Leila Ben Gacem guides a visitor through the Tunis Medina, ducking the cars and carts rattling down narrow, cobblestoned streets, and the occasional smear of dog poop.
“Historically, the Medina was the heart of trade, craft and art, and it’s structured with many souks — each dedicated to a specific craft,” she says.
She points down the maze of roads towards markets dedicated to coppersmiths, and those making Tunisia’s famous, flat-topped chechia hat, which exports to Libya and parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
A municipal councillor in a village outside the capital, Ben Gacem is also a social entrepreneur on a mission; helping not only to preserve the Medina’s ancient buildings and community, but also to revitalize trades that once powered this historic quarter, some of which risk going extinct.
“If investments are inclusive and pay attention to shared economy,” she says, “then maybe the whole community will grow together.”
It’s a lesson that might inform Tunisia’s next government, still under construction nearly three months after elections. The Arab Spring’s only democracy to date, the North African country is challenged to turn around its sluggish economy and deepening poverty that has fed emigration and unrest.  While up to one-third of Tunisia’s youth are jobless, some old Medina trades are struggling for manpower.
A fading tradition
At his cramped shop, Mohammed Ben Sassi reverently opens an old Quran he is working on, its pages decorated in blue and gold. Behind him are piles of half-finished tombs. At 64, Ben Sassi is the Medina’s only surviving bookbinder.
“There’s demand, but young people are no longer interested,” Ben Sassi says.
He isn’t the only craftsman facing challenges. While central Medina still houses more than 500 artisan workshops, that number is about half what it was fifty years ago, according to Ben Gacem’s research. The decline, she believes, translates to a broader loss for the country’s very identity.
‘’Throughout history, Tunisians have worked  with their hands,” she says. “I can’t imagine a Tunisian family that doesn’t have an artisan.”
The reasons for the decline are multiple, Ben Gacem says. The country’s sinking economy and currency have made some quality raw materials unaffordable, driving artisans to abandon trades handed down through generations. Others have switched to inexpensive substitutes –making the final product less attractive to buyers.
But revitalizing these trades might also suggest a broader rethink of one key economic driver. Tourism has largely turned around Tunisia’s beachfronts and deserts, and less on its artistic heritage — including the centuries-old Medina, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“We’re not promoting Tunisia with all it’s wealth, especially in the tourism industry,” Ben Gacem says. “We haven’t communicated the best story. We have communicated the easiest story.”
Revitalizing the Medina
Founded in the 7th century, the Tunis Medina was restored under hardline president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, but suffered under the 2011 revolution that ousted him, and subsequent instability. Building codes were sidelined, traditional residents fled to safer places, and squatters occupied historic mansions. Tunisians from the south moved in, further fraying a once close-knit community.
“But the revolution also had a positive impact,” says architect Soulef Aouididi of the Medina Conservation Association. From the association’s headquarters in a sumptuous, 19th-century palace, she describes new civic groups springing up, including those offering school tours of the Medina, helping the next generation better appreciate its history.
Aouididi’s association also organizes events bringing together the quarter’s disparate population, to help restitch relations.
“Our strategy is to safeguard the buildings, but also the social heritage,” she says.
Several blocks away, a pair of elegant guesthouses offer another experiment in community development. Ben Gacem has converted two dilapidated Medina mansions into boutique tourist hotels, tapping local residents to run them, and sourcing her supplies from area businesses.
She also networks with local artisans like Ben Sassi, organizing workshops so hotel guests can learn about their craft, as one way to bring in business—while offering tourists an “authentic experience” of Tunisia.
“It’s part of creating a new economic dynamic to preserve the artistry and culture around historical urban spaces,” Ben Gacem says.
The last hat maker?
Whether such initiatives can help to preserve old trades however is uncertain.
“Young Tunisians aren’t interested in working,” says Mohamed Troudi, a chaouachine, or chechia hat maker, as he points to his own calloused hands. “They want office, Facebook and a coffee at 10 am.”
Troudi himself started his career as a computer technician. He soon made a U-turn back to the family trade.  Like Ben Sassi, he is part of Ben Gacem’s network of artisans. He has no lack of business—in no small part because the numbers of chaouachine are dwindling.
At 28, he is the Medina’s youngest traditional hat maker. One day, he fears, he may be its last.
“See that old man,” Troudi says, pointing to a colleague across from his workshop. “His son doesn’t want to work in the trade, so his store will shut. It’s a big problem.”

