Thousands of people gathered in Slovakia’s capital city Friday night to protest against the government and pay tribute to murdered Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak. Prime Minister Robert Fico resigned Thursday after weeks of public protests over the slaying of the investigative journalist and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, who reported on fraud among the country’s elite – but many Slovaks are not convinced the desired political change will follow from Fico’s departure. Protesters took to the streets of capital Bratislava from late afternoon Friday, rallying under the slogan “For a Decent Slovakia.” Demonstrations were also planned in more than 30 other towns across the country – and in cities around the world, including London, New York and Sydney. Protesters held banners calling for early elections and waved signs reading “Government Doesn’t Work” and “Enough of Fico,” according to Reuters. Related article Seven people detained in killing of Slovak Journalist Speaking to CNN earlier on Friday, journalist Peter Nagy, who helped coordinate the protests, said Fico’s resignation was not the answer to his country’s problems. “Fico’s resignation is just a change of figures – Fico was very clear that he is not going anywhere and that we will continue to see him as an active political figure within the government. “Fico’s resignation … does not bring change, but further undermines the trust of the people in the state,” Nagy said. “The new government will still have the same people within it, and many of these people have connections to corruption and organized crime. “We believe that the only way for the public to regain trust in the state is to have new elections – people really feel that something needs to be changed.” Kuciak, 27, and Kušnírová were found dead in Kuciak’s apartment in western Slovakia on February 26 with bullet wounds to the chest and head, respectively, according to the International Press Institute. Kuciak reported on tax evasion and fraud among Slovak businesses, including people connected to the country’s governing party, Smer. Censorship watchdog Index on Censorship called for a thorough and independent investigation and said the killings raised “troubling questions about the safety of media professionals in the European Union.” Related article The atrophy of media freedom is a contagious disease On March 1, Slovak police said they had detained seven people in connection with the killings of Kuciak and Kušnírová. The people detained, who are between 26 and 62 years old, are believed to have ties to Italian organized crime, Police Corps President Tibor Gaspar said at a news conference that day, according to TASR. On February 28, Aktuality.sk published the last unfinished report Kuciak was working on before he was killed. The report identified people settled in Slovakia who allegedly have connections to the Italian organized-crime group the ‘Ndrangheta. It also linked these people to high-profile Slovaks, including some connected to Smer. The government of Slovakia said it was offering a reward of €1 million ($1.2 million US) for information about the killing. CNN’s Lauren Moorhouse, Jason Hanna, Spencer Feingold, Sheena McKenzie and Ivana Kottasova contributed to this report.


More than 200 Nigerian migrants stranded in Libya have been returned to their home country, Nigerian officials said. The 242 migrants landed at Lagos airport on a Libyan Airlines flight at around 9:00 pm local time (3:00pm ET) on Tuesday.  Among them were women carrying children and at least one man in a wheelchair. Nigerian authorities say they worked on returning the migrants from Libya in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Some of the 242 men and women who returned had been in Libyan detention camps while others willingly approached the Nigerian embassy in Libya to return home because of hardship there, authorities said. Abike Dabiri, senior special adviser on foreign and diaspora affairs to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, said the government there had been working with the IOM, the Nigerian National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) and other local agencies to bring Nigerians back home. Dabiri told CNN that around 5,000 Nigerians have come back from Libya in the past year. “The President has said any Nigerian who wants to come back should be brought back, so IOM has been helping out,” Dabiri said. The NCFRMI said it has been processing on average between eight and 10 flights a month of Nigerians returning from Libya. The migrant crisis in Libya is once again receiving international attention following recent reporting by CNN that revealed African migrants being sold as slaves in the capital, Tripoli, and elsewhere. Hundreds of Nigerians stranded in Libya were returned to the country on Tuesday night. Among them were women and children and one man in a wheelchair.Video courtesy @Nikkilaoye /NCFRMI https://t.co/uJlh5QA2kr pic.twitter.com/CUYAjvlQ1u “For people to cross the Sahara desert and Mediterranean through shanty boats … we will try and keep them at home. But anybody who died in the desert and Mediterranean without documents; to prove that he is a Nigerian, there is absolutely nothing we can do,” President Buhari said at an African Union-European Union summit on Wednesday. Reacting to recent CNN footage on the sale of Africans in Libya, the Nigerian leader said it was appalling that “some Nigerians (in the footage) were being sold like goats for a few dollars in Libya.” Related: Slavery on agenda as Merkel, Macron meet African leaders There were poignant scenes in the former Nigerian capital on Tuesday as the men and women touched down at Lagos Murtala Muhammad airport. One man, visibly moved, knelt down on the tarmac and made the sign of the cross as he got off the plane. Nikki Laoye, an ambassador for NCFRMI, who filmed the arrivals and posted them on her Instagram page, told CNN: “It was quite emotional seeing this. We heard about their ordeal in the desert, some of them were praying to die. No water to drink, thrown into jail and finally given the option to go back to their country.” Related article The abuse of migrants in Libya is a blot on the world's conscience “Many of them had traveled illegally through the desert trying to reach Italy via Libya before finding themselves in tight situations, thrown into jail for illegal entry or falling into the hands of wrong people and being sold into slavery and prostitution.” Related: Rwanda offers refuge to enslaved migrants Laoye said the new arrivals would be profiled and registered by the Nigerian authorities. Some of them were taken to a shelter run by the NCFRMI in Lagos, where they can remain for up to 90 days. She added that officials from Edo State, where a large number of the migrants came from, were also at the airport to take them back to the state.


So-called “tourist trap” restaurants in Venice have long been a bone of contention for visitors to the Italian city. But in recent months there’s been a sea change in attitudes towards these establishments with locals and officials looking at ways to help travelers avoid rip-offs. Previously, despite some protestations, the city seemed largely indifferent to their plight. When a British tourist publicly complained about being charged €526 ($653) for a light lunch for three people in November 2017, the city’s mayor immediately went on the offensive. Famed for his Trump-style outspokenness, former businessman Luigi Brugnaro took to Twitter to announce that the complainant, a university lecturer, was a “cheapskate” for objecting to the charge of 297 euros ($369) for a one-person platter of grilled fish. Brugnaro also mocked tourists who arrive in the city with so little knowledge of Italian that they cannot understand they are being conned until the check is presented. Widespread condemnation of the mayor – and of the restaurant, Trattoria Casanova – followed on social media, so much so that Brungnaro tried a different tack when a similar incident happened in January. On this occasion, four Japanese students filed a complaint after being billed €1,100 ($1,366) for four steaks, a plate of mixed grilled fish, and bottled water at Osteria da Luca, another “tourist trap” restaurant, near Piazza San Marco. “If this shameful episode is confirmed, we’ll do all we can to punish those responsible,” the mayor tweeted. Although no action was taken on the actual issue of overcharging, City Police Chief Marco Agostini quickly uncovered breaches of health and safety, and food hygiene regulations at the restaurants. Commercial code infringements – such as the inaccurate description of dishes – were also leveled. Faced with fines believed to total at least €14,000 ($17,303) Osteria da Luca is expected to close temporarily. 12 destinations travelers might want to avoid in 2018 The mayor’s shift in attitude brings him in line with many Venetians and top restaurateurs who hope to re-establish their city’s reputation for fine dining and reasonable prices. Marco Gasparinetti, spokesperson for the Venetian civil rights association Gruppo 25 Aprile (April 25 Group), has announced the publication of “a user’s guide for visitors on how to survive in Venice, with details on what kind situations to avoid.” According to Gasparinetti, only 1% restaurants in the San Marco area are owned and operated by locals, which has led to a rise in tourist trap restaurants. Among those Venetians running well respected restaurants in the city center are Benedetta Fullin and her brother Luca, who recently opened Local, a trendy and stylish new restaurant in the Castello area. “I have been getting very upset about all this negative press on Venice,” she says. “There are many tourist traps and they are not run by Venetians. Most of the time they are run by foreigners who don’t know what being a restaurateur means. “They don’t have a kitchen, they don’t have chefs, or use local suppliers. All they have are tables, cutlery, a microwave to heat up a frozen lasagne at ridiculous prices – and boards outside with pictures of the food. “These are the places to avoid! They have never been reviewed by any guide and never been visited by any journalist, because they are not restaurants. You can recognize them because there is always someone outside trying to get people in”. Venice: Insider Travel Guide Benedetta advises visitors to use guide books rather than sources like TripAdvisor when looking for a restaurant in Venice. This point is echoed by Raffaele Alajmo who is the co-owner of Ristorante Quadri, a famous Michelin-starred eatery on Piazza San Marco itself. “Personally, I suggest using established guide books rather than the web,” he says. “These guides are produced by professionals and not your average Joe with a computer and internet connection. “If you use a reputable guide, you have almost no risk of ending up in a tourist trap. And I am not just talking about the guides to fine dining restaurants, but those for osterias or “lower cost” establishments as well.” And according to Benedetta, the best restaurants are always very happy to recommend other good places to eat. “Once you find a place you like, run by a Venetian, don’t be afraid to ask for advice on where to go next time!” he adds. “We are always full of suggestions as we want our guests to leave with a beautiful memory of their trip, and come back many times because Venice is a city to love!” But in the short term, the best advice seems to be – if there is a man outside urging you to come in, walk on by. Especially if there are photographs of food. While Venice’s restaurant scene may have attracted a wave of bad press, there are many eateries in the city that offer good food at affordable prices. There are also plenty of fine dining establishments worth the hefty price tag. Here’s our pick of six of the best: Expensive but worth it Antinoo’s Lounge and Restaurant at Centurion Hotel, Dorsoduro, 173, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy;  +39 041 34281 Club del Doge at Hotel Gritti Palace, Campo Santa Maria del Giglio, 2467, 30124 Venezia VE, Italy;  +39 041 794611 Cheaper but not cheap Al Giardinetto da Severino, Salizada Zorzi, 4928, 30122 Castello, Venezia VE, Italy;  +39 041 528 5332 Local, Salizzada dei Greci, 3303, 30122 Castello, Venezia VE, Italy; +39 041 241 1128 CoVino, Calle Pestrin Castello, 30122 Venezia VE, Italy; +39 041 241 2705 Antica Locanda Montin, Fondamenta de Borgo, 1147, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy ; +39 041 522 7151 Adrian Mourby is an Oxford-based novelist and broadcaster who has traveled the world writing about his experiences for the last 25 years.

