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Category: WORLDS

  • Mauricio Macri downplays Argentina’s economy problems

    Having emerged from one of the world’s worst currency implosions of the new century, Argentine consumers are suddenly confronting a reprise.

    BUENOS AIRES — For ordinary Argentines, it has been a shocking return to the bad old days, a deja vu of shortages, job losses and bailouts that many thought the country had finally ended.

    Facing a national election a year away, the ever-upbeat President Mauricio Macri never tires of reassuring Argentines that they are on “the right path” out of a “storm.”

    But to local economists, even those friendly to the conservative Mr. Macri’s pro-business bent, his imagery doesn’t quite capture the state of an economy predicted to shrink by 2.4 percent this year and had to be propped up just last week by an expanded $57 billion line of credit from the International Monetary Fund. Having emerged from one of the world’s worst currency implosions of the new century, consumers are suddenly confronting a reprise.

    Things aren’t nearly as dire as the post-2001 years, and a more apt metaphor, former National Bank board member Facundo Martinez Maino said, might be that of a car-wreck victim hospitalized after a head-on collision.

    “Right now, staying alive is all that matters,” said Mr. Martinez Maino, now the chief economist at a prominent local consulting firm. “You’re in a totally sterile room, under controlled temperature, and you can’t venture out or eat [without] a feeding tube.”

    It’s a grim picture reflected by key indicators — Argentina’s inflation rate is now topped around the world only by those of Venezuela, Sudan and South Sudan — and painful even for the urban middle class, a key component of Mr. Macri’s political base.

    “The situation is critical, unfortunately,” Graciela Clouet, a 66-year-old lawyer, said last week as she shopped for groceries in an upscale Buenos Aires neighborhood. “You don’t know where we’re headed, and you worry.”

    Prices are constantly being hiked, Ms. Clouet said, while the decline of the peso, which has already lost more than half its value this year, is having ripple effects on the rising cost of gasoline and consumer goods across the board.

    But what bothers her the most, she said, is the sense of uncertainty, which Mr. Macri’s repeatedly unkept promises that “the worst is over” have done little to ease.

    “I want there to be a direction … for us to go toward someplace,” Ms. Clouet said. “I feel like we’re improvising.”

    For market movers and shakers, the chaotic state of the economy has long contrasted with the president’s near-dogmatic confidence and, worse, conjured up memories of those crises past — including Argentina’s cataclysmic 2001 default and social meltdown.

    “We have gotten to a situation that, as a snapshot, is one of the worst since 2001 in terms of devaluation, inflation, recession and economic perspectives,” Mr. Martinez Maino said. “We’re in one of the worst situations since that collapse.”

    He added, though, that the two scenarios are vastly different in causes and scope.

    Fears of a rerun

    Even the sense that the country may be headed down a similar road is precisely what Mr. Macri — and anybody else interested in stabilizing the economy — is desperately hoping to avoid, said Mariano de Vedia, a political analyst for the La Nacion daily.

    “There’s an old saying here in Argentina: ‘He who burns himself with milk sees a cow and cries …,’” Mr. de Vedia said. “Already, salaries are worth less and less, layoffs are beginning to happen and the dollar heads to the skies.”

    For Argentina’s lower and middle classes, meanwhile, keeping up with ever-increasing food, utility and transportation costs is becoming increasingly difficult, economic analyst Jose Luis Espert said.

    “This year, with an inflation between 40 and 50 percent and salaries that rise between 25 and 30 percent, the real-wage drop is 15 percent,” Mr. Espert said. “Companies are closing, stores are closing, and there is a very, very violent drop in consumption.”

    For Roberto Rodriguez, who co-owns a florist shop on a lively Buenos Aires street corner, that means business has been “totally paralyzed.”

    “You notice it in the stores around,” he said. “[This is] a spot with pretty good purchasing power, and even so, we’re feeling it.”

    Mr. Rodriguez said he still plans to back Mr. Macri if he runs for re-election next year, hinting that he favors the president’s “change” agenda over the often inflexible protectionism of his predecessor, leftist Cristina Fernandez.

    Although Ms. Fernandez may have handed over a bloated government whose coffers had been emptied by populist spending and corruption, most commentators agree that, three years into his term, Mr. Macri shares a large chunk of the blame for the country’s predicament.

