a result” of its reevaluation of the policy, without being specific. 
 
Russian and Ukrainian embassies in the United States did not immediately return requests for comment. 
 
When using the apps from the United States, Ukraine, and in parts of Europe, no international borders are shown around the peninsula. 
 
After the reports surfaced of the appearance of Crimea as part of Russia, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told RFE/RL that it had sent a letter to Apple explaining the situation in Crimea and demanding that it correct the peninsula’s designation. 
 
It also said on Twitter that “let’s all remind Apple that #CrimeaIsUkraine and it is under Russian occupation — not its sovereignty.” 
 
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystayko tweeted, “Apple, please, please, stick to high-tech and entertainment. Global politics is not your strong side.” 
Applause from Russia
 
Vasily Piskarev, who chairs the Russian State Duma’s Committee on Security and Corruption Control, welcomed Apple’s move, saying, “They have brought [their services] in line with Russian law.” 
 
“The error with displaying Crimean cities on the weather app has been eliminated,” Piskarev told reporters. 
 
Competitor Google Maps has designated Crimea differently over the years depending on the user’s location, listing it as Russian for Russian users and Ukrainian for most others. 
 
“We make every effort to objectively depict the disputed regions, and where we have local versions of Google Maps, we follow local legislation when displaying names and borders,” a Google spokesperson told Tech Crunch magazine. 
Troops entered in 2014
 
Russia took control of Crimea in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. 
 
Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. 
 
The international community does not recognize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, and the United States and European Union have slapped sanctions on Russia over its actions against Ukraine. 
 Reuters and the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service contributed to this report. 

…

Schools and universities have been shut in parts of Iran, including the capital, Tehran, because of high levels of pollution, state media reported Saturday. 
 
The decision was announced late Friday by Deputy Governor Mohammad Taghizadeh, after a meeting of an emergency committee for air pollution. 
 
“Due to increased air pollution, kindergartens, preschools and schools, universities, and higher education institutes of Tehran province will be closed,” Taghizadeh was quoted by official government news agency IRNA as saying. 
 
Schools in the capital will also be closed Sunday, Taghizadeh said. 
 
“Having examined the index of pollutants in Tehran … it was decided for all schools to be closed tomorrow in Tehran province, except for the counties of Firuzkuh, Damavand and Pardis,” he said. 
 
The young, elderly and people with respiratory illnesses were warned to stay indoors, and all sports activities were suspended Saturday. 
 
Tehran has suffered from dangerous levels of pollution and smog since mid-November. 
 
Schools were also closed in the northern province of Alborz and in the central province of Esfahan, IRNA reported, citing officials. 
 
Other areas where schools were shut included the northeastern city of Mashhad, the northwestern city of Orumiyeh and Qom, south of Tehran. 

…

A high-ranking Taliban official has been killed in clashes with security forces in Jowzjan province in Afghanistan’s north, a local official said Saturday. 
 
Qari Nuriddin and his four bodyguards were killed in the district of Mengajik, where the militant group has a strong presence, provincial government spokesman Abdul Maaruf Azar told RFE/RL. 
 
Four other militants were wounded in the clashes that erupted overnight, the spokesman said. 
 
There was no immediate comment from the Taliban. 
 
Azar also confirmed local reports that more than 25 members of the Taliban in Mengajik had recently cut ties with the militant group to return to civilian life. 
 
Azar told RFE/RL that all of them were young men from the Mengajik district. 
 
Most of them had left for Iran and Turkey in search of work, Azar said. He didn’t provide further details. 

…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said people convicted of terrorism offenses should not be allowed out of prison early after it was revealed the London Bridge attacker was released from jail last year before the end of his sentence.

Wearing a fake suicide vest and wielding knives, Usman Khan went on the rampage on Friday afternoon at a conference on criminal rehabilitation beside London Bridge.
“I think that the practice of automatic, early release where you cut a sentence in half and let really serious, violent offenders out early simply isn’t working, and you’ve some very good evidence of how that isn’t working, I am afraid, with this case,” Johnson said on Saturday.

