Interpol president who vanished in China has resigned

HONG KONG — Interpol announced Sunday that it had accepted the resignation of its president, Meng Hongwei, who disappeared in China in late September. The international police organization’s statement came shortly after China revealed that Meng was under investigation for unspecified crimes. Interpol said Meng’s resignation was effective immediately but did not address whether Meng resigned under duress. China’s top anticorruption agency said in a one-sentence statement Sunday that Meng was suspected of breaking the law, without giving details. Meng, who is concurrently a Chinese deputy minister of public security, was elected to head Interpol in 2016 and was slated to serve at its headquarters in Lyon, France, until 2020. The unusual case erupted into public view on Friday, when French authorities announced a search for the Chinese national after his wife, Grace, who is living in France, reported him missing to local police. The mystery deepened dramatically over the weekend, as Grace Meng told reporters in Lyon that her husband had sent her a knife emoji as a way of telling her he was in danger before he vanished. Grace Meng covered her face during the news conference because she feared for her safety, the Associated Press reported. Interpol said Friday it was seeking information about its president from Chinese law enforcement. Meng may have been involved in high-stakes power struggles, said Dali Yang, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. “He was in an international post that is significant to China’s ability to influence international events,” Yang said. “This damages the image of the Chinese system and shows how it takes people in without due process, so clearly they saw significant, overriding political reasons to do this.” Meng’s seizure on suspicion of corruption is an ironic reversal for a Chinese official whose ascent to the top of Interpol was supposed to aid Beijing’s efforts in catching corrupt runaway officials. Under Meng’s watch, China submitted to Interpol extensive lists of fugitives suspected of corruption and wanted for extradition. China is now in the sixth year of a vast anticorruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping that has netted thousands of officials and business executives. Critics in China and abroad have warned that many corruption investigations are politically motivated and used to consolidate Xi’s power and topple rival factions. In recent years, investigators at the Communist Party’s influential Central Commission for Discipline Inspection — and an even more


Disappearance and alleged killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi could complicate U.S.-Saudi relations

The disappearance and alleged killing last week of dissident Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi while he was visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul is only the latest challenge to a U.S.-Saudi relationship that both governments have diligently cultivated. The Trump administration has said little beyond expressing public concern over Khashoggi’s fate, and the kingdom has sharply denied any knowledge of his whereabouts. In private, officials from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on down have been frustrated with the lack of a substantive response to direct high-level queries, according to administration officials. Confirmation that Khashoggi was killed — as some senior Turkish officials have charged — or even his disappearance at Saudi hands is likely to spark a new round of congressional pressure to reassess the relationship with Riyadh. “If this deeply disturbing news report is confirmed, the United States & the civilized world must respond strongly, and I will review all options in Senate,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted Sunday, among a number of similar comments. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, long suspicious of Saudi religious extremism and historic ties to terrorism, more recently have been highly critical of Saudi actions in Yemen and at home. Only last month, they were dissuaded by the administration from stopping U.S. military sales and assistance to the kingdom — the world’s largest purchaser of American defense hardware and a key partner in White House plans to bring Iran to heel and to forge an Israeli-Arab alliance. Pompeo’s certification that the Saudis were “undertaking demonstrable actions” to reduce civilian casualties in Yemen caused by airstrikes with U.S.-provided weaponry followed an earlier Senate hold on arms sales over the kingdom’s dispute with Qatar, another U.S. ally in the region. Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist, has been in self-imposed exile for the past year after leaving the country under what he said was fear of arrest. His columns, appearing in The Washington Post and elsewhere, have infuriated the ruling Saudi monarchy, particularly because of his criticism of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the powerful son of King Salman. In an early column for The Post last fall, Khashoggi wrote that Prince Mohammed, widely known as MBS, “promised an embrace of social reform. . . .But all I see now is the recent wave of arrests,” he wrote, including of intellectuals and religious leaders who dared to criticize the crown prince. The Saudis have been


We need answers on Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance

THREE GOVERNMENTS now bear inescapable responsibility to act on the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, the renowned Saudi journalist and commentator for The Post, who vanished after entering Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul last Tuesday. For more than a year, Mr. Khashoggi called attention in his columns to the increasingly authoritarian behavior of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. On Saturday, unnamed sources in Turkey said Turkish investigators believe that Mr. Khashoggi was murdered inside the consulate. If true, this is a horrific crime, the assassination of a journalist in his own country’s consulate on foreign soil — something without precedent in modern times. So far, we have no proof. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said the events are “very, very upsetting,” but he stopped short of confirming reports of a murder. Saudi Arabia continues to insist that Mr. Khashoggi left the consulate after a brief visit Tuesday, but it has provided no evidence to back that up. Amid the conflicting statements, an ominous timeline emerged in some of the accounts. Mr. Khashoggi went to the consulate Sept. 28 in a first attempt to take care of some routine paperwork and was told to come back the following week. Then 15 Saudi officials entered Istanbul, “specifically for the murder,” according to sources quoted by The Post’s Kareem Fahim. Mr. Khashoggi entered the consulate again last Tuesday and did not come out. Saudi Arabia must immediately answer: Who were these 15 officials? What happened, precisely, inside the consulate? The contrived “visit” inside the consulate arranged for Reuters journalists on Saturday does not alleviate worry about Mr. Khashoggi’s fate. Nor does the record of recklessness built up by the Saudi regime under the crown prince, including waves of arrests of critics and dissenters, among them female activists who pushed for the right to drive; the extraordinary quasi-abduction of Lebanon’s prime minister; and the intemperate response to Canada’s justified criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. Having disseminated the awful charge that Mr. Khashoggi was murdered, Turkey must immediately make public any evidence it has to back it up. Turkey must also spare no avenue to investigate. The United States, too, should demand answers, loud and clear. President Trump has treated the Saudi crown prince as a favored ally, and his administration sidestepped criticism of the regime’s abuses. The State Department’s recent decision to certify that Saudi forces were taking adequate


A ‘gross violation of human rights’: Friends, politicians react to reports of Jamal Khashoggi’s death

On Tuesday, one of Saudi Arabia’s best-known journalists went to pick up a form from the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Jamal Khashoggi, a former royal court insider who went on to become a prominent critic of the kingdom’s rulers, had left Saudi Arabia last year after signs that its leadership was growing increasingly intolerant of dissent. His fiancee waited for four hours outside the consulate, but he never reemerged. Now, The Washington Post is reporting that, according to people with knowledge of Turkey’s investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance, a specially trained team of 15 from Saudi Arabia had traveled to Turkey to kill him in the consulate. In the hours since the unconfirmed reports of Khashoggi’s death, friends and admirers have paid tribute and expressed fervent hope that the reports may prove untrue. In the United States, there have been calls for a thorough investigation. Among Saudis on social media, there’s disbelief, skepticism and some speculation that this is all part of some conspiracy by Qatar, which is a rival of Saudi Arabia. On Twitter, Khashoggi’s fiancee wrote: “Jamal is not dead. I cannot believe that he has been killed . . .!” according to the BBC. Media freedom organizations and human rights groups have demanded information on his whereabouts. A friend who has known Khashoggi for 16 years paid tribute to him in Al Jazeera, writing: “He is a good man and a fine journalist. His is a voice of reasoned criticism and wise comment that the Saudi crown prince should listen to.” Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, wrote that the disappearance is a dark warning to Saudis from their rulers. Several U.S. politicians also have spoken out, including Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who said he has been in touch with the State Department. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called for an investigation into what she called a “gross violation of human rights.” The State Department said it was investigating. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said he met personally with the Saudi ambassador to the United States to ask him about Khashoggi’s whereabouts. He has also asked the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to hand over video footage, according to Politico. And several prominent journalists expressed horror:


From travels with bin Laden to sparring with princes: Jamal Khashoggi’s provocative journey

Watan, and an attempt in 2015 to launch a TV network, Al-Arab, was shut down within days for reasons that were never publicly explained. In the 2000s, he was close to Prince Turki bin-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence. During Turki’s tenure as ambassador to London and then Washington, between 2003 and 2006, Khashoggi served as Turki’s adviser and became the de facto spokesman for the Saudi Embassy, said Melhem, who hosted him several times on his talk show as a representative of the Saudi government. Meanwhile, many members of the international news media came to see Khashoggi as a reliable commentator on Saudi affairs, an insider who could be counted on to give insights into the thinking of the opaque monarchy but who was outspoken enough not to be considered a mouthpiece. And he always responded to calls. “He was so close to the royal family and decision-makers, he was almost an unofficial spokesman for quite a while,” said Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington who knew Khashoggi. “And then he was estranged.” During a meeting in Washington last December, Khashoggi spoke of the immense personal price he had paid for his decision to go into exile to continue speaking out. His wife had filed for divorce, many members of his family had shunned him, and he had lost his home and possessions. When he walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last week, he was in the process of rebuilding his life. He had met and become engaged to Hatice Cengiz, and he was seeking a document, required under Turkish law, confirming that he is not legally married elsewhere. They planned to marry soon, friends say. In the absence of conclusive evidence as to his whereabouts, it is impossible to know what has happened to him, said Nematt. But he fears that Khashoggi’s visit to the consulate may have presented the Saudi authorities with an opportunity to silence his voice. “Jamal’s criticism was too dangerous for them because it undermined the Saudis’ relationship with the U.S.,” he said. “Perhaps the Saudis thought this was an opportune time to silence him, whether he was kidnapped or killed.” In his column a year ago, Khashoggi described his determination to continue speaking out. “To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison,” he wrote. “I can speak when so many cannot.” Correction: liz.sly@washpost.com