Venice city officials and local restaurateurs


Rep. Adam Schiff said he believes that Comey's firing was "all about the Russia investigation" Schiff: "Shifting" stories by Trump administration on reasons for firing enhance the need for thorough investigation Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said President Donald Trump hasn’t made any effort to impede the investigation into possible ties between his campaign and Russia – but a top House Democrat disagrees. “I don’t think you can say so categorically he’s made no effort to interfere,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview with CNN’s “Erin Burnett Outfront” Thursday night. “I think that the firing was all about the Russia investigation,” he continued. “So I’m certain that what Mr. McCabe said may be true in the sense that the President isn’t calling line agents who are working on the investigation or, in other very ham-handed ways, trying to interfere with the day-to-day operation of the investigation.” “But nonetheless, he fired the top cop on that investigation, and I think no one believes this was about Hillary Clinton’s emails, I think it was all about the Russia case,” Schiff said. Related article Timeline: Trump's words contradict White House answers on Comey firing Trump told NBC on Thursday that he wanted the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling to be “absolutely done properly,” and said Comey’s firing might “lengthen out the investigation.” White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggested earlier that it could hasten the agency’s investigation. “We want this to come to its conclusion, we want it to come to its conclusion with integrity,” she said, referring to the FBI’s probe into Moscow’s interference in last year’s election. “And we think that we’ve actually, by removing Director Comey, taken steps to make that happen.” Schiff was also skeptical Thursday about Trump’s statement that he fired Comey  because the FBI was in turmoil and that Comey was a “showboat” and “grandstander.” “I don’t think anyone finds that credible, and certainly not after getting a completely different explanation yesterday or the day before,” Schiff said, adding that the “shifting” stories by the Trump administration enhance the need for Congress to do a thorough investigation and ensure the FBI has the independence and resources it needs for its investigations. “I do think we need to learn more about the circumstances that led to the director’s firing,” Schiff said, adding that many of Trump’s actions as President “have been really quite inexplicable.” CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.


President Donald Trump shared highly classified information with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a meeting in the Oval Office last week, according to reporting by the Washington Post. This latest blunder comes within a calendar week that’s seen the stunning dismissal of FBI Director James Comey, a series of inaccurate explanations for why it was done and Trump threatening the former director while floating the possibility that he is taping phone conversations in the White House. That series of self-inflicted wounds has congressional Republicans mystified and scared, desperately trying to figure out what Trump will do next and, as importantly, what it all means for their own political prospects. To date, Republicans have stood by Trump or at least stayed silent in the face of his many foibles. But, in a number of conversations Monday evening with Republican House members and GOP strategists, there was a widespread feeling that this time Trump might have gone too far. Congress vexed as White House in ‘downward spiral’WaPo reporter: White House ‘playing word games’If the president says it, is it no longer classified?What Trump has said about sharing classified info Congress vexed as White House in ‘downward spiral’WaPo reporter: White House ‘playing word games’If the president says it, is it no longer classified?What Trump has said about sharing classified info “On strategy and tactics, most Republican members of Congress will likely give the President a wide berth, but on mistakes or issues that don’t appear to be based on some bigger strategy, I think those same members of Congress will begin to speak out,” said one senior Republican House member granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The sharing of classified information to the Russians clearly falls into the second bucket. There is a honeymoon period, but on issues like this, if the honeymoon isn’t over yet, it will be soon.” That sentiment was echoed by a prominent GOP consultant I spoke to who asked not to be named to offer a candid assessment of Trump and congressional Republicans. “The question for Republicans is whether this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said the source. “Forty percent approval is not the issue; an erratic, rudderless, leaderless White House is.” Related video Sources: Trump shared classified information Already there were some signs of defection. Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker, who Trump had considered for Secretary of State, was clear in his criticism of this White House. “They are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that’s happening,” Corker said to reporters on Capitol Hill, adding: “The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think – it creates a worrisome environment.” What congressional Republicans are clearly battling is their own built-in gauge of political risk and the fact that Trump survived crises during the 2016 campaign that would have ended almost any other political campaign. Time and time again during the campaign, from his derogatory comments about John McCain’s military service to his fight with Khizr Khan to the “Access Hollywood” tape, congressional Republicans – with Speaker Paul Ryan in the lead – would disavow Trump. And, every time, Trump managed to not only survive but thrive – and the party leaders came crawling back. That history of doing the undoable gives Republicans pause about simply walking away from Trump. “Congressional Republicans want to believe that President Trump can work his way out of this. After all, he has survived crises time and again that would have buried lesser figures,” explained one senior party strategist. Related video Washington Post reporter stands by story And then there is the fact that almost no matter what Trump says or does, a significant chunk of the Republican base believes he is right and support him. Crossing that group, at least right now, is, still, a potentially perilous political endeavor. “You will give your guy the longest rope possible to hang himself,” a GOP consultant I spoke with on the condition of anonymity said. “Only once he puts the noose around his own neck will they kick the stool out from under him. Right now, siding with the Democrats gets you nothing but a primary challenge.” Everyone has their own breaking point. And it’s possible that even this latest revelation regarding Trump passing along classified information to the Russians won’t be the thing that puts Republicans over the edge. But, consider the following five things Trump has done since coming into office: 1) Twice failed to enact a travel ban 2) Engaged in an extended argument over crowd size at his inauguration 3) Falsely accused then-President Barack Obama of wire-tapping Trump Tower during the election 4) Took 18 days to get rid of national security adviser MIchael Flynn after being informed Flynn was compromised by the Russians 5) Fired Comey, even as he was overseeing the Russia investigation. Any ONE of those are the sort of thing that would be a major slip-up in any other administration – and might lead to defections from within the president’s own party.  All five of them – plus the new revelations regarding classified information being shared with two top Russian officials – is something close to an avalanche of political malpractice. How much more can – or will – congressional Republicans take?


