The senior adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who plotted Brexit and steered his boss to last month’s election triumph, is on the lookout for “weirdos and misfits with odd skills” to help bring new ideas to Britain’s government.”We want to improve performance and make me much less important” and within a year largely redundant,” Dominic Cummings said in a post on his blog on Thursday.”We do not have the sort of expertise supporting the PM and ministers that is needed. This must change fast so we can properly serve the public.”Cummings, who has made no secret of his disdain for much of the way Britain’s civil service operates, said he had been lucky to have worked with some fantastic officials in recent months.”But there are also some profound problems at the core of how the British state makes decisions,” he said.Cummings was one of the senior campaigners behind the Vote Leave victory in the 2016 Brexit referendum and was described by former Prime Minister John Major as “political anarchist.”In his blog, Cummings said rapid progress could now be made on long-term problems thanks to the combination of policy upheaval after Brexit, an appetite for risk among some officials in the new government and Johnson’s big majority in parliament.The government was looking to hire data scientists and software developers, economists, policy experts, project managers, communication experts and junior researchers as well as “weirdos and misfits with odd skills,” he said.”We need some true wild cards, artists, people who never went to university and fought their way out of an appalling hell hole,” Cummings said.
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Shootings in the greater Rio de Janeiro metro area dropped nearly 24 percent in 2019, according to data published Thursday.There were 7,363 shootings in 2019, down from 9,642 in 2018, according to the Fogo Cruzado organization, which compiled and verified the data.The group reported 1,517 shooting deaths and 1,357 injuries from gunfire last year, slightly above 2018 levels. Fogo Cruzado doesn’t have access to official police registries, meaning total deaths are likely higher.Shootings declined steadily in Brazil’s top tourist destination in the second half of 2019. In December, Fogo Cruzado registered 362 shootings, nearly half the number recorded in the same month a year earlier.Gov. Wilson Witzel, who campaigned on a platform of zero tolerance for crime, boasted about the decline in shootings.”Throughout 2019, we acted rigorously in the crackdown on crime, in addition to valuing our police,” Witzel tweeted. He has referred to criminals as “narco-terrorists” and proposed using helicopters as platforms for snipers, who could target anyone carrying large firearms.Ignacio Cano, a professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, says the trend began in 2018 in Rio and other states, before governors were sworn in on Jan. 1, 2019.Police figures compiled by website G1 show homicides fell 22% to 30,864 cases in the first nine months of the year, compared to the same period in 2018. That may be due to violence between rival drug trafficking gangs falling, Cano said.Role of militiasThe expansion of militias in Rio may also partly explain lower reports of shootouts in Rio. One estimate is that 2.2 million people in the metro area — out of more than 12 million residents — live under the thumb of militias, which were originally made up of former police officers, firefighters and military men who wanted to combat lawlessness in their neighborhoods.”When militias come in, they expel trafficking from the area,” said Rafael Alcadipani da Silveira, a public security analyst and professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Sao Paulo. “There is a visceral relationship between militias and police, and you end up seeing the state teaming up with militias to expel crime.”The paramilitary groups have become, for some experts, Rio’s biggest security threat, replacing one group of criminals with another, da Silveira warned. Their activities range from retailing smuggled cigarettes to providing cable TV, electricity or transport service, and are also known to extort businesses and carry out summary executions.Fogo Cruzado, or “Crossfire,” is a free app that was created by Amnesty International Brazil in 2016. It helps residents track shootings in real time by combining crowd-sourcing data and monitoring social media.
 
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The arrest warrant targeting Carles Puigdemont has been suspended by Belgian judicial authorities because of the Catalan separatist leader’s immunity as a European lawmaker, his lawyer said Thursday.Paul Bekaert told The Associated Press that the Belgian judge in charge of the case also suspended the warrant issued against former Catalan cabinet member Toni Comin.The two are wanted in Spain for their role in an illegal 2017 secession bid by the Catalan government and separatist lawmakers. They fled to Belgium after the attempt failed and were elected to the European Parliament in May as representatives of Catalan separatist parties from Spain.Last month the European Union’s top court, the European Court of Justice, overturned a decision preventing Puigdemont and Comin from taking their European Parliament seats. Spain’s state prosecutors’ office, however, asked a Spanish judge to maintain the international arrest warrants for the pair.It was still not clear whether Puigdemont and Comin, whose extradition hearing had already been postponed to Feb. 3, will be allowed to take their seats.”The investigative judge has decided to suspend the procedure of the European warrant following the decision of the European Court of Justice,” Bekaert said. “The European Court has ruled they have immunity.”Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office did not immediately answer a request for comment.”Belgian justice recognizes our immunity and decides to suspend the arrest and extradition warrant!” Puigdemont said in a message posted on Twitter. “But now we are still waiting for the release of (Oriol Junqueras), who has the same immunity as us. Spain must act in the same way as Belgium has done and respect the law.”The ECJ ruled Dec. 19 that Junqueras, a former Catalan regional vice president serving a prison sentence in Spain for his role in Catalonia’s banned independence referendum, had earned the right to immunity when he was elected as a European lawmaker alongside Puigdemont and Comin.Junqueras was sentenced in October to 13 years in prison for sedition. Eleven of his associates were found guilty and eight of them also received prison terms. 