Turkish president calls Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance ‘very, very upsetting’

express his “profound concern” about Khashoggi’s whereabouts. Ryan told the ambassador that The Post will be “relentless in pursuing this matter” until a final determination regarding his fate. If his disappearance were found to be the result of “state action,” Ryan told the ambassador, “it would be the most depraved and oppressive act against a journalist in modern history.” Khashoggi, who was once close to the Saudi establishment but lived for the past year in self-imposed exile in the United States, first visited the consulate on Sept. 28 to obtain a document related to his upcoming wedding. He returned to the consulate Tuesday about 1:30 p.m., concerned he might be prevented from leaving, his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said. After waiting more than four hours for Khashoggi to emerge, Cengiz called the police, she said. “There is precise information. This case will not go unsolved,” Aktay said Sunday in an interview broadcast on CNN Turk. He suggested Saudi claims that Khashoggi left the consulate — but that the Saudis did not have video footage of his departure — were insincere. “If they think that Turkey is like what it was in the 1990s, they are mistaken,” he said in the interview, referring to a period in which civilians were disappeared in Turkey and their bodies never recovered. Many state officials were never held accountable for the crimes. The Saudi Consulate, he said, “must make a clear statement” about what happened to the journalist. Rights groups and press freedom advocates also called on the Saudi government to immediately account for Khashoggi’s whereabouts. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, a press freedom organization, said Saudi authorities “must immediately give a full and credible account of what happened to Khashoggi inside its diplomatic mission.” If confirmed, Khashoggi’s killing would “constitute a horrific, utterly deplorable, and absolutely unacceptable assault on press freedom,” the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders tweeted. PEN America, which promotes free expression around the world, also called on Saudi authorities to produce Khashoggi immediately if they “wish to counter these claims.” “The reported state-sponsored assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a shocking abomination,” PEN America’s Senior Director of Free Expression Programs Summer Lopez said in a statement. “If Khashoggi was indeed murdered inside a diplomatic facility, it is an act of terror . . . intended to intimidate any who would speak out against the Saudi government,” Lopez said. erin.cunningham@washpost.com kareem.fahim@washpost.com


Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved.

This column has been updated. George Orwell titled a regular column he wrote for a British newspaper in the mid-1940s “As I Please.” Meaning that he would write exactly what he believed. My Saudi colleague Jamal Khashoggi has always had that same insistent passion for telling the truth about his country, no matter what. Khashoggi’s fate is unknown as I write, but his colleagues at The Post and friends around the world fear that he was murdered after he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last Tuesday. I have known Khashoggi for about 15 years and want to share here some of the reasons he is beloved in our profession and the news of his disappearance has been such a shock. Journalists can sometimes seem dry and remote, living in the flat two dimensions of a newspaper page. Khashoggi was a tall, reserved man, austere in the long, white thobe he wore until he went into exile in the United States last year. But in his work, he has always been full of life and daring; he embodied the restless curiosity and refusal to compromise on principle that are the saving graces of our business. Khashoggi has always been the kind of journalist who annoys the authorities. That has been true of Saudi Arabia’s current Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who Khashoggi thought was an impulsive hothead who undermined his own good ideas for reform. But Mohammed bin Salman was hardly Khashoggi’s first target. He was picking fights with the Saudi leadership 25 years ago. He was named editor of the reform newspaper Al Watan in 2003, got fired two months later for publishing criticism of the Saudi religious leadership, got rehired four years after that, and then was forced to resign in 2010 after publishing another controversial piece criticizing Salafist extremism. He was one of those journalists who simply wouldn’t back down when convinced he was right. Khashoggi was passionate for reform of an Arab Muslim world that he considered corrupt and dishonest. He grew up in Medina, the son of a Saudi who owned a small textile shop. He went to the United States for college, attending Indiana State University. He also embraced Islam, joining the Muslim Brotherhood and, in the late 1970s, befriending the young Osama bin Laden, whom he tried to turn against violence. Khashoggi failed to dissuade bin Laden. But he never temporized about the


Turkey concludes Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed by ‘murder’ team, sources say

confirm that . . . Jamal is not at the consulate nor in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the consulate and the embassy are working to search for him,” the consul-general, Mohammed al-Otaibi, was quoted as saying. Later Saturday, the Saudi Press Agency released a statement saying that an unidentified official at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul dismissed the reports that Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate. “The official strongly denounced these baseless allegations, and expressed doubt that they came from Turkish officials that are informed of the investigation or are authorized to comment on the issue,” the statement says, in part. It goes on to say that a “security delegation of Saudi investigators” arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, and that they were there to assist in investigating Khashoggi’s disappearance. The United States is aware of The Post report but cannot confirm it, and does not know where Khashoggi is, a senior U.S. official said Saturday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the case on the record. U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the Turkish conclusions. The conflicting accounts appeared certain to deepen a rift between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both regional powers that have competed for influence in the region. The killing, if confirmed, would mark a startling escalation of Saudi Arabia’s effort to silence dissent. Under direction from the crown prince, Saudi authorities have carried out hundreds of arrests under the banner of national security, rounding up clerics, business executives and even women’s rights advocates. “If the reports of Jamal’s murder are true, it is a monstrous and unfathomable act,” Fred Hiatt, the director of The Post’s editorial page, said in a statement. “Jamal was — or, as we hope, is — a committed, courageous journalist. He writes out of a sense of love for his country and deep faith in human dignity and freedom. He is respected in his country, in the Middle East and throughout the world. We have been enormously proud to publish his writings.” Khashoggi may have been considered especially dangerous by the Saudi leadership, analysts said. His criticisms of the royal family and its vast powers were delivered from his self-imposed exile in the United States and could not be dismissed as the complaints of a longtime dissident. Rather, he has long been a pillar of the Saudi establishment who


To the surprise of no one, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are going massively over budget

It seems they are struggling: According to a report released this week by the national government’s Board of Audit and reviewed by the Associated Press, Japan is likely to spend at least $25 billion and possibly more for the 2020 Games. That figure is nearly four times the original 2013 estimate and more than double the number that was thrown out just 10 months ago, when the Tokyo organizing committee said the Olympic budget was about $12 billion. About a month after that December $12 billion estimate, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said the city needed to spend an additional $7.2 billion “for projects directly and indirectly related to the games,” including building barrier-free facilities for Paralympic athletes, training programs for volunteers, and advertising and tourism plans. Then, this week, the Board of Audit report found the national government’s share of spending had increased to $7.1 billion from the $1.3 billion estimated back in December. Add it all up and it’s about $25 billion. Plus, “a large amount of spending was expected to continue after 2018 leading up to the event,” the report noted, possibly pushing the costs even higher. Tokyo 2020 organizers are disputing the numbers, the AP notes, with a spokeswoman saying costs involved with “inbound tourism, road constructions, subsidy for creating a hydrogen society, and even improving accuracy of weather forecasts with better satellites” should not be considered Olympic expenses. But would the government be spending that money if the Olympics were not coming to Tokyo in 2020? Japanese taxpayers will foot 80 percent of the final bill, the audit found. The IOC’s attempts to tamp down host spending on the Olympics came about for two reasons, both of them embarrassing. For one, cities have become increasingly reluctant to bid on the Games, with Oslo dropping out of the running for the 2022 Winter Games after being selected as a finalist by the IOC, leaving it to choose between Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, two less-than-ideal hosts. For another, buildings constructed for the Games have increasingly become expensive white elephants. The local government in PyeongChang, South Korea, site of this year’s Winter Games, has complained about spending millions on upkeep for Olympic buildings that no one is using, and athletic buildings in Rio, site of the 2016 Summer Olympics, have been left to rot in the wake of Brazil’s economic troubles. In response, the IOC unveiled the “New Norm,”


The end of the Saudi Whisperer

Readers of The Washington Post are by now aware of the uncertain fate of contributor Jamal Khashoggi. The Post’s editorial board summarizes the current state of play: “The Saudi journalist and Post Global Opinions columnist walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul at about 1:30 p.m. last Tuesday, Oct. 2, and has not been seen or heard from since. Turkish government sources are saying he was murdered inside the consulate; Saudi officials are calling that allegation ‘baseless and ridiculous.’” The human tragedy of Khashoggi’s disappearance can be interpreted in various ways. the latest example of Saudi Arabian miscues under Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Trump administration’s lumbering, belated response, the further fraying of the global order, and so forth. The Post has many excellent analyses of these implications. As the author of “The Ideas Industry,” however, I want to talk about what this means for Tom Friedman. The longtime New York Times columnist and Big Book author has moonlighted as the Saudi Whisperer for at least 16 years now. My first memory of Friedman’s column serving as a public forum for Saudi royal musings was in a February 2002 column in which he relayed Crown Prince Abdullah’s proposed peace plan. That did not really go anywhere. Last year, after MBS consolidated power, Friedman flew out to Riyadh and filed the most Panglossian column imaginable about his effort to remake Saudi Arabia. Friedman wrote, “The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia. Yes, you read that right. Though I came here at the start of Saudi winter, I found the country going through its own Arab Spring, Saudi style.” Others were less sanguine about these developments, but Friedman saw hope in MBS’s anti-corruption drive. Six months later, Friedman wrote a follow-up column that was still extremely upbeat, but one in which he seemed to acknowledge the possible downsides. Buried within much of the praise, he acknowledged, “M.B.S. grew up with a lot of resentment and disdain for his lazy cousins, who got obscenely rich, along with the big merchants close to them. His anti-corruption campaign was meant to stem the tide of graft, but it also had elements of revenge, and a power and money grab. And he still has 56 wealthy Saudis under house arrest.” Friedman’s column on Monday Saying that “Friedman was wrong” is the easiest play in the world for


