Tag: Democracy

Jan. 6 remembrance led by Dems as GOP wrestled with rebels

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden conferred high honors on those who stood against the Jan. 6 Capitol mob two years ago and the menacing effort in state after state to upend the election, declaring “America is a land of laws, not chaos,” even as disarray rendered Congress dysfunctional for a fourth straight day.

Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue commemorated the police officers attacked that day and the local election workers and state officials who faced fierce intimidation from supporters of former President Donald Trump as they fought to keep him in office after his defeat.

“Our democracy held,” Biden said Friday in awarding Presidential Citizens Medals to about a dozen recipients from across the country in the White House East Room. “We the people did not flinch.”

Yet democracy’s vulnerability was equally on display at the Capitol as Republicans struggled to break their stalemate over the next House speaker, leaving that chamber in limbo for what should have been the first week under a GOP majority.

A resolution to the immediate crisis finally came after a series of concessions by the GOP leaders to appease its hard-right flank. In a vote sealed early Saturday after midnight. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California got the majority he needed to become House speaker and get the chamber back to business.

Many hours earlier, lawmakers held a moment of silence to commemorate the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the building that drew mostly Democrats, with brief remarks from Democratic leaders past and incoming — Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries — and none from the GOP.

The event was focused on the Capitol Police officers who protected the building Jan. 6 and families of law enforcement officers who died after the riot. Jeffries said 140 officers were seriously injured and “many more will forever be scarred by the bloodthirsty violence of the insurrectionist mob. We stand here today with our democracy intact because of those officers.”

At the White House ceremony, Biden described the violence in evocative and at times graphic detail — the officer speared by a flagpole flying the American flag, the beatings, the bloodshed and racist screams from rioters who professed to be pro-law enforcement as they overran police and hunted for lawmakers.

“Sick insurrectionists,” he said. “We must say clearly with a united voice that there is no place … for voter intimidation or election violence.”

Although the horrors of Jan. 6 came down on members of both parties, it is being remembered in a largely polarized fashion now, like other aspects of political life in a divided country.

Biden, in his afternoon remarks, played up the heroism of the honorees, whether in the face of the violent Capitol mob or the horde of Trump-inspired agitators who threatened election workers or otherwise sought to overturn the results.

But he couldn’t ignore warning signs that it could happen again.

In the midterms, candidates who denied the outcome of 2020’s free and fair election were defeated for many pivotal statewide positions overseeing elections in battleground states, as were a number of election deniers seeking seats in Congress.

Yet many of the lawmakers who brought baseless claims of election fraud or excused the violence on Jan. 6 continue to serve and are newly empowered.

Trump’s 2024 candidacy has been slow off the starting blocks, but his war chest is full and some would-be rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have channeled his false claims about the 2020 race.

As well, several lawmakers who echoed his lies about a stolen election at the time were central in the effort to derail McCarthy’s ascension to speaker — unswayed by Trump’s appeals from afar to support him and end the fight.

The protracted struggle left the House leaderless, unable to pass bills and powerless to do much more than hold vote after vote for speaker until a majority was reached. Everything from national security briefings to helping their constituents navigate the federal bureaucracy was on pause because the members-elect couldn’t yet take their oath of office.

Some Democrats saw a throughline from Jan. 6.

The chaos of the speaker’s election was “about destruction of an institution in a different way,” said Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, one of the lawmakers who fled the rioters two years ago.

Then, the insurrectionists trapped some lawmakers in the House chamber but never breached it. They held up national business for hours that day.

Now some felt trapped in the same chamber by the repeated, fruitless votes for speaker.

“The stream of continuity here is extremism, elements of Trumpism, norms don’t matter,” says Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois. “It’s not about governing, it’s about pontificating and advocating an extremist point of view.”

At least nine people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, died during or after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber and three other Trump supporters whom authorities said suffered medical emergencies.

Two officers, Howard Liebengood of the Capitol Police and Jeffrey Smith of the Metropolitan Police, were at the Capitol that Jan. 6 and died by suicide in the days following the attack. Biden honored both Friday with posthumous medals.

A third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.

The Metropolitan Police announced months later that two more of their officers who had responded to the insurrection, Kyle DeFreytag and Gunther Hashida, had also died by suicide.

On Capitol Hill, the mostly Democratic lawmakers held a 140-second moment of silence in honor of those officers as some of their families said their names and a bell was rung in their honor.

“I wish we didn’t have to be here,” said Ken Sicknick, brother of Brian Sicknick, after the ceremony.

After the unsatisfying midterm election for Trump allies, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack wrapped up its work with a recommendation to the Justice Department to prosecute the former president. A special counsel and ultimately Attorney General Merrick Garland will now decide whether to indict him.

While the congressional investigations have ended, the criminal cases are still very much continuing, both for the 950 arrested and charged in the violent attack and for Trump and his associates who remain under investigation. The second seditious conspiracy trial begins this week, for members of the far-right Proud Boys.

In a measured but significant step, Congress in December amended the Electoral Count Act to limit the role of the vice president in counting electoral votes, to make it harder for individual lawmakers to mount objections to properly certified election results and to eliminate “fake electors” like those deployed by Trump allies in a bid to overturn his defeat to Biden.

After all that, Biden, who made it a tentpole of his agenda to prove to the world that democracies can deliver for their citizens, said he hoped that this was “the first time we’re really getting through the whole issue relating to Jan. 6. Things are settling out.”

But then came the fight for speaker, rare in the annals of Congress.

“And now, for the first time in 100 years, we can’t move?” Biden said earlier this week. “It’s not a good look. It’s not a good thing.”

“Look,” he went on, “how do you think it looks to the rest of the world?”

___

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

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January 6, 2023
GOP Rep. Spins House Chaos Into Win For Democracy As McCarthy Loses Again

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As Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) took the House floor to nominate Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for speaker Wednesday, he acknowledged that the process of finding a new majority leader has not exactly gone off without a hitch.

The day before, the House went through three rounds of voting and still could not agree on who should be speaker.

In Gallagher’s eyes, though, the chaos did not reflect poorly on the Republican Party. Instead, he suggested fault lay with the media documenting the turmoil and Democrats waiting for Republicans to organize themselves so members can be seated and the House can begin its work.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) rallied Republicans around their dysfunction.

“You might tweet out some more popcorn emojis. I get it. You might write your headlines,” Gallagher said from the floor. “But what I see right now is energy ― a tremendous amount of energy in this Republican caucus who want to do the work of the people.”

Republican and Democratic majorities had, for a century, been able to elect a leader in just one round; the last time the chamber needed to hold multiple rounds was in 1923. While reports prior to the first vote indicated the race for House speaker would be tight, few predicted that it would take so much effort.

One member of Congress, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), had posted a photo of himself holding a full bag of popcorn outside his office on Tuesday morning with the caption, “About to go to the House Floor.”

Gallagher said he knew the process “looks messy.”

“But democracy is messy,” he said, prompting a standing ovation from conservatives.

“Democracy is messy by design. By design. And that’s a feature ― not a bug ― of our system,” he said.

McCarthy lost a fourth time, and then a fifth time, Wednesday afternoon.

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January 4, 2023
January 6 panelist points to Electoral College reform as next priority to safeguard democracy | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House January 6 select committee, said reforming the Electoral College to ensure the presidential winner reflects the outcome of the popular vote would be the next step to safeguard democracy.

“The Electoral College now – which has given us five popular-vote losers as president in our history, twice in this century alone – has become a danger, not just to democracy, but to the American people. It was a danger on January 6,” the Maryland Democrat said in an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday. “There are so many curving byways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College, that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief. We should elect the president the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, everybody else. Whoever gets the most votes wins.”

“The truth is that we need to be continually renovating and improving our institutions,” Raskin said, later noting that he supports the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which represents a pledge made by certain states and the District of Columbia to award their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote nationwide.

Under the US Constitution, Americans don’t select their president directly. They vote for their state’s electors, who are then expected to carry out the will of the voters when they vote for president and vice president.

Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 both won the national popular vote in their races but lost the Electoral College vote count. Other presidential nominees who lost after winning the popular vote included Andrew Jackson (1824), Samuel Tilden (1876) and Grover Cleveland (1888).

“The framers [of the Constitution] were great, and they were patriots, but they didn’t have the benefit of the experience that we have lived, and we know that the Electoral College doesn’t fit anymore,” Raskin said.

Included in the sweeping spending bill that Congress passed last week was a measure aimed at making it harder to overturn a certified presidential election. Raskin described the move, which would reform the 1887 Electoral Count Act, as “necessary” and “the very least we can do and we must do.”

“But it’s not remotely sufficient,” he said. “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year exporting American democracy to other countries, and the one thing they never come back to us with is the idea that, ‘Oh, that Electoral College thing you have, that’s so great, we think we’ll adopt that too.’”