No one will remember in years to come where they were when they heard about the JFK assassination classified document dump of 2017. In the end, what was supposed to be the final release of government secrets about the 1963 killing of President John F. Kennedy wasn’t quite the blockbuster splash that President Donald Trump had been promising. Related article JFK file release: Mob hits on Castro, a threat on Oswald In fact, a day of intrigue and behind-the-scenes maneuvering by US intelligence agencies is likely only to feed the notorious conspiracy theories that the release of the historical trove was designed to quell once and for all. It’s 54 years since Kennedy died and a quarter century since Congress decreed Thursday as the day when all classified records related to the assassination should be thrown open to the public. Trump, with an impresario’s flair, had been building it up for days, as though he was promoting one of his Miss Universe pageants rather than a fresh perspective on one of the most traumatic moments in US history. At the center of his own self-directed drama, Trump, a noted peddler of conspiracy theories and who is prone to secrecy himself, especially over his refusal to release his tax returns, was going to strike a famous blow for transparency and blow the lid off everything the government was still hiding over what happened in Dallas on November 22,1963. “The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow. So interesting!” Trump had tweeted on Wednesday. Related article Trump 'unhappy' with government redactions to JFK files Once the 2,800 documents finally hit the website of the National Archives at just after 7.30 p.m., there were some fascinating historical nuggets surrounding Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, his murderer Jack Ruby and even a tantalizing walk-on part by Marilyn Monroe. But the bigger story lay in what is still missing, unknown and secret. The big reveal didn’t live up to its billing because spy agency officials successfully pleaded with Trump to hold back 300 or so files, forcing him to set up yet another classified review process – this one lasting six months. The drama around the release of the documents was like so much of Trump’s nine months in power, involving a big promise that he struggled to fulfill and a rush of last-minute chaos inside the White House. There was also a glimpse of the tenacious bureaucratic blocking maneuvers favored by big centers of power in Washington – in this case the CIA and the FBI – that have made it so difficult for Trump to drain the swamp. Friday, Trump couldn’t commit to full disclosure of every file. “JFK Files are being carefully released. In the end there will be great transparency. It is my hope to get just about everything to public!” he tweeted. JFK Files are being carefully released. In the end there will be great transparency. It is my hope to get just about everything to public! Cynics have suggested all along that the spy agencies would intervene to leave at least some of the historical record surrounding the assassination obscured. They were right. With the clock ticking down to the deadline on Thursday, the spooks jammed the White House with hundreds of last-minute requests for redactions, leaving the President with an impossible choice to either release everything and further alienate the espionage community, or allow himself to be strong-armed by his own spies. Related article Trump releases some, but not all, JFK assassination records Given that the FBI and the CIA have been able to see this moment coming for 25 years, it’s difficult to see the last-minute requests for secrecy as anything but an attempt to perform an end run around the President. “I think it’s shameful,” CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said. “This is something that the intelligence agencies have had not years, but decades to deal with.” He added, “This instinctive desire to keep things secret is so engrained, that even relating to events in the early 1960s, the idea that they can’t be released at this point is absurd.” Defenders of the intelligence community argued that some of the information at issue could center on US informers and intelligence assets in places like Cuba and Mexico who could still be alive and at risk of reprisals. It’s also possible it could embarrass intelligence services which still have a relationship with the US clandestine community. Related article The conspiracy theorist in chief has the keys to the national archives But such is the never-ending swirl of intrigue and and grassy knoll conspiracy theories around the Kennedy assassination that any equivocation by the government was certain to set off the rumor machines again. “Withholding this stuff is just going to add to the crazy conspiracy theories and they are everywhere,” Robert Baer, a former CIA operations officer who is now a CNN intelligence and security analyst, told CNN’s Erin Burnett. Roger Stone, the political provocateur and Trump ally, quickly blamed the “deep state” for covering up damaging information. “The issue is it shows the treachery of the Central Intelligence Agency who recruited (Lee Harvey Oswald), who trained him and who placed him,” Stone told CNN’s Jeremy Diamond. Earlier, Stone had tweeted: “The truth is out there. #JFKFiles #LBJKilledJFK http://bit.ly/LBJKilledJFK.” The White House made clear that Trump was not happy that his plans for a comprehensive document release failed to pan out, with a senior White House official admitting that the process had been “messy.” “He was unhappy with the level of redactions,” another White House official said, adding that Trump believed the agencies were “not meeting the spirit of the law.” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders added in a statement that Trump “has demanded unprecedented transparency from the agencies and directed them to minimize redactions without delay.” Given the 11th-hour intervention by the spy agencies, no one would bet that the White House can avoid a similar mess next April when Trump’s review process is due to conclude. Still, among the 2,800 documents released Thursday, there was some intriguing bounty to feed the Kennedy assassination industry. A 1975 report indicated that the CIA attempted to hire mobsters to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro. In an memo, then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy was warned that a forthcoming book would allege he had an affair with Monroe. One of the documents included a transcript of a conversation involving J. Edgar Hoover in which the then FBI director revealed that the bureau had received a call the night before nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot Oswald, warning that the Kennedy assassination suspect was a target. It also contains details of Oswald’s contacts with the Soviet embassy in Washington and conversations in Mexico City, that offered information about his state of mind. “Hoover is explaining why he does not want an independent investigation of Ruby’s killing of Oswald, and of Oswald’s killing of the President,” said CNN Presidential historian Timothy Naftali. “It just shows you the level of federal bungling and the extent to which the FBI, within two days of Kennedy’s assassination, was already thinking of a cover-up, not because it had killed Kennedy but because it hadn’t done what it should have done to protect the President.” There is also testimony from former CIA director Richard Helms, saying that President Lyndon Johnson used to say that the reason Kennedy was shot was that he had ordered the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam. Raising some eyebrows as well: records from a 1975 deposition to the Rockefeller Commission with a lawyer probing Helms on potential CIA involvement in a variety of global assassination attempts who asked whether Oswald might be connected to the CIA. “Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or an agent…” before the document suddenly ends, without his answer. The sense that secretive institutions deep in the US government still, all these decades later, have something to hide, will only be exacerbated by the 300 documents that Trump held back on Thursday. The JFK conspiracy theorists just got a new lease on life – for six months at least. CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Jeremy Diamond and Jim Acosta contributed to this report.


UNICEF: Pakistan has highest, Japan has lowest newborn death rate in the world Treatable infections, birth complications and preterm births are common causes of death Every year around the world, about 2.6 million babies die within their first month of life – and some countries see more of those tragic deaths than others. A UNICEF report released Tuesday ranks countries by their newborn mortality rates in 2016. The report found that the country with the highest newborn mortality rate was Pakistan, which saw about one in every 22 infants die before turning 1 month old. The country with the lowest newborn mortality rate was Japan: only one death in every 1,111 births. A baby born in Pakistan was almost 50 times more likely to die during his or her first month than a baby born in Japan – or Iceland, which ranked second lowest, or Singapore, which ranked third lowest, according to the report. The report also showed that the United States and the United Kingdom had higher mortality rates among  newborns than several other countries, including Cuba, Germany, Israel, South Korea and Singapore. The UNICEF report was based on data from the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. The data was from 1990 (or earlier, depending on the country) to 2016. Based on those data, the 10 countries with the highest newborn mortality rates in 2016 were: Many of those countries are war-torn, have limited access to clean water at health facilities or have been affected by natural disasters, said Dr. Stefan Peterson, chief of health at UNICEF, who helped conduct the technical analysis and review for the report. “That is a tremendous challenge for these countries to begin with. Then they also face challenges of not investing sufficiently in health services,” he said. “Some of them only spend 1% of gross domestic product on health, while the national recommendation is to spend at least 5% of public resources on health.” The 10 countries with the lowest newborn mortality rates in 2016, according to the report, were: “These are countries that have for a long time had political will to tackle the quality of maternal and newborn care,” Peterson said. “They’ve educated women,” he said. “They’ve tackled adolescent pregnancy, and they have quality health services centered around midwives who actually are able to wash their hands in health facilities and have access to the basic treatments and drugs.” Related article These are the states where infant mortality is highest The UNICEF report notes that newborn survival appears to be closely linked to a country’s income level. On average, high-income countries have a newborn mortality rate of about one in 333, compared with low-income countries’ newborn mortality rate of about one in 37, according to the report. Babies born to the poorest families are more than 1.4 times more likely to die during this newborn period than those born to the richest families, according to the report. Yet income is only one of the factors influencing newborn mortality. In Kuwait, the newborn mortality rate is about one in 227, and in the US, it’s about one in 270. Though those are both high-income countries, their newborn mortality rates are only slightly lower than those of lower- to middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka, which has a rate of 1 in 189, and Ukraine, which has a rate of 1 in 185. Related article Among 20 wealthy nations, US child mortality ranks worst, study finds “For all countries, it’s about giving people access to good quality health services,” Peterson said. “Obviously, money helps in that regard, but in respective of income level, it’s also a question of how you organize that access and the quality of health services,” he said. “For any country that has discrepancies between poor people and well-to-do people, that will of course pull the average down” when it comes to the newborn mortality rate. Last month, a separate study published in the journal Health Affairs ranked the overall child mortality rate among the United States and comparable nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of 35 countries founded to improve economic development and social well-being around the world. In that study, the US ranked worst, falling behind Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Related article Serena Williams: What my life-threatening experience taught me about giving birth UNICEF’s new report is “credible,” said Lindsay Stark, an associate professor of population and family health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. As she has noted in response to previous reports, such as the Health Affairs study, the United States appears to lag behind other nations in terms of child and newborn mortality because of perinatal mortality, or mortality specifically around the time of a baby’s birth, including maternal conditions affecting a fetus or newborn. So by focusing on improving maternal health, the US and other countries could improve infant health, she said. The UNICEF report notes that the primary causes of newborn deaths in the first month include being born prematurely, complications around the time of birth and infections such as sepsis, meningitis and pneumonia. Many of those causes are preventable or treatable. Reducing such deaths would involve guaranteeing access to clean water and functional health facilities for families, making the top 10 life-saving drugs and medical equipment available for every mother and baby, and empowering women to demand and receive quality health care, according to the report. Those factors are described as the “four Ps,” involving improvements in places such as health facilities, access to people or health care providers, access to products, and power – as in empowering adolescent girls and mothers. Related video The tech curbing child mortality in Malawi “That starts with the midwife being able to wash her hands and light herself with electricity during delivery and having basic drugs,” Peterson said. “And you do the right things, which include breastfeeding within the first hour of life,” he said. “That singularly is the most important thing you can do actually for child survival is to start breastfeeding early. So there are a number of issues that we can call on governments around the world to do, both within health services and beyond health services.” For instance, according to the report, in Malawi, slightly more than half of women who gave birth in 2000 did so with the support of a doctor, nurse or midwife. By 2016, that percentage rose to about 90%. In correlation with that increase, Malawi’s newborn mortality rate fell from about one in 25 in 2000 to one in 43 in 2016, a 44% decline, according to the report. See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. “When we talk in the cold language of statistics – of rates, averages, percentages, indicators – it is easy to forget that we are talking about the lives and deaths of real babies – babies who deserve to survive, to grow up healthy and contribute to their societies,” the authors of the report wrote. “Action in the four areas outlined in this report – Place, People, Products, Power – must be an urgent priority for every government, driving forward progress towards a world with universal health coverage, where no newborn dies of a preventable cause,” they wrote.

