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  • Russia mourns victims of deadly mall fire in Siberia

    Flags flew at half-staff across Russia on Wednesday as the country mourned 64 victims — many of them children — of a shopping mall fire in Siberia.

    MOSCOW (AP) — Flags flew at half-staff across Russia on Wednesday as the country mourned 64 victims — many of them children — of a shopping mall fire in Siberia.

    The blaze engulfed the four-story mall in the eastern city of Kemerovo on Sunday while it was packed with parents and children on the first weekend of the school recess.

    Investigators identified a short circuit as a possible cause and said the emergency exits were locked shut, hampering any evacuation. Some of the victims, many of them young children, died inside a locked movie theater.

    Wednesday was declared a day of mourning in Russia, and thousands of people have been bringing flowers and stuffed toys to makeshift memorials across the country.

    The bodies of all 64 victims have been recovered and no one is unaccounted-for, Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Vladlen Aksyonov told the RIA Novosti news agency.

    The investigators have released 21 bodies for burial. The first funerals for the victims were held Wednesday morning in Kemerovo, a city of half a million people 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of Moscow that has been paralyzed with grief.

    Among the first people buried were a grandmother and her two grandchildren— 8 and 10 — who died in the locked movie theater while watching cartoons. They were all buried in the same grave.

    Elsewhere in Kemerovo, residents were mourning English teacher Tatyana Darsaliya who also died in the fire. Deputy Principal Irina Borisova told the Tass news agency after the requiem service that Darsaliya was “much loved and pupils loved her classes.”

    On Tuesday, thousands of angry, distraught residents rallied on Kemerovo’s main square for 10 hours, demanding that local officials conduct a full and transparent probe of the tragedy. Some mistrust the official death toll of 64, saying it must be higher.

    A court in Kemerovo is expected to rule later Wednesday on the arrests of one of the mall’s tenants, the mall’s technical director, two employees of a company maintaining the fire alarm system and a security guard who the investigators said turned off the fire alarm.

    Speaking in court Wednesday, security guard Sergei Antyushin said in remarks carried by the Dozhd television station that the mall’s fire alarm did go off and that he called emergency services when it did. He did confirm, however, that the mall’s public announcement system has not been operational for two weeks.

  • Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga call truce in Kenya to heal divisions

    A bitterly contested presidential election appeared to be setting up a violent rerun of clashes between President Uhuru Kenyatta and longtime rival Raila Odinga. But an unexpected detente between the

    NAIROBI, Kenya | A bitterly contested presidential election appeared to be setting up a violent rerun of clashes between President Uhuru Kenyatta and longtime rival Raila Odinga. But an unexpected detente between the two has some hoping Kenya can avoid the partisan and tribal bloodshed that has marred past electoral crises.

    An unexpected calm has settled on most of the country after Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga agreed to work together to heal divisions arising from last year’s general elections.

    The followers of Mr. Odinga, in his third bid for the presidency and his second race against Mr. Kenyatta, had vowed never to accept the results of a chaotic pair of votes that gave Mr. Kenyatta another five-year term. They insisted that government election officials had rigged the results.

    Odinga supporters in January staged a mock inauguration for their candidate in central Nairobi. The government allowed the ceremony to proceed but blocked any national television coverage of the event and cracked down on politicians who took part.

    Two months later, shoppers are back in the markets and traffic fills the streets of the capital and other major towns that experienced sporadic chaos, violence and demonstrations since the first vote in August. Banks, hotels and foreign exchange bureaus are open for business as well.

    In the lakeside city of Kisumu, an opposition stronghold where more than 50 people died in civil unrest, banks, hotels and fishmongers who work on the banks of Lake Victoria are once again busy. Security officials have removed boulders that protesters used to block roads.

    “Life is now getting better,” said Eunice Achieng, a mother of five who sells fish in Kisumu. “We support the dialogue between President Uhuru and Raila because it’s bringing peace in this region. Business is now picking up well. You can see me readying my wares for the day.”

    Kenya has been in limbo since the original presidential results were nullified on Sept. 1 because of what the Supreme Court called “irregularities and illegalities” in the electronic transmission of results. The court ordered a rerun, which Mr. Odinga boycotted, saying Mr. Kenyatta needed to revamp the electoral commission before a new vote.

    Mr. Kenyatta won the second ballot with 98 percent of the vote, though less than a third of the electorate went to the polls, according to the electoral commission. The Supreme Court upheld Mr. Kenyatta’s victory, sparking violent protests among Odinga supporters.

    Human rights groups estimated that 100 people died in election-related violence since the initial vote.

    As the crisis worsened, the international community put pressure on the two longtime rivals to strike a deal. Led by U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec and U.K. envoy Nic Hailey, diplomats pushed for dialogue to put the country back on the right track.

    “As partners, we will do all we can to help, but only Kenyans can resolve the country’s problems,” they said in February, a week before then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson arrived in Nairobi. “We again call for an immediate, sustained, open and transparent national conversation involving all Kenyans to build national cohesion, address long-standing issues and resolve the deep-seated divisions that the electoral process has exacerbated.”

