Do international observers go easy on African elections?

election is perfect, so in my analysis of more than 600 elections in 138 countries, I focused on allegations of major electoral fraud rather than minor irregularities. I also looked specifically at allegations made by Western election observers (not, for example, opposition parties). Why? Because if anyone is applying a “double standard,” it is them. My results show that a regional double standard exists, one that is surprisingly difficult to explain. The double standard persists even considering other factors already known to bias the behavior of international observers, such as the tendency to tolerate a flawed election if it was better than the last one. An added concern is that this willingness to overlook election irregularities continues in recent years — despite high-profile efforts to improve the quality of election observation in this period. What could help improve election observation? My analysis showed that one predictor of whether Western election observers will make an allegation of fraud in a given election is whether they made such an allegation at the last election. In short, precedent matters. Having failed to call out fraud in African elections in the past, Western observers seem less likely to do so in the future. This suggests that international observers could monitor their practices to avoid developing a habitual response to elections in a given country, accepting a lower standard simply because that was the case in earlier elections. There are trade-offs to consider — international election observers may feel their approval can mitigate the short-term risk of election violence, even if it costs them in terms of credibility. Observers aren’t necessarily wrong to fear that critical statements might trigger violence. They may, however, be operating under the mistaken assumption that this risk is much greater in Africa than elsewhere. African elections are commonly portrayed as violent events, a tendency satirized by the Tanzanian cartoonist Gado. Yet on the whole, Africa is becoming more peaceful, and electoral violence — while real — is not a uniquely African problem. Electoral violence clearly remains a fraught issue for observers of African elections. In the wake of Zimbabwe’s elections in July of this year, international observers were put in a difficult spot. There was a clear risk that electoral violence would escalate, but there were also doubts about the fairness of the election. International observers appeared to focus primarily on the risk of violence in the days immediately after


Trump’s statement smearing Jamal Khashoggi and giving Saudi Arabia a pass, annotated

leading sponsor of terror.” On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism. After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries — and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States! The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body. Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that — this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal


Trump should stop talking like a Middle Eastern despot

As I watch the Trump administration lie ever more blatantly to protect Mohammed bin Salman — Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and the person most likely responsible for the death of my colleague Jamal Khashoggi — I’m reminded of my own experience with authoritarians, during my imprisonment for 544 days in Iran. The strategy of President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others is to make misleading statements — overblown claims about arms deals with the Saudis and the kingdom’s alleged role in protecting us from Iran — in a feeble attempt to divert our attention from the real issue, which is that a respected journalist was murdered because he wrote things a dictator didn’t like. This would be bad enough on its own. But now Trump has issued an official statement on the killing of Khashoggi, and it makes for a galling, nauseating read. After running through a laundry list of reasons that the United States must maintain its friendship with Riyadh at all costs, Trump doubled down. “Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an ‘enemy of the state’ and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that — this is an unacceptable and horrible crime,” Trump said in the statement. I recognized this as a signature move of autocrats and their proxies, which is to sow doubt, whenever possible, about the character of their victims. Authoritarian regimes have a talent for imputing evil motives to their opponents — no matter how idealistic or innocent they may be in reality. In my own case, I didn’t have the opportunity to defend myself. During my time in prison the Iranian authorities denied me legal representation and nearly all contact with the outside world. Khashoggi, murdered in the most horrific fashion, must rely on those of us in the free world to defend his name and memory. I, and many other journalists, take it as a responsibility to keep writing and talking about this act of terror. In the past, the press and other wings of civil society could count on the U.S. government as an ally in such battles. No longer. Trump and Pompeo have gone so far in defending Mohammed and the Saudi regime that their views are gradually becoming indistinguishable from their young despot friend. I doubt Trump understands the problem. His hyperbolic statement is rife with


The Finance 202: Wall Street predicts economy slowing dramatically as 2020 nears

actors that might pose a national security threat. “The official request for public comment, published in the Federal Register, asks whether a long list of AI tools should be subject to stricter export-control rules. The Trump administration’s potential targets include image-recognition software, ultrafast quantum computers, advanced computer chips, self-driving cars and robots. Companies that make those products and services, for instance, might have to obtain licenses before selling them to foreign governments or partnering with some researchers in certain countries.” — U.S. companies in no hurry to leave China. CNBC's Evelyn Chang: “U.S. companies aren’t leaving China in a big way yet, despite escalating trade tensions between the two economic powerhouses, analysts said. ‘A lot of companies are talking about making changes, but (are) not actively making changes,’ said Chris Rogers, research analyst at Panjiva, a supply chain data company that’s part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. ‘Nobody’s going to make any changes until they see how this summit goes between President Trump and President Xi,” he said referring to their upcoming meeting at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.” China approves Disney purchase of Fox. MELTDOWN WATCH: — Ghosn ouster could threaten Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance. WSJ's Stephen Wilmot: “The arrest of Carlos Ghosn does more than bring down one of the titans of the auto industry. It effectively dashes hopes that the Renault -Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance that he created could be merged into a conventional car company. Investors who have been waiting for the deal suffered big losses Monday, while those who have opposed it—largely on political grounds—likely rejoiced that the three companies’ independence looks to be secure for now. The outstanding question is whether the status quo can be maintained without the alliance’s chief architect.” A nail in globalization. — Cramer: Facebook stock would rise if it dumped Sandberg.CNBC: “Cramer was discussing a new report in The Wall Street Journal, which described Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as causing ‘unprecedented turmoil’ at the social network amid scrutiny over its Cambridge Analytica scandal and subsequent public disclosures... On CNBC Monday, Cramer said Facebook ‘is obviously’ in disarray. ‘Does anyone say it’s humming?’ the ‘Mad Money’ host asked. ‘They can’t get a hold of the narrative. It’s bad.’” — D.C. offered up to $1 billion for HQ2.The Post's Jonathan O'Connell: “The District offered Amazon.com up to $1 billion in tax incentives to open a


Trump continues to question CIA conclusion that Saudi crown prince was responsible for Khashoggi’s death

The statement from President Trump came after he said he would be receiving a full report on the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last month and after The Washington Post reported that the CIA had assessed with high confidence that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s death. “King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” the statement read. In the eight-paragraph statement, the president lauded Saudi Arabia’s economic ties with the United States and emphasized the country’s opposition to Iran.This is a developing story. It will be updated.


Brexit could make Ireland a ‘special friend’ to the United States, Irish ambassador says

that could rival many Brexiteers' own hopes for an economic future that relies on greater trade with the United States and other nations outside of Europe. “Britain is under a cloud of uncertainty as far as its future access to the European single market in concerned,” Mulhall said. “We feel that any country that’s looking at either expanding its presence in Europe or establishing a presence for the first time will look less favorably on Britain and more favorably on Ireland.” After Brexit, British leaders have clung to the idea of an unbending Anglo-American bond. British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first world leader to visit President Trump after he took office last year. Both leaders praised the “special relationship” during that visit, with May saying it was based “on the bonds of history, of family, kinship and common interests.” But at the same time, Britain’s position as a member of the E.U. was one of its key selling points. “We are strong and active members of the European Union, the gateway to the world’s largest single market,” said May’s predecessor, David Cameron, in a 2010 speech. With Britain looking to leave the E.U., many other E.U. countries are now pledging to become Washington’s new “gateway to Europe.” Ireland may be a particularly attractive base for American companies: Its common-law system is similar to the American legal structure, and it is known for being one of the most business-friendly countries in the E.U. And, of course, Ireland and the United States share a common language. “We will be the only English-speaking country left in the European Union,” Mulhall pointed out. Outside experts agree that Ireland is well positioned to strengthen its ties to the United States. “Ireland’s institutions have been calibrated toward attracting U.S. investment for decades, which places the country in a strong position to attract investment which may pivot away from the U.K. post-Brexit,” said Neil Dooley, a politics lecturer at the University of Sussex. Given that Ireland is a relatively small country — just 4.7 million people — even a small change could have profound effects on the economy. Irish firms are in the process of reforming their business plans for a post-Brexit future, according to Sean Davis, the regional director for Enterprise Ireland, a state economic agency that promotes new export sales. Davis said that 73 percent of Irish companies that work with Enterprise Ireland


Congress should stand up to MBS if Trump won’t

In the war between profiteering and values, depravity and morality, disgrace and fealty, President Trump came down on the wrong side. His decision to look the other way and pretend not to know whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorized the brazen, premeditated, extrajudicial execution and dismemberment of Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul marks a victory for pure evil over moral values and fundamental principles of human rights. And to think: Trump bowed to the crown prince, brought dishonor to his office and committed a travesty in the name of the United States of America. That is, if Congress gives Trump the last word. Both the House and the Senate must speak for America and our demands for justice by not allowing Trump’s cravenness to stand. Barbarism must not outweigh humaneness. Congress needs to set Trump straight. America’s relationship is with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not its cruel crown prince. The Saudi regime, not bin Salman, has been an ally in the fight against Iran. The steadfast partnership with Saudi Arabia begins and ends with the leadership of the royal family, not the crown prince. And it follows: The flow and price of oil, protection of Israel and all other partners in the region — and the absolute security and safety of America — should and must not depend on a power-mad, rich-boy prince. Congress cannot let it come to that. For that matter, neither should King Salman and his royal court. Even though Trump seems to have caved to the crown prince entirely, Congress, including the soon-to-be-Democratic-majority House, will have access to the information that shows that the crown prince lied when he said he had no knowledge of Khashoggi’s murder. The crown prince — and anyone else found responsible for Khashoggi’s murder — must be held accountable under the Magnitsky Act. Mohammed bin Salman, not the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, must be called to account. Bin Salman the individual must be censured, boycotted and barred from association and doing business with the civilized world. Congress has the power to make that happen. It should. Read more: Colbert I. King: D.C. politics is a tangled web of money and power. Enough is enough. Colbert I. King: Trump’s rules of etiquette are straight out of the Jim Crow playbook