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Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz said Thursday his party’s coalition deal with the Greens, who are set to join the Alpine country’s government for the first time, offers “the best of both worlds” and will allow both partners to keep central election promises.Green leader Werner Kogler, who will become vice chancellor if a convention of his party approves the deal Saturday, said the alliance of once-unlikely political bedfellows could set an example for other European countries.Kurz, 33, is set to return to power after a seven-month hiatus and reclaim the title of the world’s youngest serving head of government from new Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who is 34.The agreement combines pledges of action against climate change and of improved government and administrative transparency — Green priorities — with moves to cut Austrians’ tax burden and with the tough line on migration that Kurz has made a hallmark of his People’s Party.”We didn’t try to negotiate each other down to minimal compromises,” he said. “We deliberately brought together the best of both worlds, and so it is possible both for the Greens to keep their central election promises and for us.”Kurz stressed that migrants rescued in the Mediterranean should be taken to “safe countries of origin, third countries or transit countries, if they are safe.” He insisted that efforts to distribute migrants within Europe have failed.At home, he said, there will be a ban on girls under 14 wearing headscarves in schools.Kurz said the new government will invest in climate protection while preparing an “ecological” tax reform and refraining from running up new debt. Kogler said the new government will put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, among other moves. He said he wants Austria to be carbon-neutral in 2040, 10 years before the European Union’s target.He noted the the prospect of the new coalition having a “role model effect” in Europe and standing for the “reconciliation of ecology and economy, embedding social security.”The new coalition results from a snap September election in which Kurz’s party emerged as by far the biggest in the national legislature and the Greens made strong gains to return to parliament after a two-year absence.The election was triggered by the collapse in May of Kurz’s previous coalition government with the far-right Freedom Party. Kurz pulled the plug following the release of a video showing then-Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache offering favors to a purported Russian investor.Parliament then ousted Kurz in a no-confidence vote. Austria has since been run by a non-partisan interim government under Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein.Beside Kurz and Kogler, the People’s Party will have 10 ministers in the new Cabinet and the Greens three. The Greens will run a ministry responsible for the environment, climate and transport; the justice ministry; and the health and social affairs ministry.Kurz said there will be more women than men in the new team. 
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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday pledged to stick by his government’s decision to give asylum to several people in Mexico’s embassy in Bolivia, which has sparked a dispute with the interim administration in La Paz.”It’s a matter of principle,” Lopez Obrador told reporters at a regular government news conference.To hand over the people would mean abandoning what Mexico regards as a “sacred” right to grant asylum, he added.Earlier this week, Bolivia expelled the Mexican ambassador to La Paz over the asylum spat, creating an awkward standoff for Lopez Obrador, who has sought to avoid foreign entanglements.Mexico has not ejected Bolivia’s ambassador in Mexico and Lopez Obrador said he would not react to provocations.Relations have been rocky between the leftist Lopez Obrador and the conservative government in La Paz headed by caretaker president Jeanine Anez since Mexico gave asylum to Bolivia’s former socialist leader Evo Morales in November.Mexico gave refuge to nine people in La Paz, some of whom the Anez government, which is gearing up for presidential elections, has described as criminals and wants to put on trial.The Mexican government has accused the Anez administration of harassing and intimidating its diplomatic staff in La Paz.
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Kristina Kvien, deputy chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Ukraine, has been appointed as the interim charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.In a video posted on Facebook on January 2, Kvien said that the U.S. “policy of strong support for Ukraine remains steady.””Our embassy team will continue to partner closely with the Ukrainian government and civil society and support Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, and support reforms that will help Ukraine build its prosperous European future,” Kvien said.Тимчасова повірена у справах США Крістіна Квін?? Наша заступниця глави місії США в Україні, Крістіна Квін, тепер стала Тимчасовою повіреною у справах США. Ось, що вона думає про міцне #ПартнерсвоУкраїнаСША
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?? Kristina Kvien, our Deputy Chief of Mission, is now serving as the Charge d’Affaires, a.i. of U.S. Embassy Kyiv. Hear her thoughts on the strong #USUkrainePartnership!Posted by U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine on Tuesday, December 31, 2019Kvien replaced William Taylor, who stepped aside earlier on January 2 after serving in the post since May 18, 2019.Taylor said good-bye to Ukrainians in a video statement on December 31, saying he was “very optimistic” about Ukraine’s future.Taylor was launched into the forefront of the impeachment hearings against U.S. President Donald Trump in November when he testified that one of his staffers overheard Trump ask U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland about “investigations” against Joe Biden, one of the president’s main political rivals.During his testimony, Taylor also criticized Trump’s decision to delay military aid to Ukraine and a White House invitation to Zelenskiy, saying it ran counter to U.S. foreign policy goals in the region and damaged Washington’s relationship with Kyiv.Taylor’s appointment was set to expire in early January but the State Department did not extend his stay.
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Turkey’s parliament on Thursday authorized the deployment of troops to Libya to support the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli battle forces loyal to a rival government that is seeking to capture the capital.Turkish lawmakers voted 325-184 at an emergency session in favor of a one-year mandate allowing the government to dispatch troops amid concerns that Turkish forces could aggravate the conflict in Libya and destabilize the region.The Tripoli-based government of Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj has faced an offensive by the rival regime in the east and commander Gen. Khalifa Hifter. The fighting has threatened to plunge Libya into violent chaos rivaling the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last month that Sarraj requested the Turkish deployment, after he and Sarraj signed a military deal that allows Ankara to dispatch military experts and personnel to Libya. That deal, along with a separate agreement on maritime boundaries between Turkey and Libya, has drawn ire across the region and beyond.Ankara says the deployment is vital for Turkey to safeguard its interests in Libya and in the eastern Mediterranean, where it finds itself increasingly isolated as Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel have established exclusive economic zones paving the way for oil and gas exploration.”A Libya whose legal government is under threat can spread instability to Turkey,” ruling party legislator Ismet Yilmaz argued in defense of the motion. “Those who shy away from taking steps on grounds that there is a risk will throw our children into a greater danger.”The government has not revealed details about the possible Turkish deployment. The motion allows the government to decide on the scope, amount and timing of any mission by Turkish troops.Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told state-run Anadolu Agency that Turkey would send “the necessary number (of troops) whenever there is a need.”But he also said Turkey would not dispatch its forces if Libya’s rival government halts its offensive.”If the other side adopts a different stance and says `OK, we are withdrawing, we are backing down,’ then why would we go?” Oktay said.Turkey’s main opposition party, CHP, had said its lawmakers would vote against the motion because the deployment would embroil Turkey in another conflict and make it a party to the further “shedding of Muslim blood.”Before the vote, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu called on the government Thursday to work for the establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping force in Libya.”Turkey must take the lead for efforts to establish stability in the region and concentrate all diplomatic efforts in that direction,” Kilicdaroglu tweeted.A center-right opposition party also said its legislators would not back the motion.”We cannot throw our soldiers in the line of fire of a civilian war that has nothing to do with our national security,” said Aytun Ciray, a member of the opposition Good Party, said during the parliamentary debate.However, Erdogan’s ruling party is in an alliance with a nationalist party, and the two held sufficient votes for the motion to pass.Fighting around Tripoli escalated in recent weeks after Hifter declared a “final” and decisive battle for the capital. He has the backing of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia, while the Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy. 