…

The U.N. refugee agency plans to cut the number of migrants staying at an overcrowded transit center in Libya’s capital, a spokesman said Saturday.
Libya is a major waypoint for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East to Europe.
“The situation is very difficult, and we do not have the resources” because the center in Tripoli is at about twice its capacity, with some 1,200 migrants, Charlie Yaxley, a UNHCR spokesman, told The Associated Press.
The UNHCR has asked those refugees not registered with the agency to leave the European Union-funded Gathering and Departure Facility, offering an assistance package that includes cash for an initial two months.
“You will not be considered for evacuation or resettlement if you stay at the GDF,” the agency warned the migrants, according to a document obtained by the AP. It added that those seeking registration with the agency could only do so “outside” the facility.
The UNHCR said it would phase out food distribution for the unregistered migrants, including dozens of tuberculosis patients, from Jan. 1.
Yaxley said the agency also offered to facilitate returning the migrants to their home country or to a country they previously registered as asylum-seekers.
Migrants, however, decried the move, fearing they would end up at detention centers or at the mercy of human traffickers.
“The migrants are reluctant and have their concerns about leaving the GDF,” one person seeking shelter at the facility said, who spoke on condition of anonymity for his safety. The surrounding areas of Tripoli have seen heavy fighting between armed factions since April.
The self-styled Libyan National Army, led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, launched an offensive to capture the capital city in April, clashing with an array of militias loosely allied with the U.N.-supported but weak government there.
The fighting has stalled in recent weeks, with both sides dug in and shelling one another along Tripoli’s southern reaches. They have also carried out airstrikes and drone attacks.
In July, an airstrike hit a detention center for migrants outside Tripoli, killing more than 50 migrants held there. The Tripoli-based authorities blamed the LNA for the airstrikes. The LNA, however, said it was targeting a nearby military site, not the detention center.
After the airstrike, hundreds of former detainees made their way into the GDF, the agency said. They were followed by another group of around 400 people from Abu Salim detention center in late October, as well as up to 200 people from urban areas, the UNCHR said.
The gathering point, which was opened a year ago, has capacity for around 600 people.
“We hope that the GDF will be able to return to its original function as a transit facility for the most acutely vulnerable refugees, so we are able to evacuate them to safety,” said UNHCR’s Chief of Mission for Libya Jean-Paul Cavalieri.
There are some 40,000 refugees and asylum-seekers living in urban areas across Libya, some of whom are extremely vulnerable, face abuse in militia-run detention centers, and are in desperate need of support, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Separately, the Libyan coast guard said Saturday it intercepted at least 205 Europe-bound migrants off the western town of Zawiya. The African migrants, who included 158 men, 33 women and 14 children, were given humanitarian assistance and were taken to the detention center in Tajoura.
Libya’s detention centers are rife with abuse and Europe’s policy of supporting the coast guard has come under growing criticism.

…

The search and rescue operation for earthquake survivors in Albania has ended, Prime Minister Edi Rama said Saturday.
The small town of Thumane, experienced the highest death toll from Tuesday’s quake with 26 people killed, six of whom belonged to one family, and all but one under age 30. They were buried Friday.
In the port city of Durres – 30 kilometers west of the capital, Tirana — the quake killed 24.  One person also died in Kurbin.
In all, 51 people died, including seven children. Nine-hundred were injured.  More than 5,000 people are without shelter; and 1,200 buildings were destroyed in the 6.4-magnitude quake and the aftershocks that followed.  
 

Relatives surround some of the coffins during the funeral of six members of the Cara family, killed during an earthquake that shook Albania, in Thumane, Albania, Nov. 29, 2019.Seismologist Rexhep Koci told VOA that while there is the likelihood for more aftershocks, but they would be weaker.
Neighboring countries provide assistance
The European Union sent crews to help with search and rescue immediately following the quake and now the Albanian government has asked for experts to help assess the damage.
 