    By hastily eliminating currency controls, insisting on unrealistic inflation goals and taking on debt in an undisciplined and unsavvy manner, Mr. Macri committed key errors from the get-go, Mr. Martinez Maino said.

    “Today, we’re faced more with macroeconomic problems generated by this administration than with inherited problems, which we’re also faced with,” he said. “All three elements failed: diagnosis, policies and management.”

    To Mr. Espert, the president’s latest attempt to turn things around with a dual commitment to a no-deficit budget and steady money supply thanks to the expanded IMF credit line likely comes a day late and a peso short.

    “If ‘zero deficit’ and ‘zero issuance’ had been announced [in 2015], rejecting [Ms. Fernandez’s] inheritance, it would have been one thing,” he said. “Today, almost three years later … and a year before the elections, it lacks credibility.”

    If Mr. Macri really wants to turn things around, Mr. Espert said, his focus will need to be less about political calculus a year before Argentines head to the polls.

    “This administration should forget about the elections [and] take some risks today to get the economy moving by doing some bold things,” he said. “For example, go see [President] Trump and propose a free trade agreement.”

    Ironically, the troubling economy may have boxed in the ruling Cambiemos coalition, even though Mr. Macri has yet to formally announce that he will be seeking a second term, Mr. de Vedia said.

    “The situation is forcing them to ratify the president’s re-election [bid],” he said, “because, otherwise, it’s a recognition of his failure.”

    If a showdown next year between Mr. Macri and Ms. Fernandez takes place in the midst of a recession, the political analysts mused, then the outcome would be unpredictable.

    “People could easily say ‘no’ to the administration and also say ‘no’ to Cristina,” Mr. de Vedia said. “It’s not necessarily one or the other.”

  • Mike Pompeo: North Korea talks progress

    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday trumpeted progress in U.S.-North Korean relations on a slew of issues, from efforts to persuade Pyongyang to abandon nuclear weapons to closing in on details f

    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday trumpeted progress in U.S.-North Korean relations on a slew of issues, from efforts to persuade Pyongyang to abandon nuclear weapons to closing in on details for a second Trump-Kim Jong-un summit.

    Mr. Pompeo arrived in Seoul hours after wrapping up his fourth visit to North Korea on Sunday, telling reporters it was a “good trip” and that he and Mr. Kim made strides on the initiatives discussed at June’s historic summit in Singapore between the North Korean leader and President Trump.

    “We had a good, productive conversation,” Mr. Pompeo said during a joint briefing with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. “As President Trump said, there are many steps along the way, and we took one of them today. It was another step forward. So this is, I think, a good outcome for all of us.”

    According to Associated Press reports, Mr. Kim echoed Mr. Pompeo’s optimism. “It’s a very nice day that promises a good future for both countries,” Mr. Kim said as he, Mr. Pompeo and their respective entourages met for a 90-minute working lunch at the Paekhwawon State Guest House in the North Korean capital.

    Prior to the lunch, Mr. Kim and Mr. Pompeo held closed-door talks for roughly 3 hours. Stephen Biegun, U.S. special envoy for North Korea, and Andrew Kim, head of the Korea working group at the CIA, attended as part of the U.S. delegation. Mr. Kim was accompanied by his sister, Kim Yo-jong, and Kim Yong-chol, the North’s former top intelligence official and the main conduit for talks between the regime and Mr. Pompeo.

    Despite the goodwill expressed by both sides, neither Mr. Pompeo nor Mr. Kim opted to disclose details. During the joint press conference in Seoul, Mr. Moon attempted to press Mr. Pompeo to shed a little light on Sunday’s talks.

    “Since we have the media present here, I would like to ask you to disclose anything that you can open to the public here,” Mr. Moon said. Mr. Pompeo politely declined, telling the South Korean leader, “I don’t have much to add but we had a good, productive conversation.”

    White House critics argue that Mr. Kim and the regime in the North have leveraged Mr. Trump’s efforts to engage with Pyongyang to earn legitimacy in the international community while harboring no real intention to follow through on major U.S. initiatives, such as denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

    However, administration officials argue that Mr. Trump has broken through decades of diplomatic impasses that have stymied previous efforts to establish ties with Pyongyang. But officials have acknowledged the road to reconciliation for North Korea, the U.S. and the international community remains long.

