Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Tunisia on Wednesday in a surprise visit for talks with his Tunisian counterpart, his office said, in the first visit by a head of state since Tunisian presidential elections in the autumn.
The visit comes as Turkey has ramped up efforts to strike deals with nations on the Mediterranean, where Ankara has been at odds with Greece over resources off the coast of the divided island of Cyprus.
Last month, Turkey signed a maritime delimitation agreement with Libya’s internationally recognized government, a move that enraged Greece. Athens says the deal violates international law, but Ankara says it aims to protect its rights in the region and is in full compliance with maritime laws.
In a statement, Erdogan’s office said he was accompanied by his foreign and defense ministers, as well as his intelligence chief. It provided no further details on the content or purpose of the talks.
The visit is the first by a head of state to Tunisia since the election of President Kais Saied in October, after Tunisian parliamentary elections.
As part of its expanded cooperation with Tunisia’s neighbor Libya, Ankara also signed a military-cooperation deal with Fayez al-Serraj’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).
Erdogan has said Turkey may deploy troops in support of the GNA, which has been fighting off a months-long offensive by Khalifa Haftar’s forces to the east of the country.
On Tuesday, Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Turkey may need to draft a bill to send troops into Libya and added the parliament was currently working on it. Ankara’s possible deployment into Libya has also alarmed Russia, which said it was very concerned by such a prospect.
Turkey has already sent military supplies to the GNA despite a United Nations arms embargo, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters last month.
 

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Nigerian activist Omoyele Sowore and former national security adviser Sambo Dasuki left prison Tuesday evening after the attorney general ordered their release on bail, in recognition of court orders.
The release followed growing internal and international pressure on the Nigerian government to abide by court orders.
State security had ignored several court orders that former adviser Dasuki, who has been held since 2015, be released. It also sparked protests earlier this month when it re-arrested activist and former presidential candidate Sowore hours after his release on bail.
Dasuki left prison around 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) Tuesday and joined his family at his home in the Asokoro district of Abuja. Sowore was released earlier in the evening, greeting jubilant supporters.
“The two defendants are enjoined to observe the terms of their bail and refrain from engaging in any act that is inimical to public peace and national security as well as their ongoing trial which will run its course in accordance with the laws of the land,” Attorney General and Justice Minister Abubakar Malami said in a statement.

FILE – Former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, right, arrives with one of his counsels Ahmed Raji at the Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria, Sept. 1, 2015.The government has accused Dasuki, who served under former President Goodluck Jonathan, of fraud involving $68 million of defense spending. He has pleaded not guilty.
Dasuki has been granted bail several times but the government had refused to release him. In 2016, a judge at the court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ordered his release, saying his detention was unlawful and arbitrary.
Sowore, who also founded news website Sahara Reporters, was first arrested in August. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of treason, money laundering and harassing the president.
Video of Sowore screaming and shouting as he was wrestled to the ground by security officials in court, only hours after his initial release on bail, circulated widely on social media in Nigeria and internationally.
“While I am grateful for reports on Yele’s long overdue release on bail, my number one concern is for his safety,” Sowore’s wife, Opeyemi Sowore, said in an emailed statement. “We remain resolute on Yele being cleared of all baseless charges.”
On Monday, the government’s own National Human Rights Commission called on the administration to respect court rulings.
Six U.S. members of Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, also wrote to Malami on Dec. 20 that they were “deeply concerned that established legal procedure and the rule of law” were not being followed in Sowore’s case. 
Nigerian advocacy group SERAP also hailed the move, but called on the government to release others it described as unfairly detained, including journalist Agba Jalingo.
“The government cannot continue to pick and choose which court orders to obey,” it said.

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The Southern African nation of Mozambique is coming off a violent, disputed election campaign, two devastating cyclones, a shadowy insurgency, an ongoing corruption scandal, and a visit by the Pope, who tried to bring this battered nation together. As the coastal nation looks toward 2020, with a major, multibillion-dollar ExxonMobil natural gas deal hanging in the air, what lies ahead, and can this fractured nation be put back together?  VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Johannesburg.