UNICEF report on newborn mortality rates


An Indian external affairs minister helped secure a new passport A Pakistani woman took to social media with pics from her husband-less honeymoon An Indian photographer is enjoying a fabulous Italian honeymoon – without his honey.  That’s because just two days before Faizan Patel and his wife Sana were supposed to leave for their two-week trip, she realized she had lost her passport. Patel went on the trip anyway, and kept his wife with him, kind of. On Monday Patel tweeted out a photo of himself, traveling with Sana’s picture placed over an empty seat. “This is how I am travelling with my wife as of now The tweet was seen by Sushma Swaraj, India’s minister of external affairs. If she sounds like someone who can get something done, you’re right. Swaraj tweeted back to Patel to have his wife contact her; a little later Swaraj said a duplicate passport would be issued. Patel’s wife just might make it to Italy after all. Or so Patel thought. Even though she’ll have her hands on a passport soon, he said she won’t be able get a visa until after the honeymoon is over. Bummer. The two got married back in December and took a “mini-honeymoon” to an Indian national park, but Italy was supposed to be the real honeymoon. “This trip was entirely planned by her,” Patel told CNN, adding that he really missed her. “I wish to see her next to me soon.” So even if his wife doesn’t make the trip, Patel could still have a ball. He should just follow the example of Huma Mobin, a woman from Pakistan who posted photos of her husband-less honeymoon to Greece earlier this summer. I went to Greece without my husband and I missed him very muches 😭 Mobin’s photos show her exploring the wonders of Greece, with her right arm wrapped around a husband who wasn’t there, because he couldn’t get a visa from the Greek embassy.


US President Donald Trump expected to unveil his new strategy for Afghanistan in speech Monday Some US Marines on the ground there say they are discouraged after 15 years of war The Taliban still control much of the land and the West's ideas for stabilizing the country are running out The plume of smoke and dust rose over the runway, high above the now-deserted but once costly and vital control towers. Then a second rocket slammed into the tarmac just feet away from where a C130 cargo plane would imminently land to ferry us out. The Marines with us at first appeared unfazed. Some were perhaps young and new to it all, while the older ones stood tall, not flinching. I crouched behind a wheel until those tires were used to race us back toward a shelter. Seven years ago, it would have been mere minutes before that Taliban rocket team was bombed in retaliation by US forces protecting a thousands-strong base. But in 2017, the US Marines here – all 300 of them – seem oddly vulnerable. They don’t leave the wire much, mostly just to train and advise, leaving the fighting to the Afghans. Yet all the same, three separate rocket attacks hit their bases in three days – two near us – one injuring 10 Afghan soldiers, and another an 8-year-old boy. This is the painful reality of Afghanistan 2017. The country is in one of the most violent periods of its recent history, and its challenges are deepening. But the sense of exhaustion, of solutions long having lost their sparkle, pervades. President Trump is hours away from unveiling a long-deliberated new plan for Afghanistan that will likely see him add a few thousand troops to the war effort. He will also look to re-cast – in a prime-time address – a strategy for America’s longest war, making it his own. But this conflict has been going on for 15 years, and for many of the Marines currently at its sharp end, it is nothing new. Here’s how one hardened, normally optimistic Marine commander, Col. Matthew Reid, talked about lost friends. “I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to count. Too many, between here and Iraq,” he said. “A lot of blood in the ground.” Born on September 11, Reid is back in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province for the second time. He quips that the 300 Marines he works with now are the number that “ran the chow hall” when he was last there in 2010. I asked: How does it feel to have to go at it all over again? “Discouraging,” he said. “There is a definite feeling of a sense of obligation to get this right because of those who have gone before us.” How do you get it right? From the limited perspective of our three-day tour – mostly inside bases – it seems the Marines have made a difference here. Most importantly, they are now camped just outside the regional capital of Lashkar Gah, which a year ago was on the brink of falling to the Taliban, whose flag you could see just across its central river. The Helmand district of Nawa was retaken last week by Afghan National Security Forces, yet at about the same time nearby Gereshk district was attacked by the Taliban, with multiple checkpoints hit, and at one point six overrun. Things are better, but not good. Helmand will probably never be good any time soon, but the Marines’ presence and massive aerial firepower have arguably stopped the entire opium-rich region from being swallowed by the Taliban. But the Marines are only one part of the picture in a country where, according to the US government’s own auditors, the Taliban influence or control about half the land. ISIS too, intermittently rises, and then, after coalition airstrikes, falls – competing to be the most extreme actor in a crowded marketplace. The government in Kabul is weak, ridden by conflict and rivalry between senior players. And the West’s ideas for stabilizing the country are running out. So what are President Trump’s options? But really it is the mood in the capital which tells you things are still slipping, yet again. Long-term Afghan friends discussing for the first time how they might leave. A top executive saying his employees are leaving their large, high-profile Afghan company to protect themselves from possible attack at their central offices. This is not a time for optimism. There is no sign the Taliban are weakened, even though one Afghan official told me hundreds of mid-level leaders have been taken out in raids over the past year. Their leadership is more radical than ever, and they are likely to see handsome funds from a productive opium harvest, possibly boosted by a new poppy seed that blooms more quickly, massively increasing production. Afghanistan’s bleed is slow, and perhaps hidden or ignored by much of the world, but happening all the same. Take this final anecdote from our visit to Helmand, when the Marines took us to a remote outpost where they were advising the Afghan army. We were there to see them pull out, removing themselves from a flat stretch of what Colonel Matthew Grosz called “Taliban country” – a main thoroughfare between insurgent strongholds. But their advisory mission seemed to have run into one issue: There weren’t many Afghans to advise. On paper there were 500 Afghan troops, and 45 US marines. But as Grosz told me: “There’s 200 assigned right now.” By “assigned,” he meant that there were 200 who had existed, physically at the base. But even that was optimistic, as another hundred had never shown up while the Marines were there. In fact, of the hundred they had seen, some were on operations or on patrol. So really there were fifty to a hundred Afghan soldiers at the base, almost enabling one-to-one Marine mentoring sessions. As we sat in the Helmand runway bomb shelter, waiting for the “all clear” after the rocket attack, I overheard two young Marines chatter about 9/11 as though it was a moment of historical import rather than something they had seen live on TV. That’s because for them, it is something their parents mourned when they were probably five or six. Fifteen years of war sounds exhausting until you remember that for Afghans, it is about 38 years of war – since the Soviets invaded in 1979. So, you may ask yourself: When does it end? Forget emotion, or nationalism, or solutions. Just consider the war, and everyone caught up in it, through the prism of one number: 1,600. It’s become a war whose end will be defined by fatigue, acceptance of lesser evils and which of these above numbers is the hardest to tolerate. Editor’s note: This story was originally published on July 23, 2017.


