Trump administration cautiously optimistic that pastor held in Turkey will be freed

have said is unjustified based on evidence Turkey has so far presented of alleged coup plotting. Turkey also seeks the release of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a Turkish banker convicted in May of taking part in a massive scheme to violate U.S. sanctions on the purchase of Iranian oil. The high-profile federal trial also involved Halkbank, a Turkish state bank, which is still awaiting court determination of what could be a multibillion-dollar fine. U.S. officials charged that the Turks had brought up all these issues, raising the ante for Brunson’s release, after Trump upheld his side of the bargain and obtained the release from Israel. Within hours after a Turkish court in late July ordered Brunson released from jail but held under house arrest, Trump publicly threatened sanctions. In short order, tit-for-tat sanctions were declared on senior officials on both sides, and Trump announced that he was doubling U.S. tariffs on Turkish steel to 50 percent, and on Turkish aluminum to 20 percent. “Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!” he tweeted. Turkey’s economy, already in difficulty, went into a tailspin. Congress, where anti-Turkey sentiment over the Brunson case has been high, passed legislation freezing the sale of 100 F-35 aircraft to Turkey and giving Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — who opposed the freeze — until November to prepare a report on how it would affect U.S. security and the defense industry. Turkey insisted it would move ahead with the purchase of a sophisticated Russian antimissile defense system, despite threatened U.S. sanctions and expressions of concern from NATO. Another potential crisis looms when new U.S. sanctions against purchases of oil from Iran, Turkey’s second-largest supplier, go into effect Nov. 4. The administration has said it will make no exceptions. But tempers have cooled somewhat on other issues, as the United States and Turkey have addressed some of their differences over Syria, and have shared their disquiet over last week’s disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist, during a visit to the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials have said they think Khashoggi was killed there, perhaps in a botched attempt by Saudi agents to kidnap and interrogate him. Trump has expressed “concern,” but the administration has declined to accuse Riyadh directly, saying it is awaiting more information. Saudi Arabia has denied involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance and said he left the consulate soon after entering. karen.deyoung@washpost.com carol.leonnig@washpost.com


The forces of evil are getting bolder. We can’t let them win.

who committed this crime, but we can be sure that Viktoria Marinova’s investigations into corruption had something to do with it. Her country is plagued by organized-crime groups, so it’s likely her killers will never face justice. Evil rejoices in impunity. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to two campaigners against sexual violence, Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege. Murad, a Yazidi from northern Iraq, is a campaigner for survivors of sexual slavery at the hands of the Islamic State, that fanatical jihadist group that considers its work so sacred that no atrocity is beneath it. (She is a survivor herself.) Mukwege treated women victimized by marauding militias in eastern Congo, a part of the world that has endured decades of ferocious conflict fueled by the lure of lucrative natural resources. Evil loves chaos. It may be that I am especially sensitive to such stories right now because of the sickening news about my Post colleague Jamal Khashoggi, a leading Saudi journalist who disappeared last week after visiting his country’s consulate in Istanbul. Though his fate remains unclear, informed sources are saying he has been killed. We can only hope it isn’t so. But we do know why his government doesn’t like him: because he has told the truth. He has been a sharp critic of the Saudi regime and its ruthless treatment of the country’s citizens. He has been especially outspoken about Riyadh’s leading role in the war in Yemen, which has taken tens of thousands of lives and left millions at risk of starvation. Genocide in Myanmar. Russia’s war on Ukraine. China’s ethnic cleansing of the Uighurs. The shocking rise of political movements that openly vilify minorities and migrants. What is striking about all of these horrors is the shamelessness of the perpetrators. Evil has always existed (and always will), but rarely have the bigots, the thugs and the warmongers so brazenly advertised their sins. Vladimir Putin’s government positively rejoices over the murder of its opponents. A Brazilian presidential candidate and the Philippine president make jokes about rape. I’m not sure I understand all the reasons for this outpouring of depraved behavior. Social media, which has unleashed many of our hitherto closeted demons, clearly serves as an accelerant. (Consider Facebook’s role in whipping up animosity against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.) A worldwide revolt against established elites — part slow-motion response to the 2008 financial crisis, part