    Tillerson’s role

    Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga met on March 9 — the day Mr. Tillerson arrived in Nairobi — and declared they would work together to unite the country. It was one of Mr. Tillerson’s last official acts before President Trump dismissed him.

    “Leaders must come together to discuss their differences and what ails the country, like ethnic divisions,” Mr. Kenyatta said at a joint press conference with Mr. Odinga. “We have a responsibility to discuss and find solutions that will bind, unify and give a life cycle beyond the five years we have given ourselves. Elections come and go, but Kenya will remain.”

    His rival similarly appealed to Kenyan patriotism.

    “We refuse to allow our diversity to kill our nation,” Mr. Odinga said. “We need to save our children from ourselves. My brother and I have come together to say this dissent stops here.”

    The two shared a handshake in a gesture that has sparked a cottage industry of analysis over how firm, sincere and frank the clasping of hands appeared. Both men, especially Mr. Odinga, have faced a wave of skepticism in the days since over whether the political reconciliation was real and what backroom deals may have been cut.

    “The public camaraderie among Kenyan political leaders is just that — nothing more,” Sam Kanau, a lecturer at the Graduate School of Media and Communications at the Aga Khan University, told the Kenyan daily Star newspaper last week. “It means the underlying issues like feelings of exclusion, extreme poverty and electoral injustice will remain buried and unaddressed.”

    Mr. Odinga denied that any secret deals had been cut and pointed to an even more unlikely diplomatic pairing to justify his move.

    “What is wrong if Raila Odinga talks with President Kenyatta? It is the trend the world over,” the opposition leader told reporters after attending a church service over the weekend. “Even President Donald Trump is contemplating meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.”

    The ethnic hatred between Mr. Odinga’s Luo tribe and Mr. Kenyatta’s Kikuyu tribe dates back to the colonial period. The fathers of the two candidates were allies in the struggle for Kenya’s independence from British colonial rule and then became political adversaries. The sons extended the family rivalry into the country’s ethnic allegiances.

    Now, observers say, the two leaders’ move could provide an unexpected force for stability in the country and, most important, the economy.

    “The unity between two leaders is for the benefit of Kenyans,” said Peter Wafula Wekesa, a political analyst from Kenyatta University in Nairobi. “It will bring unity among the tribes and stabilize the economy. The shilling has gained against the dollar, and the stock market is also recovering.”

    But Bonface Mwangi, who is involved in social-political activism through his initiative Team Courage, said the unity pact could give license to the opposition to receive ill-gotten benefits and not serve as a watchdog over the government’s rampant corruption and poor performance.

    “Will Raila continue to call out Uhuru on corruption, disregarding court orders and police brutality?” he asked. “Will Raila demand electoral justice, compensation for the victims killed by police in peaceful protests, or will he keep quiet?”

    Ms. Achieng said those fears were overblown. It’s time for Kenyans to come together and reconcile after a long political season, she said.

    “We need to forgive each other and live together,” she said. “People from other tribes had to flee this region because of fear of attack. We should support Uhuru and Odinga’s move to bring peace here.”

  • Liu Xiaobei heads China’s U.S. hacking operations

    The activities of one of China’s cyber spymasters has been revealed for the first time in a government report on Beijing’s unfair trade practices made public last week.

    The activities of one of China’s cyber spymasters has been revealed for the first time in a government report on Beijing’s unfair trade practices made public last week.

    The role of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Maj. Gen. Liu Xiaobei, until recently the director of the Third Department of the PLA General Staff known as 3PLA, was disclosed. The Chinese military hacking group has been linked by U.S. intelligence agencies to massive cyberattacks and data theft from the U.S. government, military and private sector for more than a decade.

    Gen. Liu’s current status is not known, but 3PLA is now the core unit of a new service-level military organization known as the Strategic Support Force whose main component is called the Cyber Corps. The Cyber Corps also absorbed the PLA’s psychological warfare unit called 311 Base, which conducts information warfare — disinformation and influence activities.

    It was the first time the U.S. government publicly identified one of China’s senior military hackers, an indication that he may face U.S. sanctions in the future.

    Four years ago, the U.S. government indicted five midlevel PLA hackers who were part of a Shanghai-based group known as Unit 61398.

    The Cyber Corps is believed to employ 100,000 hackers, language specialists and analysts at its headquarters in the Haidian District of Beijing. Branch units are located in Shanghai, Qingdao, Sanya, Chengdu and Guangzhou.

    The recently published report by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer highlights Beijing’s unfair trade practices and reveals that Gen. Liu directed cyberspying operations on U.S. companies during talks with officials from the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC). The investigative report is the basis for Trump administration plans to impose tariffs on Chinese technology products and to curb investment by Chinese firms in the coming weeks.

    The detailed report, citing U.S. government information, says CNOOC ordered the 3PLA to spy on several U.S. oil and gas companies engaged in cutting-edge shale gas technology. The report outlines two cases involving U.S. companies that were hacked by 3PLA.

    The Chinese military hackers in one case broke into a U.S. company’s network and stole details of its plans for negotiating a deal with CNOOC.