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Australian firefighters used cooler conditions Christmas Day to try and contain bushfires ahead of hot, dry weather later in the week, as leaders and communities thanked them for sacrificing time with their families over the holidays.
In the state of New South Wales (NSW), which saw entire towns devastated by fires over the weekend, state premier Gladys Berejiklian and the head of the NSW rural fire service, Shane Fitzsimmons, attended a breakfast organized by volunteers in the small town of Colo, 90km (55 miles) northwest of Sydney.
“Community volunteers provided food, company, conversation, wrapped presents & hampers to share for crews heading into the field,” Fitzsimmons tweeted. “It was just lovely & spirits were high.”
Christmas Day offered cooler conditions in many parts of the country as firefighters, many of them volunteers, spent the day trying to contain blazes.

An aerial scene shows firefighters extinguishing wildfires in the Adelaide Hills, Australia, Dec. 24, 2019, in this image made from video.Intense heat is forecast to return again by the weekend, especially in Australia’s south, where temperatures are expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
The last few months have seen more than 900 homes lost across the dry continent, according to authorities, even though the southern hemisphere summer has not yet reached its midpoint.
The fires have destroyed more than 3.7 million hectares (9.1 million acres) across five states and at least six people have died in NSW and two in South Australia during the bushfire emergency.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison used a Christmas message to thank volunteers for their willingness to spend the day away from their families.
“As we look forward to next year and as we celebrate this Christmas I want to thank all of those who serve our nation,” Morrison said in a video shared on social media Wednesday morning.
Morrison has faced sustained political pressure as the bushfires have raged, following his decision to take a family holiday to Hawaii last week and his conservative Liberal-National coalition government’s climate policies.