HIgh-end Peking duck restaurant Dadong has opened a burger joint in Beijing Restaurant also serves Chinese-Western dishes Love roasted Peking duck? We’ve got the burger for you. While McDonald’s and KFC continue to introduce Chinese-style burgers to appeal to local tastes, high-end Peking duck restaurant DaDong has opened is own fast food joint in Beijing, China. DaDong Duck Burger’s star attraction is, of course, the duck burger. It features a slice of crispy Peking duck skin and juicy lean meat nestled in a bun and topped with slices of onion, tomato, cucumber, lettuce and  the all-important plum sauce. It might seem like a strange combination but is surprisingly tasty – and popular. Staff say they dish out about 300 duck burgers each day. Together with a glass of soda – or hot honey pomelo tea – and fries, the duck burger combo costs 31 yuan ($4.70). DaDong, one of Beijing’s top Peking duck restaurants, opened the fast food joint last October, hoping to appeal to the mass market. Han Yang, the restaurant’s manager, told CNN that all the chefs working at the venue are from its upscale sister restaurant. The ducks, roasting techniques and recipes are also the same, according to Han. Located in the city’s CBD area, the fast food restaurant, which features minimalist decor, has attracted steady streams of consumers working in office buildings nearby. This success has led to expansion plans in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Local Beijing resident Cindy Zhan, who went to the restaurant for lunch to try the burger, says it surprised her. Duck de Chine: Beijing's best Peking duck? “It was much tastier than I had thought,” Zhan says. “I was afraid that a duck burger would be too greasy. But it was not with the special sauce. Definitely different than conventional burgers.” Zhan says she was particularly happy the restaurant also offers a quality salad. Besides its signature duck burgers, DaDong Burger’s menu includes a variety of fusion dishes. For instance the reformed Zhajiangmian, topped with minced port, uses spaghetti instead of the traditionally made Beijing-style handmade noodles. Chinese may argue that burgers aren’t just a Western thing given they’ve been around the country for hundreds of years. The best-known Chinese-style burger perhaps is Roujiamo – shredded braised meat stuffed in baked leavened bread. Originally a specialty from Shaanxi province, it’s popular nationwide. If you’re feeling adventurous, there’s the donkey meat burger. A hot, crispy pastry encloses cold marinated donkey meat – considered divine for many in northern China. DaDong plays it safe, serving a spicy braised sub quite similar to the donkey meat burger except it’s stuffed with pork. DaDong Duck Burger: 1 Floor, Club 19, Building 19, Huamao Apartment, 89 Jianguo Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing, +86 10 6530 7200


Trump and Putin have spoken twice recently Putin praised Trump's handling of the US economy After President Donald Trump spoke by phone on Sunday from a cabin at Camp David to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the press release describing their call featured something unusual: an exclamation point. Related article Trump unveils national security plan, blasts previous presidents The theatric punctuation seemed designed to underscore the cheery tenor of the conversation, during which Putin thanked Trump for the CIA’s help in thwarting a terror plot on St. Petersburg, Russia. Trump, the White House said, congratulated “the entire intelligence community on a job well done!” The upbeat description of US-Russia intelligence sharing – ordinarily a subject kept quiet by government officials – underscored the enthusiasm with which Trump is approaching his relationship with Putin, prompting unease among some national security experts. Amid swirling investigations into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia, Trump remains untroubled about fostering the appearance of close ties between himself and Putin. And unlike past US leaders, whose conversations with the Russians were planned and strategized to avoid falling into traps, Trump engages Putin on matters large and small, sometimes without the participation of his top national security aides. Related article Trump predicts exoneration in Russia investigation as allies fear a 'meltdown' The bond between the two men is among the most heavily examined diplomatic relationships in the world, the scrutiny fueled by probes being conducted by the special counsel Robert Mueller and members of Congress. Adding to the mix is the upcoming deadline for imposing new congressionally-required sanctions on Russia for its behavior in last year’s election. RELATED: Trump predict exoneration in Russia investigation as allies fear a ‘meltdown’ For Trump, his recent exchanges with Putin reflect progress in his longstanding goal to improve ties with Russia. But some national security experts worry the apparent closeness between Trump and Putin could amount to an attempt to manipulate a President intent on making progress on that ambition. “I think this past weekend is illustrative of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the President,” said James Clapper, the director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” “You have to remember Putin’s background. He’s a KGB officer. That’s what they do. They recruit assets,” Clapper added. “And I think some of that experience and instincts of Putin has come into play here in his managing of a pretty important account for him.” Clapper made clear he was only speaking figuratively when referring to Trump as a Russian asset. Sunday’s call between Trump and Putin was the second between the two men in the span of four days. On Thursday, after Trump caught wind of Putin’s praise for the US economy during a four-hour press conference, the US leader dialed his counterpart to offer his thanks. “It was great,” Trump said in recounting the phone call to reporters. “He said very nice things about what I’ve done for this country in terms of the economy, and then he said also some negative things in terms of what’s going on elsewhere.” Related article 5 things to know about Trump's national security strategy Indeed, Putin in his press conference lambasted claims that he directed an influence campaign during last year’s presidential election. He said those claims were “invented, made up by people who are in opposition to President Trump with a view to shedding a negative light on what President Trump is doing.” Trump has also downplayed concerns about Russia’s election meddling, and privately bemoans to friends that the investigations are intended to discredit the legitimacy of his election. Inside the White House, Trump’s aversion to discussing the election meddling issue is well known among his national security staff. So it was something of a surprise on Monday when the administration’s formal National Security Strategy detailed Moscow’s attempts to destabilize and undermine democracies. “Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world,” read the congressionally-mandated document. As Trump unveiled the strategy doctrine during remarks in Washington on Monday, however, he avoided any reference to Russia’s attempts to interfere in elections. Instead he praised the intelligence cooperation, referring to his call on Sunday. “That’s a great thing, and the way it’s supposed to work. That is the way it’s supposed to work,” he said. On CNN later, a spokesman for the National Security Council, Michael Anton, could not say whether Trump had read “every line and every word” of the National Security Strategy. Related video WH adviser: Can't say Trump read every word The disconnect between the policy document and Trump’s own words reflects larger concerns about Trump’s willingness to confront the problem of Russian cyber interference, which US intelligence agencies have concluded was approved by Putin himself and designed to favor Trump. And it raised questions about how Trump is speaking in private to Putin, who has worked ardently – and some say cunningly – to develop warm ties to past American leaders. Related article Putin thanks Trump for CIA's help in stopping terror attacks “The fact that those calls occurred or those issues were discussed is not inherently a problem,” said Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment and a former NSC official under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. “The thing that’s problematic is the way Putin seems to play off Trump’s desire for affirmation and praise and Trump rushes to shout it out to the world.” “It looks needy,” Weiss added. White House officials insist that Trump regularly raises concerns at about Russia’s various destabilizing activities in his conversations with Putin. “It’s a matter of being bold and standing up for his own country,” Anton, the NSC spokesman, said Monday. The White House declined to say who, if anyone, prepared Trump for his recent calls with Putin. At Camp David, nestled in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains 70 miles from Washington, Trump was hosting members of his cabinet this weekend including Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Related article Trump lets off steam on a cloudy Friday in DC Yet by the time of Sunday’s call, Pence had departed the presidential retreat, according to his spokeswoman. Mnuchin was back in Washington appearing on morning television shows. And other cabinet members who traveled there included Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who would hardly be involved in preparing for a call with Moscow. RELATED: Mnuchin says he has no reason to think Trump will fire Mueller It wouldn’t be uncommon for top-level aides like National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster or Chief of Staff John Kelly to help Trump prepare for his call. But Trump has shown a willingness in the past to circumvent his aides in his dealings with Putin. Related article With their tax bill, Republicans prepare for a long-awaited win During a dinner for leaders attending July’s Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Trump spoke with Putin for as much as an hour with only a Kremlin-provided translator, to the surprise of the dinner’s other attendees. Because no other American official was present, no official US record exists of what transpired other than Trump’s own memory. “Generally with a person like Putin you don’t want to be alone with him,” said Anders Aslund, a Russia scholar at the let’s describe Atlantic Council, who said Putin’s strengths lie in his ability to flatter foreign counterparts in a bid to extract concessions. “Putin is really good at improvisation…and developing really good relations,” Aslund said, citing then-President George W. Bush’s off-the-cuff statement that he was able to look into Putin’s eyes and “get a sense of his soul” at a meeting in Slovenia during Bush’s first year in office. Related video Putin thanks Trump for tip on terror attack Trump’s flurry of contact with Putin over the past week comes as his administration faces a deadline on imposing new sanctions on Russia for its election interference. The punishment was included in a piece of legislation that Trump begrudgingly signed over the summer, and a first deadline for identifying possible targets was missed. Members of Trump’s administration say they are working to prepare the sanctions that lawmakers required, which the law states must be in place by the end of January. But last month, Trump said Russia was already sanctioned “at a high level” and that he was intent on returning the relationship to friendlier terms. “People don’t realize Russia has been very, very heavily sanctioned. They were sanctioned at a very high level, and that took place very recently,” Trump said. “It’s now time to get back to healing a world that is shattered and broken. Those are very important things.” Related article Can Donald Trump fire Robert Mueller? And how would it work? Trump added, “And I feel that having Russia in a friendly posture, as opposed to always fighting with them, is an asset to the world and an asset to our country, not a liability.”