Google bows out of Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud-computing race

also recognize that we cannot control all downstream uses of our technology,” Greene wrote. The JEDI cloud contract would potentially have a much broader exposure to the Pentagon’s advanced weapons systems. The Pentagon has said it already operates individual clouds, many of them built in secret to enable classified military programs. Top Pentagon officials have said the JEDI contract would account for about 16 percent of the department’s overall cloud-computing work, subsuming many of the department’s own cloud efforts. They have also said the JEDI cloud would be used as a springboard for not-yet-developed military systems. Whichever company wins could ultimately have little control over how the military uses its technology. Developing the system “will revolutionize how we fight and win wars,” Defense Department chief information officer Dana Deasy said in a recent interview. Google’s decision to drop out of Project Maven sparked a backlash in Washington at an inopportune time for the company as it tries to expand its business with the federal government. Last week Google chief executive Sundar Pichai met with top defense officials to try to ease tensions. For some, the decision was a reminder of the vast cultural divide between the Beltway government contractors accustomed to doing business with the Pentagon and the Silicon Valley tech firms that are increasingly at the forefront of innovations in artificial intelligence. “At most of the major defense contractors' front offices you’ll see American flags . . . you don’t really see that at Google,” William Schneider Jr., a former Reagan administration acquisitions official who’s a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, said in a panel discussion funded by Microsoft and Oracle. “You may see a place to recharge your Fitbit but nothing to indicate the sort of patriotic identity that the rest of the defense contractors have.” In its statement on the JEDI bid, Google joined a chorus of commercial technology companies in criticizing the Pentagon’s decision to award the contract to a single vendor, saying that a “multi-cloud” approach would have allowed the department to better match different solutions to different workloads. IBM, Microsoft and Oracle have sharply criticized the Pentagon’s approach and even mounted lawsuits seeking to overturn it, arguing that the project is unfairly tilted in Amazon.com’s favor. Amazon and Microsoft are the industry’s cloud market leaders. Competitors are worried that Amazon has an inside track to the JEDI award because it has been


Missing journalist’s fiancee demands to know: ‘Where is Jamal?’

happen.” But he had changed his mind. Kislakci, who is head of the Turkish-Arab Media Association, said he had sought assurances about Khashoggi’s safety from people he knew who were close to Mohammed, as did another friend in London, who declined to be named. Khashoggi was determined to get married, Cengiz and friends said. To wed a Turkish national in Turkey, he needed a document that proved that he was divorced. He had been treated well when he had first visited the consulate and was told to return in a week. It was around 4 p.m. when Cengiz started to realize that something was really wrong. She checked the consulate’s closing time on the Internet — 3:30 p.m. “That’s when I began to ask, ‘Where did Jamal go?’ ” she said. She called a friend as she walked to the gate. “My friend told me that I didn’t sound normal when I called her,” she said. “I was out of my mind.” She asked a guard: “Where is Jamal?” She called the consulate: “Where is Jamal? I am waiting at the entrance. Jamal entered and didn’t come out.” A man came to the entrance. “There’s no one inside,” he said. Khashoggi had previously told her to call an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan if anything happened to him. She did. And she reported the disappearance to police. But solid information has been slow in coming from Turkish authorities. She is frustrated with the lack of information she has received. “As his fiancee, as someone close to Jamal and in love with Jamal, I am waiting for information from my government about what has happened to him,” she said. “Where is Jamal?” Ultimately though, she said, it is up to the Saudis to back up their story. “It is the responsibility of Saudi Arabia to explain and prove how Jamal exited and from where and when,” she said. Until she has proof otherwise, Cengiz continues to believe he may be alive. She scrolls back to her last text message from him. “The house is beautiful, like its owner,” he wrote of their apartment. “I am not giving up hope,” she said. “I hope we will soon learn what happened to him, and I still have hope that he is alive. But I need to know, where is Jamal? I have to know what has happened to him.” souad.mekhennet@washpost.com loveday.morris@washpost.com


The Daily 202: Kanye West coming to White House, after Trump disses Taylor Swift, underscores celebrification of politics

as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday on a Trump administration request testing how much power courts should wield over top executive branch officials,” -- Kavanaugh’s confirmation could also shift the Supreme Court’s rulings on wartime detainees and presidential powers. -- Kavanaugh, whose grandfather went to the new justice's alma mater at Yale, could help strike down affirmative action at universities across the country. -- Kavanaugh’s confirmation also gives Trump the chance to fill another seat on a highly influential federal appeals court. WHERE IS JAMAL? -- “Missing journalist’s fiancee demands to know: ‘Where is Jamal?’” by Souad Mekhennet and Loveday Morris in Istanbul: “Khashoggi, 59, has not been heard from since. Turkish officials have said they believe he was killed inside in a planned murder. A team of 15 Saudis arrived on two planes to carry out the killing, officials have said. Cengiz has not been told whether Khashoggi is alive or dead. On Monday, she was interviewed for the second time by police. They took some of his clothes and other personal items for DNA samples, she said. Saudi officials insist that Khashoggi left the consulate alive, through a back entrance. “If his death is confirmed, it would represent a new level of audacity in Saudi Arabia’s clampdown on dissent under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. While painting himself as a reformer, Mohammed has shown himself to be ruthless in confronting any challenge to his power, jailing activists and dissenters. Once close to the Saudi establishment, Khashoggi had in the past year become one of its most high-profile critics, living in Virginia in self-imposed exile and contributing to The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section.” -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded that Saudi Arabia prove their assertion that Khashoggi left the building of his own accord -- Trump told reporters he was “concerned” about Khashoggi’s disappearance, while the State Department demanded answers from the Saudi government. -- The Post’s Editorial Board demands the immediate release of any relevant information on Khashoggi’s disappearance: -- According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 43 journalists have been killed for their work so far this year. THE TRADE WAR: -- The International Monetary Fund warned last night that Trump’s trade policies could undercut economic growth not just in the United States but around the world. -- China is trying to boost its slowing economy amid the escalating tariffs, which the Trump


Force One to an event in Orlando yesterday. -- Legal experts warn the Trump team’s use of joint defense agreements, known as JDAs, with others caught up in the Mueller probe may push legal boundaries. -- The federal government has frozen the U.S. assets and sprawling Upper East Side mansion of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch and close ally of Vladimir Putin THE MIDTERMS: -- Trump will announce a pro-ethanol EPA directive at a rally in Iowa tonight as part of a bid to woo rural voters in the Midwest for the midterms. -- A new Post-Schar School poll found GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock has fallen 12 points behind Democrat Jennifer Wexton in their Virginia race. -- During a debate for Indiana’s closely watched Senate race, Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly and Republican Mike Braun attacked each other over their stances on abortion. -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is planning a nine-day blitz next week for Democratic midterm candidates. -- Sen. Tim Kaine (D) launched his first attack ad against Republican Corey Stewart in Virginia’s Senate race. THE REST OF THE AGENDA: -- House Speaker Paul Ryan predicted a “big fight” over border wall funding after the midterms. -- Lawyers who work with immigrants say courts are increasingly dealing with the cases of young children. -- Trump encouraged Chicago police to use the controversial “stop and frisk” policy to address the city’s gun violence. SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ: Trump reiterated his baseless claim that the anti-Kavanaugh protesters were paid actors: Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), the No. 2 in GOP leadership, posted this picture from last night’s cocktail reception to celebrate Kavanaugh at the White House: More color from our man in the room: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a potential 2020 presidential candidate, had this message for his followers after Kavanaugh’s swearing-in: Sarah Huckabee Sanders celebrated Hope Hicks’s new job at Fox: So did on-air talent at Fox: From a New York Post reporter: A New York Magazine reporter added another observation: A Vanity Fair reporter shared this: A writer for The Fix addressed arguments about Senate representation following Kavanaugh’s confirmation: Senators from both sides of the aisle expressed concern about Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance: The vice president mourned the journalist’s possible death and emphasized the importance of freedom of the press: A CNN host made this point about Trump’s meeting with Rosenstein: A Post reporter questioned the House speaker’s thoughts on Democratic


James Gunn will write the new Suicide Squad movie. Will he be the difference-maker WB/DC needs?