    “CNOOC attributed their ultimate success in the negotiation with U.S. Company 1 to the information that CNOOC had received from the intelligence services,” the trade report said without identifying the American company.

    The report added that “senior Chinese intelligence officials, including a PLA director, Liu Xiaobei, endorsed the use of the intelligence information” in the talks between CNOOC and the company.

    CNOOC also employed the 3PLA in a second case to spy on five U.S. oil and natural gas companies, seeking key data relating to operations, asset management, the movements of senior company officials, shale gas technology, research on lab procedures, fracking technology and fracking formulas.

    “These examples illustrate how China uses the intelligence resources at its disposal to further the commercial interests of Chinese state-owned enterprises to the detriment of their foreign partners and competitors,” the report said.

    The Chinese are using cyberattacks as part of an industrial policy of supporting science and technology development.

    Former Pentagon China specialist Mark Stark in 2015 identified Gen. Liu as 3PLA director, a former deputy director and political commissar of the electronic spying agency often compared to the National Security Agency.

    An NSA document made public by renegade former contractor Edward Snowden revealed that 3PLA’s Technical Department is one of the Chinese government’s most aggressive cybertheft actors, with 19 confirmed and nine other possible cyberunits under its command, according to information as of 2013.

    The other major cyberspying organization is the Chinese Ministry of State Security, which runs six known and 22 suspected cyberspying units.

    China also has seven other Chinese-based cyberattack units that are listed by the NSA as “unattributed” to the Chinese government.

    Another leaked NSA document revealed the massive scope and costly damage inflicted by Chinese military cybertheft.

    Under the title “Chinese exfiltrated sensitive military technology,” the NSA lists radar design, including numbers and types of modules; detailed jet engine schematics such as the methods used to cool gases; aircraft wing leading and trailing edge treatments on stealth jets; and an aft deck heating contour map.

    “Many terabytes of data [have been] stolen,” the NSA stated.

    In a Chinese cybertheft operation code-named Byzantine Hades, the NSA in 2013 logged more than 30,000 incidents, 500 of which were described as significant intrusions of Pentagon computer systems. More than 1,600 network computers were penetrated, compromising 600,000 user accounts and causing over $100 million in damage to rebuild networks.

    A 2014 report by the CIA-based Open Source Enterprise identified Gen. Liu, 62, as an encryption specialist and director of Technical Reconnaissance Department, another term for the 3PLA. He was born in Hongan County, Hubei province, dubbed the “No. 1 country of generals” for the many famous PLA revolutionary-era generals who hail from there.

    In a political propaganda video in 2013 called “Silent Contest,” Gen. Liu said the United States is the main target of Chinese cyberoperations because it is the birthplace of the internet and controls its core resources.

    “The U.S. adopted a double standard regarding internet control: Internally, the U.S. implemented tight control, while externally, the U.S. wantonly expanded,” he said. “The U.S. took advantage of its absolute superiority of the internet and vigorously promoted network interventionism in order to reinforce ideological penetration, and it secretly supported hostile forces to create obstructions and conduct acts of sabotage.”

    Gen. Liu has accused the United States of trying to subvert Communist Party rule in China through influencing the Chinese public via the internet. He made clear in published interviews that China is engaged in information warfare against America.

    “The internet has become a new field and platform for ideological struggle,” he said. “Accordingly, we must not lower our guard; [we] must take control of the commanding height of the internet and maintain both the initiative and discourse power.”

    Gen. Liu, in another report, criticized the United States for suborning Chinese academics and targeting the PLA.

    “Recalling what the U.S. has done over the past 30 years, whether they win over academics by taking advantage of foundations or affect major decision-makers by utilizing ideological penetration, U.S. actions have enjoyed great success within China’s academic and ideological circles,” he said.

    “The last obstacle is China’s military,” he added. “Even if the U.S. cannot disintegrate China’s armed forces or turn China’s military against itself, the U.S. can at least suppress the combat wisdom and willpower of China’s armed forces.”

    CHINESE TECHNOLOGY THEFT COST

    Speaking of Chinese information thievery, the U.S. trade representative report on Chinese unfair trade practices estimates that Beijing’s intellectual property theft costs Americans $225 billion to $600 billion annually in lost information. The losses are one reason the Trump administration is imposing $50 billion to $60 billion in tariffs on imports from China.

    Those tariffs, however, do not cover the additional billions of dollars in losses caused by China’s cyberthefts, administration officials said.

    A new report by a commission of the National Bureau of Asian Research bolsters the U.S. trade representative’s report, noting that China is behind 87 percent of all intellectual property theft incidents globally.

    “The scourge of IP theft and cyber espionage likely continues to cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars a year despite improved laws and regulations,” the report by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property states.

    CHINA’S FALLING SATELLITE

    Sometime this week, a bus-sized Chinese satellite is expected to fall out of orbit and come back to Earth. The impact area of the Tiangong-1 space station is expected to enter the atmosphere sometime from Saturday to Wednesday, and although it is expected to burn up, some pieces may reach the surface.

    The impact zone covers the entire continental United States.

    Defense analysts are calling on China to use one of its new anti-satellite missiles to destroy the falling space station to prevent any debris from posing a danger.