Raskin’s remarks come just days after the select committee – which has investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol – issued its final report, a comprehensive overview of the bipartisan panel’s findings on how former President Donald Trump and his allies sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In a symbolic move, the committee in its last public meeting referred Trump to the Justice Department on four criminal charges.

Raskin said the unprecedented referrals were necessary because of the “magnitude of the attack on democracy” on January 6. He also warned of a future coup attempt.

Raskin talked about security threats members of Congress face amid rising partisan tensions.

“There’s very dangerous rhetoric going on out there that’s a real break from everything we’ve known in our lifetimes,” he said.

“What it means to live in a democracy with basic civic respect is that people can disagree without resorting to violence. But the internet has played a negative role, especially for the right wing, the extreme right, which now engages in very dangerous hyperbolic rhetoric that exposes people to danger.”

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December 25, 2022
Democracy has its flaws, but it has emerged from the pandemic in much ruder health than the alternative | CNN

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CNN
—

For nearly half a decade, you could be forgiven for thinking just about everything in Western democracy seemed a bit broken. The social-media yelling in 140 characters. The wild populism, and dog-whistle racism. The clumsy coronavirus lockdowns and their attendant conspiracy theories. The tolerance of absolute, constant falsehoods. The questioning and beleaguering of the electoral process.

Some began to behave as if it were smoother on the other side of the fence, in autocracies where things are just ordered to happen, and criticism is swallowed whole.

Yet, as we stagger past the third anniversary of Covid-19’s emergence, the fallacy that autocracies are a superior social contract is crumbling. At the end of 2022, the world is a place where consent matters, and debate might actually save your hide.

The Trump era created a safe space for autocracies to flex on the global stage, while American tried to put itself First, and its commander-in-chief was happy to receive “lovely” letters from North Korea, or get very close to the Kremlin. But it took the pandemic to expose the utter mess one man in charge can create.

The most glaring and unimaginably stark example is Russia. President Vladimir Putin bumbled his way through the pandemic with snap lockdowns, a poorly performing vaccine, and a general disregard for how useful accurate data can be in defeating a complex foe like Nature. But it was his personal choices that led to a disconnect which has proved fatal to tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians, and perhaps even more Russian soldiers.

The persistent warnings from Western intelligence in January that an invasion of Ukraine was imminent seemed far-fetched to many analysts, including me. Those analysts overlooked the enormity of the task, and the assumption the Kremlin remained a rational actor. Those calming caveats were swiftly whisked away when – in the days leading up to the war – Putin summoned his security henchmen and dressed them down, at a safe distance of well over 20 feet, and then delivered a 57-minute televised speech showing he had spent the pandemic reading all the wrong parts of the internet.

His spoken dissertation even reminded Russians how mean Bill Clinton had been 20 years ago, shunning Putin’s stated desire to join NATO. Putin’s isolation had compounded not just his historical grievances. There were now fewer subordinates in contact with him, and fewer opinions voiced to counter the absurd assumption Russia’s invasion would be welcomed by Ukrainians and last about three days.

A RUSI report recently noted that seized Russian orders showed units expected to be “cleaning up” within 10 days, and that no effective “red team” assessment of the plan – challenging its assumptions – had happened.

And so, the largest land war in Europe for 75 years began, and with it a likely military defeat for Russia that may rewrite the established norms of European security and see Moscow’s place as a global superpower evaporate. Putin’s insecurities over NATO and the practical task of connecting the occupied Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland fueled his catastrophic decision. But the Kremlin head’s isolation – along with his echo chamber of paranoid nonsense – cemented it.

But even now, in this late stage in the Russian military demise, when its readiest form of resupply is forced conscripts to the frontline, Moscow must be mindful of consent. The “partial mobilization” announced in September has sent 77,000 Russian men to Ukraine, Putin recently said. But it has also unleashed a wave of protests perhaps not seen in Russia since the 1990s.

Tightening the screws on dissent is a sign opposition is growing, not ebbing. The nastier Russia gets, the more acutely aware the Kremlin is of its unpopularity. Invading Ukraine was the worst decision a Russian leader has made since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. We know how that misadventure ended.

The pandemic caused economic and emotional stress in every society, leaving citizens less tolerant of poor managers and outdated dogma. Even the United Kingdom swiftly ejected two prime ministers over issues of conduct and incompetence, not long after their ruling Conservative Party had won a landslide victory at the last election.

The economic fallout from the pandemic is also the backdrop for another dazzling failure of autocracy, in Iran. But the focal point of recent protests has been the brutal treatment of teenagers for protesting mandatory headscarves. Killing a young woman for not wanting to dress more conservatively than her grandmother perhaps did (Iran was – as recently as the 1970s – secular) is grotesque in any society.

But it lit the touch paper in communities ravaged by years of sanctions, the pandemic, and persistent inflation of perhaps as much as 50%. Permit salaries and savings to diminish that much annually, and any elected government could expect to be ousted fast. In Iran’s cities, the violence around this dogma did not distract from the economic fury, but amplify it.

Well over half of Iran’s population was born in the 1990s, when the Islamic Revolution was already a decade old. A system born in the era of the landline is telling youth born into the world of fax machines how to behave in the era of quantum computing.

The pandemic hit Iran hard, and I witnessed in 2020 how poorly resourced Tehran’s hospitals were. When your parent is dying and you can’t get a ventilator for them, you don’t have time for a lengthy discourse blaming US sanctions imposed because of Iran’s confrontation of the American hegemony in the region. An emergency like Covid can damage what remains of the contract between ruling conservatives and citizens: If you cannot protect us from a disease at our time of need, then what is the purpose of the corruption, repression and rules on women’s dress?

The recent public confusion over whether the country’s morality police would be disbanded – a statement made by the prosecutor general which was later mauled – is a sign of government reform perhaps, but also an indication of how state power is not a tidy behemoth in Iran. There is debate, too, and here it clearly, with hundreds of corpses already underfoot, considered bending to popular will.

This stark and deadly repression does not at this time herald the demise of the Iranian regime. But it is perhaps a moment of irreversible acceptance that the people cannot just be Ctrl-Alt-Deleted when they don’t suit the state program. It is a recognition that even the best-resourced, most controlling and efficient of repressive regimes – China – has had to deal with.

The pandemic led Beijing to resort to mass control on a whole new level. Its solution to the disease ravaging the planet was to be the harshest of all – in limiting movement. The authorities’ favored tool – used to its limits – was the one almost every other society realized would not work indefinitely.

Until recently, Chinese citizens were still being welded into their homes in quarantine, and even burning to death in one tragic instance when they perhaps could have been rescued from a domestic fire. It’s perhaps the most damning indictment of China’s one-person rule this century.

The world has been on a steep learning curve, where social distancing, economic subsidies, vaccines, agonizing deaths and limited global travel have led most societies to now accept the Covid-esque persistent cough as part of what happens in winter. Yet China’s initial decision – stifle the disease – has barely evolved. Its vaccine program has faltered, yet its original tool of mass surveillance has not.

What is more remarkable is not protests breaking out under such an authoritarian yoke, but that President Xi Jinping did not presume they would.

Beijing appeared to have been taken by surprise, but also believed it could repress its way out of the unrest. The recent removal of significant parts of the quarantine and testing systems does not solve China’s Covid problems. It was simply their authorities’ only choice. And it is a badly timed one. China is not adequately vaccinated to cope with a massive rise in cases, particularly its elderly population, many experts argue. Even if 1% catch it badly, that is 14 million people in need of medical care – roughly the population of Zimbabwe.

Huge challenges require decision-makers of enormous ability. Xi has unparalleled power, evidenced when he sat by as his predecessor Hu Jintao was inexplicably led out during the highly choreographed closing moments of the recent National Congress. But it is pretty clear that Xi got the big decisions around Covid wrong. And that the country where SARS-Cov-2 first emerged is enduring the longest impact of the virus because of poor decisions by its leaders.

It is a problem for Xi. The singular selling point of autocratic power is that it is absolute: that you can get things done without the delay of debate and compromise that democratic systems endure.

The point is to be strong, implement decisions fast, and consider dissent the cost of tough, good decisions; not to appear strong, implement fast, and then change your mind publicly after months pursuing a bad idea. For Xi, it is also dangerous for a population to learn they can only truly communicate with their government through disobedience and protest.

It’s important to feel discomfort when extolling the virtues of modern democracy. It doesn’t really work. It is slow and encourages ego and half-measures. It keeps changing its mind and wasting endless resources while stumbling for the solution.

But it provides space for dissent and, more importantly, other, competing ideas. And, if you are forcing taxi drivers to fight in a war of choice you are losing, or shooting teenagers for taking off headscarves, or imprisoning people in their apartments to suppress a virus the rest of the world is living calmly with, alternative ideas are important.

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December 22, 2022
WTO rejects US ‘Made in China’ labeling on Hong Kong goods

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GENEVA — World Trade Organization arbitrators concluded Wednesday that the United States was out of line in requiring that products from Hong Kong be labeled as “Made in China,” a move that was part of Washington’s response to a crackdown on pro-democracy protests there in 2019-2020.