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It was in the spring of 2017 that veteran Cambodia Daily reporters Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter traveled to the country’s Ratanakiri province, home to the sole commune that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling CPP party had failed to win in earlier elections.
Aiming to find out why the rural province’s isolated Pate commune was the nation’s sole backer of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) in 2012, Pheap and Peter spent a day asking random locals about upcoming polls and interviewing then-incumbent SRP commune chief Romam Yuot.
Shortly after publishing the article, the reporters were faced with charges of “inciting the people,” while their employer was hit with a $6.3 million tax bill and a prime minister’s order to pay up or “pack up.”
Long known for diligent reporting on government corruption and human rights violations — along with extensive exposes on illegal logging and labor violations in the country’s garment sector — the Cambodia Daily published its final print edition Sept. 4.
With the first incitement hearing slated for Wednesday, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which ranks Cambodia 143rd out of 180 countries in its 2019 World Press Freedom Index, has called for immediate withdrawal of the “absurd, trumped-up charges.”
RSF, like other international free press advocates, says charges levied against Pheap and Peter likely have nothing to do with their 2017 news reports filed from Pate, but only to serve as an example to others.
“This whole fabricated process [is] clearly a way for the Hun Sen clan to notify journalists that this would be what they risk if they dare to report independently,” said Daniel Bastard, RSF’s Asia-Pacific expert, who also warned that the looming trial is bound to have the effect of greater self-censorship among journalists.
“Scheduling the initial hearing on Dec. 25 is an additional mean trick of the kind you expect from the most authoritarian regimes, which often take advantage of the end-of-year holidays in many democratic countries to violate human rights without too much publicity,” said the RSF statement. “Well-known Chinese blogger Wu Gan was sentenced to eight years in prison on 26 December 2017. And it was on 25 December 2009 that a Beijing court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel peace laurate and RSF Press Freedom laureate, to 11 years in prison.”
Pheap, 55, who has since fled to the U.S., and Peter, 41, who continues covering Southeast Asia from outside Cambodia, face up to two years in prison if convicted.
We caught up with Peter, a Canadian journalist who continues writing for the Cambodian Daily online and is a regular contributor to VOA, its sister outlet, RFA, and other publications.
VOA: Are these charges about your reports on a given commune voting against Hun Sen’s continued leadership, or are they really about reports on illegal logging?
Zsombor Peter: I have no clue. I wish I could give you a more satisfying answer. If I could, that would mean I knew who all were truly behind this case. But I simply don’t know, so it’s all just a guess. That’s one of the most frustrating things about this case —not knowing who is really suing us. The people who filed the complaint are just puppets.
The puppet masters could be the illegal logging syndicates we’ve upset with our investigative reporting, ruling-party politicians scared of honest election coverage, or both.
What I am sure of is that the charge against Pheap and I is not only baseless, but absurd, conjured out of thin air. Two of the three people accusing us of incitement spoke with us willingly; the third was never even approached for an interview. How can that be “incitement to commit a felony”? What’s more, no one has ever explained what felony we were allegedly inciting people to, because the lie of this case is so transparent that they can’t come up with one. All that is to say that the case is purely politically motivated.
VOA: Aun Pheap has relocated to the U.S., but you continue to report from the region. Has the recent announcement of a trial date created problems for you personally and/or professionally? Are you now forced to keep a lower profile?
ZP: The case has caused me trouble since the charge was laid in October 2017. Pretrial detention is common practice in Cambodia, in politically motivated cases especially, so the possibility of arrest became very real at that point. That makes a return risky, especially to report. So that’s eight years of country knowledge I built up that I can’t use. And, as a reporter who still covers Southeast Asia, that means fewer job opportunities. If I’m convicted, that also raises the possibility of being extradited back to Cambodia to serve my sentence.
VOA: What advice might you have for other reporters faced with these types of politically motivated charges? Would you advocate staying put and continuing to report despite the threat of imprisonment or worse? Or, would you encourage reporters to find a safe space to report from a reasonably safe distance?
ZP: I left Cambodia in October 2017, when I was charged. So I’m in no position to give advice on whether others should leave or stay put.
VOA: If you could make a prepared statement to the court about these charges, what would it be?
ZP: I would not make a prepared statement for this “court.” I would reserve a prepared statement for a real court, a court where the facts might make a difference. The fact that this case has progressed to trial without a shred of evidence is proof enough that this is not a court.
VOA: If you could return to Cambodia and report on any topic you like without fear of reprisal, what would it be?
ZP: I would report on the same things I was reporting on before I left Cambodia, which over eight years were many. They would include the illegal logging business and all other forms of corruption; the government’s repression of peaceful dissent; labor rights abuses, mainly in the garment sector, and human rights abuses more broadly; Cambodia’s balancing act with China on one hand and Europe and the U.S. on the other; and the government’s damming of the Mekong River and its tributaries. I also reported often on Cambodia’s ongoing battle with malaria drug resistance and UXO contamination and would want to pick that up as well.

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The top-rated Iranian chess champion says he will not play for Iran in an upcoming tournament and is ready to renounce his citizenship because of a ban on competing against Israeli players.
Alireza Firouzja is “currently living in France…and may want to play under the French or U.S. flag” the head of the Iranian chess federation told Tehran’s ISNA news agency, adding that the 16 year-old Alireza “wants to change his nationality.”
There has been no reaction from Iran to Alireza’s apparent decision to give up his citizenship. There has also been no word from Alireza’s family.
Iranian authorities announced they were pulling out of the upcoming World Rapid & Blitz tournament in Moscow after two other Iranian players competed against Israelis in an earlier match.
But Alireza objected to the Iranian withdrawal. He is Iran’s top-ranked player and the world’s number two ranked junior player.
Iranian officials have called on all Iranian athletes to refrain from competing against Israelis.
 