    That was what the Navy successfully did back in 2008 when a nonfunctioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite was destroyed with a modified Navy SM-3 anti-missile interceptor fired from a ship west of Hawaii.

    By exploding the falling NRO satellite, the blast created smaller pieces — all of which burned up in the atmosphere.

    • Contact Bill Gertz on Twitter at @BillGertz.

  • Narendra Modi blamed in rise of India’s Christian persecution

    Religious clashes in the troubled northern Indian state of Jamma and Kashmir are nothing new, but the riot that broke in January targeted an unexpected group: Christians.

    NEW DELHI — Religious clashes in the troubled northern Indian state of Jamma and Kashmir are nothing new, but the riot that broke in January targeted an unexpected group: Christians.

    While most of the state’s problems pit an Islamist separatist movement against India’s Hindu majority, Christianity was at the heart of the violence this time as a mob of thousands interrupted a burial ceremony to seize the body of the deceased for a Hindu cremation.

    Local Christians and international religious rights groups say anti-Christian incidents are on the rise, particularly since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party assumed power in 2014. They contend that the government’s failure to censure local leaders for inflammatory rhetoric and sectarian persecution has encouraged a culture of impunity for anti-minority violence — a charge the BJP denies.

    SEE ALSO: Christianity in India

    The Evangelical Fellowship of India documented some 350 cases of violence and other forms of persecution against Christians last year. That is more than double the rate compared with the 140 annually before the BJP assumed power and the highest level of violence since an anti-Christian pogrom that resulted in dozens of rapes and killings and the burning of hundreds of churches in the state of Odisha in 2008, said EFI Executive Director Vijayesh Lal.

    High points of the Christian liturgical year, such as the coming Easter celebrations, are proving times of particular peril.

    “It is distressing to see even private worship being attacked by Hindu right-wing activists violating the privacy and sanctity of an individual or a family and trampling upon their constitutional rights,” Mr. Lal said on releasing the organization’s 2017 survey last month. “The instances of attacks on churches on Sundays and other important days of worship such as Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter and Christmas have increased.”

    Based on voluntary reporting and investigations by civil society organizations, the EFI report documented attacks on churches, the unlawful detentions of children on their way to Bible camp and homicides.

    Even so, police registered complaints in fewer than 50 cases last year.

    “There are many reasons,” Mr. Lal said. “Fear is the most common. Victims don’t want to get caught in the whole web of the police and the courts. Refusal to file an [information report] on the part of the police is also very common.”

    The Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for law and order, did not respond to questions about the EFI report or associated data by the U.S.-based Save the Persecuted Christians Coalition. Indian authorities do not track such incidents.

    More broadly, clashes among various ethnic and religious communities rose 28 percent from 2014 to 2017, according to an analysis of Home Affairs Ministry data by IndiaSpend, a nonprofit journalism initiative. But the BJP Minority Morcha, the party’s wing devoted to courting minority voters, insisted that neither the Modi government nor BJP policy is to blame.

    Violence and other forms of persecution may occur, said BJP Minority Morcha head Abdul Rasheed Ansari, “but it is never sponsored by the government or the political party.”

    Clashes over conversions

    It’s a thorny issue, analysts say.

    Almost 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people are Hindu. While just 14 percent of the population is Muslim, India boasts the world’s third-largest Muslim population. Christians make up about 2.3 percent of the population — nearly 30 million believers — and there are smaller communities of Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains.

    The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in its 2017 global survey rated India as one of a dozen Tier-2 countries for religious restrictions, behind countries of top concern such as China, North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia but on par with Cuba, Iraq and Turkey.

    “While [Mr. Modi] spoke publicly about the importance of communal tolerance and religious freedom, members of the ruling party have ties to Hindu nationalist groups implicated in religious freedom violations, used religiously divisive language to inflame tensions, and called for additional laws that would restrict religious freedom,” the commission’s report noted.

    “Christian communities across many denominations reported numerous incidents of harassment and attacks in 2016, which they attribute to Hindu nationalist groups supported by the BJP.”

    The January incident in Jammu and Kashmir shined a spotlight on concerns across India about Christian proselytizing and religious conversion. In that case, the mob violence erupted over charges that the deceased, Seema Devi, had been forced to convert to Christianity by her husband and subsequently died from illness after he took her for “spiritual healing,” according to The Indian Express daily newspaper.

    Afterward, nearly 45 families from the village of Sehyal and the surrounding areas converted from Christianity to Hinduism as part of a “ghar wapsi” or “homecoming” program promoted by the local BJP member of the state legislative assembly. The few Christian holdouts are living under police protection.

    That assemblyman, Ravinder Raina, said Christian missionaries had converted “poor people through force and deceit,” echoing accusations that BJP legislators and others have used to introduce anti-conversion laws in nine of the country’s 29 states.

    Lawmakers in a 10th, the northern state of Uttarakhand, introduced a similar bill last week, suggesting a penalty of up to two years in prison for anyone seeking converts through force or “allurement” — which could include money, employment or any material benefit.