A WTO dispute panel found the U.S. violated its obligations under the trade body’s rules and rejected Washington’s argument that U.S. “essential security interests” allowed for such labeling. The panel said the situation did not pose an “emergency” that would justify such an exemption under the trade body’s rules.

The United States or Hong Kong could appeal the ruling to the WTO’s appeals court. However, the Appellate Body is currently inactive because the U.S. has almost single-handedly held up appointments of new members to the court amid concerns it had exceeded its mandate. So any such appeal would go into an arbitration void and remain unsettled.

The United States Trade Representative’s office indicated it would ignore Wednesday’s ruling anyway.

“The United States does not intend to remove the marking requirement as a result of this report, and we will not cede our judgment or decision-making over essential security matters to the WTO,” USTR spokesperson Adam Hodge said in a statement.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, is one of China’s special administrative regions and is considered a separate trading entity from China.

At a press briefing Thursday, Hong Kong’s commerce minister Algernon Yau said he had written to the USTR urging the U.S. to drop the label requirement.

The U.S. market only accounts for about 0.1% of Hong Kong’s exports, but the requirement has caused “unnecessary concern” for manufacturers, he said.

“Even though the financial implication is minimal, it caused a lot of confusion to the customers regarding ‘Made in Hong Kong’ or ‘Made in China,’” he said.

Three decades ago, the U.S. Congress passed a law allowing products from Hong Kong to benefit from a trading status different from China’s, and potentially lower tariffs, if it remained sufficiently autonomous. By marking products as “Made in China,” the U.S. can ratchet up the tariffs it levies on goods from Hong Kong.

Mass protests persisted for months in Hong Kong in 2019-2020. They abated after Beijing imposed a National Security Law, using it to silence or jail many pro-democracy activists.

In July 2020, then-U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order saying that Hong Kong was “no longer sufficiently autonomous to justify differential treatment in relation to the People’s Republic of China.”

———

Associated Press writer Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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December 21, 2022
Christmas comes early: Ukrainian church allows December 25 celebrations for first time

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KYIV — Ukraine’s Orthodox worshippers have always celebrated Christmas on January 7 — but that will change for many this year, with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) for the first time allowing its congregations to celebrate on December 25.

This move creates a dividing line with Russia, which celebrates on January 7, and is likely to widen a rift between Ukraine’s two feuding churches.

In 2018, the OCU split from the similarly named Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which is seen as politically linked to Moscow and is facing public demands for its closure amid accusations that it is a hotbed of fifth columnists — that is, people who support and secretly help the enemies of the country they live in.

Indeed, the OCU’s decision to allow a shift of Christmas observance to December 25 (for those who want to) has already infuriated the Russian-oriented UOC.

“We are giving people the option to celebrate on a different day,” said Archbishop Yevstratiy Zoria of the OCU in Kyiv.

Yevstratiy told POLITICO there had been a groundswell for a change since 2017, when December 25 became a public holiday in Ukraine. Many of the church’s adherents had lobbied for a move away from the Julian calendar, which is observed by the Russian Orthodox Church.

The calls for the switch have only grown louder since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting the OCU to allow its 7,000 parishes to hold full religious services on December 25, if desired.

According to Yevstratiy, already before the invasion, more than a third of Ukrainians wanted to change to the Gregorian calendar. “The numbers are probably higher now, and we are having an experiment to try to understand what worshippers really want,” he said.

“We are not moving the day of Christmas,” he added. “This will be an additional day of worship,” with celebrations held in accordance with the official Julian church calendar.

In the meantime, the church will “consider what to do in the future, and we will observe closely how many congregations take up the opportunity to celebrate on December 25,” Yevstratiy continued.

Despite opposition from the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, in 2019 the OCU was granted ecclesiastical independence by Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople — considered the spiritual leader of Orthodox believers worldwide. His decision revoked a centuries-old agreement that granted the patriarch in Moscow authority over the church in Ukraine.

Political differences underpin the the split between the churches of the predominantly Orthodox nation: Western-oriented OCU churches offered support to the Maidan protesters of 2014, which toppled Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow’s viceroy in Ukraine. Over recent years, the church been a strong advocate of Ukrainian statehood and sovereignty.

The Russian-tied UOC claimed in May to have ended its subordination to Moscow’s Metropolitan Kirill, a vociferous supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin — although few believe the split is sincere. The church’s spokesperson, Metropolitan Klyment, dismissed as a political stunt the OCU’s decision to allow its congregants to celebrate on December 25, claiming it as evidence of how the rival church is not a religious institution but a political organization eager to do the government’s bidding.

“Families historically are used to celebrating on [January 7],” he told POLITICO. “The people who go to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are not requesting any change,” he said. “It has been four years since the government announced December 25 as an official holiday, and since then, you have not seen people celebrating it as Christmas Day,” he added.

The Kyiv-headquartered UOC dismisses the charge that its decision to allow congregations to celebrate Christmas on December 25 has anything to do with politics. Instead, it is merely responding to “numerous requests and taking into account the discussion that has been going on for many years in the church and in society.”

The OCU response to the new Christmas option, says Archbishop Yevstratiy, is par for the course. “They have always treated us as a political group. They don’t accept us as a religious organization or as a church,” he said.

“It is very similar to how Russia treats Ukraine in general,” he continued. “From our side, we have often offered to start a dialogue without any preconditions, but they generally don’t respond — and when they do, they insist we acknowledge that we are not a church, have no canonical rights and that our clergy are not clergy.”

More than 1,600 parishes have defected from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church since it was recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople — about 1,000 of them since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582; the Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar, harks back to 46 B.C.

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Jamie Dettmer

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December 19, 2022
Tunisians vote for parliament amid economic, democracy vows

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TUNIS, Tunisia — Tunisians are voting to elect a new parliament on Saturday, to the backdrop of a soaring cost-of-living crisis and concerns of democracy backsliding in the North African country — the cradle of Arab Spring protests a decade ago.

Opposition parties — including the Salvation Front coalition that the popular Ennahda party is part of — are boycotting the polls because they say the vote is part of President Kais Saied’s efforts to consolidate power. The decision to boycott will likely lead to the next legislature being subservient to the president, whom critics accuse of authoritarian drift.

Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and are scheduled to close at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT).

Parliament last met in July 2021. Saied then froze the legislature and dismissed his government after years of political deadlock and economic stagnation. He dissolved parliament in March. Since then, Saied, who was elected in 2019 and still enjoys the backing of more than half of the electorate, has also curbed the independence of the judiciary and weakened parliament’s powers.

In a referendum in July, Tunisians approved a constitution that hands broad executive powers to the president. Saied, who spearheaded the project and wrote the text himself, made full use of the mandate in September, changing the electoral law to diminish the role of political parties.

The new law reduces the number of member of the lower house of parliament from 217 to 161, who are now to be elected directly instead of via a party list. And lawmakers who “do not fulfil their roles” can be removed if 10% of their constituents lodge a formal request.

Critics say the electoral law reforms have hit women particularly hard. Only 127 women are among the 1,055 candidates running in Saturday’s election.

Saied’s critics accuse him of endangering the democratic process. But many others believe that scrapping the party lists puts individuals ahead of political parties and will improve elected officials’ accountability. They are exasperated with political elites, welcome their increasingly autocratic president’s political reforms and see the vote for a new parliament as a chance to solve their dire economic crisis.

Many believe their country’s decade-old democratic revolution has failed, a decade after Tunisia was the only nation to emerge from the Arab Spring protests with a democratic government.

The vote comes on the 12th anniversary of the event that sparked the Arab Spring — when a Tunisian fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire because of the dire economic situation under the long-time strongman rule of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. He died weeks later. His act of desperation prompted protests that led to the dictator’s ouster and provoked similar uprisings around the Arab world.

———

Surk contributed from Nice, France.

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December 17, 2022
Europe troubled but powerless over Twitter’s journalist ban

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European politicians said they were troubled by Twitter’s suspension of U.S. journalists from its platform but the move shows the limits of their planned new rules for online content and media freedom online.

France’s digital affairs minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he was “dismayed” about the direction Twitter was taking under Elon Musk after the platform removed nine U.S. journalists and other high-profile accounts in a seemingly arbitrary decision.

“Freedom of the press is the very foundation of democracy. To attack one is to attack the other,” Barrot tweeted.

European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová called the “arbitrary” removal of journalists worrying. French industry minister Roland Lescure announced he was temporarily quitting the platform in protest.

The Twitter ban for tech journalists from media organizations such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN appeared to come after they criticized the tech billionaire and self-proclaimed free speech advocate and wrote about the suspension of more than 20 accounts for sharing publicly available information about Musk’s private jet location.

“Talking a lot about #FreeSpeech, but stopping it as soon as one is criticized oneself: that’s a strange understanding of #FreedomOfExpression,” said Germany’s Justice Minister Marc Buschmann.