…

Contempt for regulators, airlines and their own colleagues coupled with a casual approach to safety: a series of emails by Boeing employees paint an unflattering portrait of a company culture of “arrogance” imbued with a fixation on cost-cutting.
The emails underscore the task awaiting incoming CEO David Calhoun when he takes the company’s reins on Monday, under intense pressure to restore public confidence — and that of aviation regulators worldwide — after two fatal crashes of the 737 MAX aircraft.
The emails were contained in some 100 pages of documents dated between 2013 and 2018 and transmitted to U.S. lawmakers by the Seattle-based aviation giant. The messages were seen by AFP after their release Thursday.
Often cutting, dismissive, mocking or cavalier, the messages show that Boeing’s current difficulties reach far beyond the 737 MAX, shining a light on a level of dysfunction that seems almost unimaginable for a company that helped democratize air travel — and which builds the US president’s iconic Air Force One airplane.
The emails show that Boeing tried to play down the role of its MCAS flight-control system in order both to avoid the costs involved in having to train pilots on the system in flight simulators and to speed the federal green-lighting of the MAX plane.
Investigators singled out the role of the MCAS (the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) in the fatal crashes of MAX planes flown by Indonesia’s Lion Air (Oct. 29, 2018) and Ethiopian Airlines (March 10, 2019).
Those crashes claimed 346 lives and led to the plane’s worldwide grounding last March.
“I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required,” one Boeing employee messaged a colleague on March 28, 2017, a few months before the MAX received federal certification.
The message went on: “Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face-to-face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”
A few months later, the same employee — a test pilot — bragged about having “save(d) this company a sick amount of $$$$.”
The names of most of the employees who sent the messages were blacked out.
‘I wouldn’t’
In 2018, several employees working on the MAX simulators complained of encountering numerous technical difficulties.
“Would you put your family on a MAX simulator-trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,” said a message sent in February 2018, eight months before the first crash.
“No,” a colleague agreed.
Two other employees said they were concerned about the impact on Boeing’s image at a time, they said, when the company’s leaders seemed obsessed with the idea of gaining ground on Airbus’s narrow-body A320neo.
“All the messages are about meeting schedule, not delivering quality,” one employee said.
A colleague replied: “We put ourselves in this position by picking the lowest-cost supplier and signing up to impossible schedules.
“Why did the lowest-ranking and most unproven supplier receive the contract? Solely because of the bottom dollar.”
Robert Clifford, a US lawyer representing victims’ families from the Ethiopian Airlines crash, said the Boeing culture led to “unnecessary and preventable deaths.”
“Excuses will not be heard,” he said in a statement on his law firm’s website.
‘Ridiculous’
The documents also show Boeing employees questioning the competence of the company’s engineers.
“This is a joke,” an employee wrote in September 2016, in a reference to the MAX. “This airplane is ridiculous.”
“Piss poor design,” said another, in April 2017.
And yet for decades Boeing was seen as representing the very best in aerospace engineering and design. It developed the 747, nicknamed the “queen of the skies,” and contributed to the Apollo program that sent man to the moon.
The aerospace company and its huge network of suppliers are goliaths of the U.S. economy.
In June 2018, one employee messaged his own analysis of the problem: “It’s systemic. It’s culture. It’s the fact that we have a senior leadership team that understands very little about the business and yet are driving us to certain objectives” while not “being accountable.”
Michel Merluzeau, an analyst with Air Insight Research, said, “Boeing needs to re-examine an operational culture from another era.”
Greg Smith, Boeing’s interim chief executive officer, insisted that “these documents do not represent the best of Boeing.”
In a message to staff sent Friday and seen by AFP, he added, “The tone and language of the messages are inappropriate, particularly when used in discussion of such important matters.”
Some emails are dismissive of federal regulators, starting with those from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who approved the MAX.
“There is no confidence that the FAA is understanding what they are accepting,” an employee wrote in February 2016.
Nor were airlines spared.
“Now friggin’ Lion Air might need a sim(ulator) to fly the MAX, and maybe because of their own stupidity,” an employee wrote in June 2017, more than a year before a 737 MAX crashed near Jakarta. “Idiots!”
Yet another employee, this one more somberly, wrote in February 2018: “Our arrogance is (our) pure demise.”
 

…

A decade after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 Haitians and left millions more homeless life has not improved for many survivors.    
Ma Drapo, Sent Mari and Taba Isa, three refugee camps located in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is where survivors are living post-quake. Residents of Sent Mari told VOA Creole they lack clean water, sanitation and food.

This resident of Taba Isa decries the lack of security. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)In Ma Drapo, a refugee camp for handicapped quake survivors, residents decry the violence.
“There’s non-stop shooting, so we can’t leave in peace,” a woman told VOA Creole. “We are running around all day for fear of being shot. We (have to) grab our kids and run and sometimes we don’t even know where we’re going.”

This Taba Isa resident says the government has abandoned them. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)At the Taba Isa camp, a woman told VOA Creole she had been relocated after the earthquake and has lived there ever since. “They initially told us it was for three years, but three years has become 10 years,” she said. “And we have no security, we are charged with protecting ourselves and I’d like to know if they have plans to construct houses for us at some point.”
The mother of two said the residents are isolated, having no access to hospitals or adequate schools for their children.

This mother of three says the government has not fulfilled its promises to build adequate homes for survivors. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)Another female resident spoke about the lack of attention. “In the beginning they were coming often to take care of us but it’s been a long time since we were visited (by government officials). We aren’t living well. If heavy rain falls, we’re at risk. Our children can’t go to school because of overcrowding,” she said.
“If you’re asking about government assistance, it’s zero,” a male resident said. “When we call the police station, no one comes. Even if there’s an arrest warrant out against the person we are calling them about, they just ignore our calls.” 