‘Enemy of the state’: The chilling and familiar term for Jamal Khashoggi in Trump’s statement

The White House is calling it a “statement,” though “confession” may be a better term for this abominable collection of words from President Trump. It’s a confession that Trump rejects the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman orchestrated the brutal murder of Post columnist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. It’s a confession that money matters more than humanity. It’s a confession that Trump, or whoever was the author, cannot write. It’s also a confession — right there in black and white — regarding the criminal power of Trump’s very own rhetoric against journalism. Have a look: Bolding inserted to highlight an assertion replete with circuitous and weaselly slander. Note how Trump repeats the Saudi “position” on Khashoggi without refuting it. He seems to be saying that even though Khashoggi may indeed have been an enemy of the state, his killing was “unacceptable and horrible.” The merits here have been addressed by The Post, which cited experts as indicating that Khashoggi was once sympathetic to Islamist movements but evolved later in life toward “a more liberal, secular point of view.” David Ignatius, a Post columnist, traced Khashoggi’s early flirtations with the Muslim Brotherhood and his subsequent disenchantment with it. “Khashoggi’s path took him through risky territory,” Ignatius wrote. “He was friendly with Osama bin Laden in his militant youth; his patron in midcareer was Prince Turki al-Faisal, the longtime Saudi intelligence chief; he traveled sometimes to Qatar in the past decade, as a poisonous feud grew between Riyadh and Doha. But his public writings and private messages show that in his head and heart, he was always a Saudi patriot.” And in a Brookings piece, Tamara Cofman Wittes points to this dynamic while also reminding everyone: “[E]ven if you believe that Jamal Khashoggi was a full-bore Brotherhood member with an agenda of Islamization for the Arab world, you should still condemn his apparent assassination for the crime of speaking his mind.” It’s a short walk from “enemy of the state” — Trump’s description of the Saudis’ position on Khashoggi — to “enemy of the people,” Trump’s very own moniker for the allegedly “fake news media” that churns out so much (deservedly) negative coverage about him. Nor does Trump stop and scold the Saudis for deploying such a term against a journalist/dissident. The rhetorical connection isn’t hard to trace: “What’s truly chilling about that is


Thip Khao, Donburi and other D.C. food businesses to take over Isabella Eatery space in Tysons

This post has been updated Three months after embattled chef and restaurateur Mike Isabella closed his sprawling multi-concept food emporium in Tysons Galleria, the luxury mall has announced a replacement: A Taste of Urbanspace, a food hall that’s expected to open in late November with eight diverse businesses from the Washington-area market, including Thip Khao, Donburi and Ice Cream Jubilee. Northern Virginia magazine earlier reported that Stomping Ground, the biscuit-focused coffee shop in Del Ray, would also open in the former Isabella Eatery space, which the celebrity chef abruptly shut down in August, one of several restaurant closures after Isabella and his partners were accused of “extraordinary” sexual harassment in a March lawsuit. (The suit, which was later expanded and refiled in federal court, was settled in May, the terms undisclosed.) Stomping Ground will be part of a Taste of Urbanspace, along with at least three other still-unnamed concepts. The Washington region has “one of the great restaurant markets in the country,” said Eldon Scott, president of Urbanspace, the New York arm of the company that has developed public markets and pop-ups in London, Manhattan and other places. “It’s definitely a place we wanted to go.” Urbanspace’s debut in the D.C. market has been something of a scramble. Scott hopes A Taste of Urbanspace can open Nov. 28, but he said its debut could be pushed back. Scott and mall operators want A Taste of Urbanspace to be available to shoppers as the holiday season kicks into high gear, but because of the rush, the food hall will not open with alcohol. The company is still working through the permitting process, said Aba Kwawu, a D.C. spokeswoman for the Tysons project. What’s more, Scott said, A Taste of Urbanspace will look much the same as Isabella Eatery, with just a change of signage. The announced businesses will simply take over existing spaces: Stomping Ground will assume the location for Isabella’s Non-Fiction Coffee. Thip Khao will slip into the Arroz space. Ice Cream Jubilee will claim the Retro Creamery counter. Donburi will adopt the Yona space. And Andy’s Pizza, a new New York-style slice shop by the founder of Eat Pizza, will take over the ovens at Graffiato. “The layout is kind of funky, so we have to work around it,” Donburi chef and owner James Jang said of the former Yona space. The Tysons location will be the third for


D.C. offered Amazon up to $1 billion for headquarters

the package negotiated by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D). “If New York has what Amazon wants, why is it paying the company so much to make the move?” the New York Times editorial board wrote last week, calling it “a bad bargain.” Cuomo responded by writing that the Times had received significant tax benefits from the city and state for its headquarters. “Should the Times not apply the same rules and theory they operate under to the Amazon transaction?” Cuomo wrote. To qualify for incentives as a high-tech company under District law, a company must make more than half its business from Internet-related services, e-commerce or similar activities. Those companies can get tax credits of up to $5,000 for each employee who relocates to the area for the company and up to $7,500 for each employee who relocates to D.C. proper for the company. The law also provides wage reimbursements of up to $10,000 for each new hire or up to $30,000 for newly hired veterans, drops the corporate tax rate to zero for the first five years and exempts the sales tax on purchase of hardware and software. D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), speaking last week after the decision but before Bowser’s offer became public, called the Crystal City choice the “best of all worlds.” Other council members quickly turned their attention to more citywide issues. Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said the top priority for the city should be planning for infrastructure and transportation overhauls. David Grosso (I-At Large) said the city’s progressive policies places it in a “pretty good position” to attract companies such as Amazon without relying on subsidies. One handicap for the District’s bid was that, unlike other contenders, it lacked a single site to accommodate the entire Amazon development. Bowser’s economic team instead proposed four neighborhoods that are already experiencing rapid growth and assembled bids including a mix of public and private sites in partnership with developers. One site incorporated properties on both sides of the Anacostia River, in the Navy Yard neighborhood and Anacostia, while the other three included parcels of land near Union Station, U Street Northwest and RFK Stadium. Unlike Maryland and Virginia officials, Bowser made much of her proposal — including the locations — available to the public, though she closely held the details of the subsidy package for months. Rather than focusing on what could have been, Kenner


How should we address the growing power shift from Washington to Silicon Valley?

Katherine Boyle is a venture capitalist at General Catalyst in San Francisco. Whether you voted to drain the swamp or ride the blue wave on Nov. 6, you could be sure that one party would continue to be a winner. For years, Silicon Valley has been winning — or rather, privatizing some of the primary responsibilities of federal government. Uber disrupts public transit. Palantir augments security. SpaceX plots our exodus to Mars. And when the Defense Department modernizes its computing infrastructure by awarding its $10 billion JEDI contract to Amazon (or one of the less likely contenders), it will be another indication that Washington can’t go it alone. But Washington isn’t moving toward a privatization that encourages competition, as was theoretically true of classical procurement. Big tech is building new dependencies in government and giving businesses powers over the executive branch that would make Congress salivate. In a sense, Silicon Valley is slowly becoming a potential check and balance on executive authority. Consider what happened when a small minority of Google employees feared that working on defense-related issues might compromise their ethics. They objected to the JEDI contract and Google bowed out, in part, because it couldn’t be assured the work “would align with our AI Principles.” These artificial intelligence principles had been written less than three months prior in response to another employee protest against a different Pentagon contract. Up in Seattle, Amazon and Microsoft are facing an impending battle regarding the use of facial recognition software by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Amazon was soliciting ICE as a customer, dozens of employees signed petitions decrying the possible use of Amazon’s surveillance system on the southern border. No contracts have been signed yet by the company. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Post.) The most famous policy battle happened two years ago when the world’s largest company exercised control over its dominion: Apple chief executive Tim Cook refrained from helping the FBI get into a locked iPhone after a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. The phone was opened without Apple’s consent, but the case is hardly settled. These policy rebukes are not driven by lobbyists in Washington; they’re groundswells inside companies in California and Washington state. Never before have a handful of companies had the power to rebuke federal policy directly in matters of security, defense


Trump administration proposal could target exports of the tech behind Siri, self-driving cars and supercomputers

Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM and their peers could be subject to new restrictions on how they export the technology behind voice-activated smartphones, self-driving cars and speedy supercomputers to China under a proposal floated Monday by the Trump administration. For the U.S. government, its pursuit of new regulations marks a heightened effort to ensure that emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, don’t fall into the hands of countries or actors that might pose a national security threat. The official request for public comment, published in the Federal Register, asks whether a long list of AI tools should be subject to stricter export-control rules. The Trump administration’s potential targets include image-recognition software, ultrafast quantum computers, advanced computer chips, self-driving cars and robots. Companies that make those products and services might, for instance, have to obtain licenses before selling them to foreign governments or partnering with some researchers in certain countries. The document is only an initial notice of rules to come, and the Commerce Department, which is leading the effort, is still deciding how to proceed. But its broad wording, along with the White House’s long-running, high-stakes trade rift with Beijing, left some tech experts fearful that it could result in greater market barriers for companies doing business in China. They also worry that any rule could adversely affect U.S. investment and research in AI. “If you think about the range of products this potentially implicates, that’s massive. This is either the opening of a big negotiation with the industry and the public or a bit of a cry for help in scoping these regulations,” said R. David Edelman, the director of the Project on Technology, the Economy, & National Security at MIT. “We’ve seen the China trade war is a political football,” said Edelman, a former top tech aide to President Barack Obama, adding: “Surprises are not off the table here.” The Commerce Department explicitly said it hopes to protect national security without “hampering the ability of the U.S. commercial sector to keep pace with international advances.” The rules come at the request of Congress, which authorized them as part of a recently passed defense bill. On Thursday, the agency said it is “committed to laying the proper foundation to ensure that those technologies critical to national security remain protected to ensure the safety of our country.” Spokesmen for Apple, Google and IBM also did not respond to requests, and Amazon declined


Despite its troubles, BSO’s concert of American music is brilliant

Recently the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has experienced some heavy headwinds. Returning from a successful international tour, musicians began negotiations for a new contract and were met with demands by management for a reduction from 52 to 40 workweeks to address deficits. Things were further complicated earlier this month when the orchestra’s concertmaster was suspended for alleged improper conduct. If these concerns weighed on the orchestra and conductor Marin Alsop at Sunday’s Strathmore concert, they were determined not to show it. Their thoughtfully conceived program of American music was nothing short of brilliant. Mason Bates’s 2011 “Mothership” exuberantly showcased the full orchestra and amplified electronic sounds in luminous textures and vibrant rhythms. Three riffs, improvised on the spot by clarinet, cello and percussion, enhanced the music’s variegated colors and sense of spontaneity. (Bates is composer in residence at the Kennedy Center.) The highlight of the afternoon, however, was the Second Concerto for Oboe and Strings by Kevin Puts, who teaches at the Peabody Institute and whose “Silent Night” is in performance at Washington National Opera. Subtitled “Moonlight” after the 2016 film that inspired it, the concerto was commissioned by the BSO and first heard last June in its New Music Festival. Katherine Needleman, the orchestra’s principal oboist, was soloist, her ethereally beautiful sound ideally matched with string playing of the utmost subtlety. Following music by those gifted composers, Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony, composed near the end of the Second World War, evoked an earlier, simpler America. Alsop led a robust performance that highlighted Copland’s plain-spoken optimism, his gorgeous writing for the wind choir and delicately balanced strings. When the 1942 “Fanfare for the Common Man” is quoted in the symphony’s finale, one was left wondering whether it might suggest the potential for a return tocourage and virtue or signify something irreparably lost. Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly said that the BSO’s concertmaster, Jonathan Carney, was suspended for alleged sexual improprieties. The suspension was for alleged unspecified inappropriate behavior. style@washpost.com


A massive change: Nations redefine the kilogram

round silicon sphere. The second option uses an exquisitely accurate weighing machine known as a watt balance, which measures an object’s mass by calculating the force needed to lift it. This is no ordinary scale; it took a pair of British scientists several decades to invent and refine the instrument, and there are only two in the world powerful enough to meet the BIPM’s high standards for precision. One is in Canada. The other sits inside Pratt’s lab in the NIST basement. “It really is a beautiful instrument,” Pratt said during a recent visit to the steel-encased room where the balance is stored. “I like to just come here and stare at it.” The enormous metal machine, which took five years to build, is as tall as a professional basketball player and shiny as a disco ball, with a tungsten carbide fulcrum on which the balance hinges and a one-ton magnet that helps generate a force. While experiments are run, the entire balance is placed inside a vacuum chamber. Anyone who operates the instrument must wear a hairnet, a lab coat and bootees. Pratt and his colleagues measure every factor that could possibly affect their result, from the temperature of the room to the strength of Earth’s gravity. “In a physics sense, we’re really chasing perfection here,” Pratt said. “We really need things to behave just as their idealized versions.” The 2014 resolution required that at least one instrument would need to calculate Planck’s constant to an uncertainty of just 20 parts per billion — or within 0.000002 percent of what is thought to be the correct number. On June 30, 2017, the day before the deadline to submit a value to the BIPM’s weights and measures committee, Pratt and his team finally published a result that met this standard. Planck’s constant is equal to 6.626069934 x 10-34 kg∙m2/s, they said. And their uncertainty was just 13 parts per billion. That number may be barely intelligible to the casual observer. But to Pratt, measuring it felt for a moment like some cosmic curtain had been lifted, revealing the innermost workings of the universe. Here in the echoing basement of an obscure federal agency, he and his crew of hair-netted nerds had gotten as close to one standard for perfection as any human has ever been. They had transcended their human biases and earthly flaws to make an observation so precise


The Finance 202: Trump has vastly inflated the value of the U.S.-Saudi economic alliance

THE TICKER President Trump wants Americans to believe they would pay a steep price if his administration holds Saudi Arabian leaders accountable for the killing of Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The argument doesn’t survive scrutiny. Trump has been trying to advance a version of this claim since Khashoggi’s Oct. 2 disappearance stirred suspicions he was killed at the hands of his native government. And the president revived it Tuesday as he waved away any imperative to act on the CIA’s conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did in fact order the assassination. In an oddly rambling, 634-word statement announcing that he is effectively moving on from the matter, Trump said the kingdom has committed to spending $450 billion in the United States, “a record amount of money” that will “create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development and much additional wealth” for the country. The president’s assertions, which he has steadily inflated in recent weeks, are off by orders of magnitude, It’s not clear where Trump got the $450 billion figure. The rest of the incoming investment Trump is touting would come from commercial deals, but his math there rests on “double-counting, wishful thinking and fuzzy figures,” Trump repeated the claim while addressing reporters Tuesday before heading to Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving. “They’re paying us $400 billion-plus to invest in our country. That’s probably the biggest amount ever paid to the United States,” he said. Again, it’s not clear what Trump means. But the trading relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is not especially significant. Last year, Saudi Arabia ranked 20th as a destination for American goods. And U.S. exports to Saudi Arabia have actually dipped over the last two years. Switzerland, whose economy is roughly comparable in size to Saudi Arabia’s, buys more from the United States, as Bloomberg has noted. Trump also argued for the need to protect American access to Saudi Arabian oil. U.S. oil prices dropped to their lowest levels in more than a year after the comments. But prices have already slid more than 20 percent since early October, as supplies have increased and worries about a global slowdown take hold. The U.S. gets about 11 percent of its imported oil from Saudi Arabia, but it is now the world’s largest oil producer. And American production is rising at its fastest pace in a century, a development that hands the U.S.


Japan wakes up to exploitation of foreign workers as immigration debate rages

GIFU, Japan — Twenty-seven-year-old War Nu left her village in central Myanmar at the end of last year bound for Japan. She had borrowed nearly $3,000 to pay an agent for a job in the garments industry here, lured not only by the offer of much higher wages but also by the chance to learn new skills in a country known for its advanced technology. She ended up simply packing garments into cardboard boxes from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. or midnight, six or even seven days a week. The basic pay, the equivalent of just $530 a month, was half what she had been promised, while her boss didn’t stop shouting at her. “It was inhumane,” she said. “Every day I was stressed, I was anxious. I don’t know how to express it in words. I was crying.” War Nu had come to Japan under its Technical Intern Training Program or TITP, a long-established program designed to ease the country’s chronic labor shortage while supposedly aiding countries in the region. As its name implies, it is designed to offer workers, mainly Asians, training for three to five years before sending them home. In practice, it often amounts to forced labor, according to the U.S. State Department. Faced with a declining and rapidly aging population, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this month submitted a draft law to parliament that would let in up to 345,000 semiskilled foreign workers in the next five years. The move has sparked an intense debate both in parliament and the media, with the country’s weak and disorganized opposition parties enjoying a rare moment in the spotlight as they blast Abe’s plans as vague and ill-prepared. In particular, many critics say Abe first needs to clean up the mess that is the intern training program, before opening the doors to hundreds of thousands of additional foreign workers. “In the name of technical training, this program has used foreigners as cheap and disposable labor to fill the labor shortage,” said Shiori Yamao, a leader of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. “We should revise this program design for the sake of national dignity.” As the debate rages, Japanese media has awakened to the problems inherent in the TITP, with headlines and stories in recent weeks about “forced labor,” “hellish conditions,” sexual harassment and workers being treated like “slaves.” Japan’s Federation of Bar Associations last month issued