It looks like James Gunn could be entering an entirely new galaxy. Warner Bros. has confirmed a report by the Wrap that Gunn will write and possibly direct the next installment in its Suicide Squad series, which began with the moneymaking but critically panned 2016 title film. The reported union between Gunn and WB/DC Entertainment seems to be a confirmation that Gunn’s firing from Marvel and the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise is final, despite his directing of two surprise Guardians hits and the cast coming to his defense online. Gunn was fired after the resurfacing of tweets that included jokes about rape and pedophilia. Gunn would come to WB/DC as a big-time talent acquisition. DC Entertainment has yet to catch up to the decade-long success of Marvel Studios, with only “Wonder Woman” as a certified hit in its Justice League era. With “Justice League’s” critical failure, and “Wonder Woman” standing out in part because it wasn’t weighed down by strong ties to DC’s eventual superhero team-up, Gunn probably won’t have to worry about connecting the Suicide Squad to any other future DC movies. Instead, he will probably be leaned on to flesh out returning (and possibly new) characters with a deeper story, a better villain and stronger dialogue. DC’s Suicide Squad has many parallels to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Both comprise characters that, before the films, were known to dedicated comic book fans but lacked the visibility of superhero big guns like Superman, Batman and Captain America. If Gunn can make it work twice with a heavily armed raccoon and a tree that says only one thing, DC probably thinks he can repeat that magic with the likes of Deadshot, Killer Croc and Katana. Perhaps most intriguing would be what Gunn could do with Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, who is not only the standout character from the Suicide Squad but also one of the most popular characters in comics. Robbie will soon star in a stand-alone Harley Quinn film, “Birds of Prey,” so there’s still debate as to how big a role (if any) she’ll have in a Suicide Squad film, although it would seem pointless not to try to include her. Both “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Suicide Squad” leaned heavily on pop hits, perhaps something that attracted WB/DC to Gunn, since he excelled in making music another character in his films during his time with Marvel


The Health 202: Reversing Roe wouldn’t criminalize abortion everywhere

says the vote, even if it fails (as is likely), will force Republicans to defend a Trump administration policy in the final weeks before voters go to the polls: OUCH: Our Post colleague Lindsey Bever writes about a recent cluster of acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM, that developed in Minnesota. The condition has been compared to polio because of how it can lead to paralysis and even death in some cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began tracking AFM in 2014 and since then, 362 cases have been reported across the country. And 38 of those cases have been reported in 16 states just this year. That prompted the Minnesota Department of Health to put out a statement about the recent outbreak of six cases. “For reasons not fully understood, AFM affects mainly children,” the alert read. “All recent Minnesota cases have been in children under 10 years old and all were hospitalized. Cases have been reported from the Twin Cities, central Minnesota and northeastern Minnesota.” AFM can lead to weakness in muscles, with symptoms including facial muscle weakness, droopy eyelids, issues swallowing or slurred speech, Lindsey writes. The Mayo Clinic’s Marc Patterson explained to Lindsey the recent jump in the number of cases “could be that the viruses are mutating to be better able to invade their hosts, or it could be that doctors are now better able to recognize the signs.” — The pro-Obamacare group Protect our Care launched an ad on Monday targeting Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) following her vote to confirm Kavanaugh. The ad imagines a scenario in 2019 or 2020 when the Supreme Court rules to overturn the ACA, with Kavanaugh pushing the vote to a 5-4 margin. “Maine Sen. Susan Collins cast the crucial vote confirming Kavanaugh to the court,” the ad says, flashing a note that reads, “Senator Collins: We won’t forget.” “The ad, which will launch online and on TV in Maine, is meant to punish the Maine senator for being one of the deciding votes to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh,” the Washington Examiner’s Kimberly Leonard reports. “The ad highlights Obamacare's protections for people with pre-existing conditions and says that it will allow insurance companies to deny coverage to half a million people in Maine.” “Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be a rubber stamp on his war on health care was a true test of Senator Collins’s


Annie Gowen receives Daniel Pearl Award from South Asian Journalists Association

The South Asian Journalists Association awarded The Washington Post’s Annie Gowen with the Daniel Pearl Award for outstanding reporting about South Asia. The award honored Gowen’s reporting from Bangladesh in September 2018 that reconstructed a massacre in Myanmar through the voices of Rohingya survivors. Gowen received the prize on Oct. 6 in a ceremony at the National Press Club.


The world has barely a decade to avoid disaster. We need to combat climate change — now.

go from mostly gone to almost entirely gone. More sea-level rise would put up to 10 million more people in danger. High heat would kill more people. It would be much hotter on land and in cities. Deadly mosquito-borne illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever would spread farther. Droughts would be more likely. So would deluges. Tropical fisheries would empty further. Staple crop yields, particularly in some of the world’s poorest nations, would decline more. Disastrous loss of the Antarctic ice sheet would be more likely. Feedback loops could push warming further than anticipated, as, for example, thawing permafrost releases gases the frozen ground has trapped for centuries. Up to nearly 1 million additional square miles of permafrost would thaw at 2 degrees of warming. The risk of activating such a feedback loop is one reason it would be so foolish and irresponsible to breach the 1.5-degree threshold. Extinct species and obliterated ecosystems would be impossible to revive. Workarounds that do not involve rapidly slashing emissions — such as innovative ways of sending more sunlight back into space by, for example, seeding the skies with materials that reflect solar radiation — would not stop the oceans from acidifying. If followed through, the emissions-reduction commitments countries pledged in the Paris agreement would help avert catastrophic warming. But they would still only restrain warming to 3 degrees by the end of the century, barring more ambition in the next decade and after. Global greenhouse gas emissions must fall by 45 percent of 2010 levels by 2030 and decline sharply thereafter to avoid blowing past 1.5 degrees. Yet, at the moment, they continue to rise. Radically changing the trajectory would require a combination of strategies. Humans would need to waste far less energy. Forests would have to be preserved and expanded. Emissions-free renewables would have to ramp up — to around three-quarters of global electricity demand by 2050 — with an assist from nuclear and still-nascent carbon-capture technology that sequesters emissions from traditional fossil fuel burning. Extra-dirty coal, which still produces more electricity than any other single source, would have to be finally phased out. The transition would require investment of about 2.5 percent of world GDP through 2035. This would be difficult but not impossible, if we tried. Historians will look in absolute astonishment at an American administration that not only failed to try but actually pushed in the wrong direction.


Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and the crumbling of the global order

ISTANBUL — I live on a tree-lined street close to the Saudi consulate here, where the journalist and fellow Global Opinions columnist Jamal Khashoggi walked in and hasn’t been seen since. I never met Jamal personally but have read all his columns expressing deep anxiety about his country’s direction. While many in the West were ready to be swept off their feet about the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s promise of reform, Jamal was asking us to pause and look closely. He provided a rare insight into the workings of one of the most hermetic regimes in the world, criticizing the wave of arrests of activists and dissidents, and recognizing the rot of corruption in the kingdom. But seriously, was it any different before? “Saudi Arabia wasn’t always this repressive. Now it’s unbearable,” he explained. After Jamal’s disappearance last Tuesday, I reached out to senior Turkish officials with the hope that any lead in the inquiry would be helpful to my colleagues at The Post. Initially, the Turkish government thought Jamal was being held at the consulate. But soon officials started painting a more sinister picture. If Jamal was murdered, it sends chills down the spine of every activist, journalist and dissident around the world. There are plenty of regimes that repress free speech and target journalists. Turkey itself is among the top jailers of reporters since succumbing to the global trend toward illiberalism. But even repressive regimes rarely target journalists outside of their borders. Dissident Turks have felt safe enough to write from Europe; Russians can produce websites from Estonia or France; many Syrians prefer Istanbul as their new base. But the Khashoggi case could establish a new level of authoritarian outreach that would defy the basic premises of international law and order. No doubt Jamal’s fate will have consequences beyond the investigation. Turkish-Saudi relations have never been warm, but it has gotten much worse recently. It is a Kabuki dance. Ankara has sided with Qatar during the Gulf dispute and promised military reinforcements if Qatar was attacked. The two countries support different groups in Syria and have differences on Egypt and the Israel-Palestinian issue. Ideologically, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party feels an affinity to the Muslim Brotherhood movement across the region; Saudis see it as a top threat to their existence. Over the weekend, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who knows Khashoggi personally, said, “I will chase this


Erdogan demands that Saudis prove missing journalist left their consulate alive

report Monday in the daily newspaper Sabah said investigators were also focused on a convoy of diplomatic vehicles that departed from the consulate on the day Khashoggi vanished. A U.S. official said that Turkish investigators believe Khashoggi was probably dismembered and his body removed in boxes and flown out of the country. Members of Congress, where there has long been bipartisan skepticism about Saudi Arabia, have issued statements and tweets demanding answers from Riyadh. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said in a string of tweets Monday that “if there is any truth to the allegations of wrongdoing by the Saudi government it would be devastating to the US-Saudi relationship and there will be a heavy price to be paid—economically and otherwise.” Graham, who played golf Sunday with Trump at the president’s course in Sterling, Va., said that he had consulted with Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) over their “shared concerns regarding the whereabouts and treatment” of Khashoggi. In a statement sent to journalists Monday, Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, said that reports the kingdom had detained or killed Khashoggi were “absolutely false and baseless . . . I don’t know who is behind these claims, or their intentions,” he said, “nor do I care frankly.” “What we do care about is Jamal’s wellbeing and revealing the truth about what occurred,” the ambassador said. “Jamal has many friends in the Kingdom, including myself, and despite our differences, and his choice to go into his so called ‘self-exile,’ we still maintained regular contact when he was in Washington.” The Saudi government, he said, was “fully cooperating” in the Turkish government’s investigation. “Jamal is a Saudi citizen whose safety and security is a top priority for the Kingdom.” In a meeting Sunday night with The Post’s publisher, Fred Ryan, the ambassador said it was “impossible” that such a crime could be covered up by consulate employees “and we wouldn’t know about it.” Khalid told Ryan that Khashoggi, who was once close to the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, had “always been honest” and that his criticism of the current Saudi leadership “has been sincere.” During the meeting, Ryan expressed The Post’s “grave concern” about Khashoggi’s disappearance, and said the news organization would view any Saudi government involvement in his disappearance as a flagrant attack on one of its journalists. erin.cunningham@washpost.com kareem.fahim@washpost.com