demons, clearly serves as an accelerant. (Consider Facebook’s role in whipping up animosity against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.) A worldwide revolt against established elites — part slow-motion response to the 2008 financial crisis, part discontent with the inequities of globalization — has engendered a politics of rage that loosens the norms of good behavior. International networks of corruption are eroding democratic institutions. Western governments — above all, the Trump administration — show little inclination to call out human rights violations or to push back against the despots. And the strongmen appreciate the favor. The United States, of course, is not immune. A few years ago, members of the so-called alt-right wouldn’t have dared to show their faces in public; now they’re empowered by an increasingly assertive culture of white-nationalist grievance, stoked by President Trump’s racist dog whistles. As I write this, misogynistic trolls — egged on by the president — are working overtime to destroy the life of Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who was brave enough to make a public statement about a trauma in her past. Meanwhile, children as young as 2, separated from their migrant or asylum-seeking parents by the U.S. government, are facing immigration courts on their own. And, of course, the president’s cheerleading for authoritarian regimes around the world — particularly North Korea, the vilest of them all — signals to the dictators that they can get away with anything as long as they participate in a helpful photo op. Evil, contrary to popular belief, is never straightforward. Perhaps the hardest part about confronting evil is its complexity. There is a potential for evil in everyone, and even the most bloodthirsty dictators retain some semblance of humanity. This is precisely why we cannot rely solely on others — courts, political representatives, diplomats, international organizations — to fight back for us. Each of us must take a stand. Each of us must do what we can to act against the evil that we see around us — now more than ever. Read more: Robert Kagan: Welcome to the jungle Asli Aydintasbas: Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and the crumbling of the global order The Post’s View: Evidence of what happened to Jamal Khashoggi exists. It must be released. Jamal Khashoggi: Saudi Arabia’s crown prince must restore dignity to his country — by ending Yemen’s cruel war Anne Applebaum: Are you still sure there’s no need to worry?


Why LaCroix calls its seltzer ‘natural’

they pose any danger. Neither the explicit accusation of using synthetic chemicals nor the implied health risks of those chemicals holds water. Yet focusing on the relative naturalness and safety of LaCroix’s essences distracts from a much more pressing problem. When “natural” means “holy,” shopping for natural products becomes consecrated consumption. Stores such as Whole Foods (which settled two class-action lawsuits in 2016 over labeling its bread “all natural”) have exploited this impulse by weaving together the appeal to natural goodness with explicit ethical claims about how their products benefit the environment and disadvantaged peoples. It’s a brilliant move. Many of us are wary of overconsumption — in fact, our consciousness of how it harms the planet and our bodies is part of what makes naturalness appealing. The appropriation of natural goodness by corporate brands allows us to expiate our guilt for participating in the system. As long as consumption is sacred, there’s no such thing as overconsumption. Shop to your heart’s content for natural products! Go ahead, America, buy $827 million worth of LaCroix in a year! Knock back 10 a day! No need to worry: It’s all natural and made from “locally sourced ” water. Just what nature intended. In the end, worrying about what’s natural may obscure real threats to our health and the planet. America’s greatest disparities in lifespan are not due to departures from nature’s intentions; they are due to social determinants of health such as race and class . Vaccine refusal is rooted in the belief that “unnatural” medicine is inferior to natural immunity. The carbon footprint of the growing global demand for meat might be mitigated by lab-grown meat, which is anything but natural. As for the environmental impact of individuals, the poorest countries and the poorest people are by far the least responsible for our conundrum, not because they engage in consecrated consumption but because they consume less. This is easy to forget in a culture that thinks the best way to save Mother Nature is by consuming things that have her name on the label. Buying “natural” is the modern equivalent of buying indulgences — deep down, we probably know that holiness can’t be purchased, but the opportunity is just too tempting to pass up. In this sense, both LaCroix and the people who buy it because it’s “natural” are guilty of reinforcing the false faith of consecrated consumption and the