Some veterans with ALS were deprived of health care benefits, VA watchdog finds

disease,” Missal told The Washington Post. “Accordingly, VA needs to ensure that claims reviewers are proficient and trained to properly and accurately assure that veterans are getting the full range of benefits to which they are entitled.” ALS, a rapidly progressive neurological disease that most often leads to death within three to five years from the onset of symptoms, afflicts at least 2,000 veterans a year. Studies show that military service puts veterans at up to twice the risk of contracting the disease, although scientists have not determined why that link exists. Veterans diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, have been entitled since 2008 to automatic, service-connected benefits. Compensation ranges from $36,000 to $100,000 annually, depending on marital and family status, and related needs as the disease progresses . The inspector general faulted poor training for the staff, comprising mostly low-level employees, tasked with reviewing the claims. Employees who improperly denied claims failed to accurately evaluate the disease’s many medical complications, and in dozens of cases they did not inform veterans or their caregivers that they were eligible for additional compensation to assist with related needs such as transportation , dressing and feeding, and specialized housing, investigators found. Paul Lawrence, VA’s undersecretary for benefits, agreed with the report’s recommendation that his office create specialized training for reviewers handling ALS claims and inform the staff that they must tell veterans they are entitled to additional benefits for related needs. A spokesman for VA, Curt Cashour, said that evaluating the disease’s severity is “complex work that requires a detailed assessment of a veteran’s medical history.” The agency is committed, he added, “to improving its ALS claims-processing efforts so veterans receive the maximum benefits to which they are entitled.” ALS claims are among the most complex in VA’s benefits system, in part because the disease progresses quickly with varied symptoms. The onset of symptoms — which can include twitching, cramping, muscle stiffness or weakness and slurred speech — may be so subtle that changes are overlooked. VA employees are supposed to tell veterans about their right to extra compensation. But they did not, based on a narrow interpretation of a legal case, the inspector general’s report says. “Without information about [additional compensation], veterans with ALS may not know about and understand the benefits available to them and may mistakenly believe there are no additional benefits available,” the report said. lisa.rein@washpost.com


For Trump, the bottom line on Saudi Arabia takes precedence over human rights

President Trump’s declaration Tuesday that he won’t hold Saudi rulers accountable for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi distilled the president’s foreign policy approach to its transactional and personalized essence. Nearly two years into his presidency, Trump is unswerving in his instinct to make everything — from trade to terrorism, from climate change to human rights — about what he sees as the bottom line. “We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Trump said in an oddly brisk statement laying out that the U.S. business and security relationship with Saudi Arabia, and with its designated next leader, is paramount. He cited arms sales with the kingdom, its role as a bulwark against Iran and the threat of higher oil prices as risks to the United States if his administration ruptured the relationship over the Khashoggi killing. The statement was issued as Trump prepared to head to his golf resort in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday and in the wake of the CIA’s conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and U.S. resident. The nothing-to-see-here tone, the fractured syntax and falsehoods, and the abundance of exclamation points were pure Trump — and as far from the massaged, nuanced products of past White Houses as one could imagine. “It’s ‘America First,’ ” Trump told reporters Tuesday before departing for Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. “For me, it’s all about America First. We’re not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in orders and let Russia, China and everybody else have them.” Trump said that Saudi Arabia had helped him keep oil prices down and that without those efforts, “oil prices would go through the roof.” As with U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump, he overrode his advisers and downplayed their findings in favor of his own priorities and interpretation of events. “King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump wrote. Trump’s clannish management


Trump again uses arms sales to justify Saudi ties, dragging U.S. defense contractors into an unwelcome debate

As political pressure builds over the killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of the Saudi state, President Trump has continued to shine an unwelcome spotlight on U.S. weapons manufacturers as he seeks to justify an increasingly controversial U.S.-Saudi military alliance. Near the top of an official White House statement that started with the lines “America First!” and “The world is a very dangerous place!," Trump named specific U.S. defense contractors as beneficiaries of a $110 billion arms deal that followed his highly public visit to the kingdom last year. (Analysts have disputed that number.) The statement closely followed a Washington Post report that the CIA had concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post contributing columnist, contradicting the Saudi government’s earlier claims. While the president’s statement noted that the “crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one,” it was focused primarily on the economic benefits of Saudi defense spending, as well as Iran’s role in supporting terrorists. “This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States," the president wrote Tuesday. "Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries.” It was not the first time the president has brought up arms sales in the context of Khashoggi’s killing. He named the same three companies in an October interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes," saying, “I don’t want to lose an order like that.” Those presidential mentions have been met with consternation across the defense industry, with representatives from prominent manufacturers and trade associations preferring to stay silent. In a little over a month, Saudi business has been transformed from a badge of honor to an untouchable conversation-stopper for U.S. defense contractors. Andrew Hunter, a former Defense Department official who is now a senior fellow specializing in procurement issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he thought the defense industry “would very much like to not be put in the center of this debate.” “These sales are critical to their overall business plans, but it is incredibly awkward to be in put in a position where


Trump broke his word on Jamal Khashoggi — plain and simple

President Trump’s statement giving Saudi Arabia’s royal family a pass for the slaying of Jamal Khashoggi was remarkable. The logic he used was often nonsensical, the numbers he used were fictional, and he ignored legitimate arguments in favor of getting tough. But equally problematic is this: He went back on his word. Trump spent most of the weeks after Khashoggi’s disappearance making the case for a tempered response and even promoting narratives that didn’t implicate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman or King Salman. Yet occasionally when he granted the premise that they might have been involved, he suggested the punishment would be severe. “It’s a terrible, terrible precedent,” he said Oct. 11. “We can’t let it happen. And we’re being very tough.” In an Oct. 14 interview with “60 Minutes,” he was asked about the prospect of Mohammed having ordered the killing. “It’s being looked at very, very strongly, and we would be very upset and angry if that were the case.” Then on Oct. 18: “We’re waiting for some investigations. . . . and I think we’ll be making a statement — a very strong statement. It’ll have to be very severe.” He went even stronger Oct. 23: “Whoever thought of that idea, I think, is in big trouble. And they should be in big trouble, okay?” He added that day: “Certainly it would be a very bad thing in terms of relationship. It would take a while to rebuild.” None of this appears to apply anymore. Trump is suggesting we’ll never really know what happened, even as the CIA is preparing to report that it has high confidence that Mohammed ordered Khashoggi’s murder. But Trump didn’t stop there Tuesday; he also said it doesn’t really matter whether Mohammed ordered it — such is the importance, in his telling, of our reliance upon Saudi Arabia. “Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information,” he said in his statement, “but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Then he continued making the case for no punishment for Mohammed. That’s Trump basically throwing up his hands and saying it doesn’t really matter whether Mohammed ordered it. And that doesn’t comport with what he said before. It doesn’t make sense after saying it would be a “very bad thing in terms of our relationship” and