Volunteers distribute food at a makeshift camp in Durres, after an earthquake shook Albania, November 29, 2019.EU Ambassador to Albania Luigi Soreca said Friday that the European Union and its member states are standing with Albania and working nonstop to provide assistance “in this very difficult moment.”
 
“It is a week of deep sorrow and tragedy for Albania,” Soreca said in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences go once again to the Albanian people and especially to the families, friends and communities of those who have lost their lives.”
More than 200 military troops from Albania, Kosovo, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, France, Turkey, Switzerland, Romania, North Macedonia, the EU and the United States, participated in the search and rescue operation.
People spontaneously came from Kosovo, operating mobile kitchens, gathering donations and opening their homes. About 500 homeless Albanians are staying in a camp set up by Kosovo’s government in the city of Prizren. On Friday alone, individuals and businesses from Kosovo delivered 100 tons of much needed necessities.
Remembering victims
Tirana residents turned out in the city center to honor the victims, placing candles in a makeshift memorial near the statue of Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg.

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Vigil for quake victims in TiranaThe state of emergency declared Wednesday for Durres and Thumane was extended to the heavily damaged town of Lac. Prime Minister Rama said he made the decision after opposition leader Lulzim Basha suggested it. Rama appeared to put on hold the acrimony often on display between the two political rivals.
“In this case, our concerns and ideas converge,” Rama said, inviting the opposition to participate in the Committee for Earthquake Relief.
 
For Rama, the tragedy hit close to home as his office confirmed that among the dead was his son Gregor’s fiance, Kristi Reci, whose entire family — both parents and her brother — died in Durres.

A rescue dog is seen on a collapsed building in Durres, after an earthquake shook Albania, November 29, 2019.Physician Shkelqime Ladi said doctors are on hand to help with immediate needs.
 
“We are focusing more on the psychological aspect of the affected. Their psychological state is aggravated,” she told VOA in Lac.
 
The earthquake struck two days before Albania’s 107th independence day. There was no celebration, but a show of solidarity gave solemnity to the day.
 
Albanian President Ilir Meta and Prime Minister Rama, who have been fighting bitterly over political matters, appeared together in Vlora Thursday.
Independence Day coincided this year with the U.S. Thanksgiving Day, and many Albanian Americans rallied to collect donations, holding several fundraisers to help one of the poorest countries in Europe.
 
“I am so heartbroken for my people back home, for those who have lost lives and loved ones,” New York City Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, an Albanian American, told VOA.
 
Marko Kepi, of the Albanian American organization Albanian Roots, organized a fundraiser that raised close to $1 million in less than a day.
 
“This fundraiser is simply to help those who have lost their homes and to help those families who lost their loved ones, do whatever we can so they can have some sort of peace of mind, that they are not alone, they have support and they are not going to be left out in the street,” he said.
Armand Mero reported from Tirana, Ilirian Agolli reported from Durres, Pellumb Sulo reported from Lac.
 
 

…

An unusually strong surge of U.S. Navy activity this month in the South China Sea shows that Washington is trying to teach China a set of rules for operating in contested waters, official statements and scholars say.
The Navy sent two ships into the Asian sea, which is increasingly controlled by China but disputed by five other countries, last week after China sent its first domestically produced aircraft carrier into the same waterway for research and testing.
 
Washington wants to show China that it must keep the economically and politically strategic sea open rather than trying to take tracts of it for exclusive use, the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the analysts say, although experts see little threat of armed conflict.
 
“The United States is trying now to shape and shift Chinese behavior, and that’s really hard,” said Stephen Nagy, senior associate politics and international studies professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.
 
“This comprehensive pressure is a way to start to shift the behavior of the Chinese in a way that doesn’t spiral out it of control into some kind of conflict,” he said.

