Australian authorities said Friday they are focused on protecting water plants, pumping stations, pipes and other infrastructure from intense bushfires surrounding Sydney, the country’s largest city.
Firefighters battling the blazes for weeks received a reprieve of slightly cooler, damper conditions over Christmas, but the respite is not expected to last long.
Temperatures in New South Wales (NSW) state are forecast to head back toward 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) early next week, fueling fires near Warragamba Dam, which provides water to about 80% of Sydney’s 5 million residents.
“In recent days up to the cool change, the fires had been a potential threat to supply and assets, particularly in Warragamba and in the Blue Mountains,” a spokesman for the state’s water authority, WaterNSW, told Reuters. “With the coming very hot conditions the fire situation may escalate in both those fronts and possibly elsewhere.”
Warragamba Dam is 65km (40 miles) west of Sydney, catching water flowing from the mountains.

FILE – Dick Pearson from the Sydney Catchment Authority stands in front of Sydney’s Warragamba Dam to show the lowest level the dam has ever been.It is at 44.8% capacity, down from almost being full less than three years ago, as a prolonged drought ravages the continent’s east.
40 New South Wales dams
Despite the widespread destruction, the state’s water infrastructure network has not been damaged, the spokesman said.
With more than 40 dams across the state, WaterNSW supplies two-thirds of untreated water to the state’s water utilities, which then treat and clean the resource to provide drinking water to cities and regional towns.
Large quantities of ash and burned material could pose a threat to the quality of water in the dams if the fires are followed by heavy rain.
However, there is no significant rain forecast for NSW in the short-term and WaterNSW has put containment barriers to catch potential debris run-off, the water authority said.

Members of the Horsley Park RFS honor volunteer firefighters Andrew O’Dwyer and Geoffrey Keaton, who died when their firetruck was struck by a falling tree as it traveled through the front line of a fire, in Horsley Park, NSW, Dec. 20, 2019.Volunteer firefighters
Australia’s reliance on a large volunteer firefighting force has been tested during this fire season that potentially has months to run through the southern hemisphere summer.
While conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously said compensation for volunteers was not a priority, he said Tuesday that government workers could receive additional paid leave for volunteering.
A senior government minister said Friday the government was now looking into providing wider relief.
“The prime minister is looking at this issue further on how we can provide targeted support in these extreme circumstances so that our volunteers get the support they need to keep volunteering,” Defense Minister Linda Reynolds told media in Perth.
While there are different rules across Australia’s states, volunteers tend to negotiate time off directly with their employer.
Morrison has been under intense political pressure after it was revealed he was holidaying in Hawaii shortly before Christmas while the country grappled with an emergency and two volunteers near the fire frontlines had been killed. Eight deaths, including the two volunteer firefighters, have been linked to the blazes since they flared in spring.
Fires destroy millions of hectares
Fires are traveling immense distances through bushland before hitting towns and containment lines where volunteer firefighters concentrate their resources.
The bushfires have destroyed more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) across the country, dwarfing the terrain burnt by fierce fires in California during 2019.

…

Iran intensified its suppression of internal dissent Thursday, breaking up a memorial for a man killed in recent anti-government protests, flooding streets with security forces and slashing mobile internet access.
The repressive measures appeared aimed at dissuading Iranians from heeding activists’ calls for December 26 public gatherings to mark the end of a traditional 40-day mourning period for a prominent victim of last month’s protests, Pouya Bahktiari. The dayslong nationwide demonstrations, sparked by a November 15 government decision to sharply raise gasoline prices, marked Iran’s deadliest unrest in decades.
Iranian security forces make arrests at cemetery in Karaj, Iran, Dec. 26, 2019