The German Foreign Affairs Ministry’s own Twitter account said press freedom should not “be switched on and off arbitrarily.”

Twitter has been mired in controversy since it was acquired by Musk in October and shed staff that worked on content moderation and policy affairs. The platform is now struggling to stem disinformation, potentially falling foul of commitments it took in June 2022. This week the company disbanded its board of experts advising the company on its content policy.

But restricting journalists’ access to a platform loved by the press risks a serious blow to media freedom and free speech. None of the banned journalists received an explanation of the social media platform’s decision. It was unclear if and when they would be allowed back on the platform. There had been calls to join alternatives such as Mastodon but links to it have reportedly been blocked on Twitter. The account for the open-source platform was also blocked.

Flying by EU rules?

In Brussels, politicians have pointed to the European Union’s legislative arsenal as a powerful tool to curb platforms’ power, with Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton insisting in October that Twitter’s bird logo “will fly by our rules” in the region.

Those laws or proposals aren’t yet ready for use and can’t yet counter Musk’s unilateral decisions for the platform he owns. The Commission is preparing to enforce the EU’s content law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), from summer 2023. The new Media Freedom Act is also being negotiated and may not become law until at least late 2024.

The DSA — and its ability to levy hefty fines — would require lengthy investigations by a Commission team that isn’t yet fully in place. The Media Freedom Act doesn’t specifically tackle an issue such as “deplatforming” or removing a person from a social network like Twitter.

The Commission’s Jourová warned Twitter about the possibility of future penalties under the DSA — up to 6 percent of a company’s global revenue if they restrict EU-based users and content in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner.

Twitter could also be sanctioned in the future if it doesn’t tell users why they have been sanctioned. Large online platforms with over 45 million users in the EU will have to assess and limit potential harms to freedom of expression and information as well as media freedom and pluralism.

“EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct,” she tweeted. “@elonmusk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”

Politicians’ threats don’t reassure media and journalists’ organizations.

“The European legal arsenal is not sufficient to oppose acts of arbitrary censorship,” said Ricardo Gutierrez, general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ).

The draft Media Freedom Act largely aims at how Big Tech might treat news organizations. Very large online platforms would have to inform news outlets before they take down their content. It also foresees talks between media organizations and big social media to discuss content moderation problems.

Wouter Gekiere from the European Broadcasting Union in Brussels echoed similar worries saying public media services couldn’t see how the DSA could prevent takedowns of journalists’ accounts.

“The European Media Freedom Act would not do much more to protect the media online,” he said.” Journalists and editors need to have the ability to report on stories without fear of arbitrary platform controls.”

Laura Kayali and Mark Scott contributed reporting.

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Clothilde Goujard

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December 15, 2022
Hong Kong leader to press China anthem request with Google

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HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s leader said Tuesday he will push Google to display China’s national anthem as the top result in searches for the city’s anthem instead of a protest song.

The comments by John Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive, followed several big sporting events — including a rugby tournament in South Korea and powerlifting event in Dubai — where the pro-democracy protest song “Glory to Hong Kong” was played as the city’s anthem instead of the Chinese national anthem, “March of the Volunteers.”

“There are ways to do it, it’s a matter of whether a company acts responsibly and respect the importance of (a) national anthem in the global context,” Lee said in a briefing. He said he would continue to press Google to make that change.

Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Lee’s comments come a day after the city’s security chief Chris Tang said a request for Google to replace the “Glory to Hong Kong” protest anthem with China’s national anthem as the top search result had been refused.

According to Tang, Google had said that such results were generated by an algorithm and did not involve human input.

“Glory to Hong Kong” became popular during months of anti-government protests in 2019. It is widely considered as banned now after a national security law was enacted, cracking down on political dissent.

Authorities have said that the phrase “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” — a popular protest slogan that is part of the song’s lyrics — was considered separatist and subversive under the national security law.

Hong Kong is a former British colony and semi-autonomous region of China, with its own customs territory and legal system. Chinese leaders pledged to respect its civil liberties and way of life for at least a half-century after the city was handed over to Beijing’s control in 1997. But the communist-ruled mainland has expanded its influence over the territory in the past several years, jailing pro-democracy activists and taking a harsh stance toward protests.

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December 13, 2022
Hong Kong publisher’s security trial further delayed

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HONG KONG — The national security trial of a Hong Kong pro-democracy publisher was further postponed Tuesday to next September as the city awaits Beijing’s ruling that could effectively block him from hiring a British defense lawyer.

Jimmy Lai, who was arrested in August 2020 during a crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement, is fighting charges of endangering national security. The 75-year-old founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily faces up to life in prison if convicted under a sweeping National Security Law imposed by Beijing.

His high-profile trial, which was originally scheduled to begin on Dec. 1, was already delayed earlier this month after Hong Kong leader John Lee asked China’s top legislative body to decide whether foreign lawyers who don’t normally practice in Hong Kong could be involved in national security cases.

Lee made the request hours after the city’s highest court approved Lai’s plan to employ Timothy Owen, a veteran human rights lawyer.

If Beijing intervenes, that would mark the sixth time the Communist-ruled government has stepped in despite its promise to respect Hong Kong’s judicial independence and civil liberties for at least 50 years after China took over from Britain in 1997.

Members of China’s top lawmaking body are expected to meet in late December. But the law’s interpretation was not part of the meeting’s agendas reported by China’s official Xinhua News Agency last Friday. Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the body said Monday that in some previous events, new agendas were only being added during the meeting. But Tam Yiu-chung could not tell how the committee would handle Lee’s request.

Judge Esther Toh scheduled the trial to begin Sept. 25, 2023, in light of the latest development and taking the schedules of the court and lawyers into account. It is expected to end Nov. 21.

Owen left Hong Kong after the immigration department denied his visa extension while the authorities were still waiting on Beijing’s decision, Lai’s lawyer said.

Lai is accused of conspiring with others in hostile activities against Hong Kong or China, such as calling for sanctions. He also faces a charge of collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security, and a separate sedition charge under a colonial-era law that is increasingly used to crush dissent.

He was sentenced Saturday to five years and nine months in jail over fraud, after completing a 20-month jail term for his role in unauthorized assemblies.

The U.S. Department of State spokesperson Ned Price condemned the latest sentencing Sunday on Twitter, calling on China’s authorities to respect Hong Kong’s freedom of expression, including for the press.

In response, the Hong Kong government said the statement was political interference in the city’s judicial system, adding the fraud case had nothing to do with press or speech freedoms.

Meanwhile, former Stand News editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen, who was accused of conspiring to publish seditious materials, secured bail Tuesday in a separate court hearing after being held in custody for almost a year. The now-shuttered Stand News was one of the city’s last news media that openly criticized the government after the closure of Apple Daily.

Chung and his former colleague Patrick Lam were charged under a colonial-era sedition law that has been used increasingly to silence critical voices in the city. Lam was granted bail last month.

Hong Kong fell more than 60 places to 148th place in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index released in May. The global media watchdog cited the closure of the two outlets in its rating.

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December 12, 2022
A few bad apples or a whole rotten barrel? Brussels wrestles with corruption scandal

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As Belgian police launched a second wave of raids on the European Parliament, a stunned Brussels elite has started to grapple with an uncomfortable question at the heart of the Qatar bribery investigation: Just how deep does the rot go?

So far, police inquiries launched by Belgian prosecutor Michel Claise have landed four people in jail, including Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili, on charges of corruption, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization.

After the initial shock of those arrests wore off, several Parliament officials told POLITICO they believed the allegations would be limited to a “few individuals” who had gone astray by allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of euros in cash from Qatari interests.

But that theory was starting to unravel by Monday evening, as Belgian police carried out another series of raids on Parliament offices just as lawmakers were gathering in Strasbourg, one of European Parliament’s two sites, for their first meeting after news of the arrests broke on Friday.

With 19 residences and offices searched — in addition to Parliament — six people arrested and sums of at least around €1 million recovered, some EU officials and activists said they believed more names would be drawn into the widening dragnet — and that the Qatar bribery scandal was symptomatic of a much deeper and more widespread problem with corruption not just in the European Parliament, but across all the EU institutions.

In Parliament, lax oversight of members’ financial activities and the fact that states were able to contact them without ever logging the encounters in a public register amounts to a recipe for corruption, these critics argued.

Beyond the Parliament, they pointed to the revolving door of senior officials who head off to serve private interests after a stint at the European Commission or Council as proof that tougher oversight of institutions is in order. Others invoked the legacy of the Jacques Santer Commission — which resigned en masse in 1998 — as proof that no EU institution is immune from illegal influence.

“The courts will determine who is guilty, but what’s certain is that it’s not just Qatar, and it’s not just the individuals who have been named who are involved” in foreign influence operations, Raphaël Glucksmann, a French lawmaker from the Socialists and Democrats, who heads a committee against foreign interference in Parliament, told POLITICO in Strasbourg.