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The United States consulate in Mexico’s border city of Nuevo Laredo issued a security alert Wednesday, warning of gun battles and urging government employees to take precautions.Gun battles have killed at least three people this week in the northern city bordering the Texas city of Laredo, media have said.Nuevo Laredo is one of the Mexican cities where the U.S. government has sent asylum-seekers to wait as their cases are decided. “The consulate has received reports of multiple gunfights throughout the city of Nuevo Laredo,” it said in a Twitter post. “U.S. government personnel are advised to shelter in place.”On Twitter, users purportedly from Laredo reported hearing gunfire ringing out from the neighboring Mexican city.In a Twitter post late Wednesday, Francisco Cabeza de Vaca, the governor of Tamaulipas, the state home to Nuevo Laredo, blamed the attacks on its Cartel of the Northeast.“After the cowardly attacks on the part of the Cartel of the Northeast in Nuevo Laredo, the (government of Tamaulipas) will not let down its guard and will continue acting with strength against criminals,” he wrote.Tension over the cartels intensified in November when suspected cartel members massacred three women and six children of U.S.-Mexican origin in northern Mexico.U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to designate the groups as terrorist organizations in response to a series of bloody security breaches triggered by cartel gunmen.
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For centuries, Mexico City residents brought warm tortillas home in reusable cloths or woven straw baskets, and toted others foods in conical rolls of paper, “ayate” mesh or net bags, or even string bundles.People in Mexico’s massive capital city may have to return to those old ways starting Wednesday, when a new law takes effect banning the plastic bags that became ubiquitous over the last 30 years. Some say they are ready and willing, and grocery stores are promising to promote reusable synthetic fiber bags, but others are struggling to get their minds around how the ban will work in practice.”We have a very rich history in ways to wrap things,” said Claudia Hernandez, the city’s director of environmental awareness. “We are finding that people are returning to baskets, to cucuruchos,” she said, referring to cone-shaped rolls of paper once used to wrap loose bulk goods like nuts, chips or seeds.Some Mexico City residents still use traditional ayate bags, or tortilla towels or baskets, and many — especially the elderly — pull two-wheeled, folding shopping baskets through grocery stores. Some merchants still use old sardine cans to measure out bulk goods.Under the new law, grocery stores will be fined if they give out plastic bags. Most will offer reusable shopping bags made of thick plastic fiber, usually selling them for around 75 cents.”They are not giving them away, they are selling them, and that is what I don’t agree with,” said city subway worker Ernesto Gallardo Chavez, who wonders what will happen if he goes grocery shopping after Jan. 1 and forgets to bring his reusable bags.A man carries loose items after leaving a grocery store in Mexico City, Jan. 1, 2020. Stores stopped providing disposable plastic bags to their customers in compliance with a city law that took effect with the new year.”Just imagine, I forget my bag and I buy a lot of stuff,” said Gallardo Chavez. “How do I carry it all, if they don’t give you bags anymore?”Like most city residents, Gallardo Chavez thinks protecting the environment is “very good.” But plastic bags in Mexico City are almost never really single-use: most city residents have bought garbage cans and waste paper baskets just the right size to be lined with supermarket bags. And the bags are commonly used to clean up after dogs on sidewalks.”We use the bags for garbage, to separate it into organic and inorganic, and then take it out to the garbage truck,” he notes.Hernandez, the environment official, said people should get out of the habit of putting their garbage in plastic bags. “They can take it out (to the garbage truck) directly in garbage cans.”But that is complicated given the city’s stubborn water shortages. It’s all very well to tell city residents not to line their trash cans with plastic bags, but washing out a kitchen receptacle every couple of days after use because it doesn’t have a plastic liner will takes its toll on water supplies.Not to mention the widespread habit of tossing used toilet paper into wastepaper baskets to spare the strain on many homes’ aged and insufficient plumbing. Used toilet paper is not the kind of thing you can turn over loose to the trash collector.Data analysis specialist Daniel Loredo says he is planning to hoard his last remaining plastic shopping bags precisely for that purpose.But he and his roommates have already taken steps to build up a supply of reusable bags and make sure whoever goes to the grocery store is carrying a few. But for poorer city residents, forgetting to do so even one day could carry a high price in a country where the 75-cent reusable bag costs the equivalent of an hour’s worth of the minimum wage.”I think this will be a challenge, because these bags represent an additional cost, and maybe not everyone can bear that cost quite as easily,” Loredo said.Aldimir Torres, the leader of the country’s Plastic Industry Chamber, called the new law “cheap populism,” noting that it was drawn up without having clear guidelines about what kind of “compostable” bags would still be allowed.The law leaves the door open to using plastic bags “for reasons of hygiene,” presumably for items like deli meats or cheese. It also allows for bags that biodegrade very quickly, but sets no specific standards for them.”This was a law that was copied and put together in a rush, without consulting people who really know about this issue,” Torres said.Hernandez acknowledged there was still a lot of work to be done on alternatives.For example, Mexico City’s ubiquitous street food stalls often use plastic bags to temporarily cover plastic plates, in areas where they have no taps or sinks to wash each plate after use. While that might seem to be covered under the “hygiene” clause of the new law, Hernandez said somewhat ingeniously that “this could be solved by some device to wash the plates.”The law, she claimed, had to be rushed into effect.”I don’t know why, but sometimes we need a little more pressure in order to take action,” Hernandez said, noting the bag ban “is an invitation, a provocation to rethink they way we consume.”Loredo thinks the law may be imperfect, but worth it.”I think that in some way this is a responsible strategy, to introduce us to some more appropriate method of consumption,” he said. “In the end, they (plastic bags) are something that pollute and hurt the environment.”By 2021, the same law will ban handing out plastic straws, spoons, coffee capsules and other single-use items.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will lead a group of U.S. officials who will attend the World Economic Forum later this month in Davos, Switzerland, the White House said Wednesday.Mnuchin will be joined by officials including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and White House senior advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.Also attending will be Keith Krach, a State Department undersecretary for growth, energy and the environment, and Christopher Liddell, a White House deputy chief of staff.Reuters reported Dec. 17 that President Donald Trump planned to attend the annual Davos economic forum, citing a source familiar with the plan. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that Trump is still expected to attend at this time.In 2019, Trump had to cancel his plans to attend the annual gathering of global economic and world leaders because of a government shutdown. He attended the Davos forum in 2018.The World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort town is scheduled to run Jan. 21-24.Events in Congress could affect the Republican president’s attendance at the event.Trump, who on Dec. 18 became the third American president to be impeached, faces a trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress once House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, sends the charges, called articles of impeachment, to the Republican-controlled Senate.A dispute between Pelosi and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell over how the trial will be conducted arose after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump.
