About 250 Islamic State fighters have surrendered to Afghan security forces in eastern Nangarhar province, a traditional IS stronghold. Dozens of women and children have surrendered as well. Officials told VOA they would work toward deradicalizing those of Afghan origin and eventually would unite them with their families. The Kabul government has yet to determine the fate of the non-Afghan detainees. VOA’s Zabihullah Ghazi reports.

…

China and Pakistan urged the United States on Friday “to sift fact from fiction” before questioning their bilateral infrastructure development program, which Beijing is funding under its global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The reaction came a day after a senior American diplomat spoke critically of the multibillion-dollar collaboration, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and warned it would eventually worsen Islamabad’s economic troubles and benefit only Beijing.

Speaking to an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Thursday, Alice Wells, acting assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, said the U.S. offered a better model that would improve the fundamentals of Pakistan’s troubled economy. She also raised questions about the transparency and fairness of CPEC projects as well as related Chinese loans Islamabad has received.

Her remarks drew a strong response from Chinese and Pakistani officials on Thursday.

Beijing’s ambassador to Islamabad, Yao Jing, said Wells lacked “accurate” knowledge and relied primarily on Western media “propaganda” to level the accusations.

“I would like to remind my American colleague that if you are really making this kind of allegation, please be careful, show your evidence, give me evidence; we will take action,” Yao said while addressing reporters.

He said China and Pakistan are determined to ensure the infrastructure project is free of corruption.

The Chinese diplomat said CPEC is open to investment from anywhere in the world and China would happily welcome U.S. investment in it. Yao described Wells’ remarks as astonishing, saying he had personally briefed her twice on the program during her recent visits to Islamabad.

Meanwhile, Pakistani Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mushahid Hussain described the allegations by Wells as disappointing. He noted that CPEC has ensured energy security for Pakistan and set the stage for an “industrial revolution” in the next stage of the massive project, which is already in progress.

“CPEC is central to Pakistan’s future and it’s a pivot of our strategic relationship with China and for which Pakistan has benefited already. We feel she had got her facts mixed up because of unfounded media reports. So, I think it is important to sift fact from fiction,” Hussain said.

Beijing has invested around $20 billion in Pakistan over the past five years to help upgrade and build ports, roads and power plants, effectively ending nationwide crippling electricity outages.

Most of the money has come as direct foreign investment, while some has been in the form of soft loans and grants. The overall investment of CPEC is estimated to grow to around $60 billion by 2030.

Critics in the U.S. and elsewhere see China’s BRI program as a “debt trap” for countries like Pakistan, which have struggling economies that would make it difficult for them to make Chinese loan repayments. Islamabad’s repayments are due in the next few years and analysts say that process will bring the country’s depleting foreign exchange reserves under pressure.

Ambassador Yao dismissed those concerns, saying unlike Washington and West-governed lenders like the International Monetary Fund, Beijing does not offer or suspend financial loans for “political” reasons.

“China will never ever ask for these loan repayments as long as you are in need of this money. If Pakistan needs it, we keep it here,” he told the audience.

Yao took issue with the U.S. for questioning Chinese aid or loans he said were meant only to help partner nations to improve and stabilize their economies.

“The United States is the biggest loan taker from the world, and even China gave them in credit about $3 trillion,” said the Chinese envoy.

Wells noted, however, that even if loan payments are deferred, they are going to continue to hang over Pakistan’s economic development potential to hamper Prime Minister Imran Khan’s reform agenda.

She said CPEC relies primarily on Chinese workers and supplies, noting that local industry does not benefit from the initiative and that CPEC is not addressing the issue of rising unemployment in Pakistan.

Yao rejected the assertions, saying CPEC has provided more than 75,000 direct jobs to Pakistani workers and is expected to create as many as 2.3 million jobs by 2030.

The Chinese envoy said the project will have built several special economic free zones by then, enabling Pakistan to improve the quantity and quality of its exports to bring home much-needed dollars to boost its foreign exchange reserves.

