Tens of thousands of holidaymakers raced to evacuate popular seaside towns on Australia’s east coast Wednesday, fleeing ahead of advancing bushfires, as military ships and helicopters planned missions to rescue thousands more trapped by the blazes.
Long queues formed outside supermarkets and gas stations near high-danger areas as residents and tourists sought supplies to either hunker down or escape, but many shops and fuel stations had run out of supplies.
Major roads were closed because of fire risks, leaving motorists only a handful of escape routes causing lengthy traffic jams.
More than 50,000 people were without power and some towns had no access to drinking water, after catastrophic fires ripped through the region Dec. 31 sending the sky blood red and destroying towns.

Cars line up to leave the town of Batemans Bay in New South Wales to head north, Jan. 2, 2020. A major operation to move people stranded in fire-ravaged seaside towns was under way in Australia after deadly bushfires ripped through tourist spots.Mass exodus urged
Authorities have urged a mass exodus from several towns on Australia’s southeast coast, an area that is hugely popular in the current summer peak holiday season, warning that extreme heat forecast for the weekend will further stoke raging fires.
“It is vital, critical,” NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said on Australian Broadcasting Corp television. “We need everybody to leave. We are going to face a worse day on Saturday than what we have been through.”
Huge bushfires have been burning for weeks across Australia, with new blazes sparked into life almost daily by extremely hot and windy conditions in bushland left tinder dry after a three-year drought.
Fueled by searing temperatures and high winds, more than 200 fires are now burning across the southeastern states of New South Wales and Victoria, threatening several towns.
Death toll rises
Seven people have been killed in New South Wales state alone since Monday, including a volunteer firefighter, officials said, with one person still missing.
The death toll for this year’s fire season is 15 in New South Wales alone.
One person has died in Victoria state this week.

The HMAS Choules appears as a ghostly figure through smoke haze off the coast of Mallacoota, Australia, Jan. 2, 2020. The Australian Defense Force is moving naval assets to Mallacoota on a supply mission. (Australian Defense Force/Reuters)Military en route
Five military helicopters and two naval ships were en route to the south coast to back up firefighters, bring in supplies like water and diesel and to evacuate people, the Australian Defense Force said.
One ship was headed for the coastal town of Mallacoota in Victoria, where about 4,000 people have been stranded on the beach front since New Year’s Eve when they watched much of the town burn down.
The navy rescue team will include 1.6 metric tons of water and paramedics, officials said.
The only road in and out of Mallacoota was expected to remain blocked for several weeks.
The state’s Country Fire Authority said smoke was hampering efforts to identify how many homes have been destroyed across the eastern region of the state.
“We can’t even get firetrucks into some of these communities,” CFA Chief Officer Steve Warrington said. “This is not over by a long way.”
Soaring temperatures forecast
Temperatures are forecast to soar above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) along the south coast Saturday, bringing the prospect of renewed fires to add to the 200 estimated current blazes.
Fires this season have destroyed nearly 1,300 homes in the state, including 381 homes on the south coast just this week, the NSW Rural Fire Service said.
Bushfires are normal for Australia in the summer, but this fire season has been one of the worst on record, putting pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative climate change policies.

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Marching bands and floral floats took to the streets under mostly sunny California skies as the 131st Rose Parade drew hundreds of thousands of spectators on New Year’s Day. 
Among the fanciful floats was an award-winning entry from the Chinese American Heritage Foundation that marked the 75th anniversary of the U.S. victory in World War II and honored the sacrifices of women and minorities in the military. 

The University of Wisconsin marching band performs at the 131st Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., Jan. 1, 2020.A Curtiss P-40 Flying Tiger fighter and Sherman tank on the float were decorated in eucalyptus leaves with accents of black onion seed, white sweet rice and red ilex berries. 
After a B-2 stealth bomber streaked overhead, a performance by singer Ally Brooke kicked off Wednesday’s colorful proceedings. 
The annual extravaganza in Pasadena featured dozens of floats decked out with countless flowers and waving celebrities. 