ویدئو کوتاه|درگیری ماموران امنیتی با مردم و بازداشت آن‌ها در بهشت سکینه#پنجم_دیpic.twitter.com/BHi0BwDn1m
— VOA Farsi (@VOAIran) December 26, 2019
A video received from Iran and verified by VOA Persian showed security personnel detaining several people at the Beheshe Sakineh Cemetery in the northern town of Karaj on Thursday.
Family members of Bakhtiari had appealed to the public and journalists to join them at his grave to mark 40 days since his killing and had used Instagram to spread the word. They had said he was shot in the head November 16, the second day of the protests.
The family’s social media campaign to raise awareness about Bakhtiari’s killing has made him one of the most high-profile fatalities of the demonstrations.
Social media users in Iran also had called for gatherings to be held nationwide to commemorate the hundreds of other people whom rights groups say were killed by security forces using live ammunition against the protesters.
Iranian officials have dismissed the reports of hundreds of fatalities as exaggerations without offering their own death toll.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported that some relatives of Bakhtiari made it to the cemetery for Thursday’s memorial, after others had been arrested earlier in the week, including his parents, for planning the public gathering.
But the video sent to VOA Persian showed security personnel leading several people away from the cemetery as bystanders screamed and shouted abuse at the officers.
Bystanders denounce security forces at Karaj cemetery, Dec. 26, 2019

ویدئو کوتاه | بستن دسترسی به مزار #پویا_بختیاری از سوی ماموران امنیتی: دیکتاتوری که از قبر هم می ترسد pic.twitter.com/iPL5SCAj9G
— VOA Farsi (@VOAIran) December 26, 2019
In another clip filmed at the cemetery, a woman holding the camera said authorities were blocking access to Bakhtiari’s grave. A helicopter also flew overhead. 
“The dictator is afraid even of a grave and has unleashed his hyenas,” the woman said, referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Other bystanders could be heard shouting “let him go!” in apparent response to a person being detained.
VOA Persian could not independently confirm the number of those arrested at the cemetery.
Social media users also reported a heavy security presence on the streets of cities across Iran for a second day.
Basiji militiamen ride through a street in Fardis, Iran, Dec. 26, 2019

ویدئو کوتاه|حضور پر رنگ بسیجیان موتورسوار در فردیس #کرج همزمان با #پنجم_دی ماه pic.twitter.com/OS0uEOSmRl
— VOA Farsi (@VOAIran) December 26, 2019
A clip from the town of Fardis in Tehran province showed government-backed Basiji militiamen riding through a street on motorbikes. 
“They are trying to terrify people,” said a man filming the scene from the window of a building.
Iranian officers deploy in a Tehran square, Dec. 26, 2019

ویدئو کوتاه | جو شدید امنیتی در فلکه دوم آریاشهر تهران همزمان با چهلم کشته‌شدگان آبانماه pic.twitter.com/5S9W9rDcOJ
— VOA Farsi (@VOAIran) December 26, 2019
In a video from the Ariashahr district of the capital, Tehran, uniformed officers also could be seen crowding the edges of a traffic circle at Sadeghiyeh Square.
A report by state-approved news agency Tasnim quoted Tehran police chief Hossein Rahimi as saying there were no security incidents in the capital Thursday, thanks to the show of force by the security services.
In another move apparently designed to thwart the calls for anti-government gatherings, Iranian authorities further reduced mobile internet access to 5% of ordinary levels on several networks, according to London-based internet monitoring group NetBlocks.
A day earlier, semi-official news agency ILNA had reported that authorities began blocking mobile internet services in several provinces because of security concerns and would extend the outage as needed.
Iran imposed an almost complete nationwide internet shutdown on both fixed line and mobile networks for a week following the outbreak of the November protests. The move temporarily stopped Iranians from sending images and information about the protests to each other and the outside world, before the sharing of material resumed after internet access was restored. 
This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.
 