    Conversion is particularly contentious in India because the patronage-oriented political system courts voters based on their caste and religious identities, much the way American political parties target communities based on their race, income, gender or ethnic backgrounds. Hinduism over the centuries has faced a steady exodus of the erstwhile untouchables — now called Dalits — whom the tenets of the religion declare to be subhuman. The conversion of aboriginal tribes has also eroded Hindu dominance in some areas.

    Christian activists insist forcible conversions and allurement are myths invented by the Hindu nationalist right, and the associated push for anti-conversion laws has resulted in the rising climate of persecution.

    “When challenged in court, when challenged elsewhere, no government at the state level or the government in New Delhi has ever been able to accuse a single person of forced or induced conversion,” said John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council. “The most they can say is there has been a conversion. But conversions are not illegal. They are creating paranoia to develop a Hindu vote bank.”

    Mr. Ansari objected to that characterization and referred to an oft-repeated slogan of the prime minister, “Sabka saath, sabka vikas,” or “All together, all for development.”

    “All means all,” Mr. Ansari said, “including the minorities.”

  • Donald Trump says he’s looking forward to North Korea meeting

    President Trump said Wednesday that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un will do the right thing for his country and that China is helping with the denuclearization process.

    President Trump said Wednesday that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un will do the right thing for his country and that China is helping with the denuclearization process.

    “For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility. Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!” Mr. Trumptweeted.

    He also said that Chinese President Xi Jinping said his meeting with the North Korean leader went well, and that a meeting with the U.S. was discussed. A diplomatic train arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, but it was unclear if Mr. Kim was on board. The Chinese later confirmed Mr. Kim’s presence, marking his first foreign visit since taking over in 2011.

    SEE ALSO: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un makes first visit to China, Beijing confirms

    “Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me. In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!” he added.

    For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility. Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018

    Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me. In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018

  • John Bolton as Donald Trump national security adviser ‘a shame,’ Iran says

    Iran has called the appointment of the former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to the role of National Security Adviser of the United States “a shame.”

    TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has called the appointment of the former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to the role of National Security Adviser of the United States “a shame.”

    The Sunday report by the semi-official Fars news agency quotes Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, as saying for an “apparent superpower it is a matter of shame that its national security adviser receives wages from a terrorist group,” referring to Bolton attending a gathering of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) group in 2017.

    The U.S. removed MEK from its list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2012.

    President Donald Trump said Thursday he would appoint Bolton to the post as his administration faces a key decision on whether to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.

  • Obama, in Japan, says NKorea’s isolation means less leverage

    Former President Barack Obama said Sunday that negotiations with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program are difficult, partly because the country’s isolation minimizes possible leverage, such as t

    TOKYO (AP) – Former President Barack Obama said Sunday that negotiations with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program are difficult, partly because the country’s isolation minimizes possible leverage, such as trade and travel sanctions against Pyongyang.

    “North Korea is an example of a country that is so far out of the international norms and so disconnected with the rest of the world,” Obama told a packed hall in Tokyo.

    He stressed that the effort to get North Korea to give up nuclear weapons remains difficult, but said countries working together, including China, South Korea and Japan, to pressure the North is better than nations working alone.

    He noted that past U.S. efforts on Iran’s nuclear weapons were more successful because there was more leverage, but that there’s little commerce and travel with North Korea to being with.

    “That makes them less subject to these kinds of negotiations,” he said of North Korea.

    Obama was speaking at an event sponsored by a Japanese nonprofit group during an Asia-Pacific trip that included earlier stops in Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. Obama’s work after leaving office has been focused on nurturing young leaders.

    Obama, welcomed by a standing ovation, said that the U.S.-Japan alliance remains strong, and that the U.S. is committed to defending Japan.

    “North Korea is a real threat,” he said.

    “Our view has always been that we would prefer to resolve these issues peacefully,” he said, adding that otherwise “the cost in terms of human life would be significant.”

    He acknowledged that progress on a nuclear-free world will likely take a long time as long as Russia and the U.S. can’t agree to reduce their stockpiles.

    Obama also reflected on his 2016 visit to Hiroshima, one of two Japanese cities where the U.S. dropped atomic bombs in the closing days of World War II. His visit was the first by an American president.

    Almost all American presidents tend to be relatively popular in Japan, which views the U.S. as its most important ally. But many Japanese particularly appreciate Obama’s efforts on denuclearization and remember with fondness his trip to Hiroshima and his message of working toward a world without nuclear weapons.

    “It was an extraordinarily powerful moment for me,” Obama recalled.

    ___

    Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

    Her work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/yuri%20kageyama

  • Donald Trump hits China with $60 billion in tariffs

    President Trump signed an order Thursday that cracked down on China’s unfair trade practices and theft of U.S. intellectual property with $60 billion in tariffs on high-tech imports.

    President Trump socked China with up to $60 billion in proposed trade tariffs, investment restrictions and plans for a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization, drawing immediate threats of retaliation from Beijing and sending the stock market into an epic nosedive Thursday over fears that the globe’s two biggest economies were heading for a trade war.