The UPS Store Inc. float, “Stories Change Our World,” in support of the Toys for Tots literary program, won the Sweepstakes Award at the Rose Parade, Jan. 1, 2020, in Pasadena, Calif.There were just a few clouds, and temperatures reached the mid-60s (about 18 degrees Celsius) after a chilly night. 
It has rained only once on the Rose Parade in the past six decades — that was in 2006 — and it has never been canceled because of weather. 
The theme of the 2020 parade was “The Power of Hope.“ The grand marshals were actresses Rita Moreno and Gina Torres and Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez. 

Grand Marshal Rita Moreno waves to the crowd during the 131st Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., Jan. 1, 2020.A beaming Moreno waved from a rose-adorned antique car with her two adult grandsons. 
“Aquatic Aspirations,” a float built by students at California Polytechnic State University, featured a submarine, Hope, festooned with red and orange lentils, white mums, silver leaf and seaweed. 

The Royal Court, with Rose Queen Camille Kennedy at the top, are pictured at the 131st Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., Jan. 1, 2020.Spectators started lining the 5.5-mile (8.9-kilometer) route on Tuesday, many of them camping on sidewalks and braving overnight temperatures in the 40s (around 5 degrees Celsius). 
Pasadena police said there were no known threats to the parade. Security was tight, and no major problems were reported. 

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When Kimberly Dudik ran for her fourth term in the Montana House, state officials told her she could not use campaign money to pay for child care for her four young children.
She is now running for attorney general and is trying to visit a big chunk of the sprawling state, spending hours on the road. That means she needs even more help picking up her kids at school and day care when she’s away and her husband has a late night at the office.

FILE – Montana Rep. Kimberly Dudik, D-Missoula, introduces a bill in Helena, Mont., Feb. 4, 2015.“It just seems behind the times,” Dudik, whose family is living off her husband’s income and savings from her work as a lawyer. “When it was a man campaigning, the woman was traditionally the one to stay home and take care of the children. There is not someone home just taking care of the kids.”
Experts predict a large number of women will again run for office in 2020 like they did in 2018, and child care remains a hurdle for many of them.
A congressional candidate in New York successfully petitioned the Federal Election Commission in 2018 to allow campaign money to help cover child care costs. But it applies only to those running for federal office.
That leaves women in many states who are running for the Legislature, statewide positions like attorney general or local offices to find another way to pay for child care as they campaign, which often requires night and weekend work.
Only six states have laws specifically allowing campaign money to be used for child care. Five states are considering it. In most states, including Montana, the law is silent on the issue and up to interpretation by agencies or boards. Agencies in at least nine states have allowed child care to be a campaign-related expense, but those decisions are not law and could be reversed.
Utah law
Utah is among the states that passed a gender-neutral child care expense law, which went into effect last May. Sponsored by Republican state Rep. Craig Hall, it easily passed the GOP-dominated legislature.

FILE – Democratic Sen. Luz Escamilla looks on during a special session on the Utah Senate floor in Salt Lake City, Dec. 3, 2018.Luz Escamilla was one of the first candidates to use it as she campaigned to become the first Latina mayor of Salt Lake City. Escamilla had to take time off from her full-time banking job to knock on doors and shake hands as she made her case to voters.
Without a paycheck, it was hard to cover the cost of child care for her two youngest daughters. After the law was passed, she used about $1,500 in campaign cash over two months to help pay for it. The extra time she could spend campaigning helped propel her to a spot in the general election, though she lost in November.
“Full-time campaigning during the summer with toddlers, it makes it really difficult,” Escamilla said, adding of the law: “It was a great tool in our toolbox.”
Other states
Lawmakers in Minnesota added child care as an allowable expense in 2018, while Colorado, New York, New Hampshire and California passed laws in 2019.
Before Colorado allowed campaign cash to be used for child care, Amber McReynolds, a former chief elections official in Denver, was contemplating a bid for statewide office in 2017. The costs of child care were a considerable concern as a single mother of two young children.

