Iraq’s influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr escalated his rhetoric Tuesday against the U.S. influence in Iraq, calling civilians to participate in a “million-person” march for the removal of American troops in the country.
“O Soldiers of God and the nation, rush to a united and peaceful demonstration of millions, denouncing the American presence and its violations,” al-Sadr said in a tweet to Iraqis.  
Al-Sadr, whose political list won the most seats in the Iraqi 2018 legislative elections, has used his popularity in the past to draw thousands of zealous supporters to the streets, including the October 2019 protests over government corruption. He has since 2003 ardently opposed the U.S. presence in Iraq and for years used the now disbanded Mahdy Army to target U.S. troops.
WATCH: Tens of Thousands of US Troops are Stationed Near Iran

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The cleric in his recent plea for rally expressed his frustration over the violation of Iraq’s sovereignty by “the occupying forces,” saying he was confident that Iraqi protesters “will not bow down to global arrogance.”
Global Arrogance  
The term “global arrogance” is often used by Iran’s officials to refer to the United States and its Western and Israeli allies.
Al-Sadr’s call for protests comes as Iran’s state-sponsored AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA) Tuesday reported an “important gathering” between him and “the commanders of Iraqi resistance” late Monday in Iran. 
The meeting, attended by leaders of Hezbollah Battalion, the Movement of the Noble Ones, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, was “in the virtue of more coordination of Islamic resistance forces” and “in order to put an end to the American invaders’ presence in Iraq,” ABNA reported, referring to three Shiite militant groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S.  
Another meeting between al-Sadr’s political wing Saairun and Fatih coalition in the Iranian city of Qom Saturday agreed to choose Hadi al-Aameri as the head of “the Islamic Resistance in Iraq” following the U.S. killing of Iraqi Shiite leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis along with IRGC’s Qassem Soleimani, ABNA reported.
Relations between the United States and Iran faced a series of escalations in recent weeks after the U.S. accused Iranian proxy militias of targeting U.S. facilities in Iraq, including a rocket attack in Kirkuk province that killed an American contractor in late December and prompted American strikes on Kataeb Hezbollah facilities in Iraq and Syria.
WATCH: A Look at Soleimani’s Axis of Resistance

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The tensions reached a new level high after the U.S. embassy was sieged by pro-Iran protesters on Dec. 31, followed by a U.S. airstrike on January 3 that killed Iran’s top commander Soleimani along with several others. Iran on Jan. 8 responded by firing a barrage of ballistic missiles on at least two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. 
WATCH: Qassem Soleimani: From Construction Worker to Architect of Iran’s Middle East Expansion

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In Iraq, where the Shiite-dominated government has condemned the U.S. airstrike as a violation of its sovereignty, the parliament last week passed a resolution that asked for the removal of American troops and other foreign forces. U.S. president Donald Trump, in return, has threatened to hit Iraq with severe sanctions.
Sherko Mirways, a Kurdish lawmaker and head of Iraqi parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, told VOA that Iraq was entering “a dark tunnel,” warning that Iraq’s leadership needs to take Trump’s threats seriously. 
“We need to work together to deescalate the situation now and have a serious debate later about Iraq’s political direction and a balanced relation with the world,” Mirways said. 
The lawmaker said that Iraq was falling victim to the U.S.-Iran rivalry, adding that the country needed to work with both sides based on mutual interests.
VOA Kurdish Service’s Dlshad Anwar contributed to this report from Kirkuk, Iraq.

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The head of Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that China has launched an assault on the international human rights system, and governments need to resist Beijing’s actions.
“This is the most severe period of repression that we have seen in decades in China,” said Kenneth Roth, HRW executive director.  
In its World Report 2020, launched Tuesday at the United Nations, the rights group chronicles abuses in 95 countries. It expresses its deepest concern, though, about an emboldened China, which it warns is using its growing global economic influence to silence domestic critics and deter condemnation abroad.  