William Nordhaus and Paul Romer win Nobel Prize in economics

research, growth and education. His research demonstrated the importance of investing in people and ideas to foster growth, when economists had previously believed that it was impossible to influence the rate of innovation in technology. Romer’s work “has generated vast amounts of new research into the regulations and policies that encourage new ideas and long-term prosperity,” the academy said. After he had been on the Nobel shortlist for years, NYU wrongly announced that he had won the prize in 2016. When Romer’s phone rang before 6 a.m. — with the news that he had won the prize — he ignored it, because he thought it was a spam call. He’d thought the prize announcement wasn’t coming until next week. Born in Denver, Romer earned his undergraduate and doctorate degrees at the University of Chicago. He founded Aplia, an education technology company, in 2001, and he has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University. “The two picks are brought together by the emphasis on wealth, the true nature of wealth, and how nations and societies fare at the macro level,” economist Tyler Cowen wrote of Nordhaus and Romer. Romer said he was honored to be named alongside Nordhaus, whose work paved the way for his own by taking a “nonstandard” approach to the big questions of the day. Both Romer and Nordhaus have advanced the conversation around how humanity must care for limited resources — ideas and the environment — and the two agree on the market’s role in guarding them. “A well-regulated market is an amazing machine for discovering new things,” Romer said. “We’re saying it can be dramatically better if we can just point this amazing capacity for discovery at the right kind of challenge.” This is the final Nobel Prize to be announced this year. It comes on the heels of a foreboding report from the United Nations panel on climate change, which called for a rapid transformation of the world economy to stave off climate-related crises, which might come as soon as 2040. Much of the report builds on Nordhaus’s work. In a moment where the erosion of trust in experts — the media, scientists, government — is escalating, Romer said he hopes that both professionals and the public will find a way to seek the truth and make the changes that are in everyone’s best interest. “We’ve got to use our


Trump vows ‘severe punishment’ if U.S. determines Saudi Arabia killed Khashoggi

be or isn’t around and that’s very sad,” Trump said of Khashoggi. “I think we would’ve known by now. That was our first hope. Our first hope was that he was not killed, but maybe that’s not looking too good.” The Saudi government issued a statement Saturday morning condemning and denouncing “the false accusations circulated in media reports on the Saudi government and other people in the purported relation to the disappearance” of Khashoggi. The statement said Saudi’s interior minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, “stressed that what has been circulating in terms of supposed orders to kill Jamal are outright lies and baseless allegations against the Kingdom’s government, which is committed to its principles, rules and traditions and is in compliance with international laws and conventions.” The minister went on to praise a joint investigation with Turkey and said the kingdom wants to “clarify the whole truth” about Khashoggi’s disappearance. The statement offered no new details from the kingdom, which has steadfastly claimed it had no role in Khashoggi’s disappearance. But the careful wording appeared to leave open the possibility that Khashoggi died or was killed during an attempt to detain him, as some have speculated. In London, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said that Turkish and Saudi officials have been talking, but that Saudi Arabia had not yet allowed Turkish prosecutors and investigators to examine inside the consulate. “We haven’t seen any collaboration on this issue,” he said. “Officials need to work with us on this.” Trump told Stahl that Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, spoke by phone with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who denied any involvement. “They deny it,” Trump said. “They deny it every way you can imagine. In the not too distant future, I think we’ll know an answer.” Stahl asked Trump about his options to retaliate against the Saudis, including possibly imposing economic sanctions against the oil-rich desert kingdom, as a bipartisan group of senators has proposed. “Well, it depends on what the sanction is,” Trump replied. “I’ll give you an example. They are ordering military equipment. Everybody in the world wanted that order. Russia wanted it, China wanted it, we wanted it. We got it, and we got all of it, every bit of it.” Asked if he would cancel the arms sales, Trump hesitated. “Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t want to


Trump vows ‘severe punishment’ when U.S. determines what happened to Washington Post’s Jamal Khashoggi in remarks to ’60 Minutes’

President Trump made the comments when asked whether the Saudis were behind the disappearance of Khashoggi who was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Turkey on Oct. 2. “It’s being investigated, it’s being looked at very very strongly. And we would be very upset and angry if that were the case. As of this moment, they deny it and they deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes,” he said. Trump later said during the “60 Minutes” interview that will air on Sunday: “We’re going to get to the bottom of it, and there will be severe punishment.”This is a developing story. It will be updated.