FILE – Amber McReynolds, director of elections for the City and County of Denver, talks during a media tour in Denver, Oct. 28, 2016.For that and other reasons, McReynolds decided against running.
“When we look at the statistics in terms of representatives in Congress or statewide office and you don’t see single moms in that category, that’s why,” said McReynolds, who’s CEO of a nonprofit. “The circumstances are just that much more difficult when you are in politics.”
The policy also can help fathers running for office in families where both parents work.
Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said the record number of women who ran for office in 2018 has helped drive the issue. Still, lawmakers in a number of states have resisted the change.
In Tennessee, the sponsor of a measure to add child care to the list of approved campaign expenses faced a skeptical audience during a subcommittee hearing last spring.
“If they aren’t running for office because they can’t find child care, how are they going to do the job down here?” asked state Rep. John Crawford, a Republican from Kingsport, Tennessee.
The sponsor, Democratic state Rep. Jason Powell, said he introduced the proposal after people he tried to recruit to run for City Council in Nashville declined because child care needs kept them from campaigning.
“I hate that people in our state feel like they can’t run for office because they may or may not be able to use their campaign funds for a child care expense,” Powell said.
The measure failed to advance after a split vote of the all-male subcommittee.
Louisiana reversal
In Louisiana, Democratic state House candidate Morgan Lamandre had her request denied by the state ethics board even though it allowed a Republican man to claim campaign-related child care expenses in 2000. Members, who were not on the panel two decades ago and didn’t have to follow the previous decision, said they were concerned it could be abused.
After a backlash, the board reversed itself.
While she’s used campaign funds to pay for child care a few times, Lamandre said it’s not a panacea for smaller races where candidates might have to choose between paying a baby-sitter or buying basics like lawn signs.
“It’s helpful, but it’s not a slam-dunk,” she said.
‘Time to remove the roadblocks’

FILE – Congressional candidate Liuba Grechen-Shirley delivers a concession speech in Garden City, N.Y., Nov. 7, 2018.Liuba Grechen-Shirley, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress on eastern Long Island and whose FEC petition led to child care expenses being allowed for federal candidates, started a group called Vote Mama to help mothers running for public office and hopes one day the expense is allowed in every state.
States now considering proposals include New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Caitlin Clarkson Pereira tried a similar approach to Grechen-Shirley’s, but ended up suing Connecticut after a board denied her request. She was told she couldn’t use campaign money to pay for child care for her young daughter during her state House race in 2018, which she ultimately lost.
Connecticut officials cited a program that allows candidates to tap taxpayer money after they raise a certain amount on their own. With public money involved, the state says child care should be considered a personal expense.
Pereira argued that it should be considered as necessary as meals or travel.
“This is the time to remove the roadblocks that are clearly in the way of parents and families being able to run for office,” she said.
Despite an eleventh-hour push last year by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, lawmakers failed to pass the policy.
Dudik, the Montana candidate, said the lack of these laws shows the need to have more women in power so policies can be changed.
“If we want more women running for office, we need to make allowances to make that a reality and not just give lip service to it,” she said.
 

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A Google artificial intelligence system proved as good as expert radiologists at detecting which women had breast cancer based on screening mammograms and showed promise at reducing errors, researchers in the United States and Britain reported.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the latest to show that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve the accuracy of screening for breast cancer, which affects one in eight women globally.
Radiologists miss about 20% of breast cancers in mammograms, the American Cancer Society says, and half of all women who get the screenings over a 10-year period have a false positive result.
The findings of the study, developed with Alphabet Inc’s DeepMind AI unit, which merged with Google Health in September, represent a major advance in the potential for the early detection of breast cancer, Mozziyar Etemadi, one of its co-authors from Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said.
The team, which included researchers at Imperial College London and Britain’s National Health Service, trained the system to identify breast cancers on tens of thousands of mammograms.
They then compared the system’s performance with the actual results from a set of 25,856 mammograms in the United Kingdom and 3,097 from the United States.
The study showed the AI system could identify cancers with a similar degree of accuracy to expert radiologists, while reducing the number of false positive results by 5.7% in the U.S.-based group and by 1.2% in the British-based group.
It also cut the number of false negatives, where tests are wrongly classified as normal, by 9.4% in the U.S. group, and by 2.7% in the British group.
These differences reflect the ways in which mammograms are read. In the United States, only one radiologist reads the results and the tests are done every one to two years. In Britain, the tests are done every three years, and each is read by two radiologists. When they disagree, a third is consulted.
‘Subtle cues’
In a separate test, the group pitted the AI system against six radiologists and found it outperformed them at accurately detecting breast cancers.
Connie Lehman, chief of the breast imaging department at Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital, said the results are in line with findings from several groups using AI to improve cancer detection in mammograms, including her own work.
The notion of using computers to improve cancer diagnostics is decades old, and computer-aided detection (CAD) systems are commonplace in mammography clinics, yet CAD programs have not improved performance in clinical practice.
The issue, Lehman said, is that current CAD programs were trained to identify things human radiologists can see, whereas with AI, computers learn to spot cancers based on the actual results of thousands of mammograms.
This has the potential to “exceed human capacity to identify subtle cues that the human eye and brain aren’t able to perceive,” Lehman added.
Although computers have not been “super helpful” so far, “what we’ve shown at least in tens of thousands of mammograms is the tool can actually make a very well-informed decision,” Etemadi said.
Limitations
The study has some limitations. Most of the tests were done using the same type of imaging equipment, and the U.S. group contained a lot of patients with confirmed breast cancers.
Crucially, the team has yet to show the tool improves patient care, said Dr. Lisa Watanabe, chief medical officer of CureMetrix, whose AI mammogram program won U.S. approval last year.
“AI software is only helpful if it actually moves the dial for the radiologist,” she said.
Etemadi agreed that those studies are needed, as is regulatory approval, a process that could take several years.
 