    Bilateral talks between North Korea and Washington faltered recently, and Mr. Trump canceled an earlier round of meetings. Sunday’s talks marked the first breakthrough in that impasse since Singapore.

    Mr. Pompeo’s visit to North Korea was “better than the last time [but] it’s going to be a long haul” to get Mr. Kim to acquiesce to Washington’s demands, a U.S. official tied to Mr. Pompeo’s delegation told Fox News on Sunday.

    While details were scarce on Sunday’s meeting, U.S. officials said the visit focused on the nuts and bolts of the denuclearization process, proffered by the Trump administration in June, as well as the diplomatic parameters for a proposed second summit between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim.

    In Washington, Mr. Trump indicated his willingness to hold a second face-to-face summit with the North Korean leader.

    “I look forward to seeing Chairman Kim again, in the near future,” Mr. Trump tweeted Sunday, citing the progress he and Mr. Kim made in Singapore, just as Mr. Pompeo was wrapping up his visit in Pyongyang.

    Analysts in the U.S. were upbeat but cautious.

    “While there is no way Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in roughly 210 minutes with Chairman Kim Jong-un achieved any major breakthroughs Sunday, [he] may have achieved his goal nonetheless: exploring the timing and possible locations for a second U.S.-North Korea summit,” said Harry Kazianis, head of defense studies at the Washington-based Center for the National Interest.

    Mr. Trump’s willingness to secure a second summit with North Korea could lead to an offer to officially end the Korean War, Mr. Kazianis said, in exchange “for a big action towards denuclearization.”

    “Trump will likely be tempted to hold such a summit quickly, and possibly even in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, to make history and drive headlines, pointing to another success right before the midterm elections,” he said.

    The administration has resisted efforts to officially end the war between North and South Korea — the two countries are technically under a 1953 cease-fire agreement — out of concern that a peace deal would increase pressure on the U.S. to remove troops from South Korea.

    But Mr. Moon and Mr. Kim have pushed for the end-of-war declaration by December. Mr. Moon has argued that he and Mr. Kim have agreed that such a “political declaration” wouldn’t require the pullout of 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.

  • Melania Trump, first lady, blasted by media for wearing ‘colonial’ white pith helmet on Kenya safari

    First lady Melania Trump has come under attack by media outlets during her Kenya trip for wearing a white pith helmet described as a symbol of white colonial rule.”

    First lady Melania Trump has come under attack by media outlets during her Kenya trip for wearing a white pith helmet described as a symbol of white colonial rule.”

    The helmet, which she wore Friday during a safari in Nairobi, was blasted as a “common symbol of European colonial rule” by The New York Times, while CNN said it has “come to symbolize white rule.”

    The [U.K.] Guardian said the helmets “were worn by European explorers and imperial administrators in Africa, parts of Asia and the Middle East in the 19th century before being adopted by military officers, rapidly becoming a symbol of status — and oppression.”

    The first lady refused to take the bait, telling reporters Saturday that she had no comment on her wardrobe.

    “We just completed an amazing trip — we went to Ghana, we went to Malawi, we went to Kenya, here we are in Egypt,” she said as reported by NPR. “I want to talk about my trip and not what I wear. That’s very important.”

    The pith helmet Melania Trump wore during a Kenyan safari wasn’t her most glaring faux pas. But some see her choice of a symbol of European colonial rule as a big error on the global stage. https://t.co/509wb8PJxu

    — New York Times World (@nytimesworld) October 5, 2018

    US first lady Melania Trump’s latest white hat evokes a colonialist comparison https://t.co/gh4IQhq630pic.twitter.com/hN6hGfzxF8

    — CNN International (@cnni) October 5, 2018

    At least one person on social media said that white pith helmets were also worn by Kenyans, while the first lady’s defenders called the controversy ridiculous.