FILE – Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights WatchAt home, HRW says President Xi Jinping’s government uses a combination of technology and intimidation to keep its people in line. Most concerning is the government’s treatment of millions of ethnic Uigher Muslims.
“For the Uighers and other Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang, Beijing has built the most intrusive system of surveillance we have ever seen and coupled it with the largest case of mass arbitrary detention in decades,” Roth told reporters.
In the northwest territory of Xinjiang, where most Uigher’s live, Communist party officials and loyalists “visit” and live in homes of some Uighers to monitor them. The government also has harnessed technology to deploy facial-recognition systems and use the forced collection of DNA samples, as well as phone apps, to collect their data.
A million or more Uighers are incarcerated in “re-education” facilities, separated from their families, with many children being left without their parents.  
China has defended its treatment of the Uighers, saying they are in vocational training and that it is pursuing de-radicalization and counterterror efforts.  
Roth urged countries to deny Beijing the international respectability it desires, saying that can help force positive change.
“Governments should deliberately counter China’s divide-and-conquer strategy for securing silence about its repression,” Roth said. “When governments deal with China on their own, they often opt for silence, but if they band together, the power of balance shifts.”
Denied entry
HRW originally planned to launch its report from Hong Kong, but authorities there would not let Roth into the country, which is governed by China.  
A diplomat from China’s U.N. mission attended his press conference and told reporters that Beijing rejects HRW’s assessment of its human rights situation, saying his government has “made every effort to advance human rights in China.”
As to Roth’s denial of entry into Hong Kong, First Secretary Xing Jisheng said, “Given what you said here, I think it’s clear to all why you have been barred such entry.”
 

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Gambia’s longtime dictator Yahya Jammeh, who fled into exile three years ago after an election loss, has announced plans to return to the West African nation where human rights activists say he ordered the killings of political opponents during his rule.
The deputy spokesman for Jammeh’s political party released several audio recordings to the media over the weekend featuring conversations between Jammeh and a top party official.
“I am coming back. They said they drove me out of the country. Apart from Allah, nobody can take me out of The Gambia,” Jammeh is heard saying. The recordings could not be independently verified and it was not clear when they had been made.
His two-decade-long rule was marked by arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, according to rights activists. Along with political opponents, Jammeh also targeted journalists and members of the gay community.

The GambiaWhile he has not been charged in Gambia with a crime, witnesses have testified before an ongoing Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, some saying they had carried out summary executions at his direction.
Authorities also have suggested Jammeh could face economic crimes for pillaging state coffers before he fled into exile in Equatorial Guinea in January 2017. He stole an estimated $1 billion during his rule, according to The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Equatorial Guinea, led by the same president for more than 40 years, is unlikely to ever extradite Jammeh.
It’s unclear what measures Gambian authorities would take if Jammeh voluntarily returned home.
Do Sannoh, an adviser to Gambian President Adama Barrow, said Sunday he was unaware of any ongoing negotiations over Jammeh’s possible return. But he said the former leader would be welcome to appear before the commission that has been investigating alleged abuses during his rule.
“He is a citizen. He has every right to stay in his hometown and go and answer to the law,” he said.
Calls for arrest
The audio recordings prompted outcry from the Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations, which said the government should arrest Jammeh if he sets foot in the country.
“Former President Yahya Jammeh’s rule in The Gambia was a tyrannical and brutal dictatorship,” said Sheriff Kijera, the center’s chairman. “He is a fugitive from justice and a subject of serious allegations of human rights violations.”
Kijera added: “If former president Jammeh is authorized to return to The Gambia without being arrested, charged and prosecuted for his crimes or transferred to another state for him to face justice, it would be a big failure on the part of the government of The Gambia to uphold its duty to the people of Gambia, as well as its international obligation to provide an effective remedy to victims.”
 

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The European Union rolled out a massive, trillion-dollar investment plan Tuesday to deliver on promises to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050.
The EU would designate one-quarter of its budget to fighting climate change over the next decade. The trillion-dollar price tag would come from a mix of EU and national government funds, as well as investment from the private sector.  
It targets the EU’s ambitious goal of ensuring greenhouse emissions reach net zero in 30 years. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who late last year announced that goal — a plan she calls the “Green Deal” — says the investments are for the climate, as well as EU citizens. 
“It will be invested in the huge transition ahead of us, which consists of upskilling people in new jobs, clean technologies, green financing, new procedures,” she said.

FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a media conference after an extraordinary meeting of the EU college of commissioners at EU headquarters in Brussels, Jan. 8, 2020.The plan prioritizes investment to help coal-dependent countries like Poland transition to green energy. Poland is the only EU member that has not yet signed onto the Green Deal, which would support scientists, businesses and other players in the energy transition. Some of the financing is seed money aimed at triggering much bigger investment.  
States that want to qualify for funding must present proposals on low-emission projects as part of how they plan to restructure their economies to be climate friendlier.  
The European commissioner for budget and administration, Johannes Hahn, detailed the investment plan at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.  
“We have no time to waste if we want to deliver results for the citizens,” Hahn said. “Or, again in a nutshell, we provide climate cash in order to avoid a climate crash.”
A recent poll shows Europeans fear climate change more than terrorism or losing their jobs.   
Still, some EU lawmakers suggest details of the green investment plan are too sketchy. Others believe it should link the funds to deadlines for phasing out coal.  
The European Investment Bank, which is mobilizing the chunk of money, announced last year it would end financing for all fossil fuel projects by the end of 2020, and align future financing goals with the Paris climate agreement.  
EU lawmakers are expected to hold a non-binding vote Wednesday on the Green Deal. Von der Leyen aims to have climate legislation adopted by March.
 

…

ABUJA — Nigerian authorities have been battling the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, for a decade in a conflict that has cost the lives of an estimated 35,000 people. In a ceremony over the weekend, Nigeria marked Armed Forces Day by remembering the soldiers killed in the battle against the insurgency. 
The special remembrance event for troops took place in the Nigerian capital, and with smaller ceremonies in states like Borno, Adamawa and Yola — the epicenters of Nigeria’s decade-long war against the Boko Haram insurgency.
During the event in Abuja, about 200 widows of fallen soldiers and their relatives received food and financial support.
Like many of the women, Olubunmi Adetunji’s husband, a soldier, was killed while fighting Boko Haram in Maiduguri in April 2016. Since then, the defense ministry has been helping her care for their four children.

Widows and relatives of soldiers killed in battle stand behind food items they received from defense ministry authorities as part of a special remembrance event in Abuja, Nigeria, Jan. 11, 2020. (Timothy Obiezu/VOA)“I thank the defense headquarters and the army headquarters for what they have been doing in my life because since 2016, I don’t know how much they sell rice in the market. They provide rice, provisions, even the children’s sponsorship, they call us every year to pay the sponsorship,” Adetunji said.
A concert to honor fallen soldiers, tagged  “Tribute To Our Heroes,” debuted with top Nigerian entertainers, musicians and comedians performing.
Lere Osanyintolu, a personnel official at the defense ministry, said the ministry plans to make it an annual event.
“The aim of this project is to let you know that the chief of defense staff, armed forces of Nigeria and, indeed, the nation at large has not forgotten you and that you’re never alone as you’re always in our prayers,” Osanyintolu said.
Security expert Kabiru Adamu, who heads an Abuja-based security consulting firm, said events like the concert help boost morale and inspire confidence.
“The insurgency has been going on for about 10 years now, so I think this is a very good development,” Adamu said. “There are issues regarding the relationship between the military and the public in the locations where they are fighting. So this type of morale-boosting activity like the concert, I think it’s a very good development.”
As the military continues to battle Boko Haram, millions affected by the fight who are living in camps are hoping to return home.
 

…

A surge of terrorist violence in Africa’s Sahel region is forcing West African nations to reconsider their strategy and unify military forces. Leaders invited by French President Emmanuel Macron to a G5 summit in the southern French city of Pau on Monday agreed to pursue their engagements with France – and put aside their differences with the former colonial power – to fight against jihadism. For VOA, Daniel Gillet reports from Pau. 
 