Michiel van Hulten, a former lawmaker who now heads Transparency International’s EU office, said that while egregious cases of corruption involving bags of cash were rare, “it’s quite likely that there are names in this scandal that we haven’t heard from yet. There is undue influence on a scale we haven’t seen so far. It doesn’t need to involve bags of cash. It can involve trips to far-flung destinations paid for by foreign organizations — and in that sense there is a more widespread problem.”

Adding to the problem was the fact that Parliament has no built-in protections for internal whistleblowers, despite having voted in favor of such protections for EU citizens, he added. Back in 1998, it was a whistleblower denouncing mismanagement in the Santer Commission who precipitated a mass resignation of the EU executive.

Glucksmann also called for “extremely profound reforms” to a system that allows lawmakers to hold more than one job, leaves oversight of personal finances up to a self-regulating committee staffed by lawmakers, and gives state actors access to lawmakers without having to register their encounters publicly.

European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili | Jalal Morchidi/EFE via EPA

“If Parliament wants to get out of this, we’ll have to hit hard and undertake extremely profound reforms,” added Glucksmann, who previously named Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan as countries that have sought to influence political decisions in the Parliament.

To start addressing the problem, Glucksmann called for an ad hoc investigative committee to be set up in Parliament, while other left-wing and Greens lawmakers have urged reforms including naming an anti-corruption vice president to replace Kaili, who was expelled from the S&D group late Monday, and setting up an ethics committee overseeing all EU institutions.

Glass half-full

Others, however, were less convinced that the corruption probe would turn up new names, or that the facts unveiled last Friday spoke to any wider problem in the EU. Asked about the extent of the bribery scandal, one senior Parliament official who asked not to be named in order to discuss confidential deliberations said: “As serious as this is, it’s a matter of individuals, of a few people who made very bad decisions. The investigation and arrests show that our systems and procedures have worked.”

Valérie Hayer, a French lawmaker with the centrist Renew group, struck a similar note, saying that while she was deeply concerned about a “risk for our democracy” linked to foreign interference, she did not believe that the scandal pointed to “generalized corruption” in the EU. “Unfortunately, there are bad apples,” she said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who’s under fire over her handling of COVID-19 vaccination deals with Pfizer, declined to answer questions about her Vice President Margaritis Schinas’ relations with Qatar at a press briefing, triggering fury from the Brussels press corps.

The Greek commissioner represented the EU at the opening ceremony of the World Cup last month, and has been criticized by MEPs over his tweets in recent months, lavishing praise on Qatar’s labor reforms.

European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas | Aris Oikonomou/AFP via Getty Images

Asked about the Commission’s response to the Qatar corruption scandal engulfing the European Parliament, and in particular the stance of Schinas, von der Leyen was silent on the Greek commissioner.

Von der Leyen did, however, appear to lend support to the creation of an independent ethics body that could investigate wrongdoing across all EU bodies.

“These rules [on lobbying by state actors] are the same in all three EU institutions,” said the senior Parliament official, referring to the European Commission, Parliament and the European Council, the roundtable of EU governments.

The split over how to address corruption shows how even in the face of what appears to be an egregious example of corruption, members of the Brussels system — comprised of thousands of well-paid bureaucrats and elected officials, many of whom enjoy legal immunity as part of their jobs — seeks to shield itself against scrutiny that could threaten revenue or derail careers.

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Nicholas Vinocur and Nicolas Camut

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December 8, 2022
Blinken threatens travel ban for Sudanese who endanger deal

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CAIRO — Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Sudanese leaders Wednesday that the United States will impose a travel ban on any individuals who threaten to derail Sudan’s fragile democratic transition.

The announcement comes two days after Sudan’s two ruling generals, Abdel-Fattah Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, and its main pro-democracy group, the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, signed a ‘’framework agreement.’’ The deal would see its military step back from power and the establishment of a new civilian-led transitional government. Various other political parties and organizations also signed the deal.

In a statement issued Wednesday morning, Blinken commended Monday’s deal, brokered by the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. He then added that a travel ban would be imposed on any will individuals ‘’believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic transition in Sudan.‘’

Sudan’s framework deal appears to offer only the roughest outlines for how Sudan will resume its fragile progression to democracy, with key political players having refused to sign the agreement. The deal also ducked thornier issues concerning transitional justice and the implementation of military reform.

The U.N. special envoy for Sudan, Volker Perthes, called the political framework agreement “an important breakthrough.”

But in a video briefing from Khartoum to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, he cautioned that “critical contentious issues still need to be addressed in the final agreement.”

These include reforming the security sector and merging rival forces, ensuring transitional justice, and implementing a peace agreement signed in Juba in 2020 by Sudan’s transitional government and several armed groups.

Perthes said the U.N. would also like to have an exchange in the next phase of talks on the economic and development priorities of a new government.

He warned that this week’s encouraging progress on the political track “can still be derailed by challenges and spoilers.” As a final agreement gets closer, Perthes said, “those who don’t see their interests advanced by a political settlement may escalate attempts to undermine the process.”

Several former rebel leaders, who have formed their own political bloc, are absent from the agreement. Also missing are Sudan’s sprawling grassroots pro-democracy Resistance Committees, which have refused to negotiate with Sudan’s military leaders.

‘‘Recognizing the fragility of democratic transitions, the United States will hold to account spoilers — whether military or political actors.’’ Blinken said. Further negotiations for a more inclusive agreement are expected to take place shortly.

Sudan has been in turmoil since the country’s leading military figure, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, led a coup in October 2021 that upended the country’s previous democratic transition following three decades of autocratic rule by Omar al-Bashir.

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December 7, 2022
Sudan’s generals, pro-democracy group ink deal to end crisis

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KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan’s coup leaders and the main pro-democracy group signed a deal Monday to establish a civilian-led transitional government following the military takeover last year. But key players refused to participate, and no deadline was set for the transition to begin.

The framework — signed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo and the leaders of the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — appears to offer only the broadest outlines for how the country will resume its progression to democracy. That process was upended in October 2021, when Burhan unseated the civilian half of Sudan’s ruling Sovereignty Council with Dagolo’s backing.

Since the coup, international aid has dried up and bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become routine, plunging Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. Security forces have ruthlessly suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches. Deadly tribal clashes have flared in the country’s neglected peripheries.

It’s not clear whether or how quickly the deal signed Monday can offer a way out for Sudan, given that it appears to leave many thorny issues unresolved and doesn’t have the support of key political forces, including the grassroots pro-democracy Resistance Committees. That network’s leaders called for demonstrations against the agreement.

Several former rebel leaders, who have formed their own political bloc, have also rejected the deal.

Many of the points in a draft of the deal were already promised in a 2020 agreement that saw Sudan’s previous transitional government make peace with several rebels in Sudan’s far-flung provinces.

According to the draft, the deal envisions Sudan’s military eventually stepping back from politics. The document says it will form part of a new ’’security and defense council” under the appointed prime minister. But it does not address how to reform the armed forces, saying only they should be unified and controls should be imposed on military-owned companies.

It makes specific mention of Sudan’s wealthy paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces, headed by Dagalo. The force amassed wealth through its gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions and gold reserves in recent years.

It also does not address creating a transitional judiciary system or say when the transitional government will be put in place. Only then will a two-year transition officially begin — the end goal of which is elections.

Analysts have cast doubt over whether the aims of the agreement are achievable, given its lack of detail on key issues and the boycott of key players.

‘‘Realistically none of these complex processes can be dealt with within a transitional time frame of two years,’’ said Kholood Khair, founder and director of Confluence Advisory, a think tank in Khartoum.

Sudan has been plunged into turmoil since the coup threw off course a democratic transition that began after three decades of autocratic rule by President Omar al-Bashir. The former leader was toppled in April 2019, following a popular uprising.

The U.N. special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, attended Monday’s signing and later, at a speech at the palace, described the deal as ‘‘Sudanese-owned and Sudanese-led.’’

Monday’s development came after months of negotiations between the military and the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, facilitated by a mediating team of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Britain.

In a joint statement issued after the signing, the four countries commended the agreement.

“A concerted effort to finalize negotiations and reach agreement quickly to form a new civilian-led government is essential to address Sudan’s urgent political, economic, security, and humanitarian challenges,” the group said.

The hope is the deal could draw in new international aid, after donor funds dried up in response to the coup.

Sudan has also seen a sharp increase in inter-tribal violence in the country’s west and south. In the southern Blue Nile province, two days of clashes between the Berta and Hausa killed over 170 peopl e in October. Last month some 48 were killed in tribal clashes in Darfur. Many commentators have attributed the rising tribal violence to the power vacuum caused by last year’s military takeover and the subsequent political and economic crisis.

———

Jeffery reported from Cairo.