…

 Zaheer Ahmed had just returned home from work in northern India last Friday afternoon and stepped out for a smoke before lunch.
Minutes later, he was dead, shot in the head.
His death, and the killing by gunfire of four other Muslim men the same afternoon in the mainly Muslim neighborhood, made it the most intense burst of violence in two weeks of protests.
India has been convulsed by the broadest unrest in at least seven years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government brought in a law that many see as discriminatory against Muslims, who make up 14% of the population.
All of the families of the five dead men say they were shot and killed by police as a protest flared against the new law.
Reuters could not independently verify those accounts, and none of the more than 20 individuals Reuters interviewed saw police open fire.
Police say they used baton charges and teargas, and opened fire to control the crowd but did not kill anyone.
Police add that the men must have been killed by violent armed protesters whose shots went astray. An investigation into the violence is under way.
In the aftermath, distrust and anger between the Muslim community in the area where the deaths happened and security forces has deepened, as protests to the law enter their third week.
The clashes on Dec. 20 erupted around Lisari Gate after Friday afternoon’s Muslim prayers.
Residents say police broke several CCTV cameras in the area before the violence began.
Reuters was unable to independently verify those accounts, but did review CCTV footage from two cameras on shops in the area. In both cases, the footage ends abruptly after a policeman waving a baton is seen trying to hit the cameras.
Akhilesh Singh, the police superintendent of the Meerut City zone, said police had not destroyed any cameras and that all of the victims were involved in what he called rioting.
“Obviously they must be in the midst of the violence. That’s why they must have been killed,” Singh told Reuters.
Police have cracked down on the demonstrations that have spread across India, but Uttar Pradesh state, where Meerut is located, has seen the worst violence. At least 19 of 25 deaths have taken place there.
Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with roughly 200 million people, is ruled by a Hindu priest and has a history of deadly Hindu-Muslim clashes.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said in a televised statement last week that he would take “revenge” against those behind the violence and make them pay for the public damage.
How Zaheer died
Zaheer Ahmed’s home lies in a jumble of lanes that make up the crowded Lisari Gate area. The 45-year-old, who sold cattle fodder for a living, had coloured his hair that day for a family wedding, said his 22-year-old niece Shaheen.
When Zaheer returned from work, he told Shaheen that he wanted to smoke and stepped out to go to a small stall in the next lane that sold beedis, the small Indian cigarette.
Zaheer’s friend Naseem Ahmed was standing in the lane across the beedi stall at the time, Naseem said. He described seeing Zaheer buy the beedi and sit down on a ledge next to the shop.
Around that time, there was chaos on the main road beyond the lanes, Shaheen and several other residents said. They said they could hear the sound of people screaming and saw teargas clouds. Many men ran into the lanes, some followed by police.
“I suddenly saw Zaheer fall down,” said Naseem, adding that he had seen some policemen rushing into the lane just before. “I thought he fell unconscious. It all happened within minutes.”
Through the clouds of teargas, Shaheen said she heard someone scream that Zaheer had been shot.
Neighbors brought his body home.
“I don’t know who engaged in the violence, but my husband didn’t,” said his wife Shahajahan. “Why did they kill my innocent husband? How can they kill innocent people?”
The families of the other four men who died that day said the men were either out for work or prayers when they were hit by gunfire. None of them have received post-mortem reports.
According to their families, Mohammed Mohsin was buying fodder for cattle. Asif, a tyre mechanic, had stepped out to fix tyres at someone’s home. Another man called Asif, a rickshaw-driver, was returning home after prayers. Aleem Ansari had gone to the restaurant where he worked making rotis, the Indian bread.
Many people in the impoverished area use just one name.
“Deadly force”
Thousands of people have taken to streets across India to demand the government rescind the Citizenship Amendment Act enacted by parliament on Dec. 11.
It gives minorities who migrated from three neighboring countries a path to citizenship, except for Muslims. Critics say it is an attack on India’s secular foundations.
“He was shot dead by police. They shot him in the head and killed him,” said Ansari’s mother Saira. “I swear if I find that policeman I will not spare him.”
Reuters reviewed a copy of a case report of the violence that day that police registered at the Lisari Gate police station.
The report dated Dec. 20 includes a police officer’s statement that a crowd of about 1,000 protesters armed with sticks charged down the main road at around 2:30 p.m.
Police asked them to disperse, saying the large gathering was not permitted, according to the police report. The officer who filed it, Ajay Kumar Sharma, did not immediately respond to calls for comment.
“Suddenly there was chaos when the crowd started pelting stones at us and firing at us,” the report says. In response, police used batons and fired tear gas and rubber bullets, the statement says.
Singh, the Meerut police superintendent, said the police and paramilitary personnel around Lisari Gate that day were armed with AK-47 rifles, pistols and chilli bombs.
Human Rights Watch has said Indian police have used “unnecessary, deadly force” in controlling the protests.
At a hospital in Meerut, two paramilitary policemen being treated said they were injured when fired at by protesters last Friday. A doctor said they had been treated for bullet injuries on the leg and forearm.
When asked about civilians who had been shot and killed, one of them, Vidya Dhar Shukla, sat up on his bed. “There was so much chaos, who knows where the damned people died?”
“If I had a gun I would fire at them that day,” he said. “India shouldn’t harbor such snakes.”