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The fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi called last month’s death sentences for five unnamed assailants a mockery of justice in her first ever English-language interview.
“It’s like a joke to me. It’s unacceptable, really, because we don’t know any details about this investigation,” Hatice Cengiz told Oslo-based Skavlan in a television interview on Sunday.
“They told us of only five men without names,” she said. “And why they are five? More than 10 people came to Turkey!
“We want real punishment, even for [those who gave the] orders,” she told
The brutal murder and dismemberment of the Saudi dissident writer with a bone saw occurred as Cengiz awaited his return outside the consulate walls.
The December 23 Saudi ruling, the outcome of largely secret murder trial proceedings, has been widely dismissed for punishing those who carried out the attack while protecting those who ordered it.
“Bottom line: the hit-men are guilty, sentenced to death, and the masterminds not only walk free, they have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial,” said Agnes Callamard, special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions for the United Nations human rights office.
“That is the antithesis of Justice. It is a mockery,” Callamard said

Riyadh’s public prosecutor defended the ruling, explaining that death sentences targeted those who committed and directly participated in the murder, while imprisoning others “for their role in covering up this crime.”
Callamard’s June 2019 U.N. probe concluded that 15 Saudi agents “acted under cover of their official status and used state means to execute Mr. Khashoggi.”
The U.N. report also found “credible evidence” linking Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the killing, and a U.S. CIA assessment said the crown prince ordered the killing.

…

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House of Representatives will vote Wednesday to send official impeachment charges to the Senate, bringing the start of U.S. President Donald Trump’s historical impeachment trial one step closer to reality.
Pelosi made the announcement in a statement that was released shortly after discussing the impeachment proceedings at a private meeting with House Democrats nearly a month after the Democrat-led House voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.“
The American people will fully understand the Senate’s move to begin the trial without witnesses and documents as a pure political cover-up,” the statement said. ‘(Senate Majority) Leader (Mitch) McConnell and the President are afraid of more facts coming to light. The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial.”
Pelosi said the House would also vote Wednesday to name the impeachment managers.
The impeachment allegations contend Trump abused the office of the presidency by pressing Ukraine to launch an investigation into one of his main 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and obstructing congressional efforts to investigate his Ukraine-related actions.
Choosing managers
Democrats at Tuesday’s closed-door meeting said Pelosi is expected to name House managers for the impeachment case on Wednesday.
Pelosi had delayed sending the articles to the Senate in a futile effort to get Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to agree to hear testimony from key Trump aides who were directly involved with the president as he temporarily withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open the Biden investigation.
A Wednesday vote would enable the Senate to start the trial as soon as this week. But opening arguments probably won’t be heard until next week at the earliest, as the Senate will likely take several days to complete formalities such as swearing in Chief Justice John Roberts and approving a set of rules.
Trump, only the fourth U.S. president to be targeted with a serious impeachment effort in the country’s 244-year history, has denied any wrongdoing. He has also ridiculed the Democrats’ impeachment effort.
Two other U.S. presidents, Andrew Johnson in the 19th century and Bill Clinton two decades ago, were also impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials, while a third U.S. leader, Richard Nixon, resigned in 1974 while facing a certain impeachment in a political corruption scandal.
Acquittal likely
The Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit Trump, particularly since no Republicans have expressed support for removing him from office.
A two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate would be needed to convict Trump to remove him from office. At least 20 Republicans would need to turn against Trump for a conviction, if all 47 Democrats voted against the president. A handful of Republicans have criticized Trump’s Ukraine actions, but none has called for his conviction and removal from office.
Trump released the military aid to Ukraine in September without Zelenskiy opening the investigation of Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. Republicans say releasing the aid is proof Trump did not engage in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal with Ukraine — the military aid for the Biden investigations.