    Following though on the tough talk on trade that helped put him in the White House, Mr. Trump said the U.S. was finally cracking down on decades of unfair trade practices and theft of intellectual property. U.S. officials say these Chinese practices contributed to bilateral trade deficits for the U.S. of hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

    “We are doing things for this country that should have been done for many, many years,” the president said as he signed an order for tariffs and other get-tough measures on China.

    In comments that unnerved investors, Mr. Trump added, “This is the first of many.”

    The tariffs instruct the Commerce Department to target Chinese information technology, consumer electronics and telecoms, imposing import costs of $50 billion to $60 billion that roughly equal the value of U.S. technology lost to China because of the country’s onerous trade rules.

    China vowed retaliation.

    “China is not afraid of and will not recoil from a trade war,” the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement. It said Mr. Trump’s tariffs would backfire and “directly harm the interests of U.S. consumers, companies, and financial markets.”

    Despite its huge surpluses, China is not without weapons in a trade fight. Beijing has signaled that it could strike back by cutting its soybean purchases from U.S. farmers. China is the biggest market for soybeans and many other U.S. agricultural products and is a crucial market for American aircraft, cotton, electrical machinery, cars and trucks, corn and coal.

    China is also the world’s largest holder of U.S. government debt — a double-edged sword as any move to hurt U.S. government credit could undercut the value of Beijing’s holdings as well.

    The sell-off on Wall Street was deep and immediate. All 30 stocks in the Dow Jones lost ground, and investment safe havens such as gold and U.S. Treasury bonds jumped in value.

    The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled more than 724 points, or 2.93 percent, to fall below the 24,000 mark. The broader S&P 500 slipped more than 68 points, or 2.52 percent, and the Nasdaq fell more than 178 points, or 2.43 percent.

    It was the worst day for the Dow since a chaotic sell-off in February and the blue chip index’s worst March free fall in 17 years.

    “If the Dow is allowed to vote, you can see what their vote is today: They don’t like it,” Rick Helfenbein, president of American Apparel & Footwear Association, said on Fox Business Network.

    Like many U.S. industries still in the dark on where exactly the Trump administration’s tariffs will land, Mr. Helfenbein said he hoped the tariffs wouldn’t hit his sector.

    Trade moves

    The China decision came close on the heels of a string of other trade moves to implement Mr. Trump’s “America first” economic agenda and reverse what he sees as decades of misguided U.S. trade policy promoting open markets and multilateral trade agreements.

    The administration announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports this month, although a number of markets, including Canada, Mexico, the European Union, South Korea and Australia, will be exempted initially from the tariffs. Mr. Trump since the beginning of the year has put tariffs on Chinese solar panels and South Korean washing machines. A week later, China’s biggest maker of solar panels announced plans to open a U.S. factory.

    The U.S. is also locked in lengthy talks with Canada and Mexico over Mr. Trump’s demand for a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The president has vowed to leave the 24-year-old pact if a new agreement is not reached.

    Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr., a prime advocate of the tariffs, acknowledged that China was likely to retaliate against American companies.

    Many expect Beijing to target states where the president is most popular, but Mr. Ross played down the prospect of an all-out trade war.

    “We will end up negotiating these things rather than fighting over them, in my view,” Mr. Ross told Bloomberg News.

    With U.S. companies long complaining about China’s failure to protect foreign investors’ intellectual property rights, the president’s order focused on technology imports. But the list of items subject to the tariff could expand to include such items as clothing and shoes.

    The tariffs are being imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that authorizes the president to take action or retaliation against unjustified, unreasonable or discriminatory foreign trade laws that hurt U.S. commerce. They are part of a package of measures to combat Beijing’s aggressive trade tactics, including forced intellectual property transfers for U.S. companies as the price of doing business in China.

    The actions included:

    ⦁ Adding 25 percent to tariffs on products supported by China’s unfair industrial policy, including aerospace, cellphones, computers and machinery.

    ⦁ Opening a World Trade Organization case against China’s discriminatory technology licensing practices.

    ⦁ New restrictions on Chinese companies buying into U.S. technology business.

    At the White House signing ceremony, Mr. Trump was surrounded by former top national security officials and CEOs from defense companies Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics and Leidos.

    Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson called it a “very important moment for our country.”

    “We are addressing what is a critical area for the aerospace and defense industry, and that is protecting our intellectual property,” she said. “That is the lifeblood of our companies. And so we very much welcome this action on the part of the Trump administration and the president of the United States.”

    Corporate angst

    U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who spearheaded the action against China, said the Trump administration was moving to protect America’s future.

    “Technology is really the backbone of the future of the U.S. economy,” he said.

    Still, leaders from many business sectors overwhelmingly opposed the tariffs and warned that it would be a tax ultimately paid by U.S. consumers.

    “The internet industry has serious concerns with the impact of these tariffs — and potential retaliatory actions — on American jobs, consumers, and the digital economy,” said Melika Carroll of the Internet Association, an industry lobbying group.

    The Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from the biggest U.S. companies, said in a statement that the Trump tariffs “will only raise prices in America, make American companies and products less competitive, and harm U.S. workers and consumers.”

    Mr. Trump brushed aside the concerns.

