Saudi Arabia admits Khashoggi died in consulate, Merkel says explanation 'inadequate'
https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-politics-dissident/saudi-arabia-admits-khashoggi-died-in-consulate-merkel-says-explanation-inadequate-idUSKCN1MT1MH
U.S.-bound migrant caravan stuck on Guatemalan border with Mexico
TECUN UMAN, Guatemala (Reuters) - Hundreds of Central Americans in a U.S.-bound migrant caravan were stuck on Guatemala’s border with Mexico on Saturday as efforts began, under pressure from Washington, to send some home and stop their journey northward.
Many of the migrants, the overwhelming majority fleeing violence and poverty in Honduras, had slept through heavy rain overnight on a bridge connecting Guatemala to Mexico, as dozens crammed against a metal border gate guarded by Mexican police.
In the early morning hours, Guatemalan police said they had transported 62 Hondurans in two buses, among the first such efforts to remove migrants from the tense border crossing on the Suchiate River.
For days U.S. President Donald Trump has warned the Central American caravan must be stopped. He has made it a political issue in the Nov. 6 midterm U.S. congressional election, threatened to cut off regional aid, close the U.S.-Mexico border and deploy troops there if Mexico failed to halt the migrants.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was due to meet his Guatemalan counterpart Jimmy Morales in the Guatemalan capital on Saturday for talks on implementing a strategy for returning the Honduran migrants.
Organizers said the caravan included around 4,000 migrants on Friday but there has been no official estimate of the sprawling number of men, women and children traveling north on foot and in vehicles.
“The (U.S.) tone is one of worry and they told us that we should act like allies,” a senior aide to Guatemala’s president told Reuters, requesting anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-caravan/us-bound-migrant-caravan-stuck-on-guatemalan-border-with-mexico-idUSKCN1MU05Y
CORRECTED-Data project aims to stop human trafficking before it occurs - organisers
NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Computer giant IBM Corp, financial services company Western Union Co and European police launched a project Thursday to share financial data which they said may, in future, be able to predict human trafficking before it occurs.
The shared data hub will collect information on money moving around the world and compare it to known ways that traffickers move their illicit gains, highlighting red flags signaling potential trafficking, organisers said.
“We will build and aggregate that material, using IBM tools, into an understanding of hot spots and routes and trends,” said Neil Giles, a director at global anti-slavery group Stop the Traffik that is participating in the project.
Data collection, digital tools and modern technology are the latest weapons in the fight against human trafficking, estimated to be a $150 billion-a-year global business, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The U.N. has set a goal of 2030 for ending forced labour and modern slavery worldwide, with more than 40 million people estimated to be enslaved around the world.
Certain patterns and suspicious activity might trigger a block of a transaction or an investigation into possible forced labour or sex slavery, organisers said.
The project will utilise IBM’s Internet cloud services as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning to compare data and to spot specific trafficking terms, said Sophia Tu, director of IBM Corporate Citizenship.
With a large volume of high-quality data, the hub one day may predict trafficking before it happens, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“You can’t do it today because we’re in the process of building out that amount of data and those capabilities, but it’s in the roadmap for what we want to do,” she said.
IBM has been counting on its artificial intelligence and cloud businesses as it attempts to reverse years of revenue declines.
But neither has met analyst expectations, with results this week showing slowed sales of cognitive software business, which includes artificial intelligence, and flat cloud revenues.
And while law enforcement is teaming up with banks and data specialists to chase trafficking, experts have cautioned that it can be a cat-and-mouse game in which traffickers quickly move on to new tactics to elude capture.
Also, less than 1 percent of the estimated $1.5 trillion plus laundered by criminals worldwide each year through the financial system is frozen or confiscated, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Along with IBM and Western Union, participants include Europol, Europe’s law enforcement agency, telecommunications giant Liberty Global and British banks Barclays and Lloyds, organisers said.
https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-global-trafficking-data/data-project-aims-to-stop-human-trafficking-before-it-occurs-organisers-idUSKCN1MT056
Nearly 170 casualties as violence rocks chaotic Afghan elections
Nearly 170 Afghans were killed or wounded in poll-related violence on Saturday, official figures showed, as the legislative election turned chaotic with many polling centres opening hours late – or not at all – due to technical glitches and lack of staff.