Homes are seen in the Taba Isa earthquake survivor camp in Port au Prince, Haiti. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)
…

It looked more like April than January across parts of the eastern U.S. after powerful spring-like storms pummeled several states over the weekend.
Tornadoes, floods, and hurricane-strength winds killed at least 11 people in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Alabama.
About 200,000 people were without electricity Sunday as the strong storms blew down power lines, overturned cars, and tore up trees.
Gusty winds also knocked out power along the East Coast while flood warnings were out Sunday in several other southern states.
Meanwhile, millions in the Northeast let their winter coats hang in the closet Sunday as record-breaking warmth gave a treat to runners, golfers, and just about anyone who loves the outdoors.
Thermometers reached highs of 22 Celsius in Boston and 20 in New York City and Washington, D.C.
Meteorologists say an intense polar vortex — frigid air in high altitudes surrounded by powerful winds — has been keeping the cold in the Arctic.
But forecasters say the East can expect more January-like temperatures the rest of the week.
 

…

A violent mob assault on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The targeted killing of an Iranian general ordered by President Donald Trump. An accidental missile strike of a Ukrainian commercial airliner. A tightening of U.S. economic sanctions on Iran. The detention of the British ambassador in Tehran.
We are barely beyond the first week of a new year and a new decade, but already the alarming and chaotic news coming out of the Middle East makes it difficult not to feel a sense of foreboding for what’s to come. Historical forces seem to be moving on paths impossible to identify precisely, but lead in the general direction of danger, political analysts and historians say.
And all this takes place at a time when the world already had plenty to worry about.
Trump has been impeached and awaits a trial seeking his removal from office that could begin in the Senate later this week. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un continues to threaten the U.S. and has declared that he will no longer observe a ban on nuclear tests. Overseas, Australia is on fire. Britain is edging ever closer to Brexit.
A Middle East on the edge
With the crisis in the Middle East one miscalculation away from spiraling out of control, and a suite of other international fires to put out, many key posts in the Trump administration’s national security apparatus are filled by unconfirmed officials or sit empty altogether.
It’s little wonder that newspapers across the country are running stories on the rise in the number of people seeking mental health care for anxiety.
At times like these, a little historical perspective can be helpful.

FILE – Iranians burn an Israeli and a U.S. flag during an anti-U.S. protest in the capital Tehran, Jan. 4, 2020, over the killings of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.Parallels to 1968
Robert Dallek, noted historian and author, points out that this is not the first time the United States has been beset by seemingly overwhelming problems.
“You know, we’ve been through many difficult moments,” Dallek said in an interview with VOA. “Like 1968, when the country was locked into the war in Vietnam and you had inner-city riots, and [Lyndon] Johnson announced he wasn’t going to run for president again.”
At the time, a travel agency in France was pitching vacations in the United States with the tagline, “See America while it lasts,” Dallek said.
“It was a time when people also thought that America was slowly coming to an end and might be heading into a new Civil War, and so there are echoes of that here,” he said. However, he stressed that there are reasons to be hopeful. The United States did not descend into war, the war in Vietnam eventually came to an end, and civil unrest abated.
None of this, however, is to suggest that the real anxiety Americans feel is misplaced or imagined. Perhaps the most stressful issue facing Americans right now is the crisis unfolding in the Middle East.
Attack on US Embassy in Baghdad
On New Year’s Eve, Americans woke up to the news that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone was under siege by a mob that had broken into a reception area and set part of the structure on fire. The protests followed a December 29 U.S strike against Iranian-backed Kataeb Hezbollah sites in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the killing of a U.S. civilian contractor near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk two days earlier. The Pentagon announced that it was dispatching troops to the region, a number that quickly grew into the thousands.

FILE – Pro-Iranian militiamen and their supporters set a fire in front of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, Jan. 1, 2020.Later on Twitter, Trump promised retribution if the attackers, reported to have connections to an Iran-backed militia group, harmed embassy personnel or damaged U.S. property. “This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!” he wrote.
US drone strike on Soleimani
Two days later, shortly after landing at Baghdad International Airport, General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s notorious Quds Force, was killed in a drone strike that had been personally ordered by Trump.
Soleimani, who directed operations that have led to the killing of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq and untold thousands of civilian deaths across the Middle East, was generally considered the second-most-powerful figure in the Iranian government.
Iran, promising revenge, observed three days of mourning for Soleimani before launching missiles at two installations in Iraq housing American military personnel. There was reason to believe that the missile strikes were more symbolic than dangerous.
But any hope that the limited Iranian response might reduce the tension in the region was dashed just hours later, when a Ukrainian jetliner with 176 travelers on board crashed outside Tehran. By the weekend, it had become clear that nervous Iranian air defense forces, on alert for U.S. retaliation after the strikes in Iraq, shot down the plane by accident, a fact that Iran eventually admitted.