    To our friends across the sea, pith helmets are still (unless I am misinformed) part of the official uniform of Kenya Gov public administration officers. Nothing shocking (nor offensive) about a similar white white hat worn by guest at the Nairobi National Park yesterday. @FLOTUSpic.twitter.com/xSoZDycgLW

    — HENRY MUSANGI (@HMUSANGI) October 6, 2018

    Oh shut up you insufferable nitpicking whiners https://t.co/vI6F7F7A4i

    — John Cardillo (@johncardillo) October 5, 2018

  • Carlo Maria Vigano claim of Theodore McCarrick cover-up by Pope Francis ‘blasphemous,’ Vatican says

    A top Vatican cardinal issued a scathing rebuke Sunday of the ambassador who accused Pope Francis of covering up the sexual misconduct of a prominent American cardinal, saying his claims were false, “

    VATICAN CITY — A top Vatican cardinal issued a scathing rebuke Sunday of the ambassador who accused Pope Francis of covering up the sexual misconduct of a prominent American cardinal, saying his claims were false, “blasphemous” and demanding that he repent.

    Six weeks after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano threw the papacy into turmoil over his claims about ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the head of the Vatican’s bishops office said there was no evidence in his files backing Vigano’s claims that Francis annulled any sanctions against McCarrick.

    Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s letter was issued Sunday, a day after Francis authorized a “thorough study” of all Vatican archives into how McCarrick rose through the ranks of the Catholic Church despite allegations he sexually preyed on seminarians and young priests.

    The letter, addressed to Vigano but identified as an open letter to the faithful, marked an extraordinary and decisive end to the official Vatican silence about Vigano’s claims. In it, Ouellet both defended the pope and criticized Vigano, asserting that the conservative cleric had used the scandal over sexual abuse in the U.S. to score ideological points with Francis’ critics on the Catholic right.

    Ouellet said a review of his files showed there were no documents about any sanctions imposed on McCarrick and that it was “false” to suggest Francis had annulled any such measures.

    Ouellet did acknowledge that McCarrick had been “strongly exhorted” not to travel or appear in public, and to live a discreet life of prayer given rumors against him about his past behavior with young adult men.

    The McCarrick scandal has thrown the U.S. and Vatican hierarchy into turmoil, given it was apparently an open secret in some U.S. church circles that he would invite seminarians to his New Jersey beach house and into his bed. Two men received settlements starting in 2005 from two New Jersey dioceses after they alleged McCarrick sexually molested or harassed them.

    The Vatican was informed starting in at least 2000 about the seminarian complaints.

    Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation as a cardinal in July after a U.S. church investigation determined that an allegation that he groped a teenage altar boy in the 1970s was credible. Since then, another man has come forward saying McCarrick molested him when he was a young teen and other men have said they were harassed by McCarrick as adult seminarians and young priests.

    Ouellet’s letter marked the Vatican’s first direct response to Vigano’s 11-page denunciation Aug. 26 in which he accused two dozen Vatican and U.S. church officials of covering up for McCarrick, and demanded Francis resign for his role in the scandal.

    In the document, Vigano claimed he told Francis during a June 23, 2013 meeting that Pope Benedict XVI had sanctioned McCarrick to a lifetime of penance and prayer for having “corrupted a generation of seminarians and priests.”

    Vigano implied that Francis still rehabilitated McCarrick from the “canonical sanctions” and made him a trusted counselor.

    Ouellet noted that the June 23 meeting occurred as Francis was meeting with all his ambassadors for the first time, and was gathering an “enormous quantity of verbal and written information” about the church around the world.

    “I strongly doubt that McCarrick concerned him to the degree you’d like to think, given he was an 82-year-old emeritus archbishop who had been out of a job for seven years,” Ouellet wrote.

    Ouellet said in all his meetings with Francis about bishop nominations, he never heard him refer once to McCarrick as a trusted counselor. He said he couldn’t believe Vigano had arrived at such a “monstrous” and “blasphemous” conclusion given that Francis had nothing to do with McCarrick’s career rise in the previous decades.

    He said he understood that Vigano might be bitter at the way his own career ended and his disagreement with Francis’ policies. But he wrote:

    “You cannot end your priestly life in an open and scandalous rebellion that inflicts a painful wound” on the church and divides its people. He urged Vigano: “Come out of your hiding place, repent for your revolt and return to better sentiments toward the Holy Father.”

  • Magnitude 5.9 quake shakes northern Haiti

    A magnitude 5.9 earthquake shook northwestern Haiti late Saturday, damaging homes, a church and at least one hospital. Officials reported that people had been injured, but had not confirmed local medi

    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A magnitude 5.9 earthquake shook northwestern Haiti late Saturday, damaging homes, a church and at least one hospital. Officials reported that people had been injured, but had not confirmed local media reports of deaths.