اليمن المنسي والحرب التي يجب أن تتوقف

تتوكل كرمان حائزة على جائزة نوبل للسلام مضت نحو أربع سنوات منذ اندلاع الحرب التي خاضها التحالف العربي بقيادة السعودية والإمارات في اليمن، والتي أُعلن حينها أنها من أجل استعادة سلطة الشرعية الانتقالية التي أسقطها انقلاب ميليشيا الحوثي المدعومة من إيران بالتحالف مع الرئيس المخلوع علي صالح، وهو الانقلاب الذي كان محل رفض وإدانة دوليين تمثلا بصدور قرارين من مجلس الأمن، أحدهما توعّد باتخاذ اجراءات عقابية ضمن الفصل السابع إن لم يتراجعوا عن الاجراءات الانقلابية، وقد منح هذا القرار التحالف العربي الحق بتفتيش السفن القادمة إلى اليمن ومصادرة أي شحنات أسلحة محملة عليها. وقد عُد ذلك بمثابة تفويض غير مباشر للتحالف العربي المسنود بدعم من الولايات المتحدة والعديد من الدول الكبرى، تحت مبرر إعادة سلطة الشرعية الانتقالية بعد أن تعرضت لانقلاب عطّلها عن إنجاز آخر استحقاقات العملية الانتقالية، وهي الاستفتاء على مسودة الدستور وإجراء الانتخابات، وهي العملية الانتقالية التي تحظى برعاية دولية. ما حدث لاحقًا كان كارثة بكل المقاييس، تكبر مع كل يوم يمر على الحرب، فعوضًا عن إعادة سلطة الشرعية، قفد أُديرَت المعركة بطريقة تفضي لتدمير اليمن وتقويض فرص إعادة الشرعية، وتمضي بعيدًا في الذهاب بالبلاد إلى مخاطر الدولة الفاشلة ودولة الفوضى، وتقطع الطريق أمام قدرة اليمن على أن تكون كيانًا موحدًا مجددًا، وهي الآن أشبه بدويلات صغيرة متناحرة تتحكم بكل دويلة ميليشيات خاصة بها وأي منها عاجز عن حكم اليمن، وفق تقرير لجنة الخبراء لمجلس الأمن، كما خلّفت الحرب أزمة إنسانية غير مسبوقة هي الأكبر في العالم، فأكثر من نصف السكان يعانون من المجاعة، والغالبية العظمى من السكان يعانون من الانعدام الكامل للخدمات الصحية! وعوضًا عن إنشاء جيش يمني موحد تحت قيادة السلطة الشرعية، فقد أُنشِئَت ميليشيا لكل منطقة تتحرر من سيطرة الحوثيين، تتبع الرياض وأبو ظبي بشكل مباشر، ولا تدين بأي ولاء للسلطة الشرعية التي يزعم التحالف العربي أنه يخوض الحرب من أجل إعادة سلطتها. مضى الأمر على هذا النحو حتى أصبحت 80٪ من مساحة اليمن خارج سيطرة الحوثيين. ومع ذلك، لا يزال الرئيس هادي خارج اليمن بعد أن قضى أغلب السنوات الأربع من الحرب في الرياض، فيما يشبه الإقامة الجبرية، ممنوعًا من العودة ليس إلى صنعاء فقط، بل إلى المناطق التي انتزعها التحالف من سيطرة الحوثيين! خلال سنوات الحرب العبثية الكارثية، لم يسأل مجلس الأمن ولا الدول الكبرى التي قدمت المساندة لتحالف السعودية والإمارات: لماذا لم تعد الشرعية إلى المناطق المُستعادة؟ لماذا تُرتكَب كل تلك المجازر بحق المدنيين بإسراف كبير طالت الأسواق والمخيمات والمستشفيات وصالات الأفراح والعزاء والمدارس والأحياء السكنية؟ لماذا تُحاصَر البلاد جوًا وبرًا وبحرًا خلال كل هذه الفترة؟! لقد أغلقت السعودية المنافذ أمام اليمنيين


U-Md. student dies from adenovirus; virus confirmed in five other students

A student at the University of Maryland died recently of an adenovirus-associated illness, the university said Tuesday. At least 11 children have died recently in New Jersey after an adenovirus outbreak at a health center there. In a statement, U-Md. said it learned Nov. 1 of what it said was then an “isolated case” of adenovirus. However, the statement, issued by David McBride, head of the campus health center, said that since then five more cases have been reported of students with confirmed adenovirus-associated illness. The student who died was identified by her father, Ian Paregol, as Olivia Paregol, 18, a freshman from Howard County, Md. She lived in a campus dormitory, her father said in an interview. She was “free-spirited and friendly,” he said. “Everybody she came across loved her.” She died Sunday in an intensive care unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, he said. Adenoviruses are common causes of colds, but certain strains can cause more serious illness. On Monday, the statement said, U-Md. learned that a specimen sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed adenovirus 7. That strain can cause more serious problems and was implicated in the New Jersey outbreak. Generally, U-Md. said, treatment for adenovirus illnesses includes rest, fluids and medicine to reduce fever. Unfortunately, the university said, no medication exists for adenovirus infection outside hospitals. It said vigilance was extremely important for those with chronic medical problems such as asthma, diabetes or illnesses that lower the immune system or for those taking medicine that weakens the immune system. Symptoms listed by the CDC included colds, sore throats and fever. U-Md. said they should not be ignored, and a doctor should be seen within 48 hours. In addition to issuing the notice and encouraging prevention, U-Md. said departments across campus began stepped-up cleaning of “high-touch” surfaces this month. Since learning of the Nov. 1 case, the U-Md. statement said, campus health officials have been closely monitoring for cases in coordination with the Maryland Department of Health and Prince George’s County Health Department by testing students at the health center and advising testing at facilities where ill students have been admitted. The statement said the campus health center staff has been on high alert and the center has “reached out to medical facilities in the area to heighten awareness of this illness.” In the New Jersey outbreak, health officials there said


The Daily 202: How Marco Rubio is retrofitting his brand of conservatism for the Trump era

endorsement from a potential challenger. “Speaking Tuesday in Chicago, Obama hailed Pelosi as ‘one of the most effective legislative leaders that this country’s ever seen.’ -- Fudge’s endorsement came the same day that reports emerged about her support for a former state lawmaker now accused of killing his ex-wife. -- Some incoming House Democrats fear opposition to Pelosi could cost them seats on their preferred committees. -- Pelosi and her two top deputies — Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Jim Clyburn (S.C.) — have banded together against the opposition. KHASHOGGI FALLOUT: -- Trump declared his support for Saudi Arabia amid international condemnation over the killing of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, prompting rebukes from members of his own party. “[Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)], the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, must decide whether to use the handful of days left in the legislative term to consider a bipartisan bill, introduced last week, to stop virtually all U.S. weapons sales and military assistance to the Saudis in response to both the war in Yemen and Khashoggi’s killing. … Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump confidant, co-sponsored the Senate bill and said in a statement that he believed there would be ‘strong bipartisan support for serious sanctions against Saudi Arabia, including appropriate members of the royal family, for this barbaric act which defied all civilized norms ... I fully realize we have to deal with bad actors and imperfect situations on the international stage. However, when we lose our moral voice, we lose our strongest asset.’” -- Graham suggested it may be hard for Congress to pass a government funding bill to avert a shutdown without somehow including sanctions for Saudi Arabia. -- Trump’s emphasis on Saudi arms sales has thrown an unwelcome spotlight on U.S. weapons manufacturers. -- Trump’s statement again demonstrated his transactional approach to foreign policy. -- The reality in Saudi Arabia: Jailed women’s rights activists have been subjected to psychological or physical abuse while in custody. -- The Post’s Editorial Board writes that Trump’s statement “betrayed American values in service to what already was a bad bet on the 33-year-old prince”: ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN AND WOMEN: -- Congressional Democrats and Republicans said they would investigate Ivanka Trump’s use of a personal email account to conduct government business. -- After spending significant time focusing on Clinton’s email controversy in 2016, “Fox & Friends” covered the similar allegations


U.S. spy agencies sued for records on whether they warned Khashoggi of impending threat of harm

The Knight First Amendment Institute on Tuesday sued the U.S. government to learn whether agencies complied with what the institute asserted was a duty to warn journalist Jamal Khashoggi that he faced a threat of harm. Khashoggi, who lived in Northern Virginia, was killed Oct. 2 by a team of Saudi operatives soon after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for his impending marriage. The Columbia University institute is seeking records that relate to any actions taken to warn Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, under what is known as Directive 191, a government policy that requires agencies to warn individuals of “impending threats of intentional killing, serious bodily injury or kidnapping.” The lawsuit states that before Khashoggi’s killing, “U.S. intelligence agencies apparently intercepted communications in which Saudi officials discussed a plan to capture Khashoggi.” The Washington Post last month reported that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia from Virginia and then detain him, according to U.S. intelligence intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan. It is not clear if the intelligence the agencies had at the time triggered the duty to warn. Some former officials said it would depend on whether the intelligence clearly indicated Khashoggi was in danger. A threat of detention alone would not have sufficed, one former official said. But others say that if agencies had knowledge of a potential plan to kidnap him — by luring and detaining him, then they had an obligation to warn him. Since Khashoggi’s death, the CIA has concluded that the crown prince ordered the assassination, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved. On Tuesday, in an exclamation-mark-laden statement, President Trump declared firm support for Saudi Arabia and undercut the CIA’s conclusion. He said: “Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Last month, the Knight Institute filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records related to the murder of Khashoggi. It sent requests to the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The institute is seeking documents concerning any duty to warn actions taken with respect to Khashoggi and related to any issues among intelligence agencies regarding the


With Saudi Arabia as with Russia, Trump’s view muffles his administration’s

an unfortunate demise. There was, instead, a team dispatched to Turkey to kill him. Mohammed’s brother told Khashoggi to go to the consulate to get his marriage documents. The Saudis resisted acknowledging any involvement for weeks after Khashoggi went missing. (His body has not been located and may have been disposed of by being dissolved in acid.) Eventually, they admitted a role in Khashoggi’s death but stopped short of asserting that Mohammed had ordered the assassination. They reportedly told the White House that Khashoggi had links to terrorism and was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Khashoggi’s family denied the government’s alleged claims. Over the weekend, Trump seemed hesitant to accept the CIA’s formulation of what had happened. In the statement Tuesday, he was more explicit, echoing the alleged Saudi disparagement of Khashoggi — which, The Post’s John Hudson noted, the Saudis had denied saying — and failing to mention that Khashoggi was an employee of an American news organization who lived in Virginia. “Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump wrote. “We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. ... The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.” He made clear that he intended to take no other action against the Saudis. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who until earlier this year led Trump’s CIA, spoke with reporters about the subject shortly after the president released his statement. He noted that “it’s a mean, nasty world out there” — echoing the Trump statement’s introductory “the world is a very dangerous place!” — and stated that the U.S.-Saudi relationship is “a long, historic commitment, and one that is absolutely vital to America’s national security.” In late July, The Post reported that another Trump assertion — that North Korea was taking steps to denuclearize — seemed to be at odds with intelligence agencies' analysis. The country was apparently working on new missiles potentially capable of carrying nuclear warheads to the United States. Moreover, North Korean leaders were intending to “deceive Washington about the number of nuclear warheads and missiles they have” and might assert “that they have fully denuclearized