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Brexit and EU enlargement will be priorities during Croatia’s six-month presidency of the  bloc, Foreign Minister Goran Grlic Radman said Wednesday.Croatia, the youngest European Union member, has a “lot of work and an important task that we have to do in the best possible way in the interest of all EU members, first of all organization of the relationship between the Union and the United Kingdom,” Grlic Radman said.Britain is due to leave the European Union on Jan. 31 but will remain in a transitional arrangement until the end of the year while negotiators try to thrash out future trade ties.European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen recently expressed concern over whether the EU can conclude a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain by the end-2020 deadline.Another challenge for the Croatia EU presidency will be Western Balkans countries wanting to join the bloc “as there have been different approaches when EU enlargement is concerned,” Grlic Radman told N1 television channel.He spoke from Vienna where he marked the start of his country’s presidency in a ceremony at the embassy there.Despite big expectations by the candidate countries “we will support what is realistic and possible,” he said.”The process of joining EU does not happen in a day; we worked hard to meet all the criteria and standards,” he said.Out of the Western Balkans countries only Serbia and Montenegro are in the process of negotiations while Albania and Northern Macedonia are yet to start  talks. Kosovo and Bosnia meanwhile are seriously lagging behind, the latter due to its complicated post-war political system that blocks reforms needed to become an EU candidate country.Along with Slovenia, who joined in 2004, Croatia is the only country emerging from the former Yugoslavia to have become an EU member. It joined the bloc in 2013.
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Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador closed out 2019 with a parting shot at his predecessors, saying imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera had had the same power as the country’s president. In a video message from the southern city of Palenque on Wednesday, Lopez Obrador recounted his administration’s successes in its first year and highlighted its challenges — foremost, surging violence. He said that he had already done away with the high-level corruption that was rampant in previous governments, and that it was crucial to draw a bright line between criminal elements and authorities so that the two sides do not mingle as they had in the past. There was a time when Guzman had the same power or had the influence that the then president had ... because there had been a conspiracy, and that made it difficult to punish those who committed crimes. That has already become history, gone to the garbage dump of history, Lopez Obrador said. It appeared to be a reference to the indictment and arrest last month of Mexico’s former public safety secretary, Genaro Garcia Luna. Garcia Luna was public safety secretary in President Felipe Calderon’s Cabinet from 2006 to 2012. Before joining Calderon’s government, Garcia Luna led Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI, the Federal Investigative Agency, under President Vicente Fox. He was charged in federal court in New York with three counts of trafficking cocaine and one count of making false statements. He had been living in Florida and was arrested in Texas. U.S. prosecutors allege he accepted millions of dollars in bribes from Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel and in exchange allowed it to operate without interference. FILE – In this photo provided U.S. law enforcement, authorities escort Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, center, from a plane to a waiting caravan of SUVs at Long Island MacArthur Airport, Jan. 19, 2017, in Ronkonkoma, N.Y.Guzman was convicted on drug conspiracy charges in New York. He was sentenced last year to life in prison. Lopez Obrador’s public safety secretary, Alfonso Durazo, on Wednesday echoed the president’s comments about rooting out corruption in the security forces. In a series of posts on Twitter, Durazo also said the government would recruit 21,170 people in 2020 to join the newly formed National Guard and continue to expand its presence in the country. Lopez Obrador has bet big that the new federal security force will be able to wrangle violence that generated a record-setting number of murders in 2019. 
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Bogota’s first woman mayor Claudia Lopez took office Wednesday promising leadership in the troubled Colombian capital and pledging to fight “racism, class distinctions and xenophobia.”The center-left mayor, who married her same-sex partner last month, takes over a city that has become a focal point of countrywide protests against the rule of right-wing President Ivan Duque.Lopez, 49, broke with tradition and held her inauguration event in the city’s Simon Bolivar park attended by hundreds of people.”Thank you to all for accompanying me in this special moment of my life by taking me as the first woman — diverse woman — elected as mayor in the history of Bogota,” she told the cheering crowd.Supporters of Bogota’s incoming Mayor Claudia Lopez attend her inauguration ceremony in Bogota on Jan. 1, 2020.Lopez’s election in October was one of a series of setbacks for Duque’s ruling Democratic Center party, which lost control of several major cities and many see her as an emerging challenger to his presidency.With seven million inhabitants, Colombia’s capital has been the main focus of a series of mass protests against Duque’s rule that have rocked the country for the past six weeks.The city is home to a quarter of the 1.6 million migrants who fled the economic crisis in neighboring Venezuela to take refuge in Colombia.The new mayor presented “an agenda of change” for her four-year term, focused on the fight against insecurity and the city’s traffic congestion, while promoting jobs and quality, free education. She also promised a “greener” Bogota under her mayorship.She called on Bogotans to build a citizen’s culture that “once and for all banishes all racism, classism, machismo and zenophobia” from its streets.”Bogota, thank you very much for trusting me with your present and your future. I promise to honor that trust, and give everything of myself so that our Bogota will be in the next four years a more caring, inclusive and sustainable city and region,” she said.Lopez married her partner Angelica Lozano, a senator, on Dec. 16.She first stepped into the national spotlight after helping to expose links between Colombian lawmakers and right-wing paramilitary groups.She was briefly forced to flee the country after the scandal came to light but returned to be elected senator in 2014 and stood as a vice presidential candidate in last year’s national elections.Lopez won the Oct. 27 mayoral poll with just over 35% of the vote in a narrow triumph over liberal Carlos Fernando Galan.