Yao criticized Wells for using reported estimated costs of certain projects in her speech. He said those projects were still under discussion and their final cost had not been determined.

…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says all Conservative Party candidates in the upcoming election have pledged to back his Brexit deal. 

“All 635 Conservative candidates standing at this election — every single one of them — has pledged to me that if elected they will vote in Parliament to pass my Brexit deal so we can end the uncertainty and finally leave the EU,” Johnson told London’s Telegraph newspaper in an interview published late on Saturday. 

“I am offering a pact with the people: If you vote Conservative you can be 100% sure a majority Conservative government will unblock Parliament and get Brexit done,” he said. 

The December 12 election was called to end three years of disagreement over Brexit that has sapped investors’ faith in the stability of the world’s fifth-largest economy and damaged Britain’s standing since it voted in a 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. 

Johnson, 55, hopes to win a majority to push through the last-minute Brexit deal he struck with the EU last month after the bloc granted a third delay to the divorce that was originally supposed to take place March 29. Voters in a 2016 referendum narrowly voted in favor of leaving the EU. 

Johnson’s Conservatives lead Labour by sizable margins, four polls published Saturday show. 

A YouGov poll showed support for the Conservatives at 45%, the highest level since 2017, compared with Labour at 28%, unchanged. The pro-European Union Liberal Democrats were at 15%, and the Brexit Party was at 4%, unchanged. 

A separate poll for SavantaComRes also said support for the Conservatives was the highest since 2017, at 41%. Labour’s support was at 33%. 

The Conservatives have a 16-point lead over Labour, according to an opinion poll published by Opinium Research, and a poll by the Mail on Sunday said Johnson’s party had a 15-point lead over Labour. 

…

A federal judge on Saturday ordered that a German citizen arrested on her return to the country on suspicion of being a member of Islamic State should remain in custody, prosecutors said. 
 
Authorities said the suspect, identified only as Nasim A., left Germany for Syria in 2014, married a fighter and moved with him to Iraq. There she was paid to maintain an IS-controlled house and carried a weapon. 
 
She and her husband later moved to Syria, where she also maintained a house, prosecutors said. Kurdish security forces arrested her in early 2019. 
 
The woman was arrested Friday evening in Frankfurt upon her return to Germany. 
 
The judge determined Saturday that she remain in detention because of “suspicion of being a member of a terrorist organization in a foreign country,” prosecutors said. 

…

A recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has upended a long-standing legal roadblock that has given the gun industry far-reaching immunity from lawsuits in the aftermath of mass killings. 
 
The court this week allowed families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre to sue the maker of the AR-15 used in the attack. The case against Remington will now proceed in the Connecticut courts. 
 
Remington is widely expected to win the case, but critics of the gun industry are eyeing what they see as a significant outcome even in the face of defeat: getting the gunmaker to open its books about how it markets firearms. 
 
Lawyers for the plaintiffs are certain to request that Remington turn over volumes of documents as part of the discovery phase. Those materials might include company emails, memos, business plans and corporate strategies, or anything that might suggest the company purposely marketed the firearm that may have compelled the shooter to use the weapon to carry out the slaughter. 

Message to gun companies
 
The plaintiffs also believe the ruling will put gun companies on notice about how they conduct business, knowing they could wind up in the courts in similar fashion. 
 
“If the industry wakes up and understands their conduct behind closed doors is not protected, then the industry itself … will take steps to try to help the massive problem we have instead of do nothing and sit by and cash the checks,” said Joshua Koskoff, the Connecticut attorney who represents a survivor and relatives of nine victims who died at the Newtown, Connecticut, school on December 14, 2012.  

The case hinges on Connecticut state consumer law that challenges how the firearm used by the Newtown shooter — a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle — was marketed, with plaintiffs alleging Remington purposely used advertisements that targeted younger, at-risk males. One of Remington’s ads features the rifle against a plain backdrop and the phrase: “Consider Your Man Card Reissued.” 
 
Remington did not respond to requests for comment after the U.S. Supreme Court denied its efforts to quash the lawsuit. 
 