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December 5, 2022
Hong Kong publisher Lai faces Security Law in delayed trial

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HONG KONG — Jimmy Lai broke into Hong Kong’s rambunctious media world 30 years ago armed with the belief that delivering information equates with protecting freedom.

Lai’s own freedom is at stake as he fights charges of endangering national security as former publisher of his now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

Already serving a 20-month term for other offenses, the 74-year-old Lai could face up to life in prison if he is convicted under a sweeping National Security Law that Beijing has imposed on the former British colony, silencing or jailing many pro-democracy activists.

The high-profile trial was to begin Thursday but was postponed due to a request from Hong Kong’s Department of Justice based on its objection over whether Lai’s British lawyer will be allowed to defend him. Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader John Lee has asked China to issue a ruling that could block veteran barrister Timothy Owen from representing Lai.

If Beijing intervenes, that would mark the sixth time the Communist-ruled government has stepped in despite its promise to respect Hong Kong’s judicial independence and civil liberties for at least 50 years after China took over from Britain in 1997.

The Department of Justice has asked for the trial, which will be overseen by three judges, to be suspended pending a decision from Beijing about Lai’s defense lawyer.

Lai’s legal troubles derailed a stunning career for a man smuggled into Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland at age 12.

After getting only a primary school education, he started out working in a glove factory and sprinted up the ranks to found the casual clothing chain Giordano in 1981. Following the crackdown on 1989 student-led pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, he became an outspoken advocate for democracy, founding Next Magazine the year after.

Attacks on Giordano by the Chinese government prompted Lai to sell his shares in the business and devote himself to the media world.

In 1995, Lai launched the Apple Daily, which quickly became one of the city’s top selling newspapers with its sometimes outrageous coverage of politics and celebrities. The publication survived a newspaper price war and expanded into Taiwan in the 2000s.

Apple Daily pioneered the use of short animated films online to accompany news reports. Its investigative scoops and critical reports on the government attracted a strong following. Apple Daily also adopted a strong pro-democracy stance, often urging readers to join protests.

Lai participated in mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019, meeting with then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss since-withdrawn legislation that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

Opposition to the bill morphed into months of sometimes violent protests as demands for greater democracy in Hong Kong escalated.

The protest movement, which eventually was snuffed out, lacked any clear leader, but Lai’s high profile made him a target of the authorities.

Apple Daily denounced the enactment of the National Security Law in June 2020. Lai told The Associated Press that “Hong Kong is dead,” but said he would stay.

“If I leave, not only do I disgrace myself, I’d discredit Apple Daily, I’d undermine the solidarity of the democratic movement,” he said.

In August that year, Lai was arrested on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces. More than 200 officers raided the offices of Next Digital, Apple Daily’s parent company. Arrests of its top executives, editors and journalists and the freezing of $2.3 million worth of assets forced the newspaper to shut down in June 2021. It sold a million copies of its final edition.

In recent hearings, Lai has appeared tanned, possibly due to outdoors time in Stanley Prison — the city’s largest maximum security lockup — and in good spirits. People who have been in touch with him have noted that he is turning to his Roman Catholic faith in prison, with a friend who wished to remain anonymous due to the issue’s sensitivity saying Lai drew the figure of Jesus on the cross in the letters he sent to others.

Lai is charged with two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one charge of collusion under the National Security Law. His trial is Hong Kong’s first to center on allegations of “collusion with foreign forces.” Lai also was charged with sedition under a colonial-era law that has been used to quash dissent.

Next month, Lai is due to be sentenced for alleged fraud related to subletting office space to a company he also controlled.

In an interview in July 2020, Lai seemed unfazed.

“If I have to go to prison, I don’t mind. I don’t care,” he said. “I cannot worry, because you never know what kind of measures they will take against me.”

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November 30, 2022
Hong Kong finds 90-year-old cardinal guilty over pro-democracy protest fund | CNN

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Hong Kong
CNN
—

A 90-year-old former bishop and outspoken critic of China’s ruling Communist Party was found guilty Friday on a charge relating to his role in a relief fund for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Cardinal Joseph Zen and five others, including the Cantopop singer Denise Ho, contravened the Societies Ordinance by failing to register the now-defunct “612 Humanitarian Relief Fund” that was partly used to pay protesters’ legal and medical fees, the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts ruled.

The silver-haired cardinal, who appeared in court with a walking stick, and his co-defendants had all denied the charge.

The case is considered a marker of political freedom in Hong Kong during an ongoing crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, and comes at a sensitive time for the Vatican, which is preparing to renew a controversial deal with Beijing over the appointment of bishops in China.

Outside the court, Zen told reporters that he hoped people wouldn’t link his conviction to religious freedom.

“I saw many people overseas are concerned about a cardinal being arrested. It is not related to religious freedom. I am part of the fund. (Hong Kong) has not seen damage (to) its religious freedom,” Zen said.

Zen and four other trustees of the fund – singer Ho, barrister Margaret Ng, scholar Hui Po Keung, and politician Cyd Ho – were sentenced to fines of HK$4,000 ($510) each.

A sixth defendant, Sze Ching-wee, who was the fund’s secretary, was fined HK$2,500 ($320).

All had initially been charged under the controversial Beijing-backed national security law for colluding with foreign forces, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Those charges were dropped and they instead faced a lesser charge under the Societies Ordinance, a century-old colonial-era law punishable with fines of up to HK$10,000 ($1,274) but not jail time for first-time offenders.

The court heard in September that the legal fund raised the equivalent of $34.4 million through 100,000 deposits.

In addition to providing financial aid to protesters, the fund was also used to sponsor pro-democracy rallies, such as paying for audio equipment used in 2019 during street protests to resist Beijing’s tightening grip.

Although Zen and the other five defendants were spared from being charged under the national security law, the legislation imposed by Beijing over Hong Kong in June 2020 in a bid to quell the protests has repeatedly been used to curb dissent.

Since the imposition of the law, most of the city’s prominent pro-democracy figures have either been arrested or gone into exile, while several independent media outlets and non-government organizations have been shuttered.

The Hong Kong government has repeatedly denied criticism that the law – which criminalizes acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces – has stifled freedoms, claiming instead it has restored order in the city after the 2019 protest movement.

Hong Kong’s prosecution of one of Asia’s most senior clergyman has cast the relationship between Beijing and the Holy See into sharp focus.

Zen has strongly opposed a controversial agreement struck in 2018 between the Vatican and China over the appointment of bishops. Previously both sides had demanded the final say on bishop appointments in mainland China, where religious activities are heavily monitored and sometimes banned.

Born to Catholic parents in Shanghai in 1932, Zen fled to Hong Kong with his family to escape looming Communist rule as a teenager. He was ordained as a priest in 1961 and made Bishop of Hong Kong in 2002, before retiring in 2009.

Known as the “conscience of Hong Kong” among his supporters, Zen has long been a prominent advocate for democracy, human rights and religious freedom. He has been on the front lines of some of the city’s most important protests, from the mass rally against national security legislation in 2003 to the “Umbrella Movement” demanding universal suffrage in 2014.

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November 24, 2022
Orbán’s new public enemy: A Twitter-savvy US ambassador calling out conspiracies

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BUDAPEST — On an early morning drive from his residence to the U.S. Embassy, David Pressman kept a close eye on his surroundings.

Look, the new U.S. ambassador to Hungary said, pointing out the government-funded billboards dotting Budapest’s streets.

“The Brussels sanctions are ruining us!” they declared, the word “sanctions” emblazoned across a flying bomb.

One by one, the posters whizzed by, blaring the same ominous warning.

These types of signs have been a feature of the Budapest landscape for years, spinning up a conspiratorial gallery of foreign enemies Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used to instill fear and anger in the Hungarian population as he vies to keep his grip on power.

But historically, the U.S. — like many of its Western partners — has stayed relatively quiet in public about these targeted messaging campaigns and the rise of anti-Western government rhetoric, which often reflected the country’s democratic backsliding and the local influence of Russian propaganda.

With Pressman, that has changed. Pressman’s presence alone is an implicit rebuke of Orbán’s strongman, culture wars agenda. Pressman is a human rights lawyer, has a male partner and has worked closely with George Clooney, a totem of the Fox News-caricatured “Hollywood liberal elite.”

And in just two months on the job, the new American ambassador has become a household name in Budapest for his willingness to call out — and even troll — the Orbán government’s overtly propagandistic and conspiratorial bombast.

There is, Pressman said in his first interview since taking his post, a “need to be both respectful and more candid about what we’re seeing.”

Recently, the U.S. embassy posted a once-unthinkable video quiz challenging people to guess whether quotes came from Hungarian public figures or Russian President Vladimir Putin. The answer, of course, was never Putin.

“I’m concerned when I see missiles flying from Moscow into children’s playgrounds in Kyiv — and see the foreign minister of Hungary flying into Moscow to do Facebook Live conferences from Gazprom headquarters,” the ambassador told POLITICO.