In a major speech on Brexit, Theresa May called Europeans in Britain queue jumpers. People got upset.

is one of the pillars of the E.U. and its precursor, which Britain joined in 1973. Brexit will change all that — when Britain finally leaves the union sometime in 2021, or 2022, or whenever, depending on whom you believe. May has said that part of Brexit’s promise to “take back control” means taking control of Britain’s immigration policies. “Free movement will end,” May told Parliament last week. “That is one of the key elements, I believe, of the vote in the referendum that we need to ensure we deliver for the British people.” May has vowed to reduce overall immigration from hundreds of thousands annually to tens of thousands, and give preference to the “best and brightest” no matter where they’re from, over lower-skilled workers from Eastern Europe. In the future, E.U. citizens will not be given any preference, she promised, over someone from India or Australia. May’s line about jumping the queue was deemed deeply insulting, not only by the foreigners but by many Brits. LBC radio host James O’Brien started trending on social media after a clip from his show Tuesday, in which he lambasted May for her remarks, went viral. By labeling Europeans queue jumpers, he said, May was characterizing them as “a cheat, as someone who is not to be trusted, as someone who will game the system, someone who is not quite playing with a straight bat, as someone who is a little bit iffy, a little bit dodgy. Why? Why? Because they’re foreigners.” May did not misspeak. It was in copies of her printed speech. Political analysts assumed that she meant it, as a bit of red meat for hardcore Brexiteers. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wrote on Twitter, “Stopping EU citizens ‘jumping the queue’ — that the case for Brexit has been reduced to such a miserable and self defeating bottom line is depressing in the extreme.” She called May’s line “really disgraceful.” Layla Moran, a Liberal Democrat member of Parliament, said May must apologize. The British press asked May’s official spokesman what the prime minister meant. The spokesman replied, “We have always been clear of the important contribution which E.U. citizens make to our economy and to public services. “The point the prime minister is making is that we wish to have a global system where people’s skills are the basis on which they are able to work in the U.K.”


#MeToo in China: A force for change or another doomed movement?

Keith B. Richburg, a professor and director of the Journalism and Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong, is a former China correspondent for The Washington Post. Almost a decade ago, in a hardscrabble mountain town in the remote Chinese province of Hubei, a 21-year-old woman named Deng Yujiao became an early, unwilling symbol of pervasive sexual violence against women by powerful men. Deng, a high school dropout, had a job giving pedicures at the seedy Dream Fantasy City karaoke and bathhouse in May 2009, when a local Communist Party bigwig came in with his cronies and demanded “special services,” a euphemism for sex. When she refused, the official slapped Deng’s face with a wad of money, pushed her onto a couch and climbed on top of her. Deng reached for the only weapon she had, a three-inch knife, and stabbed the big man in his neck, chest and stomach. She called the police as the official bled to death. Deng was charged with “intentional homicide” and strapped to a bed in a psychiatric hospital. She might have stayed there, or been swiftly tried and executed, had her story not found its way to the Internet, where she suddenly became a national heroine. Fearing social unrest, authorities released Deng and allowed her to relocate to another province. Deng came to mind recently as the #MeToo movement exploded in the United States, rippled across the globe to Asia and finally reached China — where it has run smack into a great wall of official repression and cultural obduracy. Some see this burgeoning women’s movement as a turning point that is already rattling the pillars of China’s patriarchal, authoritarian regime. Researcher Leta Hong Fincher, in her new book, “Betraying Big Brother,” writes that for the first time since 1949, “organized feminist activists independent of the Communist Party have tapped into broad discontent among Chinese women and developed a level of influence over public opinion that is highly unusual for any social movement in China.” But my 30-plus years of following China have made me skeptical of the ability of any single grass-roots movement to meaningfully change the way the country does business. Since the massacre of pro-democracy students at Tiananmen Square in 1989, the Falun Gong movement assembled 10,000 practitioners in Beijing in 1999 before the government sent tens of thousands of adherents to prison or “reeducation” camps; factory workers


Jailed Saudi women’s rights activists said to face electric shocks, beatings and other abuse

ISTANBUL — Several women’s rights activists who have been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for more than six months have been subjected to psychological or physical abuse while in custody, including sleep deprivation and beatings, according to four people familiar with the conditions of the activists’ detention. Some of the abuse occurred during interrogations in which several of the women were administered electric shocks or flogged, two of the people said, citing a witness account. Other women displayed what witnesses said were apparent signs of abuse, including uncontrollable shaking or difficulty standing, the people said. The allegations of abuse and torture were impossible to independently confirm. Families are reluctant to repeat what they hear from the detainees during prison visits, fearing retaliation by the authorities. The four people who spoke about the abuse, all Saudi citizens, have contacts in the prison or had been briefed on conditions there. They spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern that revealing their names could identify the detainees. Asked to comment on the allegations, a Saudi official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in an emailed statement: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s judiciary system does not condone, promote, or allow the use of torture. Anyone, whether male or female, being investigated is going through the standard judiciary process led by the public prosecution while being held for questioning, which does not in any way rely on torture either physical, sexual, or psychological.” Amnesty International released a report Tuesday also saying that several of the Saudi activists detained since May have reportedly faced sexual harassment, torture and other forms of mistreatment while being interrogated. The report was released subsequent to The Washington Post’s independent interviews with the four people familiar with detention conditions. The killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents last month in Istanbul has heightened scrutiny of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and fueled rumors that Saudi authorities were considering releasing some of the female activists to blunt some of the criticism of the kingdom. But seven weeks after the killing of Khashoggi, who contributed opinion pieces to The Post, none of the activists have been released, and there has been no indication that prosecutors have taken new steps to indict them. Saudi authorities began detaining the country’s most prominent feminists in mid-May, after several waves of previous arrests targeted other high-profile figures, including clerics, royal family


Free dietary advice might be as close as your local grocery store

as well as customers. Another FMI report published in 2017 noted that 81 percent of retailers viewed supermarket health and wellness programs as a significant business growth opportunity for the industry, and 69 percent consider such programs a responsibility to their communities and customers. As Kim Kirchherr, a dietitian and supermarket consultant working with Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) put it, “This is where the rubber meets the road. It’s where people are making their food decisions.” So how can you best take advantage of these complimentary health and wellness services? That depends on where you shop. Some brands have in-store dietitians conducting tours, leading cooking demonstrations and classes, providing tasting opportunities, and doing health screenings. Others focus their outreach online and in print with robust dietitian-run Web pages, social media platforms and apps, as well as newsletters, magazines and tip sheets where you can find recipes, healthy meal inspirations and ingredient guidance. Many have a multipronged approach. Hy-Vee, for example, a chain of more than 240 supermarkets located throughout the Midwest, coordinates in-store and Web-based outreach though its Dietitian Pick of the Month program, where a chosen healthy ingredient is highlighted in store tours, cooking classes, online videos and in social media. The first two products featured when the chain started this program in 2009 were chia seeds and Greek yogurt, and they remain big sellers for the chain today. In some supermarkets, dietitians are literally putting meals together for customers — no doubt a response to the popularity of boxed meal-kit subscription services. Coborn’s, also in the Midwest, has dietitian-designed, same-day-packaged meal kits available for online order, and some ShopRite locations have an area of the store where shoppers can pick up a copy of a dietitian-approved weekly recipe and all the necessary ingredients to make that dish. Supermarket dietitians also do outreach within the larger community, speaking at hospitals and corporate wellness events and coordinating with food banks. Even if you don’t see a dietitian in person at your store, there may be one (or more) behind the scenes working on the corporate or regional level to develop resources that make it easier and more compelling for you to make a healthy choice. Krystal Register is a dietitian who works at the regional level at Wegmans Food Markets, located in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states, where she is charged with strategizing the company’s overall health and wellness


social media. The first two products featured when the chain started this program in 2009 were chia seeds and Greek yogurt, and they remain big sellers for the chain today. In some supermarkets, dietitians are literally putting meals together for customers — no doubt a response to the popularity of boxed meal-kit subscription services. Coborn’s, also in the Midwest, has dietitian-designed, same-day-packaged meal kits available for online order, and some ShopRite locations have an area of the store where shoppers can pick up a copy of a dietitian-approved weekly recipe and all the necessary ingredients to make that dish. Supermarket dietitians also do outreach within the larger community, speaking at hospitals and corporate wellness events and coordinating with food banks. Even if you don’t see a dietitian in person at your store, there may be one (or more) behind the scenes working on the corporate or regional level to develop resources that make it easier and more compelling for you to make a healthy choice. Krystal Register is a dietitian who works at the regional level at Wegmans Food Markets, located in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states, where she is charged with strategizing the company’s overall health and wellness programs. Part of what she does is ensure accurate and clear labeling pointing to foods that support particular health goals, and train employees to be knowledgeable both about the products they are selling and the nutrition resources available in store. The idea is that if customers tell the deli counter worker they need a low-sodium, gluten-free product, that employee will be well versed in which items meet that criteria and can also point the customers to available printed materials and signage on low-sodium and gluten-free choices. One Wegmans’s wellness initiative takes the form of hands-on cooking experiences, such as teaching customers to pan-sear fish, for example. “Part of my goal is to get people in the store and build confidence making healthy choices,” says Register. Supermarket dietitians do work for the store so, naturally, getting and keeping you there is part of their mission. Although they can help you make sense of the products they sell — explaining those confusing packaging labels and guiding you to the best choices on their shelves — it is worth keeping in mind that their services come with an inherent bias. It’s unlikely they would advise you to buy from a competing seller or