…

Japanese public broadcaster NHK Friday sent a news bulletin that incorrectly reported North Korea had launched a missile that fell into waters east of the Japanese archipelago, issuing an apology hours later explaining it was a media training alert.
The news alert came as the United States and its East Asian allies have been on tenterhooks after Pyongyang’s warning this month of a possible “Christmas gift” for Washington in what experts took to mean a possible long-range missile test.
The NHK bulletin, sent out 22 minutes after midnight on its website, read: “North Korean missile seen as having fallen into seas about 2,000 km east of Hokkaido’s Cape Erimo,” suggesting a flight path over Japanese territory.
At 2:28 a.m., NHK issued an apology on its website, explaining that the text was meant for training purposes and was “not true.”
“We apologize to our viewers and the public,” NHK said.
Warning citizens about disasters and security threats is one of the mandates for the publicly funded broadcaster, whose newscasters regularly and frequently hold drills for earthquakes and other disaster coverage.
When North Korea did launch missiles that flew over Cape Erimo in Japan’s far north in 2017, warnings spread through sirens and government-issued “J-alerts” on millions of cell phones throughout Japan, jolting some out of sleep.
NHK had also sent an erroneous news alert about a North Korean missile in January of last year. 
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had given the United States until the end of the year to propose new concessions in talks over his country’s nuclear arsenal and reducing tensions between the adversaries.
Its last test of an intercontinental ballistic missile was in November 2017 when it fired a Hwasong-15, the largest missile it has ever tested. Pyongyang said the missile was capable of reaching all of the United States.

…

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake was moderate, which can cause considerable damage, and was centered 33 miles (53 km) east of Bushehr, a nuclear plant on Iran’s southern coast.
This is a breaking story; check back for more details.
 

…

To tourists they are a time-honored, charming way of seeing the sights, but animal rights activists say Montreal’s horse-drawn carriages are a cruel and unnecessary relic of yesteryear.
A longstanding feud between the coachmen and their critics looks set to end however with the unique mode of transport set to disappear from the streets of Canada’s second city by year-end.
“You can pet him if you want,” Nathalie Matte tells onlookers attracted to her hoofed beast with its flowing mane and tail.

Coachwoman Nathalie Matte, 52, who will lose her job when Montreal’s horse-drawn carriages are taken off the roads Dec. 31, waits for passengers in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Dec. 22, 2019.In the heart of Montreal’s Old Port neighborhood, a half-dozen horses and carriages are lined up outside the Notre Dame basilica, waiting for riders.
A group of tourists, tempted by offers of a languid and comfortable ride along cobblestone streets and a complimentary blanket across their lap on a cold winter’s day, snap pictures.
The carriages this time of year are decorated with red ribbons and fir branches to mark the Christmas holidays.
“It’s a unique way to see the city rather than just taking the bus or the subway,” said Mujtaba Ali, 29, who is visiting with family from neighboring Ontario, as he steps off a carriage.
Cultural heritage
Horses and landaus — four-wheel, convertible carriages named after the German city of their origin — are a part of Montreal’s cultural heritage, owner Luc Desparois said.
“They’ve been around as long as Montreal has existed,” he told AFP.
The Quebec city was founded by European settlers in the 1600s at the site of an indigenous village inhabited as far back as 4,000 years ago, although the landau itself was invented in the 18th century.
City Hall has ordered an end to the tourist rides out of concern for the horses. In 2018, the council passed a bylaw banishing horse-drawn carriages, starting in 2020.
The death of a horse in 2018 while pulling a carriage was the last straw for animal rights groups and prompted mayor Valerie Plante to speak out against the carriage industry, saying it was no longer welcome in Montreal.
The decision will put some 50 coachmen and their horses out of work.