For this approach, Pressman has become the latest foreign enemy in Budapest.

In a country that recently banned the portrayal of LGBTQ+ content to minors, Pressman has put his personal life on display | Janka Szitas/U.S. Embassy Budapest

The newspapers cover him regularly — “Clown diplomacy,” one declared. State-owned and Orbán-friendly TV channels are similarly obsessed, portraying the American ambassador as a secretive colonial overlord sent to meddle in Hungary’s internal affairs.

And in a country that recently banned the portrayal of LGBTQ+ content to minors, Pressman has put his personal life on display, posting photos of his partner and their two kids as they arrived to present his diplomatic credentials.

“I think it speaks for itself,” Pressman said. “Sometimes the power of example,” he added, “is the most powerful way we can communicate about shared values and concerns.”

In many ways, Pressman’s story is emblematic of the evolution of the broader relationship between the U.S. and Hungary. For years, an ambassador posting in Budapest was primarily considered a symbolic role, reserved for wealthy political donors with no foreign policy expertise.

Hungary, the thinking went, was a reliable European Union and NATO member that required little extra attention in Washington. But the erosion of democratic norms — combined with Moscow’s influence in Budapest and Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine — has changed the calculus.

“The stakes right now are huge,” the ambassador said. “The politicization and partisanization of the relationship,” he added, “is not sustainable.”

A pragmatic idealist

Pressman, unlike many of his predecessors, is no novice to U.S. foreign policy.

As a young lawyer, he teamed up with Clooney on a campaign to get those in power to pay attention to atrocities in Darfur — later earning the nickname “Cuz” from Clooney. He also made stops as an aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as a Homeland Security Department official and a White House staffer during the Obama years. In 2014, he landed in New York as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for special political affairs.

Those experiences — and his resulting relationships across government — have given Pressman the backing to make significant changes to how the U.S. approaches Orbán’s government.

Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author-turned-diplomat, was the one who brought the then-32-year-old Pressman to the White House before working closely together in New York when she became U.N. ambassador. Pressman, she said, was her go-to person for tough assignments.

Once, she recalled, her staff needed to convince China to join sanctions against North Korea after a nuclear test.

“David,” she told POLITICO, “is a person that I entrusted in the day-to-day to work with the Chinese ambassador to extract as robust a set of sanctions as possible.”

“When we see insane Kremlin stories being re-propagated in the Hungarian media, we’re gonna call that out, because we have to”, David Pressman said | Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty images

Pressman, Power recounted, was so well-prepared that it was as if he “got a PhD in iron ore trafficking.” His prep work also paid off. “No one had invested more in advance of the nuclear tests in a relationship with his Chinese counterpart that he could then call upon when it mattered for the United States,” she added.

Now, Hungary matters for the United States. In the last 12 years, Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party has taken control of much of the media landscape, placed allies at the helm of independent state institutions, channeled government resources into political campaigning and nurtured ties to Moscow and Beijing. The development has strained the bedrock of the global democratic order.

On a recent fall day, the ambassador invited POLITICO to visit his home at 7:30 in the morning, as his sons were getting ready to leave for school. He then spent the day racing between meetings with anti-corruption experts, a founding member of Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party, Hungarian students and a fellow ambassador.

At the discussion with anti-corruption campaigners, Pressman placed a large notebook on the table and began scribbling as he tossed out a flurry of questions: Who is involved? How does this work? How do you know that?

Later, Pressman popped into a graffiti-decorated pub and took his seat among a cluster of high school and university students. Again, the questions came quickly: How do your peers see the U.S.? Is there anyone in the government you trust? What comes to mind on Russia?

Pressman is known as an idealist. As the White House National Security Council’s director for war crimes and atrocities, he decorated his office — no bigger than two large filing cabinets — with photos of indicted war criminals the U.S. was trying to apprehend, Power recalled.

But he still professes a pragmatic approach. His goal, he insists, is to build relationships with the Hungarian government — even as he needles it over anti-democratic behavior. The two sides can work together, he noted.

“When we see insane Kremlin stories being re-propagated in the Hungarian media, we’re gonna call that out, because we have to,” he said.

But, Pressman added, “all of that is with the intent to pull us closer together — not to push us apart.”

A troubled relationship

Even before the ambassador’s arrival, anti-American rhetoric had been on the rise in Hungary.

In the government-controlled press, the U.S. is both the boogeyman behind the invasion of Ukraine and the puppet master of Hungary’s opposition parties. Fidesz-linked outlets even spread paranoid conspiracy theories about a U.S. diplomat who died in a traffic accident.

But in recent weeks, the vitriol — and the personal attacks on Pressman — has reached a fever pitch.

As Orbán’s allies have tightened their judicial system vice grip, the EU and others have made strengthening the council a priority | John Thys/AFP via Getty images

One sharp escalation occurred after Pressman posted a photo of himself meeting with two judges from the National Judicial Council.

The group’s bureaucratic name belies its heated symbolic and political importance in Hungary.

The council is meant to help oversee Hungary’s judiciary. So as Orbán’s allies have tightened their judicial system vice grip, the EU and others have made strengthening the council a priority.

Pressman’s decision, just weeks into his job, to sit down with the council’s representatives sparked dozens of articles attacking him and breathless TV coverage.

“Unprecedented serious interference in the judiciary,” blared a headline in the government-linked Origo news portal. “Today what comes to mind is that if we have such friends, then we don’t need enemies,” the Orbán-adjacent Magyar Nemzet newspaper pronounced.

Even in private, Hungarian officials stewed. “His meeting with two infamous judges,” said one senior Hungarian official, ”was a pretty unfortunate beginning.” A spokesperson for the Hungarian government did not respond to questions about Pressman.

Judge Csaba Vasvári — the council’s spokesperson and one of the figures who met with the ambassador — told POLITICO the public pillorying is fueling a “strong chilling effect” within the judiciary.

Instead of letting it pass, Pressman pushed back — in his own style.

The U.S. embassy posted a host of photos of politicians and senior diplomats meeting with judges — including, cheekily, a smiling younger Orbán standing beside former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

“What is inconsistent with normal diplomatic practice between allies,” the embassy said in a public statement, “is the recent coordinated media attack on the spokesperson and international liaison of the National Judicial Council in what appears to be an effort to instill fear in those who wish to engage with representatives of the United States.”

A politicized alliance

Orbán and his government have made no secret of their disdain for Democrats.

Democrats, they say, want to impose their liberal ideology on Hungary. They are the ones who ruined the relationship with Hungary. They lack family values. They are not a Christian government.

“Always great to hear from our good friend @realDonaldTrump. Let’s make US-HU relations great again!” Orbán tweeted recently at the Twitter-banished ex-president | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty images

Republicans are the exact opposite, in the government’s narrative. Orbán himself has personally courted MAGA-ites at their own super bowl — CPAC. He hosted Tucker Carlson in Budapest. He pines on Twitter for Donald Trump’s return.

“Always great to hear from our good friend @realDonaldTrump. Let’s make US-HU relations great again!” Orbán tweeted recently at the Twitter-banished ex-president.

It’s these types of tossed-off comments that no longer pass without a response.

“With Hungary facing economic challenges and Vladimir Putin’s war on its doorstep, the time for a great US-HU relationship? Right now,” Pressman quipped back.

It wasn’t the pair’s first sarcastic Twitter repartee, either. When the Hungarian leader first joined the platform in October and rhetorically asked where Trump was, Pressman also jumped in.

“While you look around for your friend, perhaps another friend to follow: the President of the United States,” he shot back, before offering a sly nod to his critics: “But as the Hungarian media might say: no pressure.”

Such cutting Twitter missives are not to everyone’s liking. Some even insist they are having a boomerang effect, cheapening diplomacy and further deteriorating the U.S.-Hungarian relationship.

Two former Trump-era intelligence officials recently blasted Pressman’s approach in the Wall Street Journal, calling the playful video quiz a “cringe-worthy example of the State Department’s woke virtue signaling.”

“When the U.S. has issues with foreign leaders, it should deal with them through adult diplomacy,” they added. “Instead, our diplomatic efforts under President Biden, a self-styled foreign-policy expert, could be summed up as ‘anyone I don’t like is Putin.’”

The Biden administration batted away any concerns.

When POLITICO asked for comment on the ambassador’s work, the State Department was quick to both express the administration’s “full confidence” in Pressman and to pass along a bipartisan endorsement from Cindy McCain, the widow of Republican stalwart and foreign policy maven John McCain.

McCain, now in Rome as a U.S. diplomat, talked of knowing Pressman for “nearly two decades,” and said he had “earned the deep respect of national security and foreign policy leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties.”

If there is any overarching goal, it is to call out Russian propaganda, while still paying attention to how Hungary’s government treats minorities at home | Yuri Kadobnov/AFP via Getty images

For his part, Pressman insisted the embassy has no partisan goals and simply wants a better relationship with the Hungarian authorities.