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Senior leaders of an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq ordered a drawdown Wednesday of supporters surrounding the perimeter of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Protesters who burned trailers and smashed security cameras gathered after a U.S. airstrike killed members of the militia in Iraq. U.S. officials have said the strikes on Kataeb Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and command-and-control locations were in response to a rocket attack that killed a U.S. defense contractor last week. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
 

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A California startup called OFFWORLD has ambitious plans that are out of this world. They are working on developing autonomous robots that would be able to mine the Moon and Mars. Alexey Gorbachev has the story narrated by Anna Rice.

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday postponed a trip to Ukraine, the country at the heart of impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, after an attack on the American embassy in Iraq, the State Department announced.
Pompeo had been due to travel at week’s end to Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Cyprus.
But on Tuesday, a mob of pro-Iran demonstrators stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad over American airstrikes that killed two dozen paramilitary fighters.
Pompeo’s travel was pushed back “due to the need for the secretary to be in Washington, DC to continue monitoring the ongoing situation in Iraq and ensure the safety and security of Americans in the Middle East,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus announced.
“Secretary Pompeo’s trip will be rescheduled in the near future and he looks forward to the visit at that time,” she added.
The trip would have made Pompeo the most senior U.S. official to visit Kiev since a scandal erupted in 2019 over a controversial phone call in which Trump allegedly tried to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy to find dirt on Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.
Pompeo, a staunch Trump defender, was set to meet with Zelenskiy and other top Ukrainian officials, Ortagus said Monday when the trip was first announced.
But the following day, the embassy in Baghdad was besieged. Demonstrators finally left on Wednesday.
No U.S. personnel were injured in the attack and U.S. officials said they had no plans to evacuate.
Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress Dec. 18 and faces trial in the Senate, possibly later this month, though top Democratic and Republican lawmakers are still sparring over how it will be conducted.
 

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There have been mixed reactions in Cameroon to President Paul Biya’s renewed threat to crush separatist fighters in the country’s two English-speaking regions. Many Cameroonians were expecting Biya to announce new peace measures in an end-of-year message.
President Biya said the security problems in the Northwest and Southwest regions remain the most urgent issue to be tackled in the new year.
He said he had taken several measures allowing armed groups and fighters to lay down their weapons, but said the fighters, who are mostly youths, have been brainwashed by Cameroonians in the diaspora.
Biya said his military will henceforth show no mercy for those who continue to refuse to surrender and be forgiven.
“We will have no other choice than to combat them in order to protect all our fellow citizens,” he said. “Our Defense and Security Forces will, once again, perform their duty with restraint, but without weakness. I wish to reassure them of my full support and high esteem.”
Biya accused Cameroonians in the diaspora of funding violence back at home by continuing to buy weapons and said they should, out of patriotism, refrain from destroying their country.