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Ethiopians and U.S. foreign policy observers are trying to unravel a comment made by President Donald Trump last week where he claimed to have “saved a country” and implied he should have been given the Nobel Peace Prize for the achievement.  
Trump made the comments during a rally in Toledo, Ohio, and appeared to be referencing Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed whose Nobel Peace Prize was announced in October. “I made a deal, I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said, ‘what? Did I have something do with it?’”
Abiy received the prize for his efforts to end nearly 20 years of hostility between Eritrea and Ethiopia relating to disputes over their shared border.
Observers believe Trump was referring to White House efforts to mediate discussions between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan over water usage from the Nile River. Ethiopia is building a massive hydroelectric power project known as the Grand Renaissance Dam, but countries downstream on the Blue Nile are concerned it will deplete their principal water source.
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee wasted no time jumping on what they believed to be a gaffe by Trump. “Trump is confused. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to the Horn of Africa, not stalled negotiations about a new dam on the Nile,” the committee said on its Twitter account on Jan. 10.  
The committee, which is chaired by a Democratic lawmaker, also pointed out that the negotiations have not been successful. The three countries continue to be deadlocked and have been unable to reach an agreement as they approach a Jan. 15 deadline to resolve the issue.  
“If they gave the Nobel for deals that didn’t happen, the Pres. would have a shelf full of them,” the Foreign Affairs Committee Twitter account stated.

Trump is confused.PM @AbiyAhmedAli was awarded the @NobelPrize for his efforts to bring peace to the Horn of Africa, not stalled negotiations about a new dam on the Nile.
If they gave the Nobel for deals that didn’t happen, the Pres. would have a shelf full of them. #Ethiopiahttps://t.co/WhJ6nLvb6Z
— House Foreign Affairs Committee (@HouseForeign) January 10, 2020
 
Trump has not elaborated on the comments since then. When asked about the meaning, the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia referred reporters to comments made in October by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulating Abiy on the award, the Washington Post reported.
For his part, Abiy did not appear bothered by the statement. “To be honest, I don’t have any clue about the criteria [of] how the Nobel committee selects an individual for the prize. So, the issue of President Trump must go to the Nobel Prize Committee,” Abiy said on Jan. 12 during a press conference in South Africa.  
Abiy added that he is more concerned with progress toward peace in the region than awards. “I am not working for the prize. I am working that peace is a very critical thing for our region and if they recognize and if President Trump complained, it must go to Oslo, not to Ethiopia,” he said.  

VIDEO: After US President Donald Trump said that he believes he deserves the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, Abiy Ahmed, the winner and Ethiopian Prime Minister replied: “If Donald Trump wants to complain, he should go to Oslo, not Ethiopia” pic.twitter.com/63IrjUKK9D
— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 12, 2020
Ambassador Herman Cohen, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said these types of confounding, off-the-cuff remarks have become a hallmark of Trump’s presidency. “He has this tendency to make comments without first looking in the background. That’s the way he operates,” Cohen told VOA’s Amharic service.  
But Cohen said the U.S. has the potential to play a leading role in relieving tensions among the Nile River countries. Representatives from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia met at the White House on November 6. This week, the delegations are continuing to negotiate. They have meetings scheduled with Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and the President of the World Bank David Malpass.  “
Egypt has been in a very tense situation with Ethiopia. And what President Trump did was he called both countries and said ‘come to the United States and we’ll mediate your dispute.’ And this caused a drop in the tension between Ethiopia and Egypt,” Cohen said. “And for that, I think President Trump deserves a lot of credit. Now, maybe he’ll get the peace prize for that next year.”
VOA Horn of Africa’s Amharic service Solomon Abate contributed to this story.
 
 

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Hackers from Russia’s military intelligence unit, the GRU, have allegedly targeted a Ukrainian energy firm tied to the impeachment proceedings against U.S. President Donald Trump.
Cybersecurity experts at California-based Area 1 Security released a report on Monday that found Burisma Holdings, where the son of presidential front-runner Joe Biden sat on the board, was successfully penetrated in a wide-ranging phishing campaign that stole e-mail credentials of employees.
It isn’t clear if anything was stolen from the company or its subsidiaries, which were initially targeted, if any information was gleaned, and what the ultimate goal of the hackers was.