China Calls on US to ‘Stop Flexing Muscles’ in South China Sea
China claims almost all the energy-rich waters of the South
China Sea, where it has established military outposts on
artificial islands

 Spike in naval presence
 
The Chinese aircraft carrier passed through the Taiwan Strait November 17 to conduct research and “routine training” in the “relevant waters of the South China Sea,” Beijing’s official Xinhua News Agency said a day later, citing a People’s Liberation Army spokesperson.
 
The carrier caught attention around Asia and in Washington  because it’s China’s second carrier overall and the first it has built on its own. China seldom announces it has sent a carrier to the sea.
The U.S. Navy sent its two warships to the sea on November 20 and 21, it said in a statement. It described both missions as “freedom of navigation operations,” without giving details about what either ship did.

 
The USS Gabrielle Giffords, a  littoral combat ship, approached Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, the statement said. China has developed and occupied the reef for its own use, including military installations.  The second U.S. ship, the USS Wayne E. Meyer, a destroyer,
 sailed near the Paracel Islands, a chain controlled by China but that control is  disputed by Vietnam.
 
The U.S. Navy usually sends one ship at a time, with intervals of a month or so.
 
Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam dispute all or parts of China’s claims to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea that stretches from Hong Kong south to Borneo. They prize the sea for its fisheries, energy reserves and shipping lanes.
 
International attention has fallen on China over the past decade because it keeps the strongest armed forces among the six claimants and maintains the most advanced infrastructure, such as military aircraft hangars,  among the sea’s hundreds of tiny islets. Beijing cites historical records to back its claims.
 Trying to show China
 
Beijing dismissed a 2016 ruling against it by a tribunal constituted under the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague over the South China Sea  world arbitration ruling that asked it to follow international maritime laws.
 

FILE – Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this video image taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the U.S. Navy, May 21, 2015.The November 20 U.S. mission was to show that Mischief Reef as a low-tide islet is not “entitled to a territorial sea,” meaning exclusive use of surrounding waters, under international law, the Navy’s statement said.
 
By going to the Paracels, Washington wanted to show “international law does not permit continental States, like China and the United States, to establish baselines around entire island groups,” it said.
 
U.S. officials will constantly monitor China at sea, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan. “It’s a continuous effort to show the U.S. is very much adhered to the freedom of navigation operations,” he said. He also said that China probably sent its newly commissioned aircraft carrier to the sea as a practice run rather than as any kind of provocation.
 
No one expects China to quit its maritime claims, but eventually China and the United States might reach a “shared understanding of rules of behavior” for disputed seas, Nagy said.
 
He compared that outcome to Cold War U.S.-Soviet understandings.
 
“The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows and demonstrate resolve through operational presence in the South China Sea and beyond,” Pacific Fleet spokesperson Rachel McMarr told VOA.

…

Retirees and secondary-school children came together Saturday in Hong Kong to protest what they see as China’s creeping interference in Hong Kong since the territory was returned to China by Britain in 1997.
“I have seen so much police brutality and unlawful arrests,” said a 71-year-old woman in Hong Kong’s Central district, who only gave her name as Ponn.  “This is not the Hong Kong I know.”  
The young and the elderly listened to pro-democracy activists in the city’s Chater Garden, one of several planned weekend rallies.

The demonstrations in Hong Kong have become increasingly violent over the months as protesters vented their frustrations.  
The mood in Hong Kong has changed, however, since local elections last week gave pro-democracy politicians a big win.
Some of the demonstrators Saturday carried American flags, in support of newly signed bi-partisan U.S. legislation supporting pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.    
Carrie Lam has called for the current mood to be maintained, but she has refused to give in to protesters’ demands, including free elections for her position and an independent investigation into alleged police brutality.
 