    The U.S. Geologic Survey said the quake hit at 8:11 p.m. (0011 GMT) and was centered 12 miles (19 kilometers) northwest of Port-de-Paix on Haiti’s north coast. It was 7.3 miles (11.7 kilometers) below the surface.

    The country’s civil protection agency issued a statement saying several people were injured and some houses destroyed in Port-de-Paix, Gros Morne, Chansolme and Turtle Island. Among the structures damaged was the Saint-Michel church in Plaisance.

    Other rescue workers reported the collapse of part of a hospital and an auditorium as the quake hit on a rainy evening.

    The quake was felt lightly in the capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

    Impoverished Haiti, where many live in tenuous circumstances, is especially vulnerable to earthquakes. A vastly larger magnitude 7.1 quake damaged much of the capital in 2010 and killed an estimated 300,000 people.

  • Jamal Khashoggi case: Turkish officials believe Saudi writer was killed: Reports

    Turkish investigators believe a prominent Saudi journalist who contributed to The Washington Post was killed in “a preplanned murder” at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, the Post reported Saturday

    ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish investigators believe a prominent Saudi journalist who contributed to The Washington Post was killed in “a preplanned murder” at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, the Post reported Saturday night, citing two anonymous officials. Saudi authorities had no immediate comment, though they’ve insisted the writer left their diplomatic post.

    One Turkish official also told The Associated Press that detectives’ “initial assessment” was that Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the consulate, without elaborating.

    Khashoggi, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. for the last year, vanished Tuesday while on a visit to the consulate. His disappearance has threatened to upend already-fraught relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and it raises new questions about the kingdom and the actions of its assertive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Khashoggi wrote critically about in his columns.

    “If the reports of Jamal’s murder are true, it is a monstrous and unfathomable act,” The Post’s editorial page editor Fred Hiatt said in a statement. “Jamal was — or, as we hope, is — a committed, courageous journalist. He writes out of a sense of love for his country and deep faith in human dignity and freedom.”

    The Post cited one anonymous official who said investigators believe a 15-member team “came from Saudi Arabia.” The official added: “It was a preplanned murder.”

    A Turkish official, requesting anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, told The Associated Press earlier Saturday night something similar.

    “The initial assessment of the Turkish police is that Mr. Khashoggi has been killed at the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul,” the official said. “We believe that the murder was premeditated and the body was subsequently moved out of the consulate.”

    Khashoggi, 59, went missing while on a visit to the consulate in Istanbul for paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancée. The consulate insists the writer left its premises, contradicting Turkish officials.

    “Jamal is not dead! I don’t believe he’s been killed!” his fiancée Hatice wrote on Twitter late Saturday night.

    Turkey’s official Anadolu News Agency said Saturday that the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office began a probe into Khashoggi’s disappearance Tuesday, immediately after he went missing. It added the investigation over allegations that the writer was detained had “deepened,” without elaborating.

    Khashoggi is a longtime Saudi journalist, foreign correspondent, editor and columnist whose work has been controversial in the past in the ultraconservative Sunni kingdom. He went into self-imposed exile in the United States following the ascension of Prince Mohammed, now next in line to succeed his father, the 82-year-old King Salman.

    As a contributor to The Post, Khashoggi has written extensively about Saudi Arabia, including criticizing its war in Yemen, its recent diplomatic spat with Canada and its arrest of women’s rights activists after the lifting of a ban on women driving. All those issues have been viewed as being pushed by Prince Mohammed, who similarly has led roundups of activists, businessmen and others in the kingdom.

    “With young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power, he promised an embrace of social and economic reform,” Khashoggi wrote in his first column for the Post. “But all I see now is the recent wave of arrests.”

    Khashoggi was known for his interviews and travels with Osama bin Laden between 1987 and 1995, including in Afghanistan, where he wrote about the battle against the Soviet occupation. In the early 1990s, he tried to persuade bin Laden to reconcile with the Saudi royal family and return home from his base in Sudan, but the al-Qaida leader refused.

    Khashoggi maintained ties with Saudi elites, including those in its intelligence apparatus, and launched a satellite news channel, Al-Arab, from Bahrain in 2015 with the backing of Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The channel was on air for less than 11 hours before it was shut down. Its billionaire backer was detained in the Ritz Carlton roundup overseen by Prince Mohammed in 2017.