Larry Keane, senior vice president and legal counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gunmakers, said he expected Remington to  ultimately prevail and that it was unfair to blame the gunmaker for Adam Lanza’s crime. 
 
“Adam Lanza alone is the responsible person. Not Remington,” he said. 
 
2005 law

Suing the firearms industry has never been easy, and it was made even harder after Congress enacted the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005. The law backed by the National Rifle Association gave broad immunity to the gun industry. 
 
The plaintiffs’ chances of succeeding in this case are slim — a sentiment shared by the Connecticut Supreme Court, which said they face a “Herculean task” to prevail. 

Judges and juries generally have a tough time blaming anyone but the shooter for the crime, said Timothy D. Lytton, professor at Georgia State University’s College of Law and author of “Suing the Gun Industry: A Battle at the Crossroads of Gun Control and Mass Torts.”  

Add into the mix that Lanza himself didn’t own the firearm; he stole it from his mother after killing her in the home they shared, then went to the elementary school in Newtown, where he killed 20 children and six adults. 
 
“It makes it harder for juries to connect the dots. It’s a significant hurdle in all of these cases. It’s very rare that you have a very close time frame between the marketing of a weapon and a mass shooting,” Lytton said. 
 
Lanza’s mother purchased the Bushmaster AR-platform rifle in 2010 from a Connecticut gun shop. It’s unclear if she or her son were influenced by or had seen Remington’s advertising. 

Tough times for industry
 
Still, it’s been a tough few years for the industry. Sales plummeted with the election of President Donald Trump, and gun-control advocates have outspent perhaps his most loyal supporter: the NRA. With slumping sales, some companies, including Remington, have faced bankruptcy. And in the wake of high-profile mass shootings, corporate America has begun pushing back against the industry. 
 
AR-platform long guns have been a particular bone of contention for gun-control advocates who believe the firearms — once banned for a decade in the U.S. — are especially attractive to mass shooters for their ease of use and their ability to carry large-capacity magazines. 
 
While handguns remain used more often in mass shootings, ARs have been involved in some of the deadliest shootings, including when a gunman fired on a crowd of concertgoers outside his hotel room in Las Vegas in 2017, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds. 
 
The AR-15, its design based on the military M-16, has become one of the most popular firearms in the U.S. in recent decades. It’s lightweight, easy to customize and able to carry extended magazines, and its sales took off once the ban expired in 2004. There are now an estimated 16 million AR-platform long guns in the U.S. 

‘Embarrassing’ information
 
Robert J. Spitzer, chairman of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland and a longtime watcher of gun politics, said a case against Remington could cause “pretty embarrassing information” to come out. 

“And it is certainly possible [plaintiffs] will find memos or other documents that may significantly support their case that Remington was manifestly irresponsible in the way they marketed their guns,” he said. 

Even if embarrassing information isn’t uncovered, he said, it could have a long-lasting impact on the industry and, more specifically, Remington. Considered the oldest gunmaker in the United States, Remington — founded in New York in 1816 and now based in Madison, North Carolina — only emerged from bankruptcy in 2018. 
 
“They’re obviously in a precarious financial situation and this suit is certainly not helpful to them trying to restore their financial health,” Spitzer said. 

…

The Berlin Wall’s demise 30 years ago brought an end to a divided  Berlin — and symbolized the eventual liberation of East Germany, and later the rest of Eastern Europe, from Soviet communist rule. Yet the wall’s anniversary comes as the politics of east and west continue to reverberate through German society.  In former communist East Germany, a democratic slogan from the revolution of 1989 rebounds – and resonates – among the present day nationalist far right. Charles Maynes reports from Thuringia in eastern Germany.

…

A lone attacker on Wednesday stabbed three foreign tourists and their tour guide at a popular archaeological site in northern Jordan, the official Petra news agency reported.

The agency said the attacker also wounded a policeman before he was subdued and arrested. The wounded were taken to a hospital.
 