Forget pre-season friendlies, the buildup to new English Premier League season has been all about the battle of the kits and the lucrative sponsorship deals linked to them. If the EPL title was decided on this basis then Manchester United would undoubtedly top the table and the Red Devils chose the weekend before the start of the 2015/16 campaign to unveil its new strip, sponsored by German sportswear manufacturer Adidas. The deal, worth a reported £75 million ($117m) per year, was first announced in July 2014, but could not come into force until a 13-season contract with Nike had expired. The value of the Nike deal per year was roughly a third than the new arrangement, such has been the explosion in commercial revenues for the top European club sides. Read: Shirt sponsorship gold rush For the 2015/16 season, the likes of Wayne Rooney and new signings Bastian Schweinsteiger and Memphis Depay will don a new strip which the club said was a “classic design”. The birthday boy reporting for duty and ready to break expectations. Happy birthday @BSchweinsteiger #BeTheDifference pic.twitter.com/OIvSDtxvLG United group managing director Richard Arnold said “Everyone at Manchester United is very proud of the shirt, which draws upon the club’s iconic kits of yesteryear.” It is the first time Adidas has made United’s strip for 24 years and will be seen in competitive action for the first time when Louis van Gaal’s team hosts Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday August 8. Meanwhile champion Chelsea remains with Adidas, but has a new shirt sponsor in Japanese tire manufacturer Yokohama, reportedly paying £40 million ($62.5m) annually for the privilege. Read: Chelsea tie up with Japanese tire manufacturer It was unveiled ahead of Chelsea’s tour of the United States and will be in full show to home fans Sunday at the traditional curtain raiser to the English season, the Community Shield. Chelsea’s opponents at Wembley, FA Cup winner Arsenal, has also updated its strip and having rung the sponsorship changes last summer by switching from Nike to Puma, an arch-rival of Adidas. Liverpool has also changed manufacturer to wear New Balance kits for the 2015/16 season, but Manchester City has stayed loyal to U.S. corporation Nike for its shirts. Aside from the top revenue earning clubs, Everton chose an unusual theme to launch its third strip, presenting its star players as comic book super heroes, the work of fan and Marvel Comics illustrator Will Sliney. ICYMI...Third kit: http://t.co/qZYtpkDTdPFixture changes: http://t.co/Zle4yq7Vl4Jones deal: http://t.co/TuuTjttaUM pic.twitter.com/t2PmdMhJ0K Outside of the EPL, Spanish and European champion Barcelona is breaking with tradition by donning hooped rather than striped home kit for the new season, but only the superstitious will believe this will prevent the likes of Lionel Messi from repeating its successes.


The US is backing Syrian Democratic Forces and Syrian Arab Forces Retaking the dam is considered a vital step Fighters in Syria have begun a major ground offensive, backed up by US forces, to retake a vital dam near Raqqa, Syria, from ISIS, a US official told CNN Wednesday. The attack also included an unprecedented air assault involving US helicopters landing behind enemy lines – flying about 500 local US allies and coalition military advisers across the Euphrates River and Lake Assad so they could attack the ISIS-controlled dam and neighboring town and airfield from the south. “This is the first time we have conducted an air movement, air assault, with the Syrian Arab Coalition and Syrian Democratic Forces,” Col. Joseph Scrocca, a coalition public affairs officer, said. On a call with reporters from Baghdad Wednesday, Scrocca called the air operation a “daring assault behind enemy lines.” Scrocca would not say how many troops were involved, but a military source said about 500 troops were airlifted behind enemy lines. The attack was backed by US Marines firing M777 howitzers and close air support, including airstrikes carried out by Apache helicopters. But ISIS remains in control of the area after the attack, and weeks of tough fighting could remain, Scrocca said. “We believe there are foreign fighters there, probably in the hundreds,” he said. “The (Syrian Democratic Forces) and our partners there are facing a pretty heavy fight – that’s what makes this type of operation so daring. I think we were lucky we caught ISIS by surprise. They are still reacting to this maneuver.” Tabqa Dam is located 25 miles west of Raqqa, ISIS’ self-declared capital, and supplies electric power to a wide area of Syria, according to the US. The area has been under ISIS control since 2013. Retaking the dam is considered a vital step toward further isolating the area around Raqqa and eventually recapturing the city. The dam and surrounding terrain is a key military asset because it’s “critical for the isolation of Raqqa and the next step toward an annihilation of ISIS in Syria,” but the dam’s destruction “could lead to a severe humanitarian crisis,” Scrocca warned. US Marines equipped with artillery arrived in northern Syria earlier this month with the goal of accelerating the capabilities of the US-backed Arab and Kurdish forces there. The Pentagon and Marine Corps declined to confirm the deployment because of security concerns in the region. They also declined to specify the exact location of the forces or how many are there. A similar deployment last year near Mosul, Iraq, involved several hundred Marines equipped with artillery guns to provide covering fire for advancing forces. The US believes the pressure on ISIS in Raqqa is working. A US official told reporters on March 8 that intelligence indicates some ISIS leaders and operatives continue to try to leave the city. There is also US intelligence that indicates the city is laced with trenches, tunnels, roadside bombs and houses and buildings wired to explode, the official said. If correct, it indicates that the US has likely been able to gather intelligence from both overhead surveillance aircraft and people on the ground. However, the official also noted that “Raqqa will probably not be the final battle against ISIS,” and added that the group still has some personnel dispersed in areas south and east of the city. ISIS could have as many as 4,000 fighters in Raqqa, according to very rough US estimates, the official said. Since November, the terror group has lost some 3,400 square kilometers around Raqqa, in a wide arc north of the city.

US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and Syrian Arab Forces


The Cambodian government is coming under widespread criticism after the leader of the political opposition was arrested and accused of treason. “Kem Sokha, president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), has been accused of involving foreigners in secret plans against the Kingdom of Cambodia” the Phnom Penh Municipal Court said in a statement. “This is considered treason.” Sokha’s lawyer Chann Chen confirmed to CNN Wednesday that his client had been officially charged with treason. He said he hadn’t been able to meet him since the charge was laid. “(We) are currently trying to meet with him. We expect legal proceedings to continue in the typical way,” he said. If found guilty, Sokha could face 15 to 30 years in prison. Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government has accused the opposition leader of plotting with the United States to topple the government. Sokha was arrested at his home in the capital of Phnom Penh in the early hours of Sunday morning and taken to Correctional Center 3 over 100 miles away, according to Mu Sochua, CNRP deputy president. “It’s not necessary to take him to such a remote prison,” said Sochua. “It’s difficult for his lawyers, for his colleagues and his family to visit him.” Sochua also denied there was any plot. “Kem Sokha has committed no crime. His only crime is to promote democracy and wish for the rule of law within democratic principles.” #KemSokha lawyers are now allowed to see him in CC3 prison. #Cambodia pic.twitter.com/e5ynf34rkw Analysts note that his arrest comes soon after his party made significant gains in the local elections in June. “The local election results are a strong indicator of a swing towards the CNRP which worried the ruling party,” said Virak Ou, a human rights activist and economy analyst. With general elections scheduled for June 2018, there are concerns about what lies ahead. Indeed, news of Sokha’s arrest was met with dismay by the US and the European Union. In a statement, the US State Department said the arrest seems “politically motivated” and casts doubt on Cambodia’s ability to “organize credible national elections in 2018 which produce an outcome that enjoys democratic legitimacy.” The statement did not address accusations of trying to topple the Cambodian government. However, US embassy deputy spokesman David Josar directed CNN to a statement he gave The Phnom Penh Post – an English-language daily – on August 30 that said, “any suggestion that the United States is supporting or has supported revolution is categorically false.” In a September 3 statement, the European Union termed the arrest “a dangerous political escalation.” It also said, “This arrest suggests a further effort to restrict the democratic space in Cambodia and the space for independent reporting, comment and criticism.” Sokha’s predecessor, former CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, also issued a statement from his current home in France, where he is in exile. He called the Cambodian government’s allegations of treason “senseless.” “Is it ‘treachery’ to want a democratic change for one’s country and to work peacefully to achieve it?” Rainsy said. When asked about the opposition in an interview earlier this year, spokesman for the Cambodian government’s Council of Ministers, Phay Siphan, was defiant. “I don’t care about critics because they are not Cambodian and they are biased already,” he said. “Who does Cambodia belong to? Kem Sokha or the rule of law?” “Sam Rainsy ran away from his obligations and Kem Sokha has [conspired against us]; this is a problem with the opposition party, not Cambodia,” he said. He dismissed comments from CNRP leaders as “purely propaganda and not factual.” In a September 3 speech to a gathering of garment workers, Prime Minister Hun Sen – who has led Cambodia for 32 years – said he had to arrest Sokha due to the seriousness of the situation. International condemnation of the move was not unanimous. At a press conference on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang, when asked about Sokha’s arrest, said, “As a good neighbor, friend, partner and brother of Cambodia … [We support] the Cambodian government’s effort to uphold national security and stability.” The US State Department, in its statement, added that Sokha’s arrest “follows a number of troubling recent steps, including the imposition of unprecedented restrictions on independent media and civil society.” Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that several Cambodian radio stations airing programming from RFA and Voice of America – both funded by the US – were closed in recent weeks. RFA reported the Ministry of Information had cited violations, including airing “outside programs without requesting authorization.” Meantime, the pro-democracy National Democratic Institute (NDI) was also closed on August 23 after the government issued a statement saying it had failed to comply with its legal duties – not least, registering as a non-governmental organization. However, the NDI said in a statement they had “fulfilled all legal obligations for registration.” None of this will be reported any more in The Cambodia Daily – an independent newspaper founded by American reporter Bernard Krisher in 1993. Its last edition came out Monday after it was slapped with a $6.3 million tax bill. “The Daily has been targeted for an astronomical tax assessment, leaks and false statements by the tax department and public vilification by the head of government,” said Editor-in-Chief Jodie DeJonge via email. Both tax department head Kong Vibol and Minister of Information Khieu Kannarith could not be reached for comment.