FILE – Hunter Biden waits for the start of the his father’s debate at Centre College in Danville, Ky., Oct. 11, 2012.Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, was a board member of Burisma from 2014 until last year.
Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to “look into” allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens and the energy firm in a July 25 phone call. Their conversation was the subject of an ensuing whistle-blower’s complaint that triggered the impeachment investigation, which began in September.
The U.S. president has since been charged with abuse of office and obstruction of Congress by the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which is scheduled on January 14 to vote on the timing of when to send the articles of impeachment to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial on whether to remove him from office.
No evidence of corruption by either of the Bidens has surfaced in light of allegations by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, that the former vice president sought to protect his son by pressuring Ukrainian officials.
Evidence has yet to emerge of allegations that Joe Biden pushed for the ouster of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor when he served as vice president and was seen as then-President Barack Obama’s point man on Ukraine.
U.S. allies in Europe and Ukraine’s international lenders supported Joe Biden because successive chief prosecutors were believed to have been either obstructing or stalling investigations into high-profile corruption cases, including probes into Burisma.

A screenshot of the Fancy Bears website fancybear.net is seen on a computer screen in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 14, 2016. Confidential medical data of several U.S. Olympians hacked from a World Anti-Doping Agency database was posted online Sept. 13, 2016The alleged hacker group used a similar phishing pattern and is directly connected to Fancy Bear, the same Russian cyber-infiltrators of the Democratic National Committee in the months leading up the 2016 presidential election that Trump, a Republican, won.
The GRU featured prominently in the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, which concluded that Russia hacked the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to help Trump.
Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign and election.
Area 1’s eight-page report said the cyberattacks on Burisma began in November, when Ukraine and impeachment, as well as talk of the Bidens, were dominating news headlines in the United States.
Zelenskiy Firm Targeted
“Area 1 Security has also further connected this GRU phishing campaign to another phishing campaign targeting a media organization founded” by Zelensky, the report said.
The New York Times, which first wrote about the anti-phishing company’s report, said the attack “appears to have been aimed at digging up e-mail correspondence” of Studio Kvartal 95, which then was headed by Ivan Bakanov, whom Zelenskiy appointed as head of Ukraine’s Security Service in June.

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Calling preparations for the 2020 Census “conspicuously deficient,” the NAACP is suing the U.S. Census Bureau, demanding that the agency send more workers into the field and spend more money on encouraging people to participate in the once-a-decade head count.
    
The civil rights group and Prince George’s County, a majority African American county in Maryland, filed the lawsuit last Friday in federal court in Maryland. It  claims the Census Bureau wasn’t planning to put enough workers in the field and hadn’t opened up a sufficient number of field offices.
    
The lawsuit also faulted the bureau for conducting  limited testing, particularly when, for the first time, it is encouraging most respondents to answer the questionnaire online.
    
The 2020 census will help determine the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending and how many congressional seats each state gets. It starts for a few residents next week in a remote part of Alaska, but most people won’t be able to begin answering the questionnaire until mid-March.
    
“These deficiencies will result in a massive and differential undercount of communities of color,” the lawsuit said. “Such a dramatic undercount will especially dilute the votes of racial and ethnic minorities, deprive their communities of critical federal funds, and undervalue their voices and interests in the political arena.”
    
The Census Bureau didn’t immediately respond to an email for comment on Monday. The bureau plans to hire as many as 500,000 temporary workers, mostly to help knock on the doors of homes where people haven’t yet responded to the census. Although that is less than in 2010, the agency has said it doesn’t need as many workers this year because of technological advances, such as the ability of workers to collect information on their mobile devices.
    
An earlier version of the lawsuit was first filed in 2018, but it was dismissed by the district court. An appellate court last month ruled some of the claims could be raised again in the amended complaint filed Friday. In previous court papers, the Census Bureau has called the lawsuit “meritless.”