Horse-drawn carriages line up in front of the Notre Dame basilica in Old Montreal, waiting for tourists in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Dec. 22, 2019.Animal welfare
“It is a tradition that has long been appreciated but today I think it is time to move on,” said Jean-François Parenteau, the city’s pointman in the case.
The city, he said, must “show concern for the animals.”
His comments drew praise from Galahad, a Quebec association for the protection of horses that lobbied for the ban. Its founder, Chamie Angie Cadorette, said the horses faced tough working conditions.
“It is not just an hour a day. It is eight hours a day, going up and down roads in traffic,” she said, accusing horse owners of neglect.
“They say they are mistreated. Prove it,” said Desparois, who recently lost a legal challenge to the ban.
City Hall, under pressure from activists, had long sought to ban the carriages, but until now had managed only incremental steps, such as requiring horses be taken off the road when summer temperatures soared.
That did not satisfy animal rights groups.
Loss of income, career
In April, to prevent out-of-work horses from ending up at slaughterhouses, the city said it would pay the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Can$1,000 (US$760) for each horse offered a refuge or adoptive family.
As of Dec. 16, only one application to join the program had been made.
The offer is a “total insult” for Desparois, owner of the Lucky Luc stable, which has 15 horses and employs 15 coachmen.
“You could offer me $10,000 tomorrow morning and I would not sell them to you,” he said, adding that after 34 years in the business his animals mean more to him than money could.

A coachwoman puts a cover on her horse while waiting for tourists in freezing temperatures in Old Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Dec. 22, 2019.After the ban takes effect, the “king of horse-drawn carriages,” as local media has dubbed him, plans to take his horses to other nearby communities or maybe even to Ottawa.
Neither option, he says, will be as profitable as rides in the Old Port, where he charges Can$53 per half-hour ride or Can$85 for an hour with an average of two to seven rides per day.
Older coachmen will simply take early retirement. Others will likely leave the profession.
“I won’t have a choice but to quit. I won’t have the means to move to Ottawa,” said Nathalie Matte, 52, a coachwoman who plans to return to a previous job as a groom.
City Hall, meanwhile, is working on a retraining program to help coachmen transition to other tourist jobs.

…

Afghan election authorities received 16,500 complaints about the handling of this year’s presidential election, officials said Thursday, days after preliminary results put President Ashraf Ghani in place to secure a second term. 
 
Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced earlier this week that Ghani had won a slim 50.64 percent majority in the voting on September 28.  The final results are expected to be announced in the coming weeks after the complaints have been reviewed. 
Officials have 15 days to finalize their investigation of the complaints and release results to the candidates, said Zuhra Bayan Shinwari, head of the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC). 
 
If the numbers hold following these investigations, the result is enough for Ghani to avoid a runoff. He easily beat his longtime rival, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, who scored 39.52 percent. 
 
According to Shinwari, Abdullah’s team filed around 8,000 complaints to the ECC and Ghani handed in over 3,000, while the rest were submitted by other candidates. 
 Fraud alleged after delays
Preliminary results originally due October 19 were repeatedly delayed for what the IEC said were technical issues. Various candidates, particularly Abdullah, alleged fraud. 
 
Observers and candidates have blasted the IEC for its handling of the count and its repeated disregard of the electoral calendar. 
 
The election was meant to be the cleanest yet in Afghanistan’s young democracy. 
 
A German firm supplied biometric machines to stop people from voting more than once. 
 