FILE – Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi, left, talks with Cameroonian veteran opposition leader John Fru Ndi at the Congress Palace during the opening session of the National Dialogue, in Yaounde, Cameroon, Sept. 30, 2019.The comments drew immediate criticism from opposition leaders. John Fru Ndi, leader of Cameroon’s opposition Social Democratic Front party, says he was scandalized that Biya did not announce measures to stop the separatist crisis that is in its fourth year.
He says after the national dialogue Biya held in October, Cameroonians expected him to free separatist leader Ayuk Tabe Julius and his collaborators to allow peace to return.
“I expected that in a speech like this he would say Anglophone activists, I pardon you. Now with this olive branch that I have extended, can all those in the bushes {fighters} come out let us talk,” he said. “But Mr. Biya said if you want peace be prepared for war. I saw in him then that that was somebody who wanted to fight under all costs before his term comes to an end.”
Maurice Kamto, leader of the opposition Cameroon Renaissance Movement, said Biya is deceiving himself and the world that he is resolving the separatist crisis.  He said the president should convene what he called a sincere dialogue.

FILE – Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto sits in the back of a car as he is driven away on Oct. 5, 2019, the day of his release from prison in Yaounde.“The broad inclusive national dialogue must deal with among other issues, including particularly the reform of the electoral system, the guarantee of fundamental human rights and public freedoms and the guarantee of the independence of justice,” he said.
Cameroon is scheduled to hold local and parliamentary elections next month. Fru Ndi said with the current tensions in the English speaking regions, it will be difficult to conduct any elections successfully.
Violence erupted in the two regions in 2017 when teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of Cameroon’s French-speaking majority. The crisis has killed at least 3,000 people and displaced over 500,000, according to the United Nations.
Separatist leaders on social media described Biya’s message as a non-event and said they will continue to fight until they have their independence.   
 
 
 
 

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China’s central bank said Wednesday it will cut the amount of money banks will be required to have on hand from Jan. 6 in an effort to boost the slowing economy.
The People’s Bank of China announced that the reserve requirement ratio for financial institutions would be lowered by 50 basis points.
The official Xinhua News Agency said that step will release about 800 billion yuan ($114.6 billion) into the economy for lending purposes, delivering a shot in the arm to the economy ahead of the Lunar New Year that falls on Jan. 25. China’s most important annual holiday is a time when companies and individuals typically need large amounts of cash on hand to pay bonuses, clear debts and cover other expenses.
However, Xinhua quoted an unidentified central bank official as saying that Wednesday’s move does not presage a large-scale government stimulus program, ruling out the possibility of a “flood-like” flow of fresh money.
“The stance of prudent monetary policy has not changed,” the official was quoted as saying.
Beijing has adopted a string of market-opening measures and tariff cuts meant to help revive economic growth that slowed to a three-decade low of 6% in the latest quarter.
While the trade war with the U.S. has been a factor, more worrisome is flagging demand for autos and apartments and the continuing dominance of state companies sustained by generous government subsidies and preferential policies.

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A tragic airline crash with far-reaching consequences, cataclysmic cyclones that may be a harbinger of the future, the death of an African icon and a new leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize. These African stories captured the world’s attention in 2019, and look to influence events on the continent in 2020.
                   
The battles against extremist violence and Ebola will also continue to be major campaigns in Africa in the coming year.                  

FILE – Foreign investigators examine wreckage at the scene where the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed shortly after takeoff killing all 157 on board, near Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, south of Addis Ababa, March 12, 2019.The crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa in March killed all 157 passengers and crew. The disaster, which claimed the lives of a large number of U.N. officials, involved a Boeing 737 Max jet and came just five months after a similar crash in Indonesia of the same aircraft.
                   
Boeing was inundated with questions about the safety of its plane. After initially claiming that it was safe, the company was forced to ground the plane after many countries refused to let it fly in their airspace. In December Boeing announced that it would suspend production of the jet.
                   
The air crash was a trial for Ethiopia’s reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who later in the year won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for achieving peace with neighboring Eritrea. But Abiy is challenged by often violent ethnic rivalries in his country and elections set for May 2020 will be crucial, analysts say.
                   
Cyclone Idai ripped into Mozambique in March, killing more than 1,300 people, making it “one of the worst weather-related disasters ever to hit the southern hemisphere,” according to the U.N. A month later Cyclone Kenneth roared into northern Mozambique, killing more than 50 people.
                   
This was the first time in recorded history that Mozambique had two major cyclones, prompting some to worry that the country, with a 1,000-mile Indian Ocean coastline, may be prone to more storms as a result of climate change.
                   