President says he is ‘concerned’ about missing Saudi journalist

President Trump said Monday that he is “concerned” about missing columnist and Saudi government critic Jamal Khashoggi, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked ally Saudi Arabia to provide answers about his disappearance. The president was asked about the case as he returned to the White House after a speech in Florida. “I am concerned about it,” Trump said. “I don’t like hearing about it. Hopefully that will sort itself out. Right now nobody knows anything about it, but there’s some pretty bad stories going around. I do not like it.” Vice President Pence tweeted Monday night that he was “deeply troubled” to hear reports of Khashoggi’s disappearance. “If true, this is a tragic day. Violence against journalists across the globe is a threat to freedom of the press & human rights. The free world deserves answers,” Pence said in the tweet. Late Monday, Pompeo released a statement calling on Riyadh to aid in a thorough investigation. “We have seen conflicting reports on the safety and whereabouts of prominent Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi,” Pompeo said. “As the President has conveyed, the United States is concerned by his disappearance. State Department senior officials have spoken with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through diplomatic channels about this matter. “We call on the government of Saudi Arabia to support a thorough investigation of Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and to be transparent about the results of that investigation.” Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Turkish officials have said they think that Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post, was killed shortly after he arrived at the consulate to get paperwork for his upcoming marriage. Turkish authorities have not officially alleged that Khashoggi is dead, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that the case was “very, very upsetting” and that he was “chasing” answers. Saudi Arabia has denied harming Khashoggi. According to two officials, senior members of the Trump administration have asked Riyadh to clarify the whereabouts of Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen who lived in the United States under self-imposed exile. His writings were frequently critical of the Saudi government and of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, hailed by Trump as a reformer and a visionary. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case on the record. Pompeo tweeted Monday about his weekend trip to


Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance spreads fear worldwide, but we won’t be silenced

to him after he openly supported our campaign #Women2Drive. The tweet wished that I run over Jamal with my car, then crash into a wall and die. This is how the world would be relieved from Manal and Jamal, it said. Jamal, in his kindest words, advised that I ignore such people and continue driving safely. His support — at a time when everyone else was silenced or too scared to talk — meant everything to me. He wrote one of his most powerful recent pieces Saudi dissidents living abroad have long feared the overreach of the authorities. There are reports of abductions but no assassination yet, to the best of my knowledge. It’s all part of a state-run plan to silence criticism of the Saudi leadership. Last May, Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent activist and personal friend of mine, was abducted on a highway in the United Arab Emirates and sent back to Saudi Arabia. She has been in solitary confinement with no sunlight or access to lawyers. Her husband, Fahad al-Butairi, was deported from Jordan to Saudi Arabia as the only passenger on a commercial airplane. He was later pressured by the authorities to divorce her. Between September 2015 and February 2016, three Saudi princes living abroad and engaged in peaceful political activism against Riyadh were taken against their will to Saudi Arabia, and no one has heard from them ever since. As awful as all these incidents are, the outcomes, while unclear, do not appear to have ended in assassination. This raises my hopes that the kind, intellectual and patriotic Jamal Khashoggi is alive and has not been murdered, as the story from Turkish sources goes. Jamal’s Twitter profile reads: “Say your word and leave”. And as much as I feel helpless and devastated now, he would still want us to speak the truth. We might all leave or disappear, but our words against tyranny and injustice can’t be abducted or locked up — our truth will always be free and will always stay. Read more: Editorial: We need answers on Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance David Ignatius: Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved. Tom Toles: The world must not look away from the assault on free expression Erin Cunningham and Kareem Fahim: Erdogan demands that Saudis prove missing journalist left their consulate alive Read Jamal Khashoggi’s columns for The Washington Post


The program to build NASA’s moon rocket could double in price to $9 billion, IG says

The powerful new rocket NASA has been developing for years in its quest to get to the moon and Mars will require a massive amount of additional funding that would double the initial cost of the project to nearly $9 billion, according to a scathing government report released Wednesday. NASA’s Office of the Inspector General found that Boeing, the main contractor, has already spent $5.3 billion on the rocket program and is expected to burn through the remaining contract funds by early next year, three years ahead of time and without delivering a single rocket stage. The rocket also is suffering production delays, the IG found. The first flight of what’s known as the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft was supposed to be a test mission without astronauts by the end of last year, with the first crewed mission expected in 2021. But those launches have now been delayed by 2½ years and may be set back further, the report said. The report is a slamming indictment for a program that for years has suffered delays and cost overruns and has been derided by critics as a “Senate Launch System” that serves more as a jobs program in key congressional districts. Despite those setbacks, NASA and members of Congress have stood by the project, saying it is vital for the agency’s long-term goals to get humans into deep space. During a recent tour of NASA’s rocket factory in New Orleans in August, Jim Bridenstine, the agency’s administrator, praised the project. “What we’re doing here is something that’s never been done before,” he said. “We’re launching the biggest rocket carrying the heaviest payload capacity that’s ever flown. It’s going to send our crew vehicles into deep space to areas we have never flown humans before. It’s a brand-new, very large project that is unmatched in the world and will remain unmatched for a very long time.” In a statement, Boeing said “an unprecedented rocket program has inherent challenges. But it added the “program described in the OIG’s report does not represent the Space Launch System program today.” Boeing has already implemented the recommendations from the report, the company said. The aerospace contractor said it has “restructured our leadership team to better align with current program challenges, and we are refining our approaches and tools to ensure a successful transition from development to production.” A growing commercial space industry has


The Cybersecurity 202: The Pentagon’s new weapons systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks, government watchdog finds

after the Wall Street Journal reported this summer that the social network “has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers” “Data privacy and cybersecurity are more important than ever, and we believe that you owe it to the American people to properly secure the data you currently possess, before you obtain data from a third party,” Menendez and Kennedy said Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Journal’s Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman and AnnaMaria Andriotis reported on Aug. 6 that Facebook “over the past year asked JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and U.S. Bancorp to discuss potential offerings it could host for bank customers on Facebook Messenger.” — “The only thing stopping the vast majority of government IT specialists from stealing sensitive government data is their moral compass, not security protocols, a recent survey found,” — More cybersecurity news from the public sector: — “An independent auditing firm signed off on Google's privacy practices earlier this year after the Internet giant had discovered a software bug that exposed private information on potentially hundreds of thousands of users,” — “Global payment companies held their first joint cybersecurity war games to test their systems’ readiness for simultaneous attacks, uncovering differences in their defenses including even how to define a crisis,” — Bloomberg News's Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley reported Tuesday that a “major U.S. telecommunications company discovered manipulated hardware from Super Micro Computer Inc. in its network and removed it in August, fresh evidence of tampering in China of critical technology components bound for the U.S., according to a security expert working for the telecom company.” A previous report by the two journalists published last week in Bloomberg Businessweek about a Chinese operation to implant malicious chips in Supermicro hardware used by American firms including Amazon.com and Apple has met forceful denials from both companies. In the story published Tuesday, Robertson and Riley wrote that a “security expert, Yossi Appleboum, provided documents, analysis and other evidence of the discovery” after the publication of the Bloomberg Businessweek article. The reporters did not name the telecom company and wrote that Appleboum has a nondisclosure agreement with this company. — More cybersecurity news about the private sector: Today Coming soon Florida residents brace for Hurricane Michael: “I am a voter, are you?”: AMAs get political. Google’s Pixel 3 screens your calls and judges your photos:


In a first, a Chinese spy is extradited to the U.S. after stealing technology secrets, Justice Dept. says

on traditional espionage techniques, including the attempted recruitment of corporate insiders. “No one begrudges a nation that generates the most innovative ideas and from them develops the best technology,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said. “But we cannot tolerate a nation stealing our firepower and the fruits of our brainpower. We will not tolerate a nation that reaps what it does not sow.” Xu, also known as Qu Hui and Zhang Hui, was charged with conspiring and attempting to commit economic espionage and steal trade secrets from multiple U.S. aviation and aerospace companies. The indictment and complaint were unsealed Wednesday — the same day Xu appeared in federal court in Cincinnati. “This case shows that federal law enforcement agencies cannot only detect and disrupt espionage, but can also catch its perpetrators,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Benjamin C. Glassman. The MSS is a civilian spy agency responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence and domestic political security. It was implicated in the hack of a U.S. Navy contractor developing undersea warfare capabilities, including secret plans to build a supersonic anti-ship missile for use on U.S. submarines by 2020. Xu is a deputy division director with the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a provincial arm of the MSS. “If not the first, this is an exceptionally rare achievement — that you’re able to catch an espionage operative and have them extradited to the United States,” said John Carlin, a former assistant attorney general for national security. “It significantly raises the stakes for China and is a part of the deterrence program that some people thought would never be possible.” Beginning in December 2013 and continuing until his April 1 arrest in Belgium, Xu targeted experts working for aeronautics companies inside and outside the United States, including Cincinnati-based GE Aviation, officials said. GE Aviation has spent decades developing its unique jet engines and fan blades. Xu recruited experts to travel to China, often under the guise of asking them to deliver a university presentation and passing himself off as an official with the Jiangsu Science and Technology Promotion Association. Xu often exchanged information with individuals at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, one of the top engineering schools in China, which has significant influence over the country’s aerospace industry, according to court documents. GE Aviation cooperated with the FBI early on in the investigation, which dates