In the latest attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Kabul polling centre, killing at least 15 people and wounding 20, police said, taking the number of casualties across the Afghan capital to 19 dead and nearly 100 wounded.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but the Taliban said earlier it had carried out more than 300 attacks on the "fake election" across the war-torn country.
Violence also disrupted voting in the northern city of Kunduz where a senior health official told AFP three people died and 39 were wounded after more than 20 rockets rained down on the provincial capital…… more here
https:// www.afp.com/en/news/15/nearly-170-casualties-violence-rocks-chaotic-afghan-elections-doc-1a599v9
Italy sends police to French border after alleged migrants returned
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the time for joking around was over. French officials said the procedure of returning asylum-seekers was routine, but Salvini demanded answers from French President Emmanuel Macron.
https:// www.dw.com/en/italy-sends-police-to-french-border-after-alleged-migrants-returned/a-45971459
Sri Lanka to recall peacekeeping commander on UN request
By Associated Press
October 20 at 1:04 PM
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s military says that it will recall its commander leading a UN peacekeeping contingent in Mali a day after the world body asked him to be repatriated over his human rights background.
Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said Saturday that it will comply with the UN request even though it doesn’t believe Col. Kalana Amunupure is guilty of any human rights abuses in the last stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war.
He said that Amunupure will be sent back Mali after an appeal process.
A report in The Guardian newspaper in July quoted a confidential report that claimed the Sri Lanka commander in Mali, who was not named, is alleged to have committed war crimes during the civil war which ended in 2009.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
https:// www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/sri-lanka-to-recall-peacekeeping-commander-on-un-request/2018/10/20/26f8c54a-d48a-11e8-a4db-184311d27129_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d8e690be6710
Italy's PM says government in full accord over tax measures
MILAN (Reuters) - Italy’s ruling coalition has overcome divisions over a tax amnesty included in next year’s budget, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Saturday.
Conte spoke after a cabinet meeting which approved an amended set of tax measures following a spat between the two main parties in the coalition over the scope of the amnesty.
https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-budget-accord/italys-pm-says-government-in-full-accord-over-tax-measures-idUSKCN1MU0P5?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29
Bolsonaro continues to lead polls despite fake news scandal
Sao Paulo - Brazil's turbulent election enters its final phase with far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro poised for victory amid a high profile fake-news scandal and an uptick of reports of electoral violence.
Latest opinion polls from the Datafolha polling agency suggest that Bolsonaro - who openly praises Brazil's 1964 - 1985 military dictatorship - is heading for a landslide victory against his centre-left rival Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party (PT) on October 28 with the 59 percent of intended votes compared to 41 percent.
But on Thursday, his campaign appeared to be at least temporarily shaken, as Brazil's Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported that businessmen and companies were secretly financing the mass spread of slanderous messages about Haddad via the online messaging platform Whatsapp.
According the newspaper, the practice constitutes an electoral crime as all political campaign donations must be declared and donations from companies were banned in 2015, a practice introduced to tackle corruption.
"We will call on the Federal Police and the Electoral Justice to prevent Deputy Bolsonaro from violently violating democracy as he has done," Haddad Tweeted.
In an article published by the Brazilian news portal UOL, legal experts commented that if proven the case could eventually lead to Bolsonaro's electoral ticket being cancelled though this is considered highly unlikely before the final round of voting next Sunday. … more here
https:// www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/bolsonaro-continues-lead-polls-fake-news-scandal-181019220347524.html
Indians protest after train accident kills dozens
Angry relatives staged a protest on Saturday on the tracks where a speeding train ran into crowds celebrating a Hindu festival, killing around 60 people in northern India.
The Jalandhar-Amritsar express hit scores of revelers who had gathered on the railway tracks on the outskirts of Amritsar city in Punjab state on Friday to watch a firework display.
Many of the victims were dismembered beyond recognition and police said it would take several days to complete the identification of the dead.
Some desperate parents went from hospital to hospital in the city on Saturday looking for missing children, while the first funerals of some victims were held.
Hardeep Singh, chief medical officer for Amritsar, told AFP news agency 59 deaths had been confirmed and 90 people had been injured, with seven in critical condition.