But allegations of vote stuffing, illegal balloting and other fraud came almost as soon as the polls had closed. 
 
Nearly 1 million of the initial 2.7 million votes were purged because of irregularities, meaning the election saw by far the lowest turnout of any Afghan poll. 
 
Ultimately, only 1.8 million votes were counted — a tiny number given Afghanistan’s estimated population of 37 million and a total of 9.6 million registered voters. 
 
Abdullah lost to Ghani in 2014 in a divisive election that saw the U.S. intervene to broker an awkward power-sharing deal between the two rivals. 

…

Mohammed Hafar paced around the airport terminal — first to the monitor to check flight arrivals, then to the gift shop and lastly to the doors where international passengers were exiting.
At last, out came Jana Hafar, his tall, slender, dark-haired teen daughter who had been forced by President Donald Trump’s travel ban to stay behind in Syria for months while her father, his wife and 10-year-old son started rebuilding their lives in Bloomfield, New Jersey, with no clear idea of when the family would be together again.
“Every time I speak to her, she ask, ‘When are they going to give me the visa?’” the elder Hafar said, recalling the days of uncertainty that took up the better part of this year. There was “nothing I could tell her, because nobody knows when.”
That she landed at Kennedy Airport on a recent December day was testament to her father’s determination to keep his promise that they would be reunited and his willingness to go as far as suing the government in federal court. Advocates say the process for obtaining a travel ban waiver is still shrouded in unpredictability, which causes delays for thousands of American citizens waiting for loved ones.

FILE – Mohammed Hafar buys a gift for his daughter Jana Hafar while waiting for her flight at JFK Airport in New York, Dec. 3, 2019.The “system is messed up,” said Curtis Morrison, the Los Angeles-based attorney who has filed several federal lawsuits, including Hafar’s, against the administration on behalf of dozens of plaintiffs from countries affected by the travel ban.
Many of those he has represented have received visas. But he said those cases represent only a small fraction of the people in need and that the decision to grant those visas is unfair to thousands of other immigrants who cannot sue or do not know how to take their frustrations to court.
“The government should not be able to do this,” Morrison said. “It should not be able to cherry-pick the visas that it wants to issue so that it can evade review.”
Waiver system 
The third version of the administration’s ban took effect in December 2017, keeping citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and North Korea, and government representatives from Venezuela, from traveling or immigrating to the United States. The Supreme Court upheld the ban in June 2018, in part because of the promised waiver system that would allow people to come despite the ban if certain criteria were met.
The government says 28,100 immigrant visa applications were filed by people seeking waivers to move to the U.S. between December 2017 and Oct. 31, 2019. Of those, 11,325 have been deemed qualified for waivers and 16,775 have not.
It was unclear how many of those who have been deemed qualified have actually received visas and how quickly. At the beginning of 2019, waivers were being issued in a trickle, with only 2,673 granted for both immigrant and non-immigrant visas from December 2017 to January 2019, according to State Department figures.
In an emailed statement, the State Department said changes made in late June have “significantly” increased the number handed out monthly, and officials “believe this is representative of the new normal” and that “applicants who qualify for a waiver will likely be issued their visa much sooner than possible before the changes.”
But while some applications for immigrant and non-immigrant visas submitted in recent months are seeing faster processing and approval times, earlier cases are still languishing, with no transparency from the government, said Mahsa Khanbabai, an immigration lawyer in North Easton, Massachusetts.
“They have fooled people to think, ‘Oh, with our new automated process, it’s working now,’” Khanbabai said. “They’re able to distract by granting a few here and there. They’re fooling people into thinking that it works.”
Hafar family
Hafar, a Syria native and naturalized American citizen since 1996, had been living in Syria with his family when civil war started. He came back to the U.S. in 2012, assuming he could transfer citizenship to his children and apply separately for his wife to receive a green card making her a permanent legal resident.
His wife got the card in early 2017, but paperwork problems got in the way of the children’s transfers, requiring him to submit immigrant petitions for them. He was told in 2018 that his son would get his visa, but there was no word on when Jana would.