Trump’s nasty apathy about Jamal Khashoggi

President Trump is many awful things — a braggart, a liar, an ignoramus, a bully and a foul-mouthed narcissist. Now we see him apathetic about what appears to be a brutal crime — the disappearance of a journalist, Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, who entered Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul last week and never came out. It has been reported that Khashoggi was murdered there. Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist, had become a critic of the country’s effective dictator, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a son of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and, like Trump, born into great wealth. Since assuming power, the prince has moved erratically to modernize the country, permitting women to drive and opening movie theaters, for example. He has also shaken down some of the country’s richest people, detaining them in the very nice Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh; invited Lebanon’s prime minister to Riyadh and put him under what amounted to house arrest; and engaged in a horrific war in Yemen. It is turning out to be Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam. The nastiness of the prince is now beyond dispute and so, really, is the nastiness of his judgment. Nonetheless, Trump continues to embrace the regime and, in fact, supports the war in Yemen. And when the regime in Riyadh arrests and jails dissidents, such as the women who led the effort to lift the ban on female driving, Washington says nothing. The silence of the Trump administration is bad enough. What’s worse is the language the president has used regarding the press. He has called it “the enemy of the people.” He has denigrated the legitimate obligations of a free press, the ones recognized and guaranteed by the Founding Fathers. The president has hurled all sorts of invective against journalists and journalism, accusing all of manufacturing the news, covering up the truth and outright lying. Trump has said nothing as Vladimir Putin’s regime has virtually eliminated Russia’s independent press — particularly in television — and has been credibly linked to the murders of journalists. Trump has shown authoritarian regimes that the contempt they have for the media is shared by him. From Riyadh to Moscow, they get the message from Trump: Journalists are scum. The ones who die covering wars or merely expose conditions in mental hospitals, the ones who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome from covering one too many battles, the ones who (unlike me) put


Turkish officials accuse Saudi Arabia of lack of cooperation in Khashoggi probe

ISTANBUL — Turkish officials on Wednesday accused Saudi Arabia of not cooperating with Turkey’s investigation into the disappearance of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul last week, as video footage and the names of a 15-member Saudi team suspected of ties to the case emerged. Turkey has put in a request to enter the consulate, where Khashoggi was last seen Oct. 2 as he stepped through the compound’s front gate to obtain papers for his wedding. However, despite Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s offer to Bloomberg News for the Turkish government to search the premises, Saudi Arabia is delaying and does not want an investigative team to enter, one senior Turkish official said. Saudi officials in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment. “The Saudis now seem to delay,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. “They say: ‘You can’t make a proper investigation here. You just come here for a cup of tea and we’ll show you around.’ ” “The Saudis are not cooperative in this investigation,” another Turkish official said. “We don’t have the access we need to the consulate or to the consul’s house.” Under the Vienna Convention, a host country cannot enter the grounds of a foreign diplomatic mission without permission. Saudi officials strongly deny any involvement in the disappearance of Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section, and insist that he left the consulate unharmed that day. However, they have not presented any evidence to back that claim. They say their numerous video cameras were not recording at the time. The senior Turkish official said Turkish authorities have “strong indications” that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate. They also hope to search the Saudi consul general’s residence, 500 yards away. Several vehicles, including a black Mercedes-Benz Vito van, headed from the consulate to the residence two hours after Khashoggi entered the diplomatic facility, according to a video obtained by The Washington Post on Wednesday that purported to lay out the movements of the 15-member team. The footage was compiled and edited by Turkish authorities piecing together a timeline of the events of Oct. 2, the last day Khashoggi was seen, according to a person close to the investigation who provided it. It came as the Turkish newspaper Sabah published the identities of the 15 men. Three Turkish officials


The D.C. Restaurant Hall of Fame

Tom Sietsema selects 10 top restaurants in the District that have set the bar for fine dining.


DJ Durkin’s fate with Maryland football remains unclear after more than eight weeks. Why?

is complete at that time, the board will likely take up the matter during that meeting. The full board is not scheduled to meet again after that until Nov. 28, though it could call a special meeting to consider the commission’s findings if the report is ready after Oct. 19. There is no assurance the board will take immediate action once it does review the commission’s findings. For starters, personnel decisions could require negotiations and discussions that extend beyond the board members. The system’s flagship university in College Park employs Durkin and others who could be implicated in the report and technically has the authority to make employment decisions. It is also possible the board simply will not be ready. In a statement issued Sept. 26, a system spokesman noted that decisions were unlikely to be made until the conclusion of three concurrent investigations: one conducted by an independent firm into the events surrounding the June death of 19-year-old football player Jordan McNair as a result of heatstroke suffered during a team-related workout; a separate probe into the culture of the program; and a third review by the state attorney general’s office that is also related to McNair’s death. “We will not speculate, make judgments or attempt to apportion responsibility until all of these investigations are concluded and the Board of Regents has sufficient information to make the decisions necessary to better safeguard the well-being of student athletes,” the spokesman said last month. Findings of the first investigation, into McNair’s death, were released Sept. 21 , but it’s not known when the attorney general’s office might finish its review or what it entails. That investigation was triggered by attorneys for the McNair family filing notice with the state of their intent to sue the school. The state’s top prosecutor doesn’t generally make public any details of its ongoing investigations. Robert L. Caret, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said last month that he expected the attorney general’s office to “look at everything separately” and that “they’ll go in any direction they need to go.” That could mean interviewing some of the same people and reviewing the same materials as the commission that’s digging into the program’s culture. People familiar with the commission’s work said that investigators were still conducting interviews last week, circling back to some people who had been interviewed previously. A person familiar with the process said


IBM challenges Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud computing effort days before bids are due

protest in an interview Tuesday with The Post. The bid protest flies in the face of the government’s decision to turn to a single provider for the contract, echoing a legal challenge that software giant Oracle filed in early August. But IBM took that criticism a step further in arguing that the single-award approach would conflict with the White House’s “Cloud Smart” strategy, which emphasizes leveraging the best options from government and commercial industry. “Given what DOD is trying to do with this cloud — a single award, and lock-in for 10 years — [picking just one provider] is completely contrary to their objectives,” he said. “This DOD cloud award is completely contrary to what the [Trump] administration has been saying as far as cloud smart.” Gordy also reiterated concerns that the procurement could be biased in favor of Amazon. The company’s competitors are worried that Amazon has an inside track to the JEDI award because of its earlier work with the CIA, and because the request for proposals includes certain federal information technology certifications that only Amazon is likely to meet and which played a central role in Google’s decision to drop out of the competition. IBM executives say the company will have “some, but not all” of the required certifications as of the Friday due date. “There are elements of the [JEDI request for proposals] that clearly indicate a certain vendor in mind,” Gordy said Tuesday. The company separately described elements of its legal strategy in a draft blog post that is to be published on the company’s website. In the post, IBM said the Pentagon’s single-vendor approach for the JEDI contract would further undermine the department’s cybersecurity posture. “JEDI’s single-cloud approach also would give bad actors just one target to focus on should they want to undermine the military’s IT backbone,” the company wrote in a draft shared with The Post. “The world’s largest businesses are increasingly moving in a multi-cloud direction because of security, flexibility and resilience; the Pentagon is moving in precisely the opposite direction.” IBM executives seem to have no qualms about the possibility that a deluge of legal actions could obstruct the contract entirely, saying it would be better to restart the process and turn to multiple vendors. “Getting it off the ground if you’re doing it the wrong way doesn’t serve the nation,” Gordy said. “Better to do it the right way.”


How Trump enabled the abuses of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince

TWO YEARS ago it would have been inconceivable that the rulers of Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally, would be suspected of abducting or killing a critic who lived in Washington and regularly wrote for The Post — or that they would dare to stage such an operation in Turkey, another U.S. ally and a NATO member. That the regime now stands accused by Turkish government sources of murdering Jamal Khashoggi, one of the foremost Saudi journalists, in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate could be attributed in part to the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s 33-year-old de facto ruler, who has proved as reckless as he is ambitious. But it also may reflect the influence of President Trump, who has encouraged the crown prince to believe — wrongly, we trust — that even his most lawless ventures will have the support of the United States. The Obama administration distanced itself from the Saudi leadership because of its opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran, and because of the misbegotten Saudi intervention in Yemen, which has led to thousands of civilian deaths in indiscriminate bombing. But soon after taking office, Mr. Trump moved dramatically to restore relations. He made Riyadh — rather than Ottawa or Mexico City — the destination for his first foreign visit; there he quickly succumbed to the over-the-top displays of fealty and promises of huge arms purchases by his hosts. Unlike previous presidents, Mr. Trump did not raise human rights issues with Saudi leaders, though the crown prince has imprisoned hundreds of liberal activists, including women who advocated the right to drive. When scores of businessmen and royal family members were detained in late 2017 in what amounted to a massive shakedown — most were released after turning over assets to the regime — Mr. Trump was approving. “I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,” he tweeted. “They know exactly what they are doing.” When the crown prince visited Washington in March last year, Mr. Trump received him at the White House and again made no mention of human rights. “The relationship is probably the strongest it’s ever been,” he said. “We understand each other.” The president bragged about hundreds of billions in arms purchases he said the Saudis had promised, saying, “Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, and they’re going to give the United States