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The personal relationship between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump has no impact on Pyongyang’s denuclearization stance toward Washington, said experts.
“The recent North Korean statement responding to Trump’s birthday card was very clear,” said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The personal feelings between Trump and Kim have no bearing on DPRK policy.”
The DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official English name for North Korea.
Over the past two years, Trump has attempted to parlay his personal relationship with Kim into a breakthrough on denuclearization talks.
Kim Kye Gwan, first vice foreign minister of North Korea, arrives at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, July 26, 2011The Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state media, issued the statement on Saturday.
Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA, said the remarks do not mean that Kim will end his personal relationship with Trump but suggested, “Trump can’t trade on that relationship to get denuclearization or maybe even a freeze on testing.”
Throughout the Trump administration’s diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang that began in 2018, Trump has touted his personal relationship with Kim, which culminated in an exchange of letters between the two.
“I was really tough and so was he, and we went back and forth,” Trump told supporters at a West Virginia rally on September 30, 2018, months after he met Kim for the first time in Singapore. “
Since the failed Hanoi Summit in February, North Korea has demanded that the U.S. relax sanctions imposed on the country. 
Kim’s advisor said in his statement that North Korea’s offer to close down a main nuclear facility at Yongbyon in exchange for sanctions relief made at the Hanoi Summit is no longer valid.  
“There will never be such negotiations as that in Vietnam, in which we proposed exchanging a core nuclear facility for the lifting of some U.N. sanctions,” said Kim Kye Gwan.
Klingner said, “Pyongyang’s demands remain constant, for the U.S. to capitulate to regime demands if Washington wants to have another nuclear agreement.”
Gause said, “The U.S. will have to provide concessions to restart negotiations,” adding, “Birthday greetings won’t get it done.”
Gause does not expect Trump to “offer concessions to restart negotiations until he feels emboldened domestically.”
Gause said, “That is not likely to happen until and unless he is re-elected.” He continued, “I don’t expect major progress on the relationship until 2021, provided Trump is re-elected.”
Trump is aiming for his second term as president in the upcoming election in November. But his re-election prospects are clouded by the impeachment trial Trump is expected to face by the Senate after the House votes this week to transmit the article of impeachment to the Senate. 