Protesters blocked off the road in front of the Hyatt Regency here At one point, about two dozen protesters tried to rush barriers near the hotel Hundreds of demonstrators descended on the California Republican Convention Friday to protest Donald Trump ahead of his speech. Protesters – some of whom wore bandanas over their faces and carried Mexican flags – blocked off the road in front of the Hyatt Regency here, forcing the GOP front-runner’s motorcade to pull over along a concrete median outside the hotel’s back entrance. Trump and his entourage got out and walked into the building. “That was not the easiest entrance I’ve ever made,” Trump said once he began speaking at the convention, adding, “it felt like I was crossing the border.” He slammed the protestors on Twitter Saturday, calling them “thugs and criminals.” “Many are professionals,” he said. “They should be dealt with strongly by law enforcement!” The "protesters" in California were thugs and criminals. Many are professionals. They should be dealt with strongly by law enforcement! At one point before Trump arrived, about two dozen protesters tried to rush barriers near the hotel. Police officers then rushed to the building’s doors, successfully blocking the protesters from getting in. Some of the doors’ handles were handcuffed from the inside so they couldn’t be forced open. Several physical altercations, including shoving, could be seen between protesters and police officers, who were using batons to push them back. After Trump arrived, protesters took down a barrier and flooded the entrance outside the hotel, where police again blocked them from entering. They chanted, “Get him out.” Protesters tearing down barricade pic.twitter.com/Pqu92LsgKP Earlier in the day, Chris Conway, a 51-year-old Trump supporter who was wearing the GOP front-runner’s famous “Make America Great Again” cap, claimed he was kicked, punched and spit on by Trump protesters, though he wasn’t seeking medical attention. Police, apparently concerned for his safety, eventually pulled him over hedges outside the hotel and away from the crowd. Speaking to CNN Friday afternoon, Conway said he was “not surprised” by his treatment. “To be honest with you, I’m glad it was me and not like an 8-year-old girl being pepper-sprayed or something like that,” he said. Burlingame Police Lt. Jay Kiely said later Friday that five people were arrested, including one who was with the crowd when it tried to rush the Hyatt’s entrance. One injury was reported, but Kiely did not know whether it was a police officer, protester or supporter who was hurt or the extent of the injury. Kiely estimated the crowd was in the hundreds, though he did not have a precise figure and did not know how many police officers were dispatched to the scene. He also praised the “incredible restraint” shown by authorities. Protesters have disrupted Trump’s rallies across the country for months, but have rarely escalated into mass street demonstrations. Many protests have focused on Trump’s rhetoric on illegal immigration. “I came out here to support my people and my father,” Adrian Olivares, a 23-year-old college student who was draped in a Mexican flag, told CNN. He said his goal in protesting Trump’s appearance was to display his country’s flag “as loud as I can.” Olivares said his father came to the United States legally in the 1980s, became a citizen and created a home cleaning business in Sonoma County. Trump pinata pic.twitter.com/mEONRExrfv “He’s very successful,” Olivares said. “And for Trump to come out and say we’re just a bunch of rapists, f— him.” Frank Lara, 30, a fourth-grade teacher in San Francisco, brought a Trump pinata with him. He said he was most concerned about Trump’s comments on immigration. “We’re upset at the hate speech and division that this man, Donald Trump, is saying in a time of crisis,” Lara said. “We’re out here to make sure that he does not feel comfortable just saying what he is saying.” Meanwhile, inside the hotel, a few dozen convention-goers and journalists watched the chaotic scene through the front windows, but otherwise most people hardly noticed. Instead, they perused convention exhibits or waited in line for the luncheon. Even as a group of police in riot gear suddenly sprinted through a long hallway, people continued to go about their business. Richard Marshall, GOP chairman for Siskiyou County, was calmly strolling around in the hotel atrium and talking to friends, unfazed by the protesters who were trying to storm the entrance just feet away. “It’s part of the business, isn’t it?” Marshall said. “I mean, I think it’s unfortunate they don’t want to have freedom of speech for everybody and want to have it all for themselves.” Earlier Friday, bare-breasted protesters, men and women, some of whom were associated with the progressive group Code Pink, chanted “stop hate” as they marched. Multiple lines of protesters and police outside. Layered and blocking road ahead of Trump arrival pic.twitter.com/rTA2w5kEBL Nancy Mancias, a Code Pink protester, was kicked out of the convention after yelling into a bullhorn that the Republicans should “dump Trump,” causing a stir inside the already energized state convention. Mancias told CNN afterward, “My message here today is ‘Stop hate and dump Trump.’” Protesters flood front of Hyatt https://t.co/UWrQOt3hCp Protesters blocking off road in front of California GOP convention before Trump speech https://t.co/l78YlfHm2k The protests follow a rowdy scene Thursday night outside Trump’s rally in Costa Mesa, California, where several scuffles broke out between protesters and Trump supporters. At least one police car was damaged and one Trump supporter was visibly bloodied after being punched in the face. About 20 people were arrested Thursday night, police said. In his speech at the convention, Trump predicted the primary season would soon come to a close and called for Republicans to come together, stressing, “there has to be unity in our party.” But, he made sure to note, he could still win in November even if he fails to unite the party. “Could I win without it? I think so, to be honest, I think so,” he said. High-profile Republicans such as Jeb Bush, he continued, may not support him in the general, but he brushed that off as a minor issue. “Big deal, like I care. OK?” “Again, ideally, we’re going to be together,” Trump said. “I think I will win even if we’re not together. I mean there are some people, I honestly don’t want their endorsement. I just don’t want it … It’s not going to have any impact on whether or not we beat Hillary Clinton. It’s not going to have any impact. But most of the party has to come together.” As he wrapped up his speech, Trump again mentioned the protests outside and the lengths to which he had to go to be there Friday afternoon. “You have no idea the route they have planned for me to get out of here,” Trump said. CNN’s Eugene Scott contributed to this report.


Editor’s Note: Dr. Otis W. Brawley is chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society and professor at Emory University. He is the author, with Paul Goldberg, of “How We Do Harm” (St. Martin’s Press). Otis Brawley: New report says prostate cancer screenings do more harm than good He says medical community has long pushed screenings, though benefits unproven He says an industry grew around screening, ignoring considerable associated risk Brawley: Report should end mass screenings, but it will be tough to slow industry Should men be routinely screened for prostate cancer? This question has been asked ever since the prostate specific antigen test, or PSA,  became widely available more than two decades ago. Central to this question is another question: Does prostate cancer screening save lives? Both questions are hard to answer. Screening clearly helps find cancer. But many of the cancers that are diagnosed and treated do not need to be. Left alone, they will not harm the patient. And some cancers go on to cause death despite treatment. The right question really is: Does screening find some cancers that need to be cured and can be cured? After an exhaustive process, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has announced its final recommendation on PSA-based prostate cancer screening. It finds that the known harms of screening outweigh the potential benefits for men who have no cancer symptoms. It notes that all screening studies have demonstrated considerable harms associated with screening, but only one major study found evidence that screening saves  lives – and that study has some internal inconsistencies. It showed screening saves lives in the Netherlands and Sweden, but not in five other European countries. Even the positive parts of that study did not show a considerable increase in lives saved. The task force’s methods are notable for their scientific rigor. A group of experts in prostate cancer and in evidence appraisal systematically reviewed and reported on all the scientific evidence to date on prostate-cancer screening and treatment. The task force, a second group with expertise in preventive medicine and screening, then considered the review and made a preliminary recommendation. That recommendation was made available for public comment last fall. Those comments were then considered before a final recommendation was made. Although the task force recommends against routine screening, it does recognize that some men will still want to be screened because of family history or other concerns. The task force vehemently stresses the necessity of informed consent in such cases: Men must be told of the known harms of screening. Hopefully its strong statement will cause physicians and screening advocates to be more cautious about encouraging screening. Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter and Facebook.com/cnnopinion. For years, professional organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the European Association of Urology, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and even the American Urologic Association, have urged caution and informed decision-making regarding screening. These recommendations have largely been ignored. Over the past 20 years, many well-meaning people have supported mass screening. Celebrities, athletes, politicians and cancer survivors have endorsed screening. Mass screening is commonly conducted in shopping malls, churches and community centers, at conventions and state fairs and in vans parked in supermarket parking lots. News: Task force says PSA  tests do more harm than good Hospitals, medical practices, fraternities, politicians, radio and TV stations and even an adult diaper manufacturer have sponsored mass screenings. Men who attend them are rarely informed of the risks of screening and are often promised unproven benefits. These two decades of mass screening are estimated to have caused more than 1 million American men to receive unnecessary treatment causing numerous common side effects, including radiation-induced bowel injury, urinary incontinence and impotence, and a significant proportion have serious, life-threatening complications. Mass screening is a lucrative business. I am haunted by a conversation I had in the late 1990s with a marketing executive at a major American hospital who bragged about his “prostate cancer business plan.” His hospital conducted free screening at a local mall every September for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. He explained that this was not just cheap and effective advertising for his hospital system. It was also a moneymaker. As he explained it, for every 1,000 men over age 50  who were screened at the mall, 145 would have an abnormal screen, and 135 would go to his hospital for evaluation.  Fees collected from them would easily cover the cost of the free screening event. About 45 in that group would have cancer; the rest would be false positives. The marketer had figured out how many men would be treated with surgery, radiation, and hormones. He had estimates of all the money the center would make from treating all 45 cancer cases. He knew how many men would be treated for urinary incontinence, and what his net profit for treating that would be. Amazingly, he even knew how many of the men would want penile prostheses surgically implanted to treat their impotence. I asked him one question: “How many lives will you save if you screen a thousand men?” He looked at me as if I were a fool, and said, “Don’t you know? No one knows if this stuff saves lives. I can’t give you a number on that.” He was right. It would not be until 13 years later, in 2010, that a clinical trial would finally be published suggesting that screening saves lives – and that trial has internal inconsistencies making that suggestion suspect. Indeed, for two decades, mass PSA-based prostate cancer screening was done in this country without direct clinical evidence showing that it was beneficial to patients. It was, of course, very beneficial to those who offered it. While I hope that this new recommendation will put an end to mass screening, I am not optimistic. As Upton Sinclair once said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Otis W. Brawley.