…

Officials in southern Afghanistan say a bomb explosion Saturday killed a senior military commander and wounded at least four other people, including a local journalist.
The Taliban swiftly took responsibility for the attack in Helmand province where most of the districts are either controlled or hotly contested by the insurgent group.
The provincial police spokesman told VOA that Gen. Zahir Gul Muqbil, the commander of an army border unit, was heading to the volatile Marjah district along with a group of journalists to visit an ongoing counterinsurgency operation when the convoy struck a roadside bomb.
Mohammad Zaman Hamdard said the slain general was directing the military operation. He added three security personnel and a reporter with Afghanistan’s mainstream Shamshad TV, were among the wounded. The journalist, Sardar Mohamad Sarwary, is said to have received multiple injures.
A Taliban statement said the attack also killed Muqbil’s two guards, though insurgent claims are often inflated.
Helmand is Afghanistan’s largest province and a major opium-poppy producing region.
International media watchdogs list Afghanistan as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.

…

Southern Africa is having one of the worst droughts in years with more than 40 million people expected to face food insecurity because of livestock and crop losses. Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe have declared this year’s drought an emergency. As Mqondisi Dube reports from Botswana’s village of Gamodubu, drought is so frequent that the government plans to stop calling it an emergency and instead make drought a part of the national budget.
 

…

They left Vietnam carrying dreams of small fortunes and the heavy burden of family expectations.
But they died in a box, and came home in coffins.
For the 39 migrants who set off from one of the poorest parts of their Southeast Asian country in search of work in Britain, the promise of riches outweighed the risks of the perilous journey through Latvian forests and Belgian streets, to the oxygen-starved truck container in which they met their fate.
The bodies were discovered in late October, in the back of a refrigerated lorry, just outside London.
On Saturday, the last bodies were repatriated to Vietnam.
Here are the stories of three of the victims.

FILE – Catholics attend a mass prayer for 39 people found dead in the back of a truck near London, at My Khanh parish in Nghe An province, Vietnam, Oct. 26, 2019. The last of the 39 migrants returned home Saturday.The lost boy
Teenager Nguyen Huy Hung had longed to see his parents, both of whom had left Vietnam to find work in Britain’s nail salons.
“It should have been a family reunion,” said a neighbor who declined to be identified. “His parents reached Britain safely and smoothly. They’d already paid smugglers to arrange his trip. “He was too young to suffer from tragedy.”
Hung was one of two 15-year-old victims. Raised in a small fishing village in Ha Tinh province, rooms in the family home had been rented out because most of his family, apart from Hung’s grandparents, had relocated overseas for work.
Hung flew from Hanoi to Russia on Aug. 26, his sister, who works in South Korea, said in a Facebook post days after news of the incident emerged.
By Oct. 6, he was in France, she wrote, but they lost contact Oct. 21, two days before the container was found.
The family had paid 10,000 pounds ($12,900) to get him to Europe, his sister told Reuters. They were to pay more money to people smugglers in Vietnam once he reached Britain, she added.
Hung’s body was repatriated Saturday.
But with no documentation and their hopes of being reunited with their son in Britain shattered, Hung’s parents will miss his funeral.

Nguyen Dinh Gia shows a barbell was used by his son Nguyen Dinh Luong, who was found dead in the back of British truck, at home in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam, Oct. 27, 2019.The carpenter
Rudimentary dumbbells made from rusted iron and mossy lumps of concrete are some of the few objects Nguyen Dinh Gia has to remind him of his son.
Luong was an honest boy, Gia said. At 20, Luong didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, and he had never had a girlfriend.
Luong loved sports, and his ramshackle weights. In October 2017, he left Ha Tinh province and found work in a nearby province as a carpenter, a skill he learned from his brother.
“He didn’t try to get into university,” Gia said. “Not many children around here do.”
From there, Luong traveled to Hanoi where he boarded a flight to Russia.
He stayed there until April 2018, when he drifted to Ukraine where he spent his nights with other migrants in a warehouse. He would contact his father sometimes, Gia said.
“I felt comfortable knowing he was safe, living there,” Gia added.
Weeks later, Luong left for Germany. He moved by road, but he walked for seven hours too.
“It was a one-day journey and everyone with him was Vietnamese,” Gia said.
There, Luong begged his father to pay for him to go to France, where he stayed until this October, when he decided to join friends working in Britain.
“I tried to persuade him not to go,” Gia said. “I told him the money he had earned in France was huge for the family.”
Gia had paid $18,000 to people smugglers to get his son that far. A few days before he boarded the doomed truck, Luong called home.
Gia said he was in good spirits.
Luong’s body was repatriated Wednesday and he was buried Thursday.
“After waiting for so many days, my son has finally arrived,” Gia said.