In suburban Maryland, housing market indicators move in opposite directions

While housing markets are often discussed on a regional basis, there can be vast differences between adjacent counties as well as between nearby neighborhoods. Regionally, the Washington area is experiencing price increases as well as slightly fewer sales, and there are indications that the years-long shortage of homes on the market may be easing. But when you look at suburban Maryland’s Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, market indicators are often going in opposite directions. In both counties, home prices rose in August, but the gap between values in the two areas remains high. The median sales price in Montgomery County was $443,000 in August 2018, up 4.2 percent compared with August 2017, according to Rockville-based Bright MLS. The median sales price in Prince George’s County was $294,950 in August 2018, up 7.3 percent compared with August 2017, according to Bright. Sellers continue to have the upper hand in both counties, with homes selling quickly — within 17 days in Montgomery County and 18 days in Prince George’s County on average, according to Bright. Another indication of a seller’s market is that buyers are paying an average of 98 percent of the listing price in both counties. Redfin brokerage’s “Compete Score,” which measures the level of difficulty buyers will encounter in a bidding war, ranks Takoma Park Historic District in Montgomery County at the top with a 90 out of 100. Other highly competitive neighborhoods in Montgomery County include Takoma Park, outside the historic district, (88) and Wheaton (84). In Prince George’s County, the two most competitive neighborhoods are University Park (85) and College Heights in Hyattsville (84). Sales slide in Montgomery A limited number of homes on the market has been plaguing buyers for years and continues to have an impact in Montgomery County, where Bright says the number of homes listed for sale declined again by 5.7 percent in August compared with August 2017. “Inventory is tight in Montgomery County because homeowners aren’t moving if they don’t have to,” says Bryan Kerrigan, a real estate agent with Redfin brokerage. “They’re concerned they won’t be able to find another place to buy, plus the impact of a higher interest rate is even bigger with a larger mortgage. Someone looking at a $1.5 million house may not want to give up a 3.5 percent mortgage rate for a 5 percent rate.” Rising home prices mean that even people who want to


The Daily 202: Following in Bush 41’s footsteps? Five takeaways from Nikki Haley’s departure as U.N. ambassador.

to have lain in wait for him: “Turkish officials, who are examining the squad’s movements, have now expanded their investigation to explore what happened at the residence of the Saudi consul general, Mohammed al-Otaibi, located 500 yards from the consulate. -- One senior official told the New York Times that Turkish investigators concluded that Khashoggi was assassinated inside the consulate on orders from the "highest" levels of the royal court. -- Turkish authorities say Saudi officials quickly removed security-camera footage from the consulate and gave their Turkish employees the day off on Oct. 2. -- Diplomatic pressure from the rest of the West continued to mount — with strong statements from the United Nations, the European Union and a host of other world leaders: -- Trump’s tone remained notably muted in comparison. -- In an op-ed for The Post, Khashoggi's fiancee called on Trump to help shed light on his disappearance. -- The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), expressed frustration with official explanations offered by the Saudis: -- A statement from The Post's publisher: -- “Trump seldom waits for the facts before rendering judgment. But when it comes to the disappearance of [Khashoggi], Trump has been strangely reticent,” -- “If Jamal was murdered, it sends chills down the spine of every activist, journalist and dissident around the world,” THE NEW WORLD ORDER: -- Trump said his second summit with Kim Jong Un would occur after the midterms. -- The wife of the former head of Interpol said she received a threatening phone call shortly after her husband disappeared in China. -- A major U.S. telecommunications company has discovered hacked Chinese hardware in its network. -- Ford is now planning layoffs in part due to Trump’s escalating trade war with China. -- The offices of the Kremlin-linked troll farm in St. Petersburg that served as a hub for Russia’s 2016 disinformation campaign were set on fire in an arson attack. -- The second GRU operative accused of poisoning an ex-spy and his daughter in Salisbury earlier this year has been identified as Alexander Mishkin — a native of the small Russian village of Loyga. -- Bulgarian authorities have identified a suspect in the rape and murder of journalist Viktoria Marinova. KAVANAUGH ON THE COURT: -- Protesters massed outside the Supreme Court to greet the newly sworn-in Justice Brett Kavanaugh for his first day on the job


One person killed, two wounded in morning violence in D.C.

A man is dead and a woman is injured after a double shooting Tuesday morning in Northeast Washington, police said. The shooting took place at about 8:30 a.m. in the 1600 block of Montana Avenue NE, the border of the Brentwood and Langdon neighborhoods. At the scene, a man and a woman were found breathing but suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, police said. On Tuesday afternoon, police said, 26-year-old Robert Merritt of Northeast died from his injuries at a hospital. Details on any suspect or motive in the shooting were not immediately available. D.C. police were also investigating a stabbing in the 400 block of Eighth Street SE, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The stabbing was reported about 7:20 a.m., and a male victim was found conscious, police said. The suspect in the stabbing was described as a black man wearing a blue hooded sweater, white tennis shoes and dark blue jeans, carrying a black book bag, police said. He was last seen heading northbound on Eighth Street SE. michael.brice-saddler@washpost.com


Turkey says it will search Saudi Consulate amid probe of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that authorities will search the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of an investigation into the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last week. A week after Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, a growing front of diplomatic pressure and forensic efforts has produced sweeping suspicions but no definitive clues to Khashoggi’s fate. Turkish investigators think Khashoggi, 59, was killed shortly after he entered the consulate on Oct. 2 and his body later removed from the premises, according to a U.S. official and sources close to the investigation. The Saudi government denies any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance. Meanwhile, another possible layer in the investigation emerged with a report by the newspaper Sabah — a pro-government Turkish publication with connections to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — of two private jets arriving from Saudi Arabia on the day Khashoggi was last seen. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said that it now wants to inspect the consulate in Istanbul’s Levent district and walk the same steps taken by Khashoggi, a writer and critic of Saudi Arabia’s leadership. A statement from Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said Saudi authorities were “open to cooperation” and would allow an examination of the consulate’s grounds. It was not clear when the search would take place. The Washington Post published Monday an image from a closed-circuit television camera that a person close to the investigation said showed Khashoggi’s last known seconds in public — as he was stepping through a door to enter the consulate for an appointment to get administrative documents for his upcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancee. Turkish investigators also are trying to nail down the exact movements of 15 Saudi nationals who arrived in Istanbul the same day and are suspected of having a role in Khashoggi’s disappearance. A report in Sabah said the team members arrived from Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in two private Gulfstream IV airplanes on Oct. 2. One plane, with nine passengers, landed before Khashoggi entered the consulate about 1 p.m., and the other plane, with six passengers, arrived later, according to the flight manifests, the newspaper reported. The veracity of the report could not immediately be confirmed, but a person with knowledge of the investigation corroborated some of its details. “The team that arrived with the first plane checked in and left their belongings at two separate


Local Digest: Man killed, woman injured in D.C. double shooting

THE DISTRICT Man killed in double shooting in Northeast A double shooting left a man dead and a woman injured Tuesday morning in Northeast Washington, police said. The shooting took place about 8:30 a.m. in the 1600 block of Montana Avenue NE, the border of the Brentwood and Langdon neighborhoods. There, a man and a woman were found wounded but breathing, police said. On Tuesday afternoon, police said, 26-year-old Robert Merritt, of Northeast, died of his injuries at a hospital. Details on a suspect or motive in the shooting were not immediately available. D.C. police were also investigating a stabbing in the 400 block of Eighth Street SE, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The stabbing was reported about 7:20 a.m., and a male victim was found conscious and breathing, police said. Police described a person of interest in the stabbing The suspect in the man stabbing was describedas a black man wearing a blue hooded sweater, white tennis shoes and dark blue jeans and carrying a black book bag, police said. He was last seen heading north on Eight Street SE. — Michael Brice-Saddler MARYLAND Pedestrian fatally struck in Suitland A pedestrian was fatally struck by a car in Suitland on Tuesday afternoon, Prince George’s County police said. A car traveling west on Silver Hill Road near Brooks Drive in Suitland struck a woman shortly before 1 p.m., police said. The woman, whom police didn’t name, was taken to a hospital, where she died. The driver of the car that struck the woman was not injured and stayed at the scene, police said. Investigators were working to determine what caused the crash. Police shut down Silver Hill Road going west and advised commuters to use a different route. — Lynh Bui THE REGION Fugitive is captured after car chase A Fairfax County fugitive who had previously escaped police by wriggling through a motel ceiling was captured Tuesday after a car chase that spanned Virginia, the District and Maryland, authorities said. Prince George’s County police captured Alton Thados, 32, in the 6200 block of Marlboro Pike in District Heights on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said. Thados was wanted on charges of grand larceny, credit card theft and credit card fraud, and a probation violation. Fairfax police said Thados was first spotted driving a stolen car through the Lincolnia area of Fairfax County about 11 a.m. Tuesday. Police chased him, launching a helicopter


China disappeared Interpol’s chief. The world can’t pretend it’s business as usual.