Singh said only 25 bodies had been identified so far. Amritsar's main hospital did not have enough space in its morgue, and some corpses were laid outside.
Train not heard
The disaster led to new demands for safety reforms to India's accident-plagued railway system, which records thousands of deaths each year.
Punjab state governor V.P. Singh Badnore said: "Those who need to be punished will be punished and accountability will be fixed."
Scores of protesters who gathered on the railway tracks condemned the Punjab state government and demanded action against the driver who was questioned by police on Saturday. Others blocked a nearby road.
Police moved the protesters off the tracks and brought in reinforcements to control a crowd of hundreds that gathered around the scene of the disaster.
Investigators said victims did not hear the train because the drone of the locomotive was drowned out by firecrackers. Another train had narrowly missed the crowds two minutes earlier, officials said.
According to media reports, the driver told police he did not see the revelers until the last second because he had come around a bend in the dark into the firework smoke.
As the blame game spread, police said they had given permission for the display for the annual Dussehra festival fireworks but that organisers did not have approval from the city, health department and fire brigade.
Indian Railways said it had not been informed of the celebration, even though locals said it had been held at the same place for several years.
According to media reports, the organisers, members of the Congress party which rules Punjab, had gone into hiding.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal returned early from a trip to the United States to go to Amritsar on Saturday. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh called off a trip to Israel to go to the disaster scene….more here
https:// www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/indians-protest-railway-safety-train-accident-kills-dozens-181020112640932.html
Former Dutch prime minister Wim Kok dies at age 80
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, a trade unionist-turned-politician who inspired a new breed of pragmatic Social Democratic leaders who swept to power in Europe in the 1990s, has died at 80.
Current Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that Kok, who died Saturday, “was a man to look up to — if only for his long service and great importance for our country.” Labor Party leader Lodewijk Asscher called Kok a “model of integrity.”
Kok hitched his Dutch Labor Party to the right-wing Liberal Party and to the centrist Democrats 66 to form two ruling coalitions that steered the Netherlands to unprecedented economic success from 1994 to 2002.
Ahead of Kok’s second election victory in 1998, British Prime Minister Tony Blair praised him as “one of the greatest people in politics today.”….
https:// www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/former-dutch-prime-minister-wim-kok-dies-at-age-80/2018/10/20/79fc18d4-d488-11e8-a4db-184311d27129_story.html?utm_term=.8f5370fc4868
Over 700,000 people march in London
More than seven hundred thousand people are marching through the streets of London demanding a say on the final Brexit deal.
Organisers say it's the largest demonstration so far regarding plans to leave the European Union.
They say people taking part are also those who voted to leave the EU, as they're fed up with the way negotiations are being handled.
It comes as pressure builds on the prime minister over her strategy, with just over five months until Britain is due to leave. The sticking point is still avoiding a 'hard border' between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
https:// www.euronews.com/2018/10/20/over-700-000-people-march-in-london
imbecile fuck off
Saudi Arabia's explanation for Khashoggi's death draws international criticism
Saudi Arabia finally said Friday evening that 18 of its citizens are responsible for the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at its Istanbul consulate, with the Saudi general prosecutor claiming that the writer's death was a result of a "quarrel and fighting by hand."
On Friday, President Donald Trump continued to stop short of criticizing the Saudi government, which he maintains close diplomatic ties with after making a major arms deal worth $110 billion in May 2017.
He called the alleged fistfight "a theory that was put out" on Friday. His comment came days after he suggested that Khashoggi, a Virginia resident who disappeared Oct. 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was murdered by "rogue killers."…
https:// www.nbcnews.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-s-explanation-khashoggi-s-death-draws-international-criticism-n922406
Thousands of Central American migrants stranded on Mexican border
Thousands of US-bound Honduran migrants remained stranded Saturday after spending the night on a border bridge between Guatemala and Mexico where riot police barred their progress.Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said he would meet Saturday with his Guatemalan counterpart Jimmy Morales to discuss the next steps in the crisis, which has triggered escalating anti-immigrant rhetoric from US President Donald Trump.Hundreds slept in the open on the bridge over the Suchiate River and in the main square of the Guatemalan border town of Tecun Uman. Hernandez said on Twitter he had asked Guatemalan authorities "to contract land transportation for those who wish to return – and airlift in the special cases of women, children, the elderly and the sick – and we will continue with this operation as long as necessary."… more here
https:// www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/186786-181020-thousands-of-central-american-migrants-stranded-on-mexican-border
63 infant bodies found at second Detroit funeral home
Oct. 20 (UPI) – The Detroit Police Department said remains of 63 infants or fetuses were found in another funeral home in the city.