“Our work is not about liberal policies. It’s not about conservative policies,” he said. “But it’s fundamentally about shared core values that are premised upon small ‘d’ democracy, and ensuring that we are able to collaborate together.”

If there is any overarching goal, it is to call out Russian propaganda — while still paying attention to how Hungary’s government treats minorities at home.

“The United States will always engage on behalf of communities that are vulnerable or marginalized, and that are under pressure — and here in Hungary, there are a few of those,” the ambassador said, noting that groups have Washington’s support as “they seek to engage in their own democratic process.”

Principled stances aside, the situation is undeniably strange: A diplomat from an allied country becoming public enemy No. 1 — and the top news story. On a recent Sunday evening, the Fidesz-linked HírTV station spent nearly half an hour on Pressman.

Pressman insisted he doesn’t take it personally. But “do we take it seriously? Absolutely,” he said.

“I’m the representative of the United States of America,” he added. “It’s unusual to find yourself,” he observed with understatement, in “an environment quite like this.”

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Lili Bayer

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November 15, 2022
Democracy prevails in 2022 midterm elections

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Democracy prevails in 2022 midterm elections – CBS News

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CBS News senior national correspondent Mark Strassmann reports from Atlanta on the latest election developments.

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November 13, 2022
Senate Democrat Mark Kelly projected to have won re-election in Arizona

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PHOENIX (AP) — Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly won his bid for reelection Friday in the crucial swing state of Arizona, defeating Republican venture capitalist Blake Masters to put his party one victory away from clinching control of the chamber for the next two years of Joe Biden’s presidency.

With Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote, Democrats can retain control of the Senate by winning either the Nevada race, which remains too early to call, or next month’s runoff in Georgia. Republicans now must win both those races to take the majority.

“ Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters earned Donald Trump’s endorsement after claiming ‘Trump won in 2020’ but. under pressure during a debate last month, acknowledged he hadn’t seen evidence that election was rigged. He later resumed adherence to the false claim.”

The Arizona race is one of a handful of contests that Republicans targeted in their bid to take control of the 50-50 Senate. It was a test of the inroads that Kelly and other Democrats have made in a state once reliably dominated by the GOP. Kelly’s victory suggests Democratic success in Arizona was not an aberration during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Other Arizona contests, including the closely watched race for governor between Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake, were too early to call Friday night.

Kelly, a former NASA astronaut who’s flown in space four times, is married to former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, who inspired the nation with her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head during an assassination attempt in 2011 that killed six people and injured 13. Kelly and Giffords went on to co-found a gun safety advocacy group.

Kelly’s victory in a 2020 special election spurred by the death of Republican Sen. John McCain gave Democrats both of Arizona’s Senate seats for the first time in 70 years. The shift was propelled by the state’s fast-changing demographics and the unpopularity of Trump.

Kelly’s 2022 campaign largely focused on his support for abortion rights, protecting Social Security, lowering drug prices and ensuring a stable water supply in the midst of a drought, which has curtailed Arizona’s cut of Colorado River water.

With President Joe Biden struggling with low approval ratings, Kelly distanced himself from the president, particularly on border security, and played down his Democratic affiliation amid angst about the state of the economy.

He also styled himself as an independent willing to buck his party, in the style of McCain.

See: Democrats have up to a 15% chance of keeping their grip on the U.S. House, Cook Political Report analyst says

Masters, an acolyte of billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, tried to penetrate Kelly’s independent image, aligning him with the Biden administration’s approach to the U.S.-Mexico border and tamp down on rampant inflation.

Masters endeared himself to many GOP primary voters with his penchant for provocation and contrarian thinking. He called for privatizing Social Security, took a hard-line stance against abortion and promoted a racist theory popular with white nationalists that Democrats are seeking to use immigration to replace white people in America.

But after emerging bruised from a contentious primary, Masters struggled to raise money and was put on the defense over his controversial positions.

He earned Trump’s endorsement after claiming “Trump won in 2020,” but under pressure during a debate last month, he acknowledged he hasn’t seen evidence the election was rigged. He later doubled down on the false claim that Trump won.

After the primary, he scrubbed some of his more controversial positions from his website, but it wasn’t enough for the moderate swing voters who decided the election.

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November 11, 2022
Ahead of Xi meeting, Biden calls out China

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — U.S. President Joe Biden offered a full-throated American commitment to the nations of Southeast Asia on Saturday, pledging at a Cambodia summit to help stand against China’s growing dominance in the region — without mentioning the other superpower by name.

Chinese President Xi Jinping wasn’t in the room at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, summit in Phnom Penh. But Xi hovered over the proceedings just two days before he and Biden are set to have their highly anticipated first face-to-face meeting at the G20 summit in Indonesia.

The Biden White House has declared Xi’s nation its greatest economic and military rival of the next century and while the president never called out China directly, his message was squarely aimed at Beijing.

“Together we will tackle the biggest issues of our time, from climate to health security to defend against significant threats to rules-based order and to threats against the rule of law,” Biden said. “We’ll build an Indo-Pacific that is free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure.”

The U.S. has long derided China’s violation of the international rules-based order — from trade to shipping to intellectual property — and Biden tried to emphasize his administration’s solidarity with a region American has too often overlooked.

His work in Phnom Penh was meant to set a framework for his meeting with Xi — his first face-to-face with the Chinese leader since taking office — which is to be held Monday at the G20 summit of the world’s richest economies, this year being held in Indonesia on the island of Bali.

Much of Biden’s agenda at ASEAN was to demonstrate resistance to Beijing.

He was to push for better freedom of navigation on the South China Sea, where the U.S. believes the nations can fly and sail wherever international law allows. The U.S. had declared that China’s resistance to that freedom challenges the world’s rules-based order.

Moreover, in an effort to crack down on unregulated fishing by China, the U.S. began an effort to use radio frequencies from commercial satellites to better track so-called dark shipping and illegal fishing. Biden also pledged to help the area’s infrastructure initiative — meant as a counter to China’s Belt and Road program — as well as to lead a regional response to the ongoing violence in Myanmar.

But it is the Xi meeting that will be the main event for Biden’s week abroad, which comes right after his party showed surprising strength in the U.S. midterm elections, emboldening the president as he headed overseas. Biden will circumnavigate the globe, having made his first stop at a major climate conference in Egypt before arriving in Cambodia for a pair of weekend summits before going on to Indonesia.

There has been skepticism among Asian states as to American commitment to the region over the last two decades. Former President Barack Obama took office with the much-ballyhooed declaration that the U.S. would “pivot to Asia,” but his administration was sidetracked by growing involvements in Middle Eastern wars.

Donald Trump conducted a more inward-looking foreign policy and spent much of his time in office trying to broker a better trade deal with China, all the while praising Xi’s authoritarian instincts. Declaring China the United States’ biggest rival, Biden again tried to focus on Beijing but has had to devote an extraordinary amount of resources to helping Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion.

But this week is meant to refocus America on Asia — just as China, taking advantage of the vacuum left by America’s inattention, has continued to wield its power over the region.

Biden declared that the ten nations that make up ASEAN are “the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy” and that his time in office — which included hosting the leaders in Washington earlier this year — begins “a new era in our cooperation.” He did, though, mistakenly identify the host country as “Colombia” while offering thanks at the beginning of his speech.

“We will build a better future, a better future we all say we want to see,” Biden said.

Biden was only the second U.S. president to set foot in Cambodia, after Obama visited in 2012. And like Obama did then, the president on Saturday made no public remarks about Cambodia’s dark history or the United States’ role in the nation’s tortured past.

In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon authorized a secret carpet-bombing campaign in Cambodia to cut off North Vietnam’s move toward South Vietnam. The U.S. also backed a coup that led, in part, to the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, a bloodthirsty guerrilla group that went on to orchestrate a genocide that resulted in the deaths of more than 1.5 million people between 1975 and 1979.

One of the regime’s infamous Killing Fields, where nearly 20,000 Cambodians were executed and thrown in mass graves, lies just a few miles outside the center of Phnom Penh. There, a memorial featuring thousands of skulls sits as a vivid reminder of the atrocities committed just a few generations ago. White House aides said that Biden had no scheduled plans to visit.

As is customary, Biden met with the host country’s leader at the start of the summit. Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, has ruled Cambodia for decades with next to no tolerance for dissent. Opposition leaders have been jailed and killed, and his administration has been accused of widespread corruption, according to human rights groups.

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said Biden would “engage across the board in service of America’s interests and to advance America’s strategic position and our values.” He said Biden was meeting with Hun Sen because he was the leader of the host country.

U.S. officials said Biden urged the Cambodian leader to make a greater commitment to democracy and “reopen civic and political space” ahead of the country’s next elections.

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Jonathan Lemire

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November 11, 2022
11/8: Red and Blue

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11/8: Red and Blue – CBS News

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Latest from key Senate races in batleground states; Where democracy stands on Election Day 2022.

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November 9, 2022