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Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz struck a coalition deal on Wednesday with the Greens to ensure his return to power and bring the left-wing party into government for the first time, three months after Kurz won a parliamentary election. The deal marked a swing left for Kurz, whose last coalition was with the far-right Freedom Party. It also means Austria will join fellow European Union member states Sweden and Finland in having the Greens in government, albeit in a junior role, at a time of growing calls for urgent action on climate change. After a final round of coalition talks on New Year’s Day and two days of leaks of new Cabinet members’ names, Kurz and his Greens counterpart said they had struck a deal, as widely expected. They held off, however, on providing details of their plans. Those will be presented to the public Thursday. “We have reached an agreement,” Kurz told reporters standing next to Greens leader Werner Kogler. The two will become chancellor and vice chancellor of the new government, and the Greens will control just four of 15 ministries, roughly reflecting their performance in the September 29 election, which Kurz’s People’s Party won with 37.5% of the vote. The Greens came in fourth with 13.9%. “It is possible to reduce the tax burden and to ecologize the tax system,” Kurz said, referring to core campaign pledges of each party and hinting at the deal’s contents. The Greens said they wanted an investment package in environmental measures and to make products that damage the environment more expensive. 
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At least 16 inmates in a central Mexico prison were killed and five more were wounded in a riot that closed out a violent 2019 for the country, authorities said. Zacatecas state security secretary Ismael Camberos Hernandez told local press that authorities had confiscated four guns believed to have been brought into the Cieneguillas state prison during visits Tuesday. He said the prison had been searched for weapons on Saturday and Sunday and that no guns had been found. The melee broke out around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and the prison was brought under control by 5 p.m., according to a statement from the state security agency. Fifteen of the victims died at the prison and one died later at a hospital. One prisoner was detained with a gun still in his possession and the other three guns were found inside the prison, the statement said.  Camberos said not all the victims died from gunshot wounds. Some were stabbed and others beaten with objects. No guards or police were wounded, he said. Camberos did not offer a possible motive for the attacks, but such killings frequently involve score settling between rival cartel members or a battle for control of the prison’s illicit business. Mexico has a long history of deadly prison clashes. In October, six inmates were killed in a prison in Morelos state. 
In September, Nuevo Leon state closed the infamous Topo Chico prison, the site of many killings over the years. In February 2016, 49 prisoners died there during rioting when two factions of the Zetas cartel clashed. 
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Venice’s mayor says police are investigating an anti-Semitic attack in which youths punched a left-wing Italian politician in the city’s St. Mark’s Square.Mayor Luigi Brugnaro tweeted Wednesday that fascist-like incidents like the one that happened on New Year’s Eve “won’t be tolerated” in Venice.Arturo Scotto, a former lawmaker, was walking with his wife Tuesday night when eight youths yelled out, “Duce! Duce!” a reference to Italy’s World War II fascist leader Benito Mussolini. The youths then punched Scotto in the nose.Scotto told Italian state TV that a young man who tried to help him was also beaten up. He said the youths also shouted disparaging remarks about Anne Frank, a young Jewish woman who perished in a Nazi death camp.Brugnaro said police are examining surveillance videos to see if the culprits can be identified. Scotto said the attackers wore scarves to hide their faces.Anti-Semitic incidents have been on the rise in Italy, as far-right political groups, including those with neo-fascist roots, gain traction in the country. Mussolini’s regime had propagated anti-Jewish laws in 1938.The head of Rome’s Jewish community, Ruth Dureghello, expressed solidarity with Scotto, saying “one mustn’t give in to any form of anti-Semitism and racism.”
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Haitian President Jovenel Moise broke with tradition on Wednesday and celebrated the country’s independence day in the capital for security reasons following months of political turmoil.Moise, whose government has been accused of corruption, denounced graft during his speech at the National Palace in Port-au-Prince and urged Haiti’s elite to work with the government and help create employment.“We’re still extremely poor,” he said. “Those who continue to get rich find it normal that they do not pay taxes, find it normal that there can be no competition, find it normal that they set prices for consumers, especially when this consumer is the state itself.”Moise also apologized for the country’s ongoing power outages and renewed his 2016 campaign pledge to provide electricity 24 hours a day, saying it was harder to accomplish than he imagined.The speech that marked the 216th anniversary of the world’s first black republic was originally slated to take place in the northern coastal town of Gonaives, where Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti’s independence.But the town, like many others, was hit by violent protests that began in September amid anger over corruption, fuel shortages and dwindling food supplies as opposition leaders and supporters demanded the resignation of Moise.More than 40 people have been killed and dozens injured.Large-scale protests in Port-au-Prince have since dissipated, although smaller ones are still occurring elsewhere in the country. On Wednesday, opposition leaders and supporters gathered in Gonaives to attend the funeral of an anti-government protester and then carried his coffin through the streets as more protesters joined them.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday postponed a trip to Ukraine, the country at the heart of impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, after an attack on the American embassy in Iraq, the State Department announced.Pompeo had been due to travel at week’s end to Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Cyprus.But on Tuesday, a mob of pro-Iran demonstrators stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad over American airstrikes that killed two dozen paramilitary fighters.Pompeo’s travel was pushed back “due to the need for the secretary to be in Washington, DC to continue monitoring the ongoing situation in Iraq and ensure the safety and security of Americans in the Middle East,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus announced.”Secretary Pompeo’s trip will be rescheduled in the near future and he looks forward to the visit at that time,” she added.The trip would have made Pompeo the most senior U.S. official to visit Kyiv since a scandal erupted in 2019 over a controversial phone call in which Trump allegedly tried to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy to find dirt on Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.Pompeo, a staunch Trump defender, was set to meet with Zelenskiy and other top Ukrainian officials, Ortagus said Monday when the trip was first announced.But the following day, the embassy in Baghdad was besieged. Demonstrators finally left on Wednesday.No U.S. personnel were injured in the attack and U.S. officials said they had no plans to evacuate.Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress Dec. 18 and faces trial in the Senate, possibly later this month, though top Democratic and Republican lawmakers are still sparring over how it will be conducted. 