A relative looks at an image of Anna Bui Thi Nhung, who was found dead in the back of a British truck last month, at her home in Nghe An province, Vietnam Oct. 26, 2019.The dreamer
Bui Thi Nhung had been dreaming of Europe.
She hoped to be reunited with her boyfriend, in Britain.
Her Facebook posts in the days before she died showed her in Brussels, where she drank bubble tea on the steps of the old stock exchange.
Like the other two, she flew from Vietnam to Russia, then crossed into Latvia. From there she moved to Lithuania, then Poland, Germany, and Belgium, friends and neighbors told Reuters.
It wasn’t her first attempt.
“My life is full of ups and downs. I want to fly to Europe, but I can’t,” she wrote, four months earlier. 
“I don’t want to stay home, marry young and live penniless,” Nhung told friends who had suggested she stay in Vietnam and raise cattle instead. “I’ll try my luck next time.”
According to her friends, Nhung first wanted to find work in Germany, and spent a year in Vietnam learning to paint nails. “A girl has to have a job otherwise no one will marry her,” she wrote.
On her third try, Nhung finally made it to Europe. The trip ended in disaster.
“I’m about to start a new journey,” Nhung wrote to friends a few days before they lost contact with her.
Nhung’s friends have memorialized her Facebook page to keep her stories alive. Many of her friends are scattered overseas, working in Europe’s nail bars.
“Please don’t blame us,” one of her friends told Reuters. “Don’t blame the 39 victims in the back of the truck.”
Nhung made her final journey home on Saturday.
She was 19 years old.

…

An approaching typhoon is threatening to complicate the hosting by the Philippines of the largest biennial games in Southeast Asia, already marred by logistical foul-ups that the president vowed to investigate.
President Rodrigo Duterte is set to welcome Saturday the first few thousand athletes, coaches and sports officials from the region in an opening ceremony to be lit by digital fireworks after nightfall in a huge indoor arena in Bocaue town north of Manila. The expected VIPs include Brunei leader Hassanal Bolkiah, whose son is a player on the sultanate’s polo team.
More than 8,000 athletes and officials were expected to fly in for the games, which began in 1959 in the Thai capital of Bangkok with just a dozen sports. In the Philippines, 56 sports will be featured in 529 events, the largest number in the 11-nation competition so far, which will be held in more than 40 venues including in the traffic-choked capital of Manila.
About 27,000 police have been deployed to secure the 11-day games.