FILE – A picture of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, killed in a U.S. drone strike at Baghdad airport, is seen on a building which formerly housed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 7, 2020.More sanctions for Iran
The United States announced Friday morning that it would impose new economic sanctions on Iran. These would come on top of existing penalties that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has described as the most punishing the U.S. has ever levied on another country. Many Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans complained that Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior administration officials have misled Congress and the public in arguing that Suleimani had posed an “imminent” threat.
In Tehran on Saturday, the ambassador of Britain was arrested and held for several hours after attending a vigil for the 176 people killed in the attack on the Ukrainian airliner. The highly unusual step by Iran was accompanied by accusations that the diplomat incited street protests against the Iranian regime, a charge the British government hotly denied.
Within the U.S., the collective response to the unfolding crisis in the Middle East has been unease about where all this will end. Social media has been rife with references — some joking, some not — to an imminent World War III. But experts point out the likelihood of all-out war between the United States and Iran is low.
At the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, professor of political science Michael Horowitz and senior fellow Elizabeth Saunders wrote Friday, “Blowback may be coming, and the U.S. strike against Soleimani may increase the risk of bad outcomes short of an all-out war. Those are reasons for concern. But it’s critical to distinguish such consequences from a general war.”
They added, “There will no doubt be consequences — but general war remains unlikely.”

FILE – Various rates and prices for currencies and gold coins are displayed at an exchange bureau, in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 21, 2019.A desire for ‘normalcy’
Dallek, the presidential historian, said that in his view, the most likely outcome of a lengthy period of civic stress is an electorate primed for a return to perceived normalcy. This is something the Democrats are counting on as the 2020 presidential campaign heats up.
“I think the outcome of all this is going to be like in 1968, when the country wanted to get back to some kind of continuity,” Dallek said.
It was that election in 1968, of course, that gave the United States the Nixon presidency.
 

…

The White House is voicing strong support for Iranian protesters who took to the streets to decry the shoot down of a Ukrainian commercial jetliner outside Tehran last week. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, the Trump administration faces continued bipartisan pressure from Congress to provide more details on the intelligence that prompted the U.S.’s targeted killing of an Iranian general, as Democrats seek to rein in the president’s ability to unilaterally order military action against Iran.

…

Hong Kong denied entry to the executive director of Human Rights Watch, the international watchdog said Sunday.
Kenneth Roth, who traveled to Hong Kong with plans to launch the organization’s “World Report 2020,” was told he could not enter when he landed at Hong Kong International Airport on Sunday. Human Rights Watch said that immigration agents gave no reason as to why the U.S. citizen was denied entry.
“I had hoped to spotlight Beijing’s deepening assault on international efforts to uphold human rights,” Roth said. “The refusal to let me enter Hong Kong vividly illustrates the problem.”

I flew to Hong Kong to release @HRW’s new World Report. This year it describes how the Chinese government is undermining the international human rights system. But the authorities just blocked my entrance to Hong Kong, illustrating the worsening problem. https://t.co/GRUaGh8QUbpic.twitter.com/iTHVEXdbwO
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) January 12, 2020
Human Rights Watch was scheduled to release the report on January 15th at a news conference. Roth’s introductory essay to the 652-page report warns that China’s government is “carrying out an intensive attack on the global system for enforcing human rights.”
The watchdog said Roth will now present the report Jan. 14 from New York City.
 

…

The outrage was aired first of all on social media forums — before spilling chaotically on to the streets with Saturday’s mass protests catching Iranian authorities off-guard and exposing how many Iranians hold the country’s embattled regime in disdain.
After three days of public denials, the confession Saturday by the Iranian military that it was behind last week’s downing of a Ukrainian airliner sparked fury and demands for the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to resign.
The belated admission — after days of denials — of the unintentional shooting down of the passenger jet, and Khamenei’s promise the culprits will be punished, appears not to have staunched a flood of anger that broke through the narrow limits of criticism Iranian authorities allow. Saturday’s protests come weeks after Iran faced the country’s bloodiest unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Dozens are thought to have been killed.
Videos posted on social media showed hundreds of mainly young people gathering to protest at several universities in the Iranian capital. They had come ostensibly to honor the 176 who died when the Iranian military accidentally shot down the airliner, apparently mistaking it for a U.S. cruise missile.

Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you canFILE – Iranian mourners gather during the final stage of funeral processions for slain top general Qassem Soleimani, in his hometown Kerman, Jan. 7, 2020.Considered to be the most powerful man in Iran after Khamenei, his funeral last week in his native city of Kerman was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners — in the crush 56 people were killed. The grief expressed by many Iranians for the general was genuine, according to regional experts.“
Such is the culture of reverence for ‘martyrs’ in Iran, going back to the Sunni-Shia schism in the 7th century, and the latent hostility towards America that in death the commander was always going to be elevated to the status of national hero,” former British diplomat Peter Westmacott said.
But the former envoy added, in a commentary for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, that Soleimani was a controversial figure in Iran, too, and had been “increasingly attracting criticism at home.”
Disapproval of Soleimani among reform-minded Iranians spilled out publicly Saturday, as anti-government protesters chanted that America is not “our enemy.” Demonstrators carefully avoided walking on U.S. and Israeli flags painted on the street outside one university. Students outside Shahid Beheshti University booed revolutionary guardsmen as they trampled on the painted flags, chanting: “Shame on you.”
“Our enemy is right here, they lie saying it’s America,” another shouted.
The shooting down of the passenger plane is being billed as Iran’s Chernobyl moment, the 1986 disaster in Soviet Ukraine which exposed all the incompetence, state deception and rot in that regime,” according to Iran Wire, an opposition news site for Iranian citizen journalists.

FILE – General view of the debris of the Ukrainian plane that was shot down on the outskirts of Tehran, Jan. 8, 2020. (Screen grab obtained from a social media video via Reuters).It said: “There is a widespread sense that Iran’s government was only forced into admitting its responsibility under pressure from governments such as Canada, which lost more than 60 of its citizens in the crash, most of them dual citizens of Iranian background.”
Western analysts say the comparison to the Chernobyl disaster — which is thought to have hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union — goes too far.
Even so, analysts say Iranian authorities are facing possibly their biggest crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Observers note the speed with which senior clerical, political and military leaders appeared to be scrambling to contain the fallout from what President Hassan Rouhani Saturday termed a “disastrous mistake.”
A day earlier, one of Rouhani’s top advisers called assessments by Western intelligence that Iran had shot down the jet “psychological warfare.” Hessameddin Ashna, tweeted, “A warning is given to Iranian nationals working in Persian language media about participating in the psychological warfare related to the Ukrainian airplane.” Ashna said the claims that Iran was behind the shooting down of the plane was just a media “counter-attack” by America.
Notably, criticism of the government isn’t confined to opposition groups and outlets. Iran’s moderate Etemad newspaper wrote in a banner headline Sunday, “Apologize and resign.” It said the “people’s demand” was that all those responsible for mishandling the plane crisis should quit.
That appeared to be a direct riposte to Ayatollah Khamenei, who expressed “deep sympathy” to those who died in the downing of the jet but did not apologize, leaving that to other senior officials.
Despite the tough line taken Saturday by police, Sunday saw more anti-government demonstrations. In the town of Sanandaj, according to a video posted online, security forces beat female protesters. In Tehran, a protester tweeted that security forces had blocked roads to try to “stop us from protesting.”
She added: “We’ve managed to get around them. Now there are sounds of gunfire.”
 

…

The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Sunday that Iran’s missile attacks on two bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces was only the start of the retaliation for America’s killing a top Iranian general in a drone strike.
Hassan Nasrallah described Iran’s ballistic missile response as a “slap” to Washington, one that sent a message. The limited strikes caused no casualties and appeared to be mainly a show of force.
The leader of Hezbollah, which is closely aligned with Iran, said the strikes were the “first step down a long path” that will ensure U.S. troops withdraw from the region. 
“The Americans must remove their bases, soldiers and officers and ships from our region. The alternative … to leaving vertically is leaving horizontally. This is a decisive and firm decision,”  Nasrallah said. 
“We are speaking about the start of a phase, about a new battle, about a new era in the region,” he added.
His 90-minute televised speech marked one week since the killing of Iran’s Gen. Qassim Soleimani. 
Nasrallah praised Soleimani for his steadfast support for Hezbollah. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has provided training for Hezbollah, which fought in the war in Syria alongside Iran-backed militias that Soleimani directed. 
Nasrallah said that the world is a different place after Soleimani’s death, and not a safer place as some U.S. officials have declared. 
Iran had for days been promising to respond forcefully to Soleimani’s killing. But after the ballistic missile strikes, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that the country had “concluded proportionate measures in self-defense.”
Nasrallah also praised the Iran’s leadership for admitting to accidentally shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane on the night it launched the missile attacks. He called the acknowledgement “transparency that is unparalleled in the world.” 
The plane crash early Wednesday killed all 176 people on board, mostly Iranians and Iranian-Canadians. Iran had initially pointed to a technical failure and insisted the armed forces were not to blame.
Hezbollah is one of Iran’s main allies in the region and is a sworn enemy of Israel, with which it has had a series of confrontations, lastly in 2006.

…

Key U.S. officials hedged Sunday in detailing President Donald Trump’s claim that Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani intended to blow up four U.S. embassies before Trump ordered a drone strike to kill him.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper  told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” show, “I didn’t see the intelligence about Iran posing an imminent threat to four U.S. embassies, but I believe President Trump when he says there was one.”
The Pentagon chief added, “What I’m saying is I share the president’s view that probably- my expectation was they were going to go after our embassies.”