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Turkey may hold off from sending troops to Libya if forces loyal to eastern commander Khalifa Haftar halt their offensive against the internationally recognized government in Tripoli and pull back, the Turkish vice president said Wednesday.The Turkish parliament is due to debate and vote on a bill mandating the deployment of military forces to Libya on Thursday after Fayez al-Serraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA) requested support as part of a military cooperation agreement.”After the bill passed from the parliament … it might happen that we would see something different, a different stance and they would say, ‘OK, we are withdrawing, dropping the offensive,'” Fuat Oktay said in an interview with Andalou news agency. “Then, why would we go there?”Oktay also said that Ankara hoped the Turkish bill would send a deterrent message to the warring parties.Ankara has already sent military supplies to the GNA despite a United Nations embargo, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters, and has said it will continue to support it.Haftar’s forces have received support from Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
 
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Airbus has become the world’s largest planemaker for the first time since 2011 after delivering a forecast-beating 863 aircraft in 2019, seizing the crown from embattled U.S. rival Boeing, airport and tracking sources said on Wednesday.A reversal in the pecking order between the two giants had been expected as a crisis over Boeing’s grounded 737 MAX drags into 2020. But the record European data further underscores the distance Boeing must travel to recoup its market position.Photo shows a Boeing Center in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet)Airbus, which had been forced by its own industrial problems to cut its 2019 delivery goal by 2-3% in October, deployed extra resources until hours before midnight to reach 863 aircraft for the year, compared with its revised target of 860 jets.Deliveries rose 7.9 % from 800 aircraft in 2018.Airbus declined to comment on the figures, which must be audited before they can be finalized and published.Planemakers receive most of their revenues when aircraft are delivered – minus accumulated progress payments – so the end-year delivery performance is closely monitored by investors.Airbus’s tally, which included around 640 single-aisle aircraft, broke industry records after it diverted thousands of workers and canceled holidays to complete a buffer stock of semi-finished aircraft waiting to have their cabins adjusted.Airbus has been hit by delays in fitting the complex new layouts on A321neo jets assembled in Hamburg, Germany, resulting in dozens of these and other models being stored in hangars to await last-minute configurations and the arrival of more labor.Such out-of-sequence work drives up costs and could have a modest impact on Airbus profit margins, but the impact will be largely blunted by the high volume of planes and already solid profitability for such single-aisle aircraft, analysts say.Still, the problems in fitting complex cabins have curtailed Airbus’s ability to take advantage of the market turmoil surrounding Boeing’s 737 MAX – grounded since March following two fatal accidents.Boeing delivered 345 mainly long-haul jets between January and November, less than half the number of 704 achieved in the same period of 2018, when the MAX was being delivered normally. For the whole of 2018, Boeing had delivered 806 aircraft.Airbus production plants traditionally halt over Christmas and New Year. But the company’s delivery centers and completion facilities were humming well into the afternoon of New Year’s Eve to allow Asian and other airlines to fly away new jets.
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French President Emmanuel Macron hopes the repatriation of the body of General Charles-Etienne Gudin, who was killed in Russia more than two centuries ago, could play a symbolic role in his diplomatic courting of Russian President Vladimir Putin.Gudin, one of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s favorite generals, succumbed to gangrene three days after a cannonball destroyed his leg in an 1812 battle 20 kilometers east of the Russian city of Smolensk. Bonaparte reportedly sat at Gudin’s side as he died.If all goes according to French officials’ plan, Gudin’s remains will be returned to Paris in 2020 and reburied with great fanfare in a ceremony Macron hopes Putin will attend.Gudin’s heart is already in the French capital, having been transported there by his loyal troops. In July, a one-legged skeleton was discovered in a wooden coffin in a park in Smolensk. Subsequent DNA tests established it was Gudin’s.If the Kremlin agrees to France’s request, Gudin, who was 44 when he was killed, will be reburied in Les Invalides where the tombs of Napoleon and other military war heroes are located.Russian specialist Hélène Carrère d’Encausse told Le Figaro newspaper that Macron “has a sense of symbols” and sees a reburial ceremony as possibly helpful in his four-month diplomatic campaign to coax Russia into the Western fold.”President Macron is trying to put Franco-Russian relations back on track,” she said.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with French President Emmanuel Macron at Fort Bregancon near the village of Bormes-les-Mimosas, France, Aug. 19, 2019.Ahead of last August’s G-7 summit in Biarritz, Macron showed how adept he is at using symbols and history when he hosted Putin at his summer residence on the French Riviera. Macron hailed the impact Russian artists and writers had on France, saying they served as a reminder of how Russia is essentially a European nation.It was a far cry from 2017, when fresh from an election victory in which he beat two pro-Kremlin challengers, Macron berated Putin at a joint press conference at the Palace of Versailles. Standing beside the uneasy-looking Russian leader, Macron blasted Russia for seeking to meddle in Western elections by spreading fake news, disinformation and falsehoods. He condemned brutal tactics, including the use of chemical weapons, allegedly employed by the Moscow-partnered Syrian government to regain control over the war-torn Middle East country.Macron’s about-face has made some of France’s allies nervous, especially Russia’s neighbors in Central Europe and the Baltic States. They fear that in his determination to move from hostility to rapprochement with the Kremlin, he risks falling into a trap of rewarding bad behavior for little in return.But Macron has countered that “Europe would disappear” if it does not rethink strategy toward Russia, and that prolonging hostility will push the Kremlin into the arms of an assertive China, which also is courting Russia.Russia reactionEarlier in December, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the Kremlin will look favorably on a request for the return of Gudin’s remains.FILE – Archaeologists work at a site of the supposed burial place of French General Charles-Etienne Gudin in Smolensk, Russia, July 7, 2019.”We know that French and Russian archaeologists indeed made such a discovery and performed a DNA analysis that proved 100% correct,” Peskov said. “So, those are indeed the remains of General Gudin. We know that it is big news for France, and we also know that the agenda has the topic of returning these remains.”He added, “If France sends an official request, Russia will respond positively to returning these remains.”French officials have confirmed that Macron raised the issue in December with Putin during the Ukraine peace talks in Paris. Le Figaro said the reburial “could become a symbol of Franco-Russian fraternity.”Before considering an official tribute to Gudin, Elysée Palace advisers researched Gudin’s life to ensure he was safe from reproach or possible historical embarrassment, French magazine Le Point reported. The advisers were mindful of the political controversy in 2018 surrounding Macron’s praise of General Philippe Pétain as a “great soldier” during commemorations of the centenary of World War I.Jewish leaders and Macron’s political foes argued that Macron’s praise was ill-deserved, as Petain became a Nazi collaborator. Macron was forced to justify the homage.Gudin appears to have passed the “honor” test. He is seen as a valiant warrior, above politics. He served the monarchy before the French Revolution and loyally commanded the armies of the French Republic.