    Emphasizing that America’s $800 billion trade deficit with the world could not be allowed to continue, Mr. Trump said other trading partners such as South Korea and the European Union were begging to make deals in the face of his tough trade policies.

    The U.S. trade deficit with China topped $375 billion last year, but Mr. Trump cited calculations that put it over $500 billion.

    He said the tariffs, which do not take effect immediately, had already brought Beijing to the negotiating table. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has been pressing Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top officials to rein in unfair trade restrictions and lower the trade deficit by $100 billion.

    “We are in the midst of very major and very positive negotiations,” the president said.

    But pulling the trigger on tariffs could pressure Mr. Xi to respond at least as hard to show his own government that he can’t be bullied.

  • French hero officer who swapped himself for hostage dies

    A French police officer who offered himself up to an Islamic extremist gunman in exchange for a hostage has died, raising the death toll in the attack in southern France to four. He was honored Saturd

    TREBES, France (AP) — A French police officer who offered himself up to an Islamic extremist gunman in exchange for a hostage has died, raising the death toll in the attack in southern France to four. He was honored Saturday as a national hero of “exceptional courage and selflessness.”

    Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, 44, was among the first officers to respond to the attack Friday on the supermarket in the southern French town of Trebes.

    Beltrame, who joined the elite police special forces in 2003 and served in Iraq in 2005, had organized a training session in the Aude region in December for just such a hostage situation. At the time, he armed his officers with paintball guns, according to the Depeche du Midi newspaper.

    “We want to be as close to real conditions as possible,” he said then.

    But when he went inside the supermarket, he gave up his own weapon and volunteered himself in exchange for a female hostage.

    Unbeknownst to the Morocco-born hostage-taker, he left his cellphone on so police outside could hear what was happening in the store. They stormed the building when they heard gunshots, officials said. Beltrame was fatally wounded.

    In addition to the four people killed by the gunman in his rampage Friday, the attacker was killed by police. Fifteen others were injured.

    “Arnaud Beltrame died in the service of the nation to which he had already given so much,” President Emmanuel Macron said. “In giving his life to end the deadly plan of a jihadi terrorist, he fell as a hero.”

    French police and soldiers have been a prime target of attacks by extremists, with 10 killed in recent years, including Beltrame. Other victims include three soldiers killed near Toulouse in 2012, three police officers shot to death in 2015, a police couple killed in their home in 2016 and a police officer killed on Paris‘ Champs-Elysees in 2017. Dozens of others have been wounded.

    According to Macron’s statement, Beltrame also served as a member of the presidential guard and in 2012 earned one of France’s highest honors, the Order of Merit. He was married with no children.

    Cedric Beltrame told RTL radio Saturday that his brother died “a hero.”

    “He was well aware he had almost no chance. He was very aware of what he was doing,” Cedric Beltrame said.

    Beltrame’s mother told RTL radio that, for her son, “to defend the homeland” was “his reason to live.”

    “He would have said to me, ‘I’m doing my job, Mom, nothing more,’” she said.

    People were placing flowers in front of the Gendarmerie headquarters in the French medieval city of Carcassone to pay tribute to Lt. Col. Beltrame. Flags at all gendarmeries were ordered to fly at half-staff.

    Macron says investigators will focus on establishing how the gunman, identified by prosecutors as Morocco-born Redouane Lakdim, 25, got his weapon and how he became radicalized.

    On Friday night, authorities searched a car and the apartment complex in central Carcassonne where Lakdim was believed to live. Two people were detained over alleged links with a terrorist enterprise, one woman close to Lakdim and a friend of his, a 17-year-old male, Paris prosecutor’s office said.

    Lakdim was known to police for petty crime and drug dealing. But he was also under surveillance and since 2014 was on the so-called Fiche S list, a government register of individuals suspected of being radicalized but who have yet to perform acts of terrorism.

    Despite this, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said there was “no warning sign” that Lakdim would carry out an attack.

    The four-hour drama began at 10:13 a.m. when Lakdim hijacked a car near Carcassonne, killing one person in the car and wounding the other, the prosecutor said.

    Lakdim then fired six shots at police officers on their way back from jogging near Carcassonne, hitting one in the shoulder, said Yves Lefebvre of the SGP Police-FO police union.

    Lakdim then went to a Super U supermarket in nearby Trebes, 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Toulouse, shooting and killing two people in the market and taking hostages. He shouted “Allahu akbar!” — the Arabic phrase for God is great — and said he was a “soldier of the Islamic State” as he entered the Super U, where about 50 people were inside, Molins said.

    Special police units converged on the scene while authorities blocked roads.

    “We heard an explosion — well, several explosions,” shopper Christian Guibbert told reporters. “I saw a man lying on the floor and another person, very agitated, who had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.”

    Guibbert said he put his wife, sister-in-law and other shoppers in the meat locker for safety.

    The manager of the supermarket, who would identify herself only by her first name, Samia, was in her office when she heard the shots.

    “Call the gendarmes,” she told her employees. “There’s a terrorist in the store.”

    She said she helped evacuate as many people as possible.

    “It was terrifying,” Samia said.