Philippines Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee Chief Opening Officer Ramon Suzara poses with the Southeast Asian Games torch and lantern during the Flame Handover Ceremony for the 30th Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Typhoon Kammuri
A slow-moving typhoon was bearing down in the Pacific and forecasters expect it to blow into the main northern Luzon island early next week. The main sporting venues in Clark and Subic, former U.S. military bases turned into popular leisure and commercial hubs north and northwest of Manila, are in or near Typhoon Kammuri’s path.
Kammuri was packing sustained winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 170 kph (106 mph) as of late Friday but could still strengthen, forecasters said. The prospect of it becoming a super typhoon was unlikely but cannot be ruled out.
“The contingency plan involves delay of the competition, the cancellation of competition,” Ramon Suzara, executive director of the organizing committee, said in a news conference. Indoor competitions could proceed in bad weather if power is not lost but the entry of spectators may be restricted, he said.
Terrible traffic, unfinished facilities
The threat posed by the typhoon comes after widely publicized complaints of athletes who flew in early for training and preliminary matches over long hours of waiting for shuttles at Manila’s airport, getting stuck in the chaotic traffic, food and hotel accommodation issues and unfinished facilities in the city.
An early football match between the men’s teams of Malaysia and Myanmar proceeded despite the absence of a functioning scoreboard at Manila’s Rizal Stadium, which opened in the 1930s but has undergone renovations, according to an Associated Press photographer who covered the match.
Thailand’s football team, which was pressed for time to train and could not afford to plod through Manila’s traffic jams to a stadium, trained on the streets one night instead, its coach was quoted in local news reports as saying.
Duterte and his close political ally, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, who heads the organizing committee, separately apologized for the troubles.
Funding criticized, inquiry promised
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief who supports Duterte’s anti-crime campaign, questioned the transfer of a huge amount of government funds to the organizing committee, which is a private foundation, comparing it to a past corruption scandal where state funds were funneled to nongovernment groups before allegedly being pocketed by some lawmakers.
Suzara denied there was any irregularity, saying government auditors scrutinized how money was spent. He blamed the monthslong delay in the passage earlier this year of the national budget for failure to complete the construction and renovation of some sports facilities on time.
Opposition Sen. Franklin Drilon questioned the propriety of spending about 50 million pesos (nearly $1 million) for the construction of a tower with a cauldron, which would be lit in flames during the games, saying the money for such extravagance could have been used to build classrooms for impoverished children.
“I ignore them because my stomach is titanium,” Suzara told the AP in an interview, explaining how he has endured criticism to focus on preparations.
Cayetano said certain groups opposed to Duterte were trying to sabotage the Philippines’ hosting of the games. He did not elaborate.
Duterte pledged to investigate the mess and Cayetano expressed readiness to face a Senate investigation after the games.
“There was a lot of money poured into this activity and I suppose that with that kind of money, you can run things smoothly,” Duterte said. But he admonished critics: “Do not create a firestorm now because we are in the thick of preparation. … I assure you I will investigate.”

…

Albanians began the week on a high note, as they prepared to celebrate the country’s Independence Day, and finished it in heartbreak, Friday burying loved ones who perished in the worst earthquake to hit the Balkan country in decades.
Forty-nine people died, including seven children ages 2 to 8, and 900 were injured; 5,200 people are without shelter; and 1,200 buildings were destroyed in the 6.4-magnitude quake Tuesday. The panic has been palpable as people refuse to go home. They also have been rattled by several aftershocks, including one that registered at 5.0.
Seismologist Rexhep Koçi told VOA that while there was the likelihood for more aftershocks, they would be increasingly weaker.
The port city of Durrës, 33 kilometers west of the capital, Tirana, saw the highest death toll, with 25 people killed. Farther north, in the small town of Thumanë, the quake killed 23 people, six of whom belonged to one family, and all but one younger than 30. They were buried Friday. One person also died in the nearby small town of Kurbin.
WATCH: A vigil for quake victims in Tirana

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Tirana residents turned out in the city center to honor the victims, placing candles in a makeshift memorial by the statue of Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg.
The state of emergency declared Wednesday for Durrës and Thumanë was extended to the heavily damaged town of Laç. Prime Minister Edi Rama said he made the decision after opposition leader Lulzim Basha suggested it. Rama appeared to put on hold the acrimony often on display between the two political rivals.
“In this case, our concerns and ideas converge,” Rama said, inviting the opposition to participate in the Committee for Earthquake Relief.
For Rama, the tragedy hit close to home as his office confirmed that among the dead was his son Gregor’s fiancée, Kristi Reçi, who died along with her parents and brother in Durrës.