Sophie Richardson is the China director at Human Rights Watch. In the past week, reports of Chinese authorities' latest audacious move — forcibly detaining Meng Hongwei, then the president of the international police organization Interpol — has made clear Chinese President Xi Jinping's deep disdain for the rule of law. But some of Xi's aspirations could be thwarted if global organizations responded with more-robust opposition to his abuses of power. Meng's disappearance joins other Chinese government human rights violations that have garnered recent headlines: "Liu Xiaobo , Nobel Peace Prize laureate imprisoned in China, dies at 61"; "China Has Detained Up to a Million Muslims "; "Where is Fan Bingbing ? The Chinese star has mysteriously disappeared." Meng, who is also a vice minister in China's Ministry of Public Security, traveled to China from his posting in Lyon, France, on Sept. 25. After about a week of not being able to reach him, Meng's frantic wife, Grace, approached French police. It was not until Oct. 7 — nearly two weeks later — that Chinese authorities acknowledged they had detained him. Meng was being investigated for corruption, they said; no information regarding his whereabouts was provided. Meng rose to power through the system that is now poised to mete out punishment to him. He is likely being held in "liuzhi," a form of secret detention effectively controlled by the Chinese Communist Party under which detainees are held incommunicado — without access to lawyers or relatives — for up to six months. The right to a fair trial is elusive even for ordinary criminal suspects in China. In high-profile, political cases such as Meng's, there are no rights — no real opportunity to contest one's detention or to present a legal defense before an impartial court. Meng can expect to be held until he is coerced into confessing, then given a summary trial and handed a harsh prison sentence. However, don't expect Meng ever to be held accountable for the countless people, including rights activists, whose arbitrary detention, torture and mistreatment he oversaw in China's Ministry of Public Security. Xi's heavy-handed treatment of Meng will no doubt have many senior Chinese officials looking over their shoulders. But it should also raise concerns at global institutions where high-level Chinese officials already have been installed in powerful positions. The institutions include the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the International Court of Justice.


Carolyn Hax: She wants her mom in the hypothetical delivery room. He doesn’t.

Dear Carolyn: And my girlfriend told me her preference is to have her mom in the delivery room with me when the time comes. Let's just say, I'm mid-processing how I feel about this. On one hand, my girlfriend would be the one doing all the work. So, whatever makes her comfortable. And her mom and I get along. Hey, anything that spares me a headache I should be on board with, right? But, my gut tells me this is a moment I would want to be just the two of us. Also, one reason my girlfriend wants her mom in the room is because she doesn't feel I would be enough of a "bulldog" (which she says in most other situations is a good thing). I'm biased, but I'm confident in my ability to step up and proactively advocate for my girlfriend mid-chaos. Now I'm making this some sort of litmus test. If she doesn't trust me in the delivery room, then what does that say about us? Is it really a thing that grandmas are in the delivery room (said ducking for cover from feminist grenades)? Any help would be appreciated. — Enough of a "Bulldog" Enough of a “Bulldog”: Come on. Everything else about your letter says you’re better than that. A bit shaky on history, though. Women across time have gone through labor with the support of other women. So yes, it is “a thing.” That doesn’t mean it has to be your and your maybe-someday-wife’s thing. Each couple would be wise to think and talk about this without holding back, drawing from all relevant information about their own strengths and weaknesses and the strengths and weaknesses (and boundary awarenesses) of the potential birth attendant — and come to the decision that suits them best as long as it comports with relevant hospital policy. The bearer of the child gets the tiebreaker vote; you’re right about that part for sure. It’s also possible for a woman to find her mother/sister/mother-in-law/friend/doula useful or comforting without snubbing the partner in the room; medical staff are already there, right? It’s a team effort regardless. Labors can be long, and their demands on a support team extensive. One is the hand-holder, say, and one is the fetcher of things. Her mom can also be in the room for the hours of labor — the support marathon — and step out


The world has just over a decade to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say

— bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS. “Such large transitions pose profound challenges for sustainable management of the various demands on land for human settlements, food, livestock feed, fibre, bioenergy, carbon storage, biodiversity and other ecosystem services,” the report states. The document in question was produced relatively rapidly for the cautious and deliberative IPCC, representing the work of nearly 100 scientists. It went through an elaborate peer-review process involving tens of thousands of comments. The final 34-page “summary for policymakers” was agreed to in a marathon session by scientists and government officials in Incheon, South Korea, over the past week. The report says the world will need to develop large-scale “negative emissions” programs to remove significant volumes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Although the basic technologies exist, they have not caught on widely, and scientists have strongly questioned whether such a program can be scaled up in the brief period available. The bottom line, Sunday’s report found, is that the world is woefully off target. Current promises made by countries as part of the Paris climate agreement would lead to about 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of the century, and the Trump administration recently released an analysis assuming about 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 if the world takes no action. In a statement, a U.S. State Department official expressed appreciation for all the work that went into the report but noted that “governments do not formally endorse specific findings presented by the authors.” “From 2005 to 2017, U.S. CO2-related emissions declined by 14 percent while global energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 21 percent during the same time,” said the official. “This has been possible through the development and large-scale deployment of new, affordable, and cleaner technologies to capitalize on our energy abundance.” The IPCC is considered the definitive source on the state of climate science, but it also tends to be conservative in its conclusions. That’s because it is driven by a consensus-finding process, and its results are the product of not only science, but negotiation with governments over its precise language. In Sunday’s report, the body detailed the magnitude and unprecedented nature of the changes that would be required to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but it held back from taking a specific stand on the feasibility of meeting such an ambitious goal. (An early draft


The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” win Emmy Award for “The Whistleblower”

The Washington Post and CBS' “60 Minutes" have won a News & Documentary Emmy Award for “The Whistleblower”, a joint investigation into how the drug industry triumphed over the DEA in its effort to combat the nation’s opioid crisis, the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history. The Post’s reporting team included Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein with contributions from Steven Rich, Alice Crites and Alice Li. From 60 Minutes, the team included Bill Whitaker, Ira Rosen and Sam Hornblower. The joint investigation has previously been honored with a Peabody Award, a Scripps Howard Foundation award and the 2018 Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism. The News & Documentary Emmy Awards promote excellence in broadcast journalism in 49 categories. Winners of the 39th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards were announced by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) at a dinner in New York on October 1st, 2018. See the full list of winners here.


Crown prince sought to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and detain him, U.S. intercepts show

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered an operation to lure Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia from his home in Virginia and then detain him, according to U.S. intelligence intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan. The intelligence, described by U.S. officials familiar with it, is another piece of evidence implicating the Saudi regime in Khashoggi’s disappearance last week after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials say that a Saudi security team lay in wait for the journalist and killed him. Khashoggi was a prominent critic of the Saudi government and Mohammed in particular. Several of Khashoggi’s friends said that over the past four months, senior Saudi officials close to the crown prince had called Khashoggi to offer him protection, and even a high-level job working for the government, if he returned to his home country. Khashoggi, however, was skeptical of the offers. He told one friend that the Saudi government would never make good on its promises not to harm him. “He said: ‘Are you kidding? I don’t trust them one bit,’ ” said Khaled Saffuri, an Arab American political activist, recounting a conversation he had with Khashoggi in May, moments after Khashoggi had received a call from Saud al-Qahtani, an adviser to the royal court. The intelligence pointing to a plan to detain Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia has fueled speculation by officials and analysts in multiple countries that what transpired at the consulate was a backup plan to capture Khashoggi that may have gone wrong. A former U.S. intelligence official — who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter — noted that the details of the operation, which involved sending two teams totaling 15 men, in two private aircraft arriving and departing Turkey at different times, bore the hallmarks of a “rendition,” in which someone is extralegally removed from one country and deposited for interrogation in another. But Turkish officials have concluded that whatever the intent of the operation, Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate. Investigators have not found his body, but Turkish officials have released video surveillance footage of Khashoggi entering the consulate on the afternoon of Oct. 2. There is no footage that shows him leaving, they said. The intelligence about Saudi Arabia’s earlier plans to detain Khashoggi have raised questions about whether the Trump administration should have warned the


Democratic candidate’s husband tweets his way into Virginia 5th district’s odd Afghanistan flap

governor’s race, the district favored Republican Ed Gillespie by nine points. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report says the race leans Republican. Cockburn and Riggleman met for the fourth of their five debates Monday at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville. Riggleman, who served 11 years in the Air Force and works as a Defense Department contractor, brought up his military service when asked whether it was in the United States’ best interest to have troops in Afghanistan. He began by noting that 17 years had passed since he had planned the first bombing raids. “I started mission planning those bombing runs on October 2nd, [2001], so as a DOD guy, as somebody’s who’s been in harm’s way and somebody who’s seen others in harm’s way, I think there comes a time that we have to get out,” he said. Because of the way the debate was structured, Cockburn was asked about another topic, but she talked about Afghanistan instead. “I covered three different wars in Afghanistan,” she said. “I covered the mujahideen war. I was in Kabul when the Taliban came in. And I was there during the American war. I will say, talking about the planned bombing raids right at the beginning of the war, Denver was not in Afghanistan. He was on Diego Garcia, which is 3,000 miles away from Afghanistan.” She went on to say that now-retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, not Riggleman, did the planning — and that the raids were “very unsuccessful.” Deptula said in an interview Tuesday that there were “multiple levels of planning” — ranging from overarching operational goals or laying out tactical details such as where and when aircraft get refueled — so Cockburn and Riggleman “both may be correct.” But he called her assertion that the raids were unsuccessful “absolute nonsense.” Cockburn doubled down on her claim in a tweet Tuesday, citing an article by Michael O’Hanlon, a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Fact-check: The initial bombing of Afghanistan hit the ‘planned targets’ (fixed Taliban targets) with little effect on Taliban forces,” she wrote. “See Michael O’Hanlon, Foreign Affairs May-June 2002.” O’Hanlon said in an email that he was not immediately available for an interview. Cockburn is a former “60 Minutes” producer who also worked for networks, “Frontline” and Vanity Fair magazine. She wrote a memoir, “Looking for Trouble: One Woman, Six Wars and a Revolution.” laura.vozzella@washpost.com