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Depending on which country they’re from, the kids may ask about Father Christmas, Papa Noel, Saint Nick or Santa Claus.
But those who believe all want to know one thing: where in the world the jolly old man and his sleigh full of gifts are on Christmas Eve.
For the 64th time, a wildly popular program run by the U.S. and Canadian militaries is providing real-time updates on Santa’s progress to millions around the globe.
And this year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command is offering even more high-tech ways for children and parents to follow along.
Operation NORAD Tracks Santa has evolved from a misdirected telephone call in 1955, to a trailer parked outside the command’s former lair deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, to NORAD ’s modern-day headquarters at Colorado’s Peterson Air Force Base.
Along the way, the tens of thousands of telephone calls fielded by NORAD volunteers each year have been augmented by an explosion of technology that lets millions track St. Nick’s journey from the North Pole to the Pacific and Asia, from Europe to the Americas.
This year’s portals include Alexa, OnStar, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and 3-D apps developed for mobile devices by Cesium, a Philadelphia-based IT and defense contractor. The apps integrate geospatial and satellite-positioning technology with high-resolution graphics that display the actual positions of the stars, sun and moon and the shadows they cast at any point in Santa’s journey.
It takes a village of dozens of tech firms — including Google, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Bing Maps — to deliver the immersive effect for global Santa trackers, with some 15 million visits to the website alone last year.
And it takes a village of 1,500 volunteers to field emails and the 140,000 or so telephone calls to 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723). They staff phone banks equipped with monitors inside a building at Peterson, which offers a view of snow-capped Pikes Peak to the west.
More volunteers and firms donate food, water and coffee to those on Santa Watch.
“Hi Santa Trackers! Lots of kids are waiting to ask you about Santa,” a sign reads.
Volunteers are equipped with an Operations Center Playbook that helps ensure each and every caller can go to sleep happy and satisfied on Christmas Eve.
Longtime Santa trackers are familiar with the NORAD-Santa story.
In 1955, Air Force Col. Harry Shoup — the commander on duty one night at NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command — fielded a call from a child who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a newspaper department store ad, thinking she was calling Santa.
A fast-thinking Shoup quickly assured his caller that he was. And a tradition was born.
Today, most early calls come from Japan and Europe. The volume soars in the U.S. and Canada, said program manager Preston Schlachter. United Kingdom callers ask about Father Christmas. Those in France generally seek Papa Noel’s whereabouts.
For team members, once “Big Red” — Santa’s code name — is airborne, Schlachter said, “it’s off to the races.”
“I’ve never had a block of time move so quickly,” he said.

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Officials in Burkina Faso say soldiers killed 80 Islamic militants who launched simultaneous attacks on a military post and the northern town of Arbinda Tuesday.
The militants killed at least 35 civilians, mostly women, before they were beaten back. Seven soldiers were also killed.
President Roch Marc Kabore has declared two days of national mourning. His government calls the militants cowards.
Burkinabe forces used fighter jets against the Islamists during the fight near the border with Mali, lasting several hours.
Islamic militants in Mali, under pressure from French forces, have spilled across the border into Burkina Faso, killing hundreds of people and sending thousands fleeing from their homes. The militants frequently use hit-and-run attacks on motorcycles.
Meanwhile, The New York Times  reports the Trump administration is considering a complete pullout of U.S. forces from West Africa as part of a global reshuffling of American troops across the globe.
“We’ve begin a review process where I’m looking at every theater, understanding what the requirements are that we set out for, making sure we’re as efficient as possible with our forces,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said earlier this month.
Between six and 7,000 U.S. forces are currently in Africa. Several hundred of them are in such West African nations as Niger, Chad, and Mali to assist French forces in training West African security forces in confronting Boko Haram and the various al-Qaida terrorist group spinoffs.
According to the Times, Esper is questioning whether such missions are worth it, believing these militant groups generally lack the ability or strength to attack U.S. forces, despite the 2017 ambush in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers.
The New York Times says Esper has given the U.S. Africa Command until next month to come up with a withdrawal plan.
The Pentagon has not yet commented on the newspaper report.
 