Amateur video showed a bloody scene next to the Jerash archaeological site, an ancient city whose ruins, including a Roman amphitheater and a columned road, are one of the country’s top tourist destinations.
 
In one video, a woman can be heard screaming in Spanish. “It’s a dagger, it’s a dagger, there is a knife. Please, help him now!”
 
One woman is seen lying on the ground, with much blood around her, as someone presses a towel to her back. Another man sits nearby with an apparent leg wound.
 
There were no further details, but the al-Ghad newspaper said the tourists were Mexican and suffered serious wounds.

 

…

Suspected separatist insurgents stormed a security checkpoint in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south and killed at least 15 people, including a police officer and many village defense volunteers, security officials said on Wednesday.

It was the worst single attack in years in a region where a Muslim separatist insurgency has killed thousands.

The attackers, in the province of Yala, also used explosives and scattered nails on roads to delay pursuers late on Tuesday night.

“This is likely the work of the insurgents,” Colonel Pramote Prom-in, a regional security spokesman, told Reuters. “This is one of the biggest attack in recent times.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, however, as is common with such attacks.

A decade-old separatist insurgency in predominantly Buddhist Thailand’s largely ethnic Malay-Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat has killed nearly 7,000 people since 2004, says Deep South Watch, a group that monitors the violence.

The population of the provinces, which belonged to an independent Malay Muslim sultanate before Thailand annexed them in 1909, is 80 percent Muslim, while the rest of the country is overwhelmingly Buddhist.

Some rebel groups in the south have said they are fighting to establish an independent state.

Authorities arrested several suspects from the region in August over a series of small bombs detonated in Bangkok, the capital, although they have not directly blamed any insurgent group.

The main insurgency group, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), denied responsibility for the Bangkok bombings, which wounded four people.

In August, the group told Reuters it had held a secret preliminary meeting with the government, but any step towards a peace process appeared to wither after the deputy prime minister rejected a key demand for the release of prisoners.

…

A trade war between the world’s top two economies cut U.S. imports of Chinese goods by more than a quarter, or $35 billion, in the first half of this year and drove up prices for American consumers, a U.N. study showed on Tuesday.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a trade feud for the past 16 months although there are hopes that an initial deal offering some relief may be signed this month.

If that fails, nearly all Chinese goods imports into the United States — worth more than $500 billion — could be affected.

U.S. imports from China subject to tariffs fell to $95 billion between January and June from $130 billion during the same period of 2018, the study released by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) showed.

“Overall, the results indicate that the United States tariffs on China are economically hurting both countries,” the report said. “United States losses are largely related to the higher prices for consumers, while China’s losses are related to significant export losses.”

Over time, Chinese companies began absorbing some of the extra costs of the tariffs through an 8% dip in export prices in the second quarter of 2019, but that still left 17% “on the shoulders of U.S. consumers”, said the report’s author Alessandro Nicita, an economist at UNCTAD.

The sector hit hardest by the U.S. tariffs are U.S. imports of Chinese office machinery and communication equipment, which fell by $15 billion. Over time, the scale of Chinese export losses increased alongside mounting tariffs, the study said.

Other countries stepped up to fill most of the gap left by China, the study found. It named Taiwan as the largest beneficiary of “trade diversion”, with $4.2 billion in additional exports to the United States in the first half of 2019. They were mostly office and communication equipment.

Mexico increased exports to the United States by $3.5 billion, mostly agriculture and transport equipment and electrical machinery. The European Union boosted deliveries by $2.7 billion, mostly via additional machinery exports, it found.

“The longer the trade war goes on, the more likely these losses and gains will be permanent,” Nicita said. Not all of Chinese trade losses were picked up by other economies and billions of dollars in trade were lost entirely.

The paper did not analyse the effect of Chinese tariffs on U.S. imports into China because detailed data was not yet available.

It also does not capture the most recent phase of the trade war — including 10% tariffs on about $125 billion worth of additional Chinese goods imported into the United States that took effect on Sept. 1 — beyond noting that it is likely to add to existing trade losses.
 

 

…