Trump slanders Khashoggi and betrays American values

“high confidence” — a rating it does not apply lightly — that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, who while living in self-imposed exile in Virginia, wrote columns for The Post that were moderately critical of the crown prince. Mr. Trump’s response is to grudgingly acknowledge that “it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event” before adding “maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” He declares the truth unknowable and thus irrelevant: “We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder.” In fact, the truth about Mr. Khashoggi’s death is not only knowable but largely known. Audio recordings in the CIA’s possession record his actual killing as well as phone calls from the hit team to Mohammed bin Salman’s close aides. Five members of the team have been identified as probable members of the crown prince’s personal security team. While discounting these facts, Mr. Trump bases his continued backing for the regime on false claims, including his thoroughly debunked boast that Saudi Arabia will “spend and invest $450 billion” in the United States. He says the kingdom has “been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels,” though Riyadh is reportedly preparing to cut production to raise prices. Worst of all, Mr. Trump libels Mr. Khashoggi, saying that “representatives of Saudi Arabia” had called him an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The crown prince did make those allegations in a phone call to the White House — but the regime itself was so embarrassed when The Post reported on the call that it denied making them. Mr. Khashoggi’s family has confirmed that he was not a member of the Brotherhood. Mr. Trump concluded his statement by inviting Congress “to go in a different direction.” As in the Russia case, it must do so. Bipartisan legislation mandating sanctions for all those implicated in Mr. Khashoggi’s death is pending in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) last week gave us a statement indicating he wanted to know “what more would be done” by the administration before Congress responded. Now he knows. If Mohammed bin Salman is to be held accountable, as Mr. Corker said he must, the committee must act. The alternative is a world where dictators know they can murder their critics and suffer no consequences.


Almost everything Trump just said about Saudi Arabia and Jamal Khashoggi is wrong or overly simplistic

on the world stage and make other countries respect us again. The second major problem is those bogus numbers. There are undoubtedly good reasons to want to salvage this relationship, so why does Trump feel the need to exaggerate the size of almost all of them? The $450 billion. The hundreds of thousands of jobs. The price of oil ($150 a barrel has only been crested once, and we’re currently at about one-third of that). The idea that punishing Saudi Arabia would “destroy the world economy.” There may be pain, but this is way over the top. Trump’s contentions about the Syrian civil war and Iran’s involvement in Yemen are also contrary to the consensus of experts. The third problem is Trump’s method. In defending his decision, he decided to allude to bogus claims that Khashoggi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, while adding “but my decision is in no way based on that.” Okay, so why mention it? This was essentially Trump passing along smears of a slain journalist on behalf of Saudi Arabia, while also giving it a pass on the whole thing. It’s difficult to think how he could have made this even more painful for Khashoggi’s family, but he found a way. The last point here is that Trump is questioning and preempting his own intelligence community. The CIA is set to report that it has high confidence that Mohammed was behind Khashoggi’s killing, yet Trump repeatedly questioned that. “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump said in his statement. He added that “we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi.” We don’t know exactly what the CIA report will say, but it’s difficult to imagine a more frustrating comment if you’re an intelligence officer — the idea that your work will never be good and conclusive enough for the president to take serious action. It all harks back to what happened with the Russia investigation. Trump is essentially allowing Saudi Arabia to kill a journalist for an American newspaper because of his clearly outsized sense of its importance, ignoring the impact that might have on the United States’ standing in the world and shunning the conclusions of his own government. There are no easy answers here, but Trump seems to be erring to one extreme rather than taking a pragmatic approach that truly protects American sovereignty.


Trump calls Saudi Arabia a ‘great ally,’ discounts crown prince’s responsibility for Khashoggi’s death

and they are free to do so,” he said in his statement. “I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America.” The Post reported last week that the CIA had determined it was effectively impossible that such an operation could have been carried out without the approval of Mohammed, the son of King Salman and the country’s de facto leader. Many of the 18 people the kingdom has said it arrested in connection with the crime were members of the royal guard, and two top aides to the crown prince were reportedly fired. On Sunday, Trump said he was awaiting a full briefing on intelligence conclusions. The agency’s assessment relied on audio recordings provided by Turkey and intercepted phone calls, as well as other analysis work performed by Saudi experts at the CIA, according to people familiar with the agency’s work. Trump had already received intelligence briefings on the matter, and CIA Director Gina Haspel had shown the president details of the crown prince’s involvement. It wasn’t clear that he had received any additional information before issuing Tuesday’s eight-paragraph statement. The CIA declined to comment. The statement — titled “America First!” — began: “The world is a very dangerous place!” Trump went on to describe the danger posed by Iran. In addition to fighting proxy wars and supporting terrorists, he said, “the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East,” and Iran “states openly, and with great force, ‘Death to America!’ and ‘Death to Israel!” “On the other hand,” he continued, Saudi Arabia has “agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism.” He lauded U.S.-Saudi economic ties and personally took credit for what he called historic Saudi investments here. “After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money,” Trump claimed, citing a figure that many experts have said greatly exaggerates the real value of Saudi deals. Since Saudi Arabia first acknowledged that Khashoggi had been killed in an operation at its Istanbul consulate, Trump has repeatedly emphasized the economic aspects of the relationship, and the statement again stressed his concern that Saudi investments here could be canceled and that major defense contracts would go


Here’s a way you can combat fake news

know the difference between fact and conspiratorial fiction? Nick Adams Joshua Tucker Nick Adams It also gives the article a 0-100 credibility score that content platforms like Facebook, Google and Twitter can use to promote higher-quality articles in their search results and news feeds. And all of Public Editor’s labels and scores will appear automatically over news content for readers who install our browser plug-in. JT NA Back then, I was a fellow at the UC Berkeley Institute for Data Science, where Saul is still director. He asked me if the software might be useful for teaching the students in his own very popular critical thinking course to find examples of thinking errors in the news. We started hashing out some designs. Once it become clear that some bad actors had weaponized news-sharing through social media to intentionally misinform voters, my nonprofit citizen science lab, the Goodly Labs, really kicked into high gear on the project. JT NA At the Goodly Labs, we don’t put untrained citizens in charge of our statistical analyses, but we can get their valuable help collecting and curating data. Birdwatching societies have been doing this for hundreds of years to track migratory patterns. And Chris Lintott, the British astronomer behind Galaxy Zoo, has gotten citizens to accurately classify millions of galaxies. Now, we’re getting the help of citizens to measure the features of the social world we all participate in creating and interpreting. JT: NA: JT NA We think we can achieve that with some good recruitment campaigns. Tens of millions of people do the crossword or Sudoku each day, and those puzzles are usually more complex and time-consuming than the tasks we’re asking people to perform. Public Editor tasks give people a similar sense of accomplishment. That feeling is compounded when volunteers know their work is improving democracy, when they’re earning points and badges they can brag about on Facebook, and when they get to reap the rewards of their teamwork every time they start reading a popular news article. JT NA This article is one in a series supported by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance that seeks to work collaboratively to increase our understanding of how to design more effective and legitimate democratic institutions using new technologies and new methods. Neither the MacArthur Foundation nor the network is responsible for the article’s specific content. Other posts can be found here.


Seven global events to be thankful for. Yes, even in 2018.