FILE – Jana Hafar arrives home in Bloomfield, N.J., Dec. 3, 2019.“When I heard that, it was very, very painful for me,” Jana said last week in the family’s New Jersey apartment, where she never strayed far from her mother. “Because I understand that I’m going to be left alone.”
Her brother, Karim, came to the U.S. in May, leaving Jana behind in Damascus with her cancer-stricken grandfather and her grandmother, who spent most of her time looking after him.
There were frequent daily calls to her parents, who worried constantly about their daughter. She was too distraught to go to school and living in a country torn apart by armed conflict, even though Damascus had settled down.
Hafar couldn’t understand it. “I have my son and my wife here. Why on earth is my daughter back home?” he said.
Farida Chehata, an immigrant rights attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in California, worked with the family before they sued.
When people file litigation, it attracts swift notice from the State Department or the Department of Homeland Security.
“All of a sudden they’ll be attentive and responsive — but just for those people,” Chehata said. “Not everybody has the luxury of getting an attorney.”
Hafar was determined. He said to Jana, “Remember this, what I’m going to tell you. I will do whatever necessary to bring you over. I’m not going to leave you behind.”
After filing the lawsuit in August, Jana’s petition got moving in October, and she was soon given the go-ahead to come to the U.S.. The official word came just days after she turned 15 and spent a birthday without her parents and brother.
“It’s been difficult for me to be away from my whole family,” she said. But she believed her father. “My dad wouldn’t lie to me. He always tells me the truth.”
 

…

The tech-rich Nasdaq finished above 9,000 for the first time on Thursday, powering to its 10th straight record on gains by Amazon and other tech giants.
The Nasdaq surged 0.8 percent to finish the post-holiday session at 9,022.39.
The other two major indices also finished at records in a sleepy post-Christmas trading day when overseas markets were closed.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.4 percent to end at 28,621.39, while the broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.5 percent to close at 3,230.91.
A report by Mastercard Spending Plus estimated that holiday shopping sales rose 3.4 percent this year, which was better than expected, with e-commerce taking a bigger bite of overall sales.

FILE – An Amazon shipping truck is seen at a fulfillment center in Phoenix, July 17, 2019.E-commerce behemoth Amazon jumped 4.5 percent after boasting of another “record” performance this season.
Most other retailers rose at least somewhat, with Gap gaining 1.7 percent, Target 0.3 percent and Walmart 0.1 percent.
Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare said the latest run of records reflects upbeat investor sentiment based on a lower risk of recession anytime soon, a mellowing of U.S.-China trade tensions and accommodative monetary policy.
“In general the market will be supported and there will be an inclination to buy the dip in the absence of negative news shocks,” O’Hare said.
Besides Amazon, other tech giants including Apple, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook all gained at least one percent.
But Dow member Boeing remained under pressure, shedding another 0.9 percent after a House investigative committee said earlier in the week that it obtained more records on the 737 Max showing “very disturbing” signs about the aviation giant’s approach to safety, according to a congressional aide.
Meanwhile, oil prices finished at a three-month high following industry data showing lower U.S. oil inventories.
 

…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday called for the governments in Moscow, Damascus and Tehran to stop the violence in Syria’s rebel-held province of Idlib.
“Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands” of civilians in the northwestern province, Trump tweeted, adding: “Don’t do it!”
Heightened regime and Russian bombardment has hit jihadist-held Idlib — the country’s last major opposition bastion — since mid-December, as regime forces make steady advances on the ground despite an August ceasefire and U.N. calls for a de-escalation.
Nearly 80 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery attacks over the same period, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which estimates that more than 40,000 people have been displaced in recent weeks.
Turkey called Tuesday for the attacks to “come to an end immediately,” after sending a delegation to Moscow to discuss the flare-up.
Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Ankara was pressing for a new ceasefire to replace the August agreement.
Trump on Thursday praised Turkey’s efforts, tweeting that Ankara “is working hard to stop this carnage.”
 