 

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Authorities in Ivory Coast have issued an arrest warrant for Guillaume Soro, prompting the ex-rebel leader and presidential hopeful to divert his plane to another country instead of returning home.
The arrest warrant is certain to escalate political tensions ahead of the 2020 election in the West African nation. Soro’s supporters took to the streets Monday to protest and police used tear gas on them.
Soro, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2012, had planned to return home after more than six months abroad.
Public Prosecutor Adou Richard announced on state television Monday night that Soro was accused of “presumption of an attack on state security,” without giving details. Soro also is suspected of embezzling public funds and money laundering, Richard said.
The charges were announced hours after several of Soro’s top associates were detained by security forces following a news conference in Abidjan.
“Arresting Soro won’t resolve the problem, the crisis in Ivory Coast,” said Soro supporter Bernard Koffi. “On the contrary, it makes the crisis worse because we don’t know what wrong he is supposed to have done.”
Ivory Coast erupted in civil war in 2002 and remained divided into a rebel-controlled north and loyalist south until a 2007 peace deal.
Soro and his allies helped President Alassane Ouattara come to power when then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down during the violent 2010-2011 election that left more than 3,000 people dead.
Soro later fell out of favor with Ouattara while serving as parliament speaker and ultimately stepped down.
He is the first candidate to publicly declare his intention to run for president under the banner of his party, Générations et Peuples Solidaires, or GPS.
Ouattara was believed to be serving his final term but recently indicated he might consider seeking a third term if Gbagbo decides to run.

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Hopes for a peaceful Christmas were dashed in Hong Kong Tuesday after riot police fired tear gas and protesters set fire at various locations across the city that has been roiled by civil unrest for more than six months.
Large crowds had gathered in several shopping malls and a busy tourist area in response to online calls to voice their discontent with the government and to demand greater democracy.
The anti-government movement in Hong Kong, sparked by a controversial extradition law, has entered the seventh month and shows no signs of abating. Protesters say they will not give up unless the government meets their political demands, which include universal suffrage and an independent investigation into police brutality.    
After 9 p.m. local time, police fired several rounds of tear gas in a popular tourist area, Tsim Sha Tsui, to disperse protesters — including outside the luxury Peninsula Hotel.   Hundreds had gathered to disrupt traffic earlier and riot police warned they were taking part in an illegal assembly.    
The gas covered a large area, engulfing buses and other traffic in the tourist spot adorned with Christmas illuminations. Families with young children were seen covering their faces as they hurried away. Police ordered people gathered on the scenic harbor front to leave, although many appeared to be just celebrating Christmas. As riot police pushed along the seafront, a young child dressed in a Santa Claus costume looked frightened while clinging to his mother’s shoulders.
Scores of black-clad protesters got into a stand-off with police officers near the Peninsula by hiding behind opened umbrellas. Later in the evening, protesters placed large objects including wooden crates and bus signs across a thoroughfare and set them on fire.
Hong Kong police said in a late night statement that protesters threw fuel bombs at the Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station at 11 p.m. local time and warned members of the public to stay away from the area. They said protesters occupied a thoroughfare and set barricades on another street and police used crowd management vehicles to disperse “rioters” — eyewitnesses said water cannon were used on the crowds. The statement also said police warned the rioters “to stop their illegal acts.”
In the busy Mong Kok shopping district, protesters ignited objects at an entrance to the metro station. Other protesters targeted an HSBC bank by smashing its glass panels and setting fire to the front of the building. HSBC had suspended the account of non-profit platform Spark Alliance that raised funds for protesters. Some sprayed-painted the message, “Don’t forget Spark Alliance,” onto the outer walls.
Hong Kong police last week froze the equivalent of about $9 million held by Spark Alliance and arrested its four members — moves decried by critics as an attempt to clamp down on the city’s protest movement and smear its reputation.
HSBC Bank said the activities of Spark Alliance’s corporate account did not match the client’s stated business purposes. The bank maintained last week that the closure of the group’s account was “completely unrelated to the Hong Kong police’s arrest of the four individuals” and “unrelated to the current Hong Kong situation.”  
After clashes broke out Tuesday night, the metro company closed down stations at Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui early, saying the move was necessary to protect the safety of passengers and staff.  The metro system had planned to extend its service hours on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas Eve, police officers also clashed with protesters inside several upscale shopping malls, using pepper spray and beating people with batons as both sides shouted verbal abuse at one another. Local media reported that one man fell inside a shopping center in out-of-town Yuen Long while escaping police officers.    
In Harbor City shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui, black-clad protesters got into a fight with people they suspected were undercover officers earlier in the evening. They threw objects at riot police officers who entered the mall while police pointed their crowd control weapons at the demonstrators. Plainclothes officers used batons to beat protesters while yelling at them. Several people were subdued. Many shops pulled down their shutters.
 