    The dispute over Khashoggi’s disappearance also threatens to reopen rifts between Ankara and Riyadh. Turkey has supported Qatar amid a yearlong boycott by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over a political dispute. Turkey’s support of political Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood, also angers leaders in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, which label the organization a “terrorist group” threatening their hereditarily ruled nations.

    Press freedom groups have decried Khashoggi’s disappearance. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, who sits on the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed shock over the news.

    “If this is true — that the Saudis lured a U.S. resident into their consulate and murdered him — it should represent a fundamental break in our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Murphy wrote on Twitter.

    ___

    El Deeb reported from Beirut, while Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

  • Mike Pompeo seeks allied unity in dealing with North Korea

    America’s top diplomat left Tokyo for Pyongyang on Sunday after pledging that the U.S. will coordinate with allies Japan and South Korea on efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapo

    TOKYO (AP) — America’s top diplomat left Tokyo for Pyongyang on Sunday after pledging that the U.S. will coordinate with allies Japan and South Korea on efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

    On the eve of his fourth visit to North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Saturday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to try to unify the countries’ positions as he looks to arrange a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and chart a path toward denuclearization.

    Japan has been wary of Trump’s initiative, fearing it could affect its long-standing security relationship with the U.S.

    Pompeo said it was important to hear from the Japanese leader “so we have a fully coordinated and unified view.” Pompeo also pledged that during his meeting with Kim on Sunday, he would raise the cases of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.

    Pompeo later planned stops in South Korea and China to review the negotiations.

    “It is important for us to hear from you as I travel to Pyongyang to make sure that we are fully in sync with respect to missile programs, (chemical and biological weapons) programs,” Pompeo told Abe. “We will bring up the issue of the abductees as well and then we will share with you how we hope to proceed when we are in Pyongyang tomorrow.”

    Trump is pressing to meet with Kim for a second time after their June summit in Singapore produced a vague agreement on denuclearization with few, if any, specifics. Despite the historic meeting, the two sides are deadlocked over how to achieve that goal. Trump canceled Pompeo’s initial planned return to North Korea last month.

    In contrast with South Korea, where President Moon Jae-in has been at the forefront of encouraging Trump’s rapprochement with the North, Japan has been decidedly cautious, insisting its interests and concerns be addressed.

    Abe did not speak of differences but highlighted the importance of demonstrating to the world that the U.S.-Japan alliance is “more robust than ever” and stressing the importance of “thorough coordination” with Washington on all aspects of North Korea policy.

    Pompeo has repeatedly refused to discuss details of negotiations, including a U.S. position on North Korea’s demand for a declared end to the Korean War and a proposal from Seoul for such a declaration to be accompanied by a shutdown of the North’s main known nuclear facility.

    The U.S. and Japan have pushed for the North to compile and turn over a detailed list of its nuclear sites to be dismantled as a next step in the process; the North has rejected that.

    Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Kano, said the accounting continues to be a priority for his country.

    “Disclosing all nuclear inventories is the first step toward denuclearization,” he told reporters after Pompeo wrapped up his meeting in Tokyo.

    Kono also said he and Pompeo didn’t go into details of a possible war-end declaration because it’s premature while there is virtually no progress in denuclearization. “We are not even talking about whether to do it or not,” he said. “It’s not an issue that we are even considering.”

    Many believe such a declaration could reinforce North Korea’s demands for the U.S. to withdraw its forces from South Korea and Japan.

    While traveling to Asia, Pompeo said his mission was to “make sure that we understand what each side is truly trying to achieve … and how we can deliver against the commitments that were made” in Singapore. He said they would develop options, if not finalize, the location and timing of a second Trump-Kim summit.

    He has also distanced himself from an earlier stated goal of achieving North Korea’s nuclear weapons abandonment by the end of Trump’s term in January 2021.

    Since the effort got underway with a secret visit to the North by then-CIA chief Pompeo in April, there has been only limited progress.

    North Korea so far has suspended nuclear and missile tests, freed three American prisoners and dismantled parts of a missile engine facility and tunnel entrances at a nuclear test site. It has not taken any steps to halt nuclear weapons or missile development.