Police removed the 63 remains Friday from Perry Funeral Home as an investigation widens after last week's discovery of 11 infant bodies at now-defunct Cantrell Funeral Home on Detroit's east side. Authorities say the two discoveries are unrelated.
The Michigan Licensing and Regulatory Affairs said in a statement that the 63 remains were turned over to state investigators who declared the business closed and suspended its license.
Thirty-seven remains were removed from boxes and 26 from a freezer, state authorities told The New York Times Saturday.
Regulators said in statement late Friday they found "heinous conditions and negligent conduct" at the Perry Funeral Home, including failure to certify death certificates and obtain proper burial permits. If criminal offenses of state laws regulating funeral homes are proven, felonies could be "punishable by imprisonment for not more than 10 years or a fine of not more than $50,000 or both," said a statement from the agency.
Investigators raided the Perry Funeral Home to investigate potential ties to the 11 infant bodies found in the ceiling of Cantrell Funeral Home. Four additional bodies were found at Cantrell on Friday.
"At this point, there is no connection," Detroit Police Department Chief James Craig said in an update on the investigation posted to the department's Facebook page. "However there are some similarities in the sense that there were alleged improper disposal of fetuses."
https:// www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/10/20/63-infant-bodies-found-at-second-Detroit-funeral-home/1961540050999/
Riyadh admits Khashoggi died in Istanbul mission amid hunt for body
Saudi Arabia admitted on Saturday that critic Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside its Istanbul consulate, but mystery surrounded the whereabouts of his body as Turkey kept up its investigation.
Amid mounting calls for an international probe into the death of the Washington Post columnist, Ankara vowed it would reveal all the details of its two-week inquiry.
Before dawn on Saturday, Riyadh announced that Khashoggi died during a "brawl" inside the consulate on October 2. ]
It said 18 Saudis have been arrested in connection with his death and two top aides of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as three other intelligence agents, have been sacked.
The disappearance of Khashoggi, who was critical of the crown prince, plunged Saudi Arabia into an international crisis as the kingdom insisted for over two weeks that it was not involved.
Turkish officials have accused the Riyadh of carrying out a state-sponsored killing and dismembering the body, which police have begun hunting for in an Istanbul forest.
AFP / AFP
What happened to Jamal Khashoggi?
In the latest version of events from Riyadh, Saudi Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb said Khashoggi died after talks at the consulate degenerated into a physical altercation. He did not disclose the whereabouts of the journalist's body.
"Discussions that took place between him and the persons who met him… at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul led to a brawl and a fistfight with the citizen, Jamal Khashoggi, which led to his death, may his soul rest in peace," the attorney general said in a statement.
https:// www.afp.com/en/news/3954/riyadh-admits-khashoggi-died-istanbul-mission-amid-hunt-body-doc-1a58lu9
Swedish student who refused to sit down on flight in effort to stop man’s deportation to Afghanistan is indicted
A student who livestreamed her dramatic efforts on a plane to stop an asylum seeker from being deported to Afghanistan in July was indicted by Swedish prosecutors Friday.
Elin Ersson, 21, a student at the University of Gothenburg and a volunteer with refugee groups, had her broadcast go viral as her attempt to stop a flight from Gothenburg to Turkey on July 23. Ersson and other asylum activists discovered an Afghan man on the flight was being deported to Kabul, Afghanistan.
The indictment, which was issued in a district court in Gothenburg, stated Ersson “violated the Swedish aviation act by remaining standing when the plane was set to take off,” The New York Times reported. A person could face fines or up to six months in prison if convicted.