Across Mozambique more than 2.5 million people remain in urgent need of assistance, according to the U.N. Mozambique also starts 2020 troubled by ongoing attacks on vehicles in the country’s central area and by Islamic extremist attacks in the country’s north.
                   
Extremist violence continues to vex Africa from the east to the west.
                   
2019 began with extremist violence. In Kenya in January, insurgents launched an assault on a luxury hotel and shopping complex in Nairobi that killed at least 14 people.
                   
The year came to an end with extremist attacks across the continent.                  

FILE – A general view shows the scene of a car bomb explosion at a checkpoint in Mogadishu, Somalia, Dec. 28, 2019.A bomb in Somalia killed 78 people, including many university students, in the capital, Mogadishu, on Dec. 28, the deadliest attack in years. Somalia’s al-Shabab, allied to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
                   
In Nigeria extremists linked to the Islamic State group circulated a video showing 11 hostages, most of them Christians, being executed. They were thought to be killed on Christmas Day. The extremist group, which calls itself the Islamic State West Africa Province, said the captives were executed as revenge for the killing of Islamic State group leaders in Iraq and Syria in October.
                   
In northern Burkina Faso, jihadists killed 35 civilians, most of them women, and ensuing clashes with security forces left 80 jihadists dead, the West African nation’s president announced Dec. 24. That attack came weeks after an attack on a convoy carrying employees of a Canadian mining company in which at least 37 civilians were killed in the country’s east. Both attacks were by groups numbering close to 100, indicating the presence of relatively large, well-organized extremist groups.
                   
“The startling deterioration of the security situation in Burkina Faso has been a major development in 2019,” said Alex Vines, director of the Africa program at Chatham House, the British think tank. “There’s been a dramatic spike in extremist attacks.”
                   
Frequent attacks in Burkina Faso’s north and east already have displaced more than a half million people, according to the United Nations. While Burkina Faso’s military has received training from both former colonizer France and the United States, it starts 2020 with little progress in halting the surge in extremist violence.
                   
Congo starts the year waging a different kind of war, a campaign against Ebola, which has killed more than 2,200 people since August 2018. The medical effort to control the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has been severely hampered since the start by the presence of several armed groups in eastern Congo, the epicenter of the epidemic. It was hoped that new vaccines would help control the outbreak more quickly, but the violence has hampered those efforts.
                   
Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi, elected in 2019, said in November that he was optimistic that the Ebola outbreak would be ended before 2020, but the epidemic continues throughout eastern Congo.                  

FILE – President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during a state funeral of Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler Robert Mugabe, at the national sports stadium in Harare, Zimbabwe, Sept. 14, 2019.South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, re-elected in 2019, said in a New Year’s statement that the need to boost his country’s ailing economy and create jobs is his biggest challenge for 2020. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, also re-elected, has said that his government has controlled the rebellion by Boko Haram extremists, but violence continues to plague the country’s northeast.
                   
Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler, Robert Mugabe, died at age 95 in September. Mugabe, the guerrilla leader who fought to end white-minority rule in Rhodesia and then ruled independent Zimbabwe from 1980 until 2017, left a mixed legacy of liberation, repression and economic ruin.
                   
Zimbabwe begins the new year with severe economic problems including inflation estimated at more than 300% and widespread hunger. In an emergency appeal at the end of December, the U.N.’s World Food Program said that even though the southern African country had suffered a drought, Zimbabwe’s food shortages are a ‘man-made” disaster, laying the blame squarely with President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.
                   
The once-prosperous country staggered to 2020 with power shortages lasting up to 19 hours per day and large parts of the capital, Harare, a city of some 2 million people, going without running water.

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Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters began marching in Hong Kong on New Year’s Day, demanding concessions from the city’s embattled government as the civil unrest that convulsed the Chinese-ruled city for more than half a year spills into 2020.
Gathering on a grass lawn in Victoria Park under grey skies, citizens young and old, many dressed in black and some masked, carried signs such as “Freedom is not free” before setting off.
“It’s hard to utter ‘Happy New Year’ because Hong Kong people are not happy,” said a man named Tung, who was walking with his 2-year-old son, mother and niece.
“Unless the five demands are achieved, and police are held accountable for their brutality, then we can’t have a real happy new year,” he added, referring to the push for concessions from the government including full democracy, an amnesty for the more than 6,500 people arrested so far, and a powerful, independent investigation into police actions.