Volunteers distribute food at a makeshift camp in Durres, after an earthquake shook Albania, Nov. 29, 2019.Helping hands
As search-and-rescue operations were closing, with one person unaccounted for in Durrës, providing aid to survivors has become the focus.
WATCH: Drove Video of Aid Distribution in Durres, Albania

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Physician Shkëlqime Ladi said doctors are on hand to help with immediate needs.
“We are focusing more on the psychological aspect of the affected. Their psychological state is aggravated,” she told VOA in Laç.
In Durrës, volunteers and residents are offering condolences and support.
“We feel very bad for the families, people who have lost their lives. If needed, we can take people in. We have a house, it is not a problem at all,” Durrës resident Hysen Mnalla told VOA.
Erald Peposhi is one of a group of students from Tirana who went to Durrës to help. They delivered 180 meals and 300 sandwiches.
“We are here to help those who are left homeless. As you can see, there are people that need food, and we hope the situation improves soon,” he said Friday.

A rescue dog is seen on a collapsed building in Durres, after an earthquake shook Albania, Nov. 29, 2019.For the second time since the earthquake, the European Union has activated its Civil Protection Mechanism to help Albania.
Right after the earthquake, EU sent crews from Greece, Italy and Romania to help with search and rescue and now the government has asked for experts to help assess the damage.
EU Ambassador to Albania Luigi Soreca said Friday that the European Union and its member states are standing with Albania and working nonstop to provide assistance “in this very difficult moment.”
“It is a week of deep sorrow and tragedy for Albania,” Soreca said in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences go once again to the Albanian people and especially to the families, friends and communities of those who have lost their lives.”
Neighboring Kosovo, Italy, Greece and Montenegro have sent in crews. The United States has also offered help.

A woman carries her belongings from a damaged house in Thumane, western Albania, Nov. 29, 2019.‘Repaying the help I received in 1999’
Her voice trembling and in tears, Emine Imeri, a volunteer from the Drenica region in Kosovo, told VOA in Thumanë the situation reminded her of 20 years ago when Albania welcomed thousands from Kosovo as they fled ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces in the Balkans conflict.
“The entire Drenica, the entire Kosovo, has mobilized. We regret that we had to repay the favor in such circumstances. We would have preferred to repay what they did for us 20 years ago for a happy occasion,” she said.
She also said she hoped the aid they brought would help.
“People took their coat off their back to send it here,” she said.
It was just one example of the outpouring of help from the new country, 90% of whose population are ethnic Albanians.
People spontaneously came from Kosovo, operated mobile kitchens, gathered donations and opened their homes for those in Albania wanting to find shelter or to escape the aftershocks. On Friday alone, individuals and businesses from Kosovo delivered 100 tons of much needed necessities.
Kosovo’s Security Force sent troops across the border to help, and outgoing Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj allocated 500,000 euros for earthquake relief. He visited Durrës on Friday, as did his likely successor, Albin Kurti.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi visited Thumanë the day after the tragedy.
Subdued independence
The earthquake struck two days before Albania’s 107th anniversary of independence. There was no celebration, but a show of solidarity gave solemnity to the day.
Albanian President Ilir Meta and Prime Minister Rama, who have been fighting bitterly over political matters, appeared together in Vlora Thursday, where independence was declared.
The Independence Day coincided this year with the U.S. Thanksgiving Day, and many Albanian Americans rallied to collect donations, holding several fundraisers to help one of the poorest countries in Europe.
“I am so heartbroken for my people back home, for those who have lost lives and loved ones,” New York City Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, an Albanian American, told VOA.
Marko Kepi, of the Albanian American organization Albanian Roots, organized a fundraiser that raised nearly $1 million in less than a day.
“This fundraiser is simply to help those who have lost their homes and to help those families who lost their loved ones, do whatever we can so they can have some sort of peace of mind, that they are not alone, they have support and they are not going to be left out in the street,” he said.
Armand Mero reported from Tirana, Ilirian Agolli reported from Durrës, Pëllumb Sulo reported from Laç.

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