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The Pentagon is looking into reducing or even withdrawing US troops from West Africa, part of a worldwide redeployment of military forces, the New York Times reported Tuesday. There are between 6,000 and 7,000 US troops in Africa, mainly in West Africa but also in places like Somalia.
The U.S. presence includes military trainers as well as a recently built $110 million drone base in Niger, the Times said. A withdrawal would also end U.S. support for French military efforts in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in their war along with local troops against Al-Qaeda and Islamic State group jihadists.
The Pentagon supports them by providing intelligence, logistical support and aerial refueling at an annual cost to the Pentagon of some $45 million a year, the Times said.
France has had a major military presence in Mali since 2013, when it launched an intervention against Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists who had overrun the country’s north.
 

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Every year for the last 30 years around Christmas, United Airlines organizes what they call a fantasy flight. They take over 100 children and their families who are part of the Children’s Hospice International Network on a very special trip. Anna Nelson has the story narrated by Anna Rice.

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A missile struck a school building in northwestern Syria on Tuesday morning, killing eight civilians, opposition activists said, as government forces captured a key village held by al-Qaida insurgents in the last rebel stronghold in the war-torn country.
                   
Syrian government troops also besieged a Turkish observation post in the area but have not attacked it so far, the activists said.
                   
Syrian forces launched a wide ground offensive last week in the northwest, after weeks of bombardment that displaced tens of the thousands of people in Idlib province, the country’s last rebel stronghold. Opposition activists say more than 40 villages and hamlets are now under government control in southern parts of Idlib.
                   
The U.N. estimates that some 60,000 people have fled from the area, heading south, after the bombings intensified earlier this month. Thousands more have fled further north toward the Turkish border in recent days.
                   
The activists blamed Russia, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s main ally in the war, for Tuesday’s missile attack that hit the Jobas village school. Among the eight killed were five children and a woman, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
                   
Syrian citizen journalist Hussein Khattab reported the same death toll. The school building was used by people displaced by violence in other parts of the country, the Observatory and Khattab said.
                   
Syrian troops have been pushing toward the rebel-held town of Maaret al-Numan that sits on a highway linking the capital, Damascus, with the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest. Assad’s forces appear determined to eventually reopen the strategic highway, which has been closed by the rebels since 2012.
                   
The Observatory said the troops are now about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from Maaret al-Numan, adding that government forces advancing from the east have surrounded the Turkish observation post near the village of Surman.
                   
Turkey is a strong backer of Syrian rebels and has 12 observation posts in northwestern Syria as part of an agreement brokered last year with Russia. The post near Surman is the second that has been encircled by Syrian troops this year.
                   
In their push toward Maaret al-Numan, Syrian troops captured late Monday the village of Jarjanaz, a stronghold of al-Qaida-linked fighters.
                   
Idlib province is dominated by al-Qaida-linked militants. It’s also home to 3 million civilians, and the United Nations has warned of the growing risk of a humanitarian catastrophe along the Turkish border.

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Saudi Arabia on Monday sentenced five people to death and three more to prison terms totaling 24 years in the October 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. As VOA’s Ardita Dunellari reports, the trial, which took place in total secrecy and the ensuing sentences which have exonerated high-level Saudi operatives, have done little to satisfy the calls for justice in the murder of The Washington Post journalist.

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Authorities in Nepal have detained 122 Chinese nationals on suspicion of engaging in financial crimes.
A police spokesman says the suspects were rounded up Monday during a series of raids in the capital, Kathmandu, and taken to different detention centers.
The Chinese nationals are suspected of taking part in cyber theft.  Police say they are also investigating whether anyone in the group had violated immigration laws by overstaying their visas.  
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters at a news conference in Beijing that police from China and Nepal cooperated in the investigation, and insisted that China is willing to increase cooperation with Nepal on a variety of issues, including law enforcement.
 

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