People wearing masks depicting LIHKG Pig and Pepe the Frog, characters used by pro-democracy activists as a symbol of their struggle, gather in Victoria Park ahead of a planned pro-democracy march in Hong Kong, Jan. 1, 2020.The pro-democracy march is being organized by the Civil Human Rights Front, a group that arranged a number of marches last year that drew millions.
Along the route, a number of newly elected pro-democracy district politicians mingled with the crowds on their first day in office, some helping collect donations to assist the movement.
“The government has already started the oppression before the new year began … whoever is being oppressed, we will stand with them,” said Jimmy Sham, one of the leaders of the Civil Human Rights Front.
Thousands of Hong Kong revelers had earlier welcomed in 2020 on neon-lit promenades along the iconic skyline of Victoria Harbor, chanting the movement’s signature eight-word Chinese protest couplet — “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our Time.” — for the final eight seconds before clocks struck midnight.

This view shows thousands of people gathered in Victoria Park in the Causeway Bay area ahead of a planned pro-democracy march in Hong Kong, Jan. 1, 2020.A sea of protesters then surged down Nathan Road, a major boulevard, blocking all lanes in a spontaneous march breaking out within minutes of the new decade. Some held signs reading “Let’s keep fighting together in 2020.”
Overnight, police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons during some brief standoffs.
China’s President Xi Jinping said in a New Year’s speech that Beijing will “resolutely safeguard the prosperity and stability” of Hong Kong under the so-called “one country, two systems” framework.
Many people in Hong Kong are angered by Beijing’s tight grip on the city, which was promised a high degree of autonomy under this framework when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Beijing denies interference and blames the West for fomenting the unrest.
A group of 40 parliamentarians and dignitaries from 18 countries had written an open letter to Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam on New Year’s Eve, urging her to “seek genuine ways forward out of this crisis by addressing the grievances of Hong Kong people.”
The protest movement is supported by 59% of the city’s residents polled in a survey conducted for Reuters by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute.
Demonstrations have grown increasingly violent in recent months, at times paralyzing the Asian financial center.
Protesters have thrown petrol bombs and rocks, with police responding with tear gas, water cannon, pepper spray, rubber bullets and occasional live rounds. There have been several injuries.

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China confirmed its lead this year in Asia’s biggest maritime sovereignty dispute by sending nonmilitary ships to waters normally controlled by other countries, allowing it to flex muscle without conflicts or diplomatic losses.
Pushback from Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam kept Beijing from adding artificial islets or control over existing features in the resource-rich South China Sea in 2019, analysts say.
Citing dynastic-era maritime records, China claims 90% of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer tropical waterway that stretches from Hong Kong to Borneo, while Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam claim waters that overlap China’s. They all value the sea for fisheries, fossil fuel reserves or both.
“Compared to the previous years, there was relatively less militarization by China,” said Aaron Rabena, research fellow at Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation, a Manila research organization. “Still we see standoffs taking place, so there are still challenges.”
China was once more aggressive. Vietnam and China clashed in two deadly incidents in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2012, Chinese ships entered into a prolonged standoff with the Philippines at a shoal near Luzon Island and eventually took control of it. Two years later, Vietnamese and Chinese ships rammed each other over the location of an offshore Chinese oil rig.

FILE – This aerial photo taken through a glass window of a military plane shows China’s alleged on-going reclamation of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, May 11, 2015.Over the past decade, China has alarmed the other claimants by using landfill to create or expand three tiny islets, in the sea’s Spratly Islands and others in the Paracel chain. Some of those islets now support hangars and radar equipment.
“You had two, maybe three, cable-cutting incidents, you had over the years Chinese fishermen being rapacious with Vietnamese, boarding ships and seizing things,” said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor with the University of New South Wales in Australia, recalling a more assertive China 10 years ago. “That seems to have died down,” he said.
Pressure without firefights
Chinese coast guard ships, survey vessels and informal fishing boat flotillas still appear in the sea tracts claimed by other governments. China used all three this year to assert existing claims but occupied no new islets and got into no firefights.
To avoid angering the other claimants, China worked with them economically, for example by financing infrastructure construction in the Philippines. That cooperation lowers odds that the other governments will grow cozier with the United States, which has the world’s strongest armed forces and resents Chinese maritime expansion, analysts have said.
China, however, positioned vessels this past year in the waters within 370 kilometers of Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, possibly to flex muscle. That distance normally gives coastal nations an exclusive economic zone.
Around Malaysia, “they’ve sailed ever more closely to our platforms, so that particular aspect has changed,” said Shahriman Lockman, senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the research organization the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Kuala Lumpur. “They’ve not interrupted operations, they just sail closer, that’s all. It’s more a show of force rather than anything else.”