“She did so with the intention of preventing the plane from departing,” James von Reis, a prosecutor, told Swedish news outlet Svenska Dagbladet.
https:// www.foxnews.com/world/swedish-student-who-refused-to-sit-down-on-flight-in-effort-to-stop-mans-deportation-to-afghanistan-is-indicted
Chancellor Angela Merkel slams Saudi's Khashoggi explanation as 'insufficient'
Saudi Arabia should provide "transparency" regarding the circumstances of Jamal Khashoggi's death, Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Separately, Turkey pledged not to allow a cover-up in the Khashoggi case.
People responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi "must be held accountable," German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a joint statement on Saturday, after Saudi Arabia admitted that the 59-year-old reporter had died in the Saudi kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.
Merkel and Maas condemned the reporter's death "in the strongest possible terms."
"We expect transparency from Saudi Arabia regarding the circumstances of the death and its background," they said in the statement issued by the foreign ministry.
"The available information on the events in the Istanbul consulate is insufficient," they said.
Commenting on the latest Saudi statement on Saturday, Merkel said that "nothing has been explained so far and we need to explain it."
Saudi Arabia denies its denials
Earlier on Saturday, Riyadh said that the Washington Post reporter died when "discussions" between him and people he met on the premises "dissolved into a fistfight."
"The investigations are still underway and 18 Saudi nationals have been arrested," according to a statement from the Saudi public prosecutor. Royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani and deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Asiri, both close aides to the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have been sacked, the statement added.
https:// www.dw.com/en/chancellor-angela-merkel-slams-saudis-khashoggi-explanation-as-insufficient/a-45971581
Watch Aaron Klein: Iran Fingerprints on Gaza Terror Escalation
Klein made the comments (video above) during a panel discussion on Israel’s i24NEWS.
Speaking on the news network’s Spin Room program, hosted by Ami Kaufman, Klein stated:
I think Hamas is very nervous right now about the economic situation in the Gaza Strip. You’ve got Qatar pouring in fuel bypassing Hamas, bypassing the Palestinian Authority. And Hamas has to turn the anger of the Palestinian population again somebody and so they are trying to turn it against Israel.
And by the way I am also wondering if Iran is sort of hijacking what is going on in the Gaza Strip as well because they are very nervous right now in Syria. And it looks like they might be telling Hamas to light things up in Gaza.
Klein was speaking following a week of escalated attacks against Israel emanating from the Gaza Strip, including ramped up violent border riots, an increase in the number of incendiary devices being launched into Israel, the planting of an explosive device at the Israeli border fence, and the firing of two rockets toward central Israel. One rocket landed on an Israeli home in Beersheba, a city of 200,000, while a second rocket reportedly hit near the Tel Aviv area but fell into the sea.
Klein criticized the Israeli government for its willingness to continue negotiating a truce with Hamas while Israeli cities come under fire.
“The tit for tat has to stop here, though,” he said, referring to the Israeli military’s limited response. “Israel is feeding into this by even continuing to negotiate while on the other hand Hamas is leading a war against it.”
He called for the Israel Defense Forces to “reestablish deterrence” and “smash Hamas.”
https:// www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2018/10/20/watch-aaron-klein-iran-fingerprints-on-gaza-terror-escalation/
On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks predicted that the US will probably react to the death of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi by pretending to be angry, and then going back to normal. He further stated that the idea that the US is only about money “is pretty much the ethos that Trump is embodying in a quite unembarrassed way.”
Brooks said, “In the Middle East, people understand you go through periods where people have to pretend to be mad at you, and then they go back to normal affairs. And I suspect that’s what the Trump administration is going to do with Saudi Arabia.”
He later added, “I guess this is why I’m a little mystified that the Democrats are not going after this issue more, why they’re going after health care and other policy issues. To me, this is the big issue of the election, that if — frankly, if Donald — if the Republicans keep the House and the Senate, then Donald Trump will feel unleashed. … And so, to me, that’s the core issue. How do we see ourselves as a country? What kind of country do we say? Are we strictly a money country? We sometimes look like that to outsiders. I don’t think that’s true. But that is pretty much the ethos that Trump is embodying in a quite unembarrassed way.”
https:// www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2018/10/20/watch-aaron-klein-iran-fingerprints-on-gaza-terror-escalation/