…

From a trade war to disagreements on Hong Kong and human rights, the ties between the United States and China were seriously tested in 2019. And despite the recent agreement on phase one of the trade pact that averts the imposition of further tariffs against each other, some analysts say Washington’s issues with Beijing are more intractable. State Department correspondent Nike Ching has the story

…

2019 will be remembered as the year the U.S. House of Representatives impeached a president of the United States for just the third time in U.S. history. While it’s highly unlikely the Republican-majority US Senate will remove Donald Trump from office in 2020, lawmakers’ battles over impeachment exposed deep partisan divides that are changing the political discussion in the United States. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on this year’s political stalemate.
 

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Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny says he was “dragged out” of his office by police officers who conducted fresh searches at the headquarters of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) in Moscow.
“Latest: no one has been detained. They simply dragged me out of the office,” Navalny tweeted on December 26, shortly after his spokeswoman said the Kremlin critic was “forcibly detained and led away.”
Videos show police officers forcing their way in with a power tool on December 26.
Navalny was live on Twitter, showing the moments before police officers entered the office.
It was not immediately clear why the outspoken Kremlin critic was detained.
On December 23, a project manager for FBK was placed into compulsory military service and sent to serve in the Arctic.
Ruslan Shaveddinov, 23, was detained in his Moscow apartment and eventually sent 5,600 kilometers away to Novaya Zemlya to serve at a remote air-defense base in the Arctic Ocean, Navalny learned on December 24.
Navalny, who has defied President Vladimir Putin’s rule and whose FBK has exposed large-scale public corruption, blamed the Kremlin leader for sending the group’s project manager away.
Service in Russia’s military is mandatory for most male citizens who are drafted for one year after turning 18 and before reaching the age of 28.
New conscripts are often subject to brutal hazing and bullying by more senior soldiers, so many young men try to avoid service by all available means.
On December 24, a Moscow court fined FBK lawyer Lyubov Sobol the equivalent of $16,000 for twice repeating offenses related to rules on staging public events.
The latest fine relates to opposition rallies for holding free municipal elections that were held on August 10 and 31, both events that the Moscow Tagansky district court ruled were led by Sobol.
However, the August 10 opposition rally was held with a permit from local authorities, but without Sobol’s participation because the offices of FBK were being searched that day, according to the lawyer.

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Two French and Australian academics held in Iran over espionage charges have gone on a indefinite hunger strike as of Christmas Eve, France’s Sciences Po University confirmed.
“The Ceri confirms the hunger strike started by Fariba Adelkhah and her cellmate Kylie Moore-Gilbert,” the Centre for International Studies and Research at Sciences Po University said in a Wednesday tweet.
“On this Christmas day, our solidarity and thoughts of hope go to Fariba, Roland and all the other prisoners in arbitrary detention. #FreeFariba #FreeRoland,” it added.
A specialist in Shiite Islam and a research director at the university, Adelkhah’s arrest over “espionage” was confirmed by Iran in July.
Melbourne University Academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s detention was confirmed in September as charged with “spying for another country”, but her family said at the time that she had been detained for months before that.
In an open letter, the two women said they were subjected to “psychological torture” and called for international solidarity in the name of “academic freedom”.
“We will strike on behalf of all academics and researchers across Iran and the Middle East, who like us have been unjustly imprisoned on trumped up charges,” read the letter sent to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
“We have been in the custody of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards for an extremely long period, Kylie Moore-Gilbert for over 15 months, and Fariba Adelkhah for over 7 months. We have been subjected to psychological torture and numerous violations of our basic human rights,” it added.
The matter is of “deep concern” to Australia, its Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne told AFP, calling for Moore-Gilbert to be treated “fairly, humanely and in accordance with international norms”.
“I continue to believe that the best chance of a successful outcome for Dr Moore-Gilbert is through diplomatic channels,” she said, adding “very hard work” is being done behind the scenes to secure her release.
In addition to the two women, foreign nationals still held in Iran include former US soldier Michael R. White, British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and French academic Roland Marchal.

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