 
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After one suspected chemical poisoning, two arrests, 40 days in jail and multiple police raids on his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) offices nationwide, it’s safe to say Russia’s most prominent opposition figure has had a rough year.  But for Alexei Navalny, 2019 wasn’t without at least one small victory. His calls for mass demonstrations over the exclusion of opposition candidates from local Moscow elections sparked the largest sustained protest movement in years, prompting state investigators to launch a money-laundering probe and label his group a “foreign agent,” a move that he and others call part of a Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to stifle growing dissent.Despite house-to-house searches for FBK staffers, asset seizures and frozen bank accounts, the well-known blogger and activist says he also maintained a regular jogging routine while preparing new investigative exposes on alleged corruption that fuels the excessively lavish lifestyles at the highest echelons of Russian officialdom.Navalny recently sat down with VOA’s Russian Service to reflect on 2019, the state of the American and Russian political systems, and accusations that he’s been needlessly hard on Moscow banker Andrei Kostin, one of Russia’s most powerful civilians.Just hours after this interview was conducted, Russian officials again raided FBK’s Moscow headquarters using power tools to gain entry before dragging Navalny out by force and confiscating computer equipment. The latest raid came one day after police broke into Ruslan Shaveddinov’s Moscow flat, forcibly conscripting the 23-year-old FBK project manager to serve at a remote military base in the Arctic, a move Navalny has since called tantamount to kidnapping.The following has been edited for brevity.QUESTION: How serious are FBK’s financial losses as a result of these raids, and in what other ways did Russian authorities try to interfere with your work this year?ALEXEI NAVALNY: In order to impede, complicate, and paralyze the foundation’s work, a wide range of tools are used. First, it’s just non-stop “searches,” which are in fact planned confiscations of computers, phones, flash drives — any data-processing electronics of FBK employees, staff, their relatives, neighbors, sometimes even random people. Second, it’s the freezing of accounts, such that people can’t, for example, pay or receive a salary. All accounts and cards are blocked, even for child care and survivor benefits. And then there’s the recently launched criminal case, which allows [officials] to call in anyone in for questioning at any time, along with unending efforts to nightmare and harass people through ostensibly legal actions. And while our people are quite resilient, the pressure strongly affects their relatives.As for finances, we now have several million rubles on the account blocked. The question is not even what the financial losses are, but that we’re prevented from receiving cash inflows. … After the last [election] campaign for the Moscow City Duma, there were quite a lot of [donations], so the authorities are simply trying to block this cash flow, and the campaign to designate us as “foreign agents” means all of FBK’s monetary assets were declared “criminal.”Q: Which events of 2019 were most significant to you?NAVALNY: Undoubtedly the Moscow City Duma elections. Initially, we didn’t think it would have any great national political significance, but the actions of the authorities, which were extraordinary in their stupidity, severity and senselessness, caused these events to resonate nationally. We received, on the one hand, new independent [Moscow City Duma] deputies, and, on the other hand, a huge number of people [were blocked from voting, which only made more people sympathetic to our cause]. So we got new political prisoners, new political stars. … In this sense, the Moscow City Duma elections were the main event.Q: You do what many would call the kind of high-quality investigative journalism, which, in the West, might topple an entire government. Yet your exposes of government corruption aren’t compelling most Russians to protest. Why?NAVALNY: This is indeed a cause of frustration on our part. We grasp perfectly well the quality our investigations, and we see many examples where exposes of less impact trigger government resignations and parliamentary crises in other countries. But in Russia this doesn’t have major consequences due to the general political situation. And it’s not a purely Russian phenomenon — we see similar things in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, any number of other authoritarian countries with staggering levels of corruption. That’s where we also see this unfortunate, conditioned familiarity with corruption: the population already understands the elite stole everything, and the whole country exists only for the enrichment of this elite. And then of course there’s censorship and intimidation. Therefore, we don’t believe that the population is indifferent to our investigations — they know about them, but they’re afraid of the state aggression toward those who choose to protest.Q: You don’t suppose that since quite a lot of people are now connected with state structures in Russia, and because they have families to feed, that corruption schemes have now become the new normal for a significant part of the populace? That the fight against corruption is a threat to a broad class of people?NAVALNY: That’s a good question. Does, say, the deputy head of the consumer market department of the city of Kostroma feel himself a direct part of Putin’s “power vertical”? In fact, the vast majority of officials are not corrupt, if only because corruption isn’t as lucrative in lower-level bureaucracies, [whereas theft of natural resource commodities such as oil and gas] is basically limited to maybe a thousand or so families with direct ties to Vladimir Putin at the highest level of his administration. But yes, in a certain sense, the system is built in such a way — and the belief systems of individuals within the system are built in such a way — that you live a very poor but stable life within the system. And of course you receive some informal privileges by being inside of it, such that your rational choice is to defend it rather than try to change it for the better.Q: Your recent expose showed that Andrei Kostin, president and chairman of Russia’s state-owned VTB bank, gave millions of dollars in gifts, including property, a private jet and a yacht, to his purported romantic partner, Russian state TV presenter Nailya Asker-Zade. Some commentators then accused you of prying into the personal affairs of private citizens as opposed to state officials. How do you feel about such accusations?NAVALNY: Personal life is peoples’ relationships. We are not interested in the relationships, love, passions and dramas that occur in the families of Kostin, Asker-Zade or anyone, not