    The North also has accused Washington of making “unilateral and gangster-like” demands on denuclearization and insisted that sanctions should be lifted before any progress in nuclear talks. U.S. officials have thus far said sanctions will remain in place until the North’s denuclearization is fully verified.

    ___

    AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

  • Russia readying election observers to monitor U.S. midterms

    Russian election officials are headed to the United States to prepare for monitoring next month’s midterms, a former member of Moscow’s Central Election Commission said Friday.

    Russian election officials are headed to the United States to prepare for monitoring next month’s midterms, a former member of Moscow’s Central Election Commission said Friday.

    Members of Russia’s federal elections agency will travel to the U.S. on Sunday in order to monitor the upcoming midterms as part of a mission being organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, an intergovernmental group that lists both nations among its member states, said Vasily Likhachev, a former member of CEC.

    The team of six Russians, including “two CEC members … and representatives of Russian civic organizations related to the field of electoral technologies,” will spend five weeks in the U.S. participating in the mission, Mr. Likhachev told TASS, a state-run newswire.

    “These six people were chosen based on the criteria developed together with the U.S.,” said Mr. Likhachev, and their participation is based on both OSCE regulations and the United Nation’s principles of cooperation, he told the outlet

    “There is not much positive in Russian-U.S. relations at the moment, but this is a positive thing that will help improve relations. Our citizens will abide by the OSCE rules and U.S. laws,” he added.

    The mission is a part of by OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, or ODIHR, a Poland-based division of the group that has monitored elections in the U.S. since 2002, and led by Tana de Zulueta, a former member of the Italian Parliament, the group said earlier this week.

    Thirteen international experts will be stationed in Washington, D.C., and 36 long-term observers from 16 participating states will be deployed throughout the country in teams of two, OSCE said Wednesday.

    Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election by deploying state-sponsored computer hackers, propagandists and professional internet trolls, and Moscow similarly stands to meddle in next month’s midterms, U.S. officials said previously.

    Indeed, several alleged Russian military officers criminally charged earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Justice in connection with interfering in the 2016 race were accused of new hacking crimes Thursday related to an international cyber-espionage spree that was active as recently as May 2018.

    Russia has repeatedly denied hacking U.S. victims or interfering in the 2016 race.

  • Treasury warns U.S. banks to watch for corrupt cash from Nicaragua

    The U.S. has ratcheted up the pressure on Nicaragua’s leftist government for its crackdown on political opponents, with Treasury Department officials warning American banks to be wary of corrupt offic

    The U.S. has ratcheted up the pressure on Nicaragua’s leftist government for its crackdown on political opponents, with Treasury Department officials warning American banks to be wary of corrupt officials moving cash from the embattled Central American country into the U.S. financial system.

    Specifically, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has advised financial institutions to watch for senior members of President Daniel Ortega’s government or people acting on their behalf illegally transferring assets to the U.S..

    “Given the oppressive and corrupt conduct of the Ortega regime and resulting unrest in Nicaragua, people and companies associated with or linked to the Ortega regime may try to move corruption-related assets out of Nicaragua,” FinCEN Director Kenneth A. Blanco said in the press release Thursday.

    “U.S. financial institutions are an important line of defense against corrupt and bloodstained money flowing through our system, and we are advising our partners in the financial sector to be on high alert,” Mr. Blanco said.

    Mr. Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla leader, has lost control over most of the country since April when peaceful demonstrations morphed into a revolt against his government and its allies, with more than 300 reported dead in clashes since then.

    The Trump administration has already levied sanctions against three allies of Mr. Ortega, targeting them in July for alleged human-rights abuses and corruption. A fourth official was blacklisted by Treasury for allegedly amassing huge wealth while earning a meager government salary.

  • Meng Hongwei, Interpol president, reported missing after trip to China

    A French judicial official says the president of Interpol has been reported missing after traveling to China.

    PARIS (AP) — A French judicial official says the president of Interpol has been reported missing after traveling to China.

    The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for an ongoing investigation, said Meng Hongwei’s wife reported him missing on Friday.

    The official said the Interpol chief left France, where the international police organization is based, and arrived in China at the end of September. She said there had been no news of him since.

    The 64-year-old Meng Hongwei was elected president of Interpol in November 2016. His term is due to run until 2020.

    A vice minister of public security in China, he previously served as vice chairman of the national narcotics control commission and director of the National Counter-Terrorism Office for China.