FILE – Residents look at a crater caused by a missile launched by Iran on U.S.-led coalition forces on the outskirts of Duhok, Iraq, Jan. 8, 2020.Esper, in another interview, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show, that he believed Soleimani was “days away” from launching an attack on U.S. facilities when the drone attack killed him Jan. 3. 
Iran, in response, fired 16 ballistic missiles at bases in Iraq where U.S. troops are stationed, although the U.S. says it knew of the attacks hours ahead of time, allowing forces to bunker in safety. There were no reports of U.S. casualties.
In extensive Capitol Hill briefings on the Soleimani killing, lawmakers, including House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, said Trump administration officials never mentioned the potential for attacks on the four embassies.
But U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien told the Fox News Sunday show, “They can trust us on this intelligence” about the threat posed by Soleimani.

FILE – A picture of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, who was killed in an airstrike at Baghdad airport, is seen on the former U.S. Embassy’s building in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 7, 2020.But he said it was “always difficult to know the specifics” of threats, saying they came from Soleimani and the Quds Force. He said there were “very significant threats to American facilities in the region,” without acknowledging any specific threat to four embassies.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, “I don’t think the administration has been straight with the Congress of the United States.”
After Tehran fired the missiles at the U.S. forces in Iraq, Trump backed off earlier threats of further military attacks against Iran, instead imposing more economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
O’Brien said the U.S.’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran is working. “Iran is being choked off,” he said, making it difficult for Tehran to “get the money” for continued funding for its Quds Force military operations in the Mideast. 
The U.S. has expressed the view that its economic sanctions against Tehran will eventually force it to renegotiate the 2015 international treaty restraining Iran’s nuclear program, the deal Trump withdrew the U.S. from. 
In addition, O’Brien said student protests in Tehran on Saturday, after Iran admitted that it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 aboard, in the hours after its attacks on the Iraqi bases, will also pressure Iranian leaders to renegotiate the nuclear treaty. 

…

Libya’s rival governments committed to an internationally brokered truce that took effect Sunday, though immediate reports of violations by both sides raised concerns it might not stick.
The truce, which was proposed by Russia and Turkey, could be the first break in fighting in months, and the first brokered by international players. It comes as Libya is on the brink of a major escalation, with foreign backers of the rival Libyan governments stepping up their involvement in the oil-rich nation’s conflict.
It also comes amid a broader diplomatic push for a political solution to Libya’s war, which has crippled the country for more than seven years. The war has displaced hundreds of thousands and left more than a million in need of humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.
The United Nations and European powers, along with Libya’s allies in the region, have been calling for a peace summit to happen in Berlin early this year that would bring together the leaders of the rival governments, and possibly move the country closer to nationwide elections.
But it’s proven difficult to stop fighting on the ground.
The country’s U.N.-supported government said that it had recorded “violations” of the ceasefire minutes after it was supposed to take effect in the early hours of Sunday. The government did not specify what kind of violations in its written statement.
Meanwhile, a general for the opposing east-based forces said that his lines had also been targeted by several missiles. Brig. Gen. Khaled al-Mahjoub, who is in charge of mobilizing the east-based forces, said that some battalions had been the subject of “random” incoming shells. He said that the attacks were not large enough to warrant a response.
The Associated Press could not verify either of the sides’ claims, and as of midday Sunday that ceasefire appeared to be holding, if uneasily.
The last time both sides paused the fighting was for a very brief period in August during a Muslim feast day. But this time, both sides declared they’d observe the truce, with the east-backed forces led by ex-general Khalifa Hifter joining the agreement shortly before midnight on Saturday.
Libya is governed by dueling authorities, one based in the east and one in Tripoli in the west. Each rely on different militias for support. Both sides have different stipulations in order for the fighting to stop.
Fayez Sarraj, who is prime minister of the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli, has previously demanded that Hifter’s forces retreat from the capital’s outskirts and halt their offensive against it. Hifter and his allies, meanwhile, have called for the dissolution of militias fighting for Sarraj inside Tripoli. The conditions of neither are likely to be met.
Al-Mahjoub, who is in charge of mobilizing Hifter’s forces, ruled out any retreat from areas recently captured by their troops.
“Withdrawal is not on the table,” Mahjoub told The Associated Press. He said that group’s fighters will remain on guard in their positions, and will respond to any significant breaches.
Hifter’s east-based forces, the self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces, launched a fresh offensive to take the capital of Tripoli in April. The fighting sparked international efforts to try to contain the crisis in the North African nation.
In the last month, Hifter’s forces have made significant advances. Earlier this week, they captured the strategic coastal city of Sirte, the hometown of Libya’s longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin released a joint statement after a meeting in Istanbul calling for a Jan. 12 truce. They did not specify what the conditions would be. Both Russia and Turkey have been accused of exacerbating the conflict in Libya by giving military aid to its warring parties.
A U.N. peacekeeping mission welcomed the prospect of an end to the fighting. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya said in a statement that it hoped all parties would demonstrate “complete adherence” to its terms and stop the violence.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry issued a statement on Sunday saying the situation in Libya was “calm except for one or two isolated incidents.”
The east-based government, backed by Hifter’s forces, is supported by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia. The western, Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
The fighting has threatened to plunge Libya into violent chaos rivaling the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed Gadhafi.
 