Democrats rejected an effort to recognize "occupations and illegal settlements" of Palestine in their platform Hillary Clinton's supporters opposed the proposal, while Bernie Sanders' backers supported it Hillary Clinton supporters rejected an effort Saturday to add a call for “an end to occupations and illegal settlements” in Palestinian territories into the Democratic platform. Clinton’s backers argued that the current language in the party’s platform, calling for negotiations for a two-state solution in Israel to give Palestinians a homeland, are enough and that going further would inflame tensions and undercut U.S. diplomats’ ability to lead future negotiations. But Bernie Sanders’ supporters – as well as dozens of young people in the crowd in an Orlando hotel ballroom for the Democratic National Committee’s platform drafting committee’s two-day meeting – said the language they’d proposed simply repeated a position Clinton herself has taken in the past. “This is a moral issue. This is an issue of our time. It has spiritual and moral implications,” said Cornel West, the pro-Sanders civil rights activist and philosopher. “Democratic Party, you’ve been in denial for too long. Palestinians ought to be free.” RELATED: In platform fight, Sanders loses on trade but wins on minimum wage The amendment was voted down, 73-95. Its rejection led to the loudest boos of the day, with one man being escorted out after he stood up and declared that Democrats had “sold out to (American Israel Public Affairs Committee).” A furious group of more than a dozen young people who’d been in the audience stormed out of the room, some shouting at the delegates. Morgan Flake, a Florida State University student, said Democrats are refusing to acknowledge what the United Nations has – that “people are dying and human rights are being violated.” “That’s what we wanted: acknowledgment that this is actually happening, acknowledgment that the occupation is a real thing, and acknowledgment that they’re putting financial matters of the nation above human beings’ lives,” she said. As for who bears the blame for the proposal’s defeat, Flake said: “Most of it was Hillary Clinton supporters.”


Trump has nominated Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, a staunch conservative, to be his CIA director Secretary of Defense-designate James Mattis will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees have been facing Senate scrutiny for two days now. Congress has more hearings scheduled for Thursday. Here are the nominees set to testify before Senate committees Thursday: Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, retired Marine Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, served in the first Gulf War and in Afghanistan. He has led the all-important US Central Command, which is in charge for the US military in the Middle East. He was also Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Trump picking Mattis was a break with protocol; part of the National Defense Authorization act mandates a seven-year wait period between active duty and becoming secretary of defense, which requires a waiver. Mattis is scheduled to go before the Senate Armed Services Committee at 9:30 a.m. ET. Related video Who is James Mattis? The President-elect’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development is his former Republican presidential primary rival. Ben Carson is known for his career in neurosurgery, and became the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins at age 33. Carson does not have any experience in government or running a large bureaucracy. Carson is scheduled to go before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee at 10 a.m. ET. Related video Ben Carson in 60 seconds Trump has nominated Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, a staunch conservative, to be his CIA director. The congressman was tapped to serve on the House Intelligence committee and the Select Committee on Benghazi, and took a tougher stance on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton than some other Republicans. Pompeo was also a strong critic of the Iran nuclear deal and introduced several bills focused on security concerns about the Iranian government. Pompeo is scheduled to go before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at 10 a.m. ET. Related video Who is Trump's pick for CIA director?


Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says ISIS is losing momentum Mosul has been under ISIS control since June 2014 Claiming a victory in Ramadi over ISIS, Iraqi security forces now plan to retake Mosul. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that Iraqi military and local police forces will work together to make it happen.  That cooperation will make it “much, much easier,” he said. He repeated his pledge to give ISIS the boot from Iraq in 2016 “like we surprised the world by liberating al Ramadi – nobody thought we would, or we can, but we did.” Whether Ramadi has been fully liberated is up for some debate.  ISIS fighters may still control up to a quarter of the city. “I think Daesh is losing the momentum,” Abadi said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The prime minister blamed foreign fighters for the worst of Iraq’s problems. “Most of, or [the] majority of hardcore fighters in Iraq are non-Iraqis,” Abadi said.  “They are from all over the world.” Tens of thousands of ISIS fighters are believed to be in Iraq and neighboring Syria. “How Daesh was allowed to be built in that strength in Syria?” Abadi asked.  “And was enabled to cross the Iraqi border and occupy Iraqi cities and push its civilians out as refugees and killing many others?” But it will be a long, hard process, he admits.  Mosul has been under ISIS control for a year and a half. “That is a challenge for us. We have to regain these cities. But of course Daesh is an ideology, as you said – is an ideology which is very dangerous. That ideology, I think, has been supported by some countries in the region.”


Other Cabinet members have also made incorrect statements Here's a look at what they said Attorney General Jeff Sessions hasn’t been the only member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet to make an incorrect statement to Congress during the process of being confirmed. As ProPublica points out, four other Cabinet members –  Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price – also made statements to Congress that were later disproven. Here’s a look at the Cabinet members whose testimony didn’t completely sync with the facts: What he said: Sessions was asked by Democratic Sen. Al Franken during his confirmation hearing what he would do if “anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign.” Sessions responded he was not aware of that happening, adding, “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.” What really happened: CNN reported that Sessions was a senator and a top Trump surrogate when he met the ambassador twice – in July on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention and in September when he was a member of the Senate armed services committee. Sessions has drawn a distinction between his role as a Trump surrogate and his duties as a senator and strongly denied ever discussing campaign-related issues with anyone from Russia. The attorney general said he plans to submit a “supplement” to the record of his congressional testimony, detailing the meetings he didn’t mention. What she said: DeVos said during her confirmation hearing that that she had not been involved in her family’s foundation, which has given millions of dollars to Focus on the Family, a conservative non-profit that, among other things, has pushed the benefits of conversion therapy for LGBT men and women. Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan pointed out that she sits on the board, to which DeVos responded, “I do not.” What really happened: DeVos later said at her confirmation hearing that a “clerical error” is what led to her being listed as an officer of her mother’s multi-million-dollar foundation, which made the donations. She was listed as a vice president of the charity for 17 consecutive years, including most recently in the organization’s 2014 tax filing. What he said: In his written testimony to Congress, Pruitt said he never used a private email address for business while he was Oklahoma’s attorney general. What really happened: A spokesman for the Oklahoma attorney general’s office told Oklahoma City’s Fox 25 that Pruitt used his personal email during his tenure in the office. The email was discovered during a public information request. What he said: In written testimony, Mnuchin denied that his former bank used “robo-signing” to foreclose on homeowners. He wrote, “OneWest Bank did not ‘robo-sign’ documents.” What really happened: OneWest’s foreclosure practices included so-called robo-signings that pushed homeowners into foreclosure without proper review or due process. OneWest was one of many banks that agreed to pay millions to compensate customers. What he said: During his confirmation hearings, Price told senators that the discount he received on a stock he bought was “available to every single individual that was an investor at the time.” What really happened: The Wall Street Journal reported that only 20 people were offered the discount at the time. CORRECTION: This story has been updated to accurately reflect Franken’s question to sessions about Russia.