    During the standoff, Lakdim requested the release of Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving assailant of the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead. The interior minister suggested, however, that Abdeslam’s release wasn’t a key motive for the attack.

    The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said the attacker was responding to the group’s calls to target countries in the U.S.-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against IS militants in Syria and Iraq since 2014. France has been repeatedly targeted because of its participation.

    France has been on high alert since a series of extremist attacks in 2015 and 2016 that killed more than 200 people.

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Elaine Ganley. Thomas Adamson, Samuel Petrequin, Sylvie Corbet, Angela Charlton and Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report from Paris.

    ___

    This story has been corrected to show dead policeman’s rank was Lt. Col., not Col. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack. The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said the attacker was responding to the group’s calls to target countries in the U.S.-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against IS militants.

  • FDA announces push to slash nicotine in cigarettes

    The Food and Drug Administration launched a historic effort Thursday to try to end cigarette addiction, proposing to slash the level of nicotine in smokes in an attempt to curb what remains a deadly p

    The Food and Drug Administration launched a historic effort Thursday to try to end cigarette addiction, proposing to slash the level of nicotine in smokes in an attempt to curb what remains a deadly public health issue.

    FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the proposal is part of a broader effort to cut smoking rates from 15 percent of Americans to about 1 percent by the end of the century. The plan calls for encouraging future generations to use safer products and for legacy smokers to quit or seek less-risky alternatives such as nicotine patches or candy.

    “We believe the public health benefits and the potential to save millions of lives, both in the near and long term, support this effort,” Dr. Gottlieb said.

    The effort is being launched after years of progress. Smoking rates have dropped from more than 40 percent in the 1960s to 15 percent after years of public education, clean air rules and excise taxes on tobacco products.

    Rates among high school students rose to 36 percent in the 1990s but sank to the midteens this decade.

    Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., killing 480,000 per year, the FDA said. That is far above the rate of opioid overdose deaths, which reached 42,000 in 2016, prompting an emergency response from Washington.

    The agency’s push is based on rules Congress passed in 2009 giving the FDA explicit power to regulate the manufacture, distribution and marketing of tobacco products.

    Under that law, the FDA forced changes to packaging and pushed retailers to move tobacco products behind checkout counters.

    In this latest phase, regulators plan to examine the role flavors play in encouraging tobacco use and vowed to be vigilant about attempts to target children as future users.

    The agency also gave notice that it will propose rules to govern how much nicotine should be allowable in cigarettes, with an eye toward protecting public health.

    Cigarettes generally contain 1.1 to 1.7 milligrams of nicotine, the notice said. The FDA is considering cutting that to 0.3 to 0.5 milligrams.

    The FDA also wants to consider the trade-offs of reducing nicotine content, such as whether smokers would turn to illicitly imported products or simply smoke more cigarettes.

    It also must determine how nicotine levels should be reduced. Options include genetic engineering by tobacco growers and changes in manufacturing.

    The agency estimates that its framework can result in 8 million fewer tobacco-related deaths by 2100.

    “Cigarettes are the only legal consumer product that, when used as intended, will kill half of all long-term users,” Dr. Gottlieb said. “Given their combination of toxicity, addictiveness, prevalence and effect on nonusers, it’s clear that to maximize the possible public health benefits of our regulation, we must focus our efforts on the death and disease caused by addiction to combustible cigarettes.”

    The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids urged the FDA to act expeditiously and demanded enhanced, more graphic health warnings on cigarette packs.

    “There is no other single action our country can take that would prevent more young people from smoking or save more lives,” campaign President Matthew L. Myers said. “This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to greatly accelerate progress in reducing tobacco use — the nation’s No. 1 cause of preventable death — and bring us closer to eliminating the death and disease it causes.”

    The American Lung Association hailed the move as an “important step forward.” Leading tobacco companies responded with restraint, saying they anticipated the move and would be a part of the discussion.

    “As this process gets underway, we look forward to working with FDA on its science-based review of nicotine levels in cigarettes and to build on the opportunity of establishing a regulatory framework that is based on tobacco harm reduction and recognizes the continuum of risk,” said James Figlar, executive vice president of research and development for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

    Dr. Gottlieb said he hopes existing smokers shift from traditional cigarettes to less-dangerous products containing nicotine, though he stopped short of endorsing electronic cigarettes, which the FDA is still evaluating.

    “The jury’s still out on the value of those products as alternatives to combustible tobacco,” Dr. Gottlieb said.

    The agency said it does not know how long its nicotine-slashing effort will take but that it has no immediate effect on products in the pipeline or are sitting on shelves now.

    Altria Group Inc., the parent company of Philip Morris USA, said it is pleased that the FDA noted the distinction between regular cigarettes and noncombustible products. It cited an FDA study that said more than half of the roughly 40 million adult smokers in the U.S. are interested in “satisfying, but less harmful, nicotine alternatives to cigarettes.”

    “That’s why we invest in developing a compelling portfolio of noncombustible products, while conducting the necessary science to bring them to market,” spokesman David Sutton said. “A portfolio approach is important because we know that not all smokers are looking for the same experience.”