2018 has been a rough year for the world. Autocrats seized control; terrorism and hate crimes are on the rise; and scientists say climate change is now almost certain to have catastrophic effects. And then there’s Yemen. Even so, there were a couple of bright spots. Since it’s Thanksgiving, we thought we’d take stock of a couple of foreign policy trends, shifts and happenings that left us smiling: 1. Europe’s now got a really strong data protection plan in place The General Data Protection Regulation, better known by its acronym GDPR, went into effect earlier this year. Nearly six years in the making, the GDPR lays out strong rules for what companies can do with your data. It limits what businesses can do and gives users much more control over the information they put online. Under the GDPR, companies must tell users what information is being collected, how it’s being used, how long it will be retained. Though it only protects the data of Europeans, it may reshape how big companies operate more broadly. Privacy advocates quibble with some parts of the framework. But in general, they hail it as the most significant data protection breakthrough ever. 2. Ethiopia and Eritrea came to a groundbreaking peace. Oh, and Ethiopia appointed a female president. Ethiopia and Eritrea had been locked in conflict for nearly two decades. The Economist described it as a “cold war that once seemed irresolvable.” The struggle was nominally over contested land at the border of the two countries. Over the years, Ethiopia and Eritrea sent thousands of troops to the border and armed each other’s rebels. But this summer, the two countries made peace and restored normal relations, easing tension around the region. “There is a wind of hope blowing in the Horn of Africa,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told journalists after the signing of the peace accord. “It is not only the peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea — it is the fact that tomorrow and the day after tomorrow we will have, here in Saudi Arabia, the president of Djibouti and the president of Eritrea — two countries that have also been at odds with each other.” The peace comes against a backdrop of unprecedented changes in Ethiopia’s once authoritarian government, including prisoner releases, economic opening and opposition figures allowed back in the country. Most dramatically has been the appointment of women in several top


Killing of Khashoggi tests U.S. defense industry as backlash builds on Capitol Hill

The powerful U.S. defense industry is facing a rare challenge to its influence on Capitol Hill as support for arms sales to Saudi Arabia has rapidly eroded following the killing last month of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi government operatives. The defense industry’s typically aggressive lobby has gone quiet as gruesome details of Khashoggi’s death have leaked and American intelligence officials have laid blame at the feet of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Even as President Trump has reiterated his support for continued sales of U.S. weapons to the kingdom, congressional opposition to those sales and to U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen has mounted in recent weeks — testing the power of an industry that has sold tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons systems to the kingdom since the 1950s. Growing bipartisan support for Senate legislation to cut off the arms sales marks a historic disruption in a seemingly inviolable arms-for-oil trade relationship that stretches back decades and is an unusual setback for one of the most influential lobbies in Washington. In the coming weeks, key senators are expected to push for a vote on a measure that would impose sanctions on Saudi officials responsible for Khashoggi’s death and suspend many weapons sales to Saudi Arabia until it ceases airstrikes in Yemen that have killed tens of thousands of civilians. The bill represents one of the first major breaks between congressional Republicans and the White House, which has embraced Saudi Arabia as a key Middle Eastern ally — a strategy driven by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who forged a strong personal relationship with the crown prince. But Trump’s staunch support for the kingdom in the face of the CIA’s conclusion that Mohammed ordered the assassination of Khashoggi — a Washington Post contributing columnist — has triggered a backlash on Capitol Hill amid intensifying opposition to the war in Yemen. In an interview Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump confidant who previously opposed efforts to restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia, suggested lawmakers might tie federal funding to Saudi sanctions. He is co-sponsoring the bipartisan Senate measure, which would suspend licenses for some weapons that had been previously approved. “When it comes to the crown prince, it is not wise to look away,” said Graham, calling the crown prince “a wrecking ball” on the global stage. Other


After Khashoggi’s murder, it’s time for the world to stop ignoring Bahrain’s abuses

Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei, (@salwadaei) is the advocacy director of the UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD). The gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul opened the eyes of many to just how far the kingdom would go to silence dissent. Finally, the international community is starting to scrutinize Saudi Arabia’s repressive actions — a reaction previously unthinkable due to the kingdom’s widespread influence. But Khashoggi’s killing is not a mishap. Rather, it is indicative of a broader theme of suppression in the Gulf that has been going on for years. Bahrain, Saudi’s little brother, is not above killing journalists. In 2011, Bahraini authorities tortured to death Karim Fakhrawi, the co-founder of the country’s only independent newspaper, al-Wasat. The only reason Fakhrawi’s case never received the same attention as Khashoggi’s is his name never appeared in a byline of The Post. In addition, unlike what is happening in Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi’s murder, where someone is at least being prosecuted, seven years later in Bahrain, it is unclear if anyone has been held accountable for Fakhrawi’s torture. What is glaringly similar in the two cases is that no officials from the ruling family were ever questioned. In Bahrain’s case, Sheikh Rashid Al Khalifa, the minister of interior and relative of the king, was not questioned about his security forces despite their role in the systematic torture and killings of individuals in the past. I, Sayed, endured torture at the hands of his security forces and, as a result, three of my family members have been subjected to torture and other reprisals in an effort to silence me. Torture continues unabated in a culture of impunity, from the most high-profile cases like Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia, to the less public cases, such as Fakhrawi’s and my family’s. Despite newly directed attention to the region thanks to Khashoggi, a climate of abuse continues to flourish, and Bahrain is a prime example. On Nov. 24, the country will be hosting sham elections for its lower house of parliament in an environment of deep repression and harsh restrictions on press and free expression that have already seen political activists and human rights defenders arrested and jailed — sometimes for little more than tweets. This is personal for us as members of our own families have been targeted with reprisals in Bahrain, merely to punish us


Trump contradicts CIA on killing of Khashoggi, says agency ‘had feelings’ but did not firmly place blame on Saudi crown prince

Speaking to reporters at his Florida resort, President Trump said the CIA had not come to a conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump brushed aside the intelligence community’s assessment that the crown prince had ordered the killing and reiterated that Saudi Arabia was too valuable an ally to lose over the incident. “I hate the crime…I hate the coverup. I will tell you this: The crown prince hates it more than I do,” Trump said.This is a developing story. It will be updated.


Trump’s dangerous message to tyrants: Flash money and get away with murder

secure. Stable, peaceful societies, governed by leaders who respect the rights of their people, need journalists who can expose wrongdoing and hold the powerful to account. It is no mere coincidence that many of the worst abusers of press freedom are also some of the world’s most dangerous actors. The CIA has thoroughly investigated Khashoggi’s murder and concluded with high confidence that it was directed by the crown prince. If there is reason to ignore the CIA’s findings, the president should immediately make that evidence public. In the absence of such evidence, and given this failure of leadership from Trump, it now falls to Congress to truly put America first by standing up for America’s sacred values and lasting interests. As we’ve seen from the strong support of both Republicans and Democrats, this is not a partisan or political interest; it is an American interest. Congress should demand more than scapegoating and slaps on the wrist. Instead, it should use its investigative and subpoena powers to press for an independent, thorough inquiry — no matter where it leads. It should use its power of the purse and authority to regulate foreign commerce to impose effective penalties on Khashoggi’s murderers and suspend the sale of U.S.-made weapons to the Saudis. Presidents from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan — and many before and after — took courageous stands for human rights and press freedom when much more than weapons sales were at risk. Through these acts of presidential leadership, the world has come to know that America’s power is derived from America’s principles. On Thanksgiving Day, Americans can be grateful that we live under a Constitution that ensures the rule of law rather than the rule of one capricious man, and that it enables one branch of government to correct the failure of another. We are eternally thankful for the brave men and women whose military service has long preserved those rights, and for the courage of first responders who are there to protect us when disasters strike at home. We can also be thankful that we have a vibrant press, protected by the First Amendment, that relentlessly seeks to hold the powerful to account. We can trust that they will fulfill this mission in the case of Jamal Khashoggi. This pursuit of truth and justice is what an innocent man, brutally slain, deserves — and what America’s real values demand.


Theaters are filled with films telling black stories. It’s about time.

When “Green Book” played before a packed house at the Middleburg Film Festival last month, you could feel the room levitate. The movie stars Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali as the real-life characters Tony “Lip” Vallelonga and the pianist Don Shirley, who in the early 1960s hired Vallelonga to drive him during a tour through the South. The film, co-written by Vallelonga’s son Nick, doesn’t flinch from dramatizing racism writ both large and small: Vallelonga espouses the prejudices and reflexive bias one would expect from someone ensconced in the insular Italian American culture. On the road, Shirley is subjected to the kind of physical threats and psychological violence that characterized life for so many black Americans in Jim Crow America. But on that October Sunday in Middleburg, the crowd was laughing. For the dead seriousness of the subject matter, “Green Book” is an often uproarious comedy, with Mortensen leaning into his persona as an unreconstructed goombah with obvious relish. Ali is just as funny for being utterly deadpan throughout a performance that makes the most of his magnetically regal bearing. Once the jokes began to land, movie and audience engaged in a sort of call-and-response rapport, generating such infectious warmth that the minute the film ended — with a line of dialogue that only made the movie more endearing — the entire ballroom lept to its collective feet. “Green Book,” in other words, played like gangbusters. And, as a film that has scooped up audience awards at nearly every festival it’s played this fall, it’s a bona fide crowd-pleaser. Which makes it something of an anomaly: a feel-good movie set against a backdrop of vicious racism and hate, a buddy comedy in which one of the buddies utters racial epithets as casually as he orders a cannoli. Of course, by the end of “Green Book,” Tony Lip has changed. Which makes the movie less an anomaly than a classic example of just the kind of movie Hollywood used to make about racism and other social ills in postwar America. “Green Book” fits squarely into a tradition shared by such dramas as “The Defiant Ones,” “Lilies of the Field” and “In the Heat of the Night,” as well as the comedy “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and, later, “Driving Miss Daisy,” in which an unexpected relationship between characters of different races yielded reassuring lessons about tolerance, mutual understanding and moral uplift.