…

A first-term lawmaker whose father was Malta’s president has been chosen to be the country’s prime minister. The count on Sunday showed Robert Abela received nearly 58% of votes cast by members of the governing Labour Party eligible to choose the new leader.
Abela, 42, will replace Joseph Muscat, who is stepping down midway through his second term as prime minister amid demands for accountability over the 2017 murder of an anti-corruption journalist.
The date of the premier-designate’s swearing-in hasn’t been announced. He is scheduled to address the party Sunday afternoon.
A close aide to Muscat was questioned in connection with journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, denied wrongdoing and was released while still under investigation. A Maltese hotelier, who denies involvement, has been accused of complicity in the killing. Three other men, accused of triggering the car bomb, are under arrest.
Before being chosen as Labour leader, Abela said he would work to restore Malta’s reputation for rule of law.
European Union lawmakers had criticized the member nation’s judiciary and police.
Muscat had beaten Abela’s father in the race for the party leadership in 2008. George Abela was later appointed president, serving from 2009 until 2014.
 

…

As the sky darkened and the smoke billowed through the village, it seemed to those hunkering at the fire station that “The Beast” would finally roar through. But the wildfire only crept closer, prodding forward a few tentative fingers before falling asleep again as the winds died.
The weary volunteer firefighters of Burragate returned to bed early Saturday after a week of worry and false alarms. Many have had enough. If the fire is going to burn through their southeast Australian town, they say, then they want it to get on with the job so they can start cleaning up.
“I’d prefer it not to come, but if it’s going to come, stop teasing,” said resident Joe Seamons, who has taken to describing what’s officially called the Border Fire as “The Beast.”
Resident Joe Alvaro put it more bluntly. “I just want to get it bloody over and done with,” he said.
Across Australia, wildfires have killed at least 27 people, including a firefighter on Saturday, and burned down more than 2,000 homes since September. They have focused international attention on climate change and caused political problems for Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has been criticized for his lackluster response.

Sheep graze in a field shrouded with smoke haze near at Burragate, Australia, Jan. 11, 2020.The wildfires have lurked near Burragate for over a week, filling the sky with noxious smoke that is burning people’s eyes and making them cough. The sun has turned red and distant hills have disappeared behind a shroud of haze.
The village in New South Wales is tiny, with about 100 residents, according to the latest census, although some locals say there are fewer than half that. With no shops or bars, the fire station has become the focal point for the community. Sometimes they hold movie nights there. On Friday, the station was filled with stacks of donated goods, more carrots and toothbrushes than people knew what to do with.

An Australian Army combat engineer from the 5th Engineer Regiment utilizes a JD-450 Bulldozer to spread out burnt woodchip at the Eden Woodchip Mill in southern New South Wales, Australia, in support of Operation Bushfire Assist, Jan. 11, 2020.On Friday night, with strong winds expected to make the fire flare up, a convoy of trucks — including some from the army and others carrying a strike team of volunteer firefighters — rolled into town. At one point, more than 30 people were at the station, hoping to save lives and homes but prepared to retreat inside if the flames were too intense.
Among them was Bill King, an operations section chief from the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado. He’s part of a reciprocal arrangement in which more than 250 Americans are being posted to Australia to help battle the blazes. He’s also the dad of a 3-month-old daughter, and jokes that he’s sleeping better on his assignment.
As some of the convoy moved on to other towns, the local volunteers remained, drinking espresso made from an overworked machine and poring over maps.
Seamons, who is retired, said he and his wife moved to Burragate because they didn’t want to live in a crowded town any longer. But he said their lifestyle has been affected by three years of drought, with his garden plants dying and his apple trees not producing any fruit.
Lately he’s taken to sitting inside with the fan going to get away from the smoke. Some places in Australia have recorded air quality worse than in New Delhi or Beijing as a result of the fires. Seamons said he has had enough of The Beast.
“Hopefully it gets sick of hanging around Burragate,” he said. “But I don’t wish it on anyone else, either.”
Alvaro said that on Friday, he was ready for the fire.
“When I saw the smoke and everything, I was relieved,” he said. “I thought, come and get it.”
But now he’s hoping that with favorable weather forecast for the next week, fire crews will finally be able to move from playing defense against the fires to attacking them. He said he just hopes he doesn’t have to go through the stress of another night on high alert.
And if the fire does come, he said, he’s going to fight it all the way.
“We’re a pretty close-knit community. There are some beautiful people here,” Alvaro said. “So it’s worth protecting.”
 