The Daily Orange isn’t daily anymore.
The student-run newspaper has covered Syracuse University since 1903 and trained generations of journalists, but it now prints just three issues per week.
Editor-in-chief Haley Robertson said she is looking for advertisers, worries about firing friends who work as staff, and searches for alumni donors who will pay to send reporters on the road to cover the university’s sports teams.
These problems are similar to those faced by executives two or three times her age — evidence of how the news industry’s woes have seeped onto campuses. The schools are trying to harness youthful energy and idealism to turn out professionals who can inform the world, according to the Associated Press, which reported this story about student journalists in a recent article.
“When I look at local news and see what’s happening, I’m pessimistic,” said Kathleen Culver, journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “When I look at 18- and 20-year-olds and see what they want to do, I’m optimistic.”
Despite the challenges and an uncertain future, the student journalists continue to hone their craft, one story at a time. According to the AP, enrollment in journalism programs is up, and suggested that frequent attacks on the press have given birth to a new resolve. It was an apparent reference to President Donald Trump, whom the article did not mention by name. Trump has denounced the news media as an enemy that produces what he has termed “fake news.”
Learning by doing
Thousands of young journalists train in classrooms and in student-run newsrooms. For college student Robertson, that means hours a day in a dingy office with yellowed headlines glued to the wall, metal file cabinets signed by editors dating back nearly 50 years and a ripped upholstered couch carried from The Daily Orange’s old office, which is now the site of a parking lot.
Occasionally, college publications like The Daily Orange make national news by breaking news. In 2018, the paper first posted video of racist and sexist comments made at a Syracuse fraternity, leading to embarrassing headlines for the university across the country. Daily Orange managing editor Catherine Leffert sat on the floor at a campus meeting as that story developed, tapping out updates on her mobile phone, and slept on the office couch in two-hour intervals. The fraternity was suspended, AP reports.
“What keeps me wanting to be a journalist and wanting to do it here is seeing the effect that The Daily Orange has. It’s really cool and exciting,” said Leffert as she acknowledged that seeing layoffs and newsroom cutbacks “was really disheartening.”
Last year, Arizona State University’s student newspaper, The State Press, was the first outlet in the United States with word of the resignation of Kurt Volker, U.S. envoy to Ukraine. Volker runs Arizona State’s McCain Institute for International Leadership.
Cutting up the paper
Thirty-five percent of school papers say they have reduced the frequency of print issues to save money, according to a College Media Association (CMA) survey taken back in 2019, said Chris Evans, CMA president and adviser to the University of Vermont newspaper, to the AP.
Five percent have gone online only, as the University of Maryland’s The Diamondback said that it would do early next year. Half of the newspapers that haven’t abandoned publications like The Daily Orange, said they are not printing as many copies.
Robertson touts the transition as a way to follow the industry by going digital, and The Daily Orange has an active website and social media presence.
The University of North Carolina’s The Daily Tar Heel switched to publishing three days a week in 2017, when its directors realized they were going broke, said Maddy Arrowood, the paper’s editor-in-chief. The newspaper cut the pay of staff members and moved into a new, smaller office above a restaurant.
“I spend most of my time very aware of our financial situation,” Arrowood said. “We’re always trying to tell the newsroom that your goal is to produce the best content that you can and be an indispensable resource for our readers.”
Last year, The Daily Tar Heel reported a tiny profit.
Struggling with a $280,000 debt, The Hilltop at Howard University printed its first edition this semester in mid-October. The Maneater at the University of Missouri used to print twice a week, then once. Now it’s down to once a month. It operates separately from a newspaper staffed by faculty and students in the university journalism school.
Staff members are now charged annual dues, said Leah Glasser, the paper’s editor. They can avoid the “dues” if they find an alumni sponsor or sell enough advertising to cover it. The paper has a website, and Glasser and her staff are slowly getting used to the new monthly schedule.
“It’s so difficult to hear, ‘We don’t have enough money,”’ she said. “We hear that a lot. As a generation, that doesn’t make us turn around and go home.”
Newspaper jobs across the country sank from 52,000 in 2008 to 24,000 now, according to the University of North Carolina, AP reports.
Funding sources
Newspapers like The Daily Orange and The Daily Tar Heel don’t take money from the university or fellow students, believing that to be a conflict of interest. Most publications do, however. Tammy Merrett, faculty adviser to The Alestle at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, doesn’t know how her paper would survive without it.
In 2008, The Alestle’s ad revenue was about $150,000 a year, aided by slick ads taken out by military recruiters, Planned Parenthood and local supermarkets. Now, the paper struggles to make $30,000 a year in ad sales.
“At some universities, they have to approach student government directly and ask for funds, and there have been some instances where student government doesn’t like the coverage, so they deny it,” Merrett said. “Luckily, that doesn’t happen here.”
Amid the worries, North Carolina’s Arrowood said her experience makes her more interested in a journalism career, not less. Her optimism “comes from knowing that people still need news, they still need information, and I’ve gotten to see that in a lot of ways,” she said. “I’m willing to meet people where they are.
“What I want to do is still something that people need,” she said.
With that, she cut the conversation short. Arrowood had a class to attend.

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Authorities in Ivory Coast say they rescued 137 children who were the victims of traffickers and groomed to work on cocoa plantations or in prostitution.
Police rescued the children after surrounding the eastern town of Aboisso and carried out a two-day search of cars, farms, and nearby villages.
Officials say the children ranged from age six to 17 and were brought into Ivory Coast from Benin, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo. The victims are in care of a charity in Aboisso while authorities search for their parents.
Senior police officials say they plan to increase operations aimed at stopping child trafficking.
“Ivory Coast’s image is tarnished by child trafficking. We are appealing to all parents: a child’s place is at school and not on plantations,” Aboisso’s deputy police chief Kouadio Yeboue Marcellin says.
Ivory Coast is dependent on the cocoa and cashew crops and poor farmers depend on child labor to pick the beans and nuts.
Western chocolate companies, including some of the biggest such as Nestle and Hershey, have pledged to stop buying beans produced by child workers. Critics say such efforts have been only modestly successful. 

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