For much of the year, China’s coast guard made its presence felt in waters claimed by Malaysia, the most active explorer of undersea natural gas in the disputed region.
In January, China moved as many as 90 ships around the Manila-controlled Thitu Island to monitor construction of a beaching ramp. A Chinese fishing boat sank a Philippine vessel in June near the disputed sea’s Reed Bank, raising questions about whether the capsized boat was rammed.

FILE – Filipino soldiers stand at attention near a Philippine flag at Thitu island in disputed South China Sea, April 21, 2017.Vietnam and China got into the most heated dispute of the year.
It started when a Chinese energy survey ship began patrolling in July near Vanguard Bank and a seabed tract about 352 kilometers off the coast of southeastern Vietnam. The patrol circled an oil and gas block on the Vietnamese continental shelf, also within China’s claim. A standoff followed and ended in October when the survey ship left, apparently after completing a mission.
Diplomatic fixes
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed has asked China to clarify its intent in the sea and this month his government submitted documentation to the United Nations suggesting it extend rights over a larger part of the continental shelf. China protested. Mahathir’s government also set aside a railway project funded by China, but it resumed in late 2019.
In the Philippines, legislators and military officials want President Rodrigo Duterte to step up resistance to China; however, his administration has agreed with Beijing to joint oil and gas development. The two sides started intergovernmental committee talks this year to oversee projects. They separately pledged to investigate the ship collision.
Vietnam contacted numerous Western nations about the Vanguard Bank standoff, Thayer said.

FILE – A U.S. fighter jet takes off from the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan for their patrol in the international waters near the South China Sea, Aug. 6, 2019.Much of Southeast Asia still expects the United States will keep China in check, as needed, by sending naval ships into the sea, Lockman said. Washington calls the events “freedom of navigation operations” and carried out several in 2019.
China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes four maritime claimants, often discuss the maritime disputes but made little headway this year. They are due to talk eventually about signing a code of conduct that would help avert mishaps.
“I wouldn’t say there’s been reconciliation,” said Alan Chong, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “It’s been a fluid situation and the jury is still out.”

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The world rang in a new year and decade Wednesday with fireworks, music and all-night parties.
The celebrations included the usual massive gathering in New York’s Times Square where people counted down the remaining seconds of 2019 and cheered as 2020 officially arrived.

People celebrate as they watch the traditional New Year’s fireworks at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Dec. 31, 2019.Several million people gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a massive celebration featuring fireworks and music on Brazil’s famous Copacabana beach.
In Paris, fireworks lit up the Champs-Elysees area as France took its turn welcoming the new year.

Fireworks explode over the Kremlin during New Year’s celebrations in Red Square with the Spasskaya Tower, left, in the background in Moscow, Jan. 1, 2020.The huge clock looming over the Kremlin in Moscow chimed in 2020 with fireworks in the sky and fake snow on the ground. Unusually warm temperatures has made it a wet, not white New Year’s Eve, leading Russian authorities to spread artificial snow around Moscow to create the proper New Year’s atmosphere.
A 10-minute fireworks show delighted revelers in Dubai, while in Japan, celebrants took turns in striking Buddhist temple bells, an ancient tradition.
Fireworks brightened the skies elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific, including Sydney Harbor in Australia.
Fireworks were canceled in other parts of the country because of the extremely dry conditions that led to devastating wildfires.
Pro-democracy demonstrators broke out in chants as midnight approached in Hong Kong. Authorities there canceled the traditional fireworks over the city for “security reasons,” replacing them with a light show beamed against skyscrapers.

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