…

Fresh from a landslide reelection victory, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen met Sunday with the de facto U.S. ambassador to Taipei, as China warned that countries should stick with recognizing communist-ruled Beijing as the rightful government of “One China,” including Taiwan.
William Brent Christensen, a U.S. diplomat who is director of the American Institute in Taiwan, congratulated Tsai on her victory and she thanked him for his support.
“The Taiwan-U.S. partnership has already grown from a bilateral partnership to a global partnership. In the future, we will continue to build on the foundation we have created over the past three years to strengthen our cooperation on global issues,” Tsai said, according to a record of the remarks from the U.S. side.
China considers self-governed Taiwan a part of its territory and opposes any official contact with the U.S. as an interference in its domestic affairs. The U.S. does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is legally bound to ensure that Taiwan can defend itself against threats.

Travelers on a high speed train from Kaohsiung to Taipei read up on the post-election news near central Taiwan’s Taichung city, Jan. 12, 2020Pressure from China
Tsai has sought closer relations with the U.S. while pushing back against pressure from China, and the Trump administration has reciprocated.
Since separating from China during civil war in 1949, Taiwan has developed its own identity but never declared formal independence. Beijing still claims sovereignty over the island of 23 million people and threatens to use force to seize control if necessary.
In her victory speech after her rival, Han Kuo-yu of the Nationalist Party, conceded defeat, Tsai urged China to resume talks with Taiwan without preconditions while warning against threatening use of force.
“Today I want to once again remind the Beijing authorities that peace, parity, democracy and dialogue are the keys to stability,” Tsai said. “I want the Beijing authorities to know that democratic Taiwan and our democratically elected government will never concede to threats.”
Setback for Xi
Tsai’s victory is a setback for Chinese President Xi Jinping at a time when Beijing is grappling with an economic slowdown and long-running, sometimes violent anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong.
After election results were announced late Saturday, Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said China is willing to work with the Taiwanese people to advance the “peaceful reunification of the country.”
But he cautioned that China would firmly protect its territorial integrity and opposes any separatist moves and Taiwan independence, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
“We hope and believe that the international community will continue adhering to the One China principle, understand and support the just cause of Chinese people to oppose the secessionist activities for ‘Taiwan independence’ and realize national reunification,” said a statement from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

Supporters of Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election candidate, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen cheer for Tsai’s victory in Taipei, Taiwan, Jan. 11, 2020.The scale of Tsai’s win is a loss of face for Xi and could raise sensitivity from Beijing toward moves to draw closer to Washington and to strengthen Taiwan’s sovereignty, the Eurasia Group said in an analysis.
Opinion polls had showed Tsai leading before the election, but a huge turnout helped her claim more than 8 million votes. She got 57% of the vote to Han’s 39%. Her Democratic Progressive Party also managed to win in areas that often go to the China-friendly Nationalists in central and southern Taiwan. It retained its majority in the 113-seat Legislative Yuan, though the vote was closer there.
Tsai has acknowledged that Beijing may well up its pressure on Taiwan following her victory. But she received a resounding public mandate for her rejection of China’s suggestion for a “one country, two systems” approach to governing Taiwan.

…

Libya’s east-based forces have announced that they will abide by a cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey that is to start Sunday.
If it holds, the cease-fire would be the country’s first break in fighting in months, and the first brokered by international players. It comes as Libya is on the brink of a major escalation, with foreign backers of the rival Libyan governments stepping up their involvement on the ground.
A spokesman for the self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces, which are led by ex-general Khalifa Hifter, said in a video statement that the cease-fire would take effect starting early Sunday. Spokesman Ahmed al-Mosmari said any violations of the cease-fire by their fighters would be dealt with “severely.”
It was not immediately clear if Hifter would also agree to a withdrawal of forces from around the capital. His rival, Fayez Sarraj, who is prime minister of the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli, had demanded previously such a pull out as the truce’s condition. Libya is governed by dueling authorities, one based in the east and one in Tripoli in the west, led by Sarraj. Each rely on different militias for support.
Hifter’s eastern-based forces launched a fresh offensive to take the capital in April, sparking international efforts to try to contain the crisis in the North African nation.

FILE – Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, outside Moscow, Aug. 27, 2019.Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin released a joint statement after a meeting in Istanbul calling for a Jan. 12 truce. They did not specify what the conditions would be.
The calls for a cease-fire between the warring eastern and western Libyan forces came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity by European powers. The west-based government welcomed the calls for a stop to the fighting. A spokesman for Hifter’s forces said initially that they would continue their push to take the seat of their rivals, Tripoli, from “terrorist groups.”
A U.N. peacekeeping body has welcomed the development. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya said in a statement that it hopes all parties will demonstrate “complete adherence” to the agreement to stop the violence. The United Nations and European powers, along with Libya’s allies in the region, have been calling for a peace summit in Berlin early this year that would bring together the leaders of the rival governments.
The east-based government, backed by Hifter’s forces, is supported by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia. The western, Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
The fighting has threatened to plunge Libya into violent chaos rivaling the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
In the decade since Gadhafi’s death, the oil-rich nation has increasingly become a setting for proxy battles between regional players vying for influence in the Mediterranean region. Russia and Turkey, with their support of the eastern- and western-based Libyan governments, have become the latest additions.
 

…