even Putin. However, when it comes to colossal spending from a state bank, it’s already about corruption, not about personal relationships. And if a state banker spends literally tens of millions of dollars on his mistress, providing her with a standard of living on par with Arab sheikhs, that’s already far, far beyond the limits of a private, personal affair. We try, as far as possible, not to condemn or evaluate Kostin from the point of view of public morality or “family values,” but we certainly reserve the right to discuss his morals from the point of view of corruption, from the point of view of lifestyle, from the point of view of expenditures.Q: There’s the impression that you now regularly visit the United States, where your daughter studies. What’s your impression of American political life?NAVALNY: Unfortunately, I don’t visit so often. I took my daughter to the university and went to shoot a story about Nailya Asker-Zade’s plaque on a bench in New York City’s Central Park, [which she had engraved with a declaration of her love for Kostin]. My feelings are unambiguous and probably align with those of many people, including most Americans: the country is split, the political class is split. Everyone on the left is [feeling] a kind of frustration, demoralization and rage, while those on the right are probably also furious, frustrated and demoralized, because it’s not clear what to do about it or where it’s all headed. It’s still not very clear, for example, why the newspapers consistently reported [that Hillary Clinton had a commanding lead in the race, and then Trump won]. This is a very interesting but difficult time for Americans. But overall, even though I see a lot of exasperated people, I do think checks-and-balances generally works. Nothing so terrible is happening to America. Democracy works.Q: Can Western countries somehow influence Russia’s behavior in terms of corruption and human rights? What mechanisms are effective?NAVALNY: I think we already understand empirically that, unfortunately, they can’t influence anything, and they don’t really want to. There’s always some fictitious geostrategic interests or, perhaps, short-term political interests, some ideas about “peacekeeping missions,” etc … that simply prevent us from taking steps that are long overdue. Western countries need to protect not Russian citizens but themselves from the secondary effects Russian corruption by implementing their own laws. But this isn’t happening. We repeatedly see that, despite the sanctions, despite the fact that there is a lot of talk on this subject, the entire Putin elite feels completely at ease. We haven’t seen any real examples of asset freezes or seizures. On the contrary, we see people under sanctions traveling quite freely and continuing to buy up properties and assets only to register them to their children. And regulators, including American ones, pretend not to notice. … I am completely pessimistic about the role of the West in the fight against corruption in Russia.Q: What are your political plans? The much discussed 2024 [presidential election] is still more than 4 years away; what are you going to do?NAVALNY: It’s still a long time until 2024, but we don’t plan our activities from election to election. Elections take place constantly, and we’re actively engaged in them. We also have the anti-corruption foundation, so we’re engaged in the investigations, and we’ll continue to build a nationwide system combating censorship through YouTube channels and blogs. We have a system of more than 40 headquarters, which now face the main task of learning how to survive under new conditions, in which [the state] is trying to paralyze our entire structure and funding with constant raids. We’ll continue what we are doing, and we’ll reinvent ourselves so that we can do it even more effectively in the new environment. And we’ll try to expand. We have a lot of work to do.Q: Are you going to continue trying to register a political party? You’ve been doing this for a long time, but you keep getting rejected.NAVALNY: As we’ve stated many times, this is our right. Court cases on this issue have been going on for many years, and we are constantly making new attempts to register. We’ll always do it. At the same time, of course, we’re well aware that the Kremlin simply can’t afford to register our party, because then it’s unclear what they will do with it in the elections. But it’s our right, and we’ll continue to defend it.
 
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A Slovak court handed a 15-year prison sentence to a man charged with facilitating the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in 2018 in a plea deal on Monday, a spokeswoman said.The killing of Kuciak and his fiancee, both 27, at their home outside Bratislava in February 2018 sparked mass protests against corruption in the central European nation, shaking the government. The case will play a role in a parliamentary election due in February.FILE – Suspects in the 2018 slaying of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova are escorted by armed police officers from a courtroom in Pezinok, Slovakia, Dec. 19, 2019.Zoltan Andrusko, 42, was one of five charged in the case but the only to confess and seek a plea deal to act as a witness.The trial of the other four, including entrepreneur Marian Kocner who was a subject of Kuciak’s reporting on fraud cases involving politically connected businessmen, started on Dec. 19 and will continue in January.Andrusko had agreed a 10-year sentence with prosecutors but a court on Monday rejected that deal and proposed a longer sentence, which the defendant accepted, the court said.”This court considers the extraordinary reduced sentence as justified, as well as logical, but the court, by its decision, should seek justice not only for the accused but for all sides of the case, for society, for justice in the law,” newspaper Dennik N cited judge Pamela Zaleska as saying.Prosecutors say Kocner had ordered Kuciak’s killing. He and his accomplices, who have all pleaded not guilty, face up to life in prison if convicted.The case is a test of Slovak judicial independence given that the investigation exposed links between Kocner and police and public officials.The murders stoked widespread public anger and forced Prime Minister Robert Fico to resign last year. His ruling Smer party faces a tight election on Feb. 29.
 
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Pro-independence protesters in the Spanish region of Catalonia are using the latest technology to try to outwit authorities. An anonymous smartphone app is being used to coordinate demonstrations  – and the latest target was the world-famous “El Clasico” football match between giants Barcelona and Real Madrid. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the protests have intensified since Madrid jailed several Catalan pro-independence leaders in October. 
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