Khashoggi’s alleged killing puts pressure on Saudi Arabia’s lobbying corps in Washington

The alleged killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi is putting pressure on Saudi Arabia’s formidable lobbying corps in Washington, with at least one firm dropping its representation of the country and others warily monitoring the crisis. The Harbour Group — which had received $80,000 a month to advise Saudi Arabia on communications, foreign policy and government relations — said it had severed its ties with the kingdom. “We are terminating our relationship,” Richard Mintz, managing director of the Harbour Group, said in an interview Friday. The Saudis plowed $27 million into lobbying in Washington last year, making them one of the highest-spending countries seeking to influence U.S. policy, according to public records. Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington, called the nearly three dozen Washington lobbying and law firms retained by the kingdom a “Saudi machine.” So far, many of the firms on the country’s payroll — including the BGR Group, the Glover Park Group, Hogan Lovells and Hill & Knowlton — have remained silent amid growing public outrage over reports that Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last week. Saudi officials have denied any involvement in the disappearance of Khashoggi, who had written critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi officials said Khashoggi left the consulate shortly after entering. The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that show that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi in the consulate, then killed him and dismembered his body, The Washington Post reported this week. Privately, several lobbyists retained by the Saudis said they were waiting for more information before deciding whether to continue representing the kingdom. One lobbyist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said his firm was contemplating announcing that it would donate to charity fees received from the Saudi government. tom.hamburger@washpost.com justin.moyer@washpost.com


As crisis intensifies, what’s at stake in America’s military partnership with Saudi Arabia?

International concern over Saudi Arabia’s suspected role in the disappearance of a prominent Saudi journalist has threatened to disrupt one of the United States’ most important security partnerships. Reports that Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month have sparked a wave of criticism of the kingdom and questions about whether President Trump and his top aides have emboldened the young royal. While the Trump administration has reacted cautiously to reports that Saudi Arabia is responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance, lawmakers have demanded a strong U.S. response, potentially including steps to curtail arms sales or affect other aspects of U.S. defense ties with the kingdom. On Friday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called for a broad halt to military cooperation if Saudi responsibility is established, adding her voice to a growing roster of lawmakers linking security ties to Khashoggi’s fate. “Saudi Arabia was once one of our closest allies in the Middle East,” Feinstein said in a statement. “I think now is the time to reevaluate that relationship.” Some lawmakers have called for sanctions or suspension of military aid to the kingdom’s war in neighboring Yemen. Others have said there may be “hell to pay,” as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) put it this week, if the kingdom is found responsible. But Trump, who has made the Saudi monarchy his premier Arab ally, waved off those demands, telling reporters that cutting off sales to the world’s largest buyer of U.S. weaponry “would not be acceptable to me.” “If we don’t sell it to them, they’ll say, ‘Well, thank you very much. We’ll buy it from Russia.’ Or ‘Thank you very much. We’ll buy it from China,’ ” Trump said. “That doesn’t help us — not when it comes to jobs and not when it comes to our companies losing out on that work.” The president’s comments may say as much about his transactional view of foreign relationships, elevating economic concerns over human rights, as they do about the centrality of arms sales to the two countries’ defense relationship. For decades Saudi Arabia has been an important American military partner in the Arab world, where its status as the home to Islam’s holiest sites boosts its leadership credentials. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, the kingdom has played a critical role


with producer nations like the United States. The favor those sales have curried was starkly visible in Trump’s Oval Office comments this week. But analysts and former officials said the cultivation of Saudi Arabia as the top U.S. arms customer had not yet turned the kingdom into Washington’s essential military partner in the Arab world. “In terms of the military or security benefit we get, there’s no automatic translation from those weapons into an operational capacity unfortunately,” said Andrew Miller, deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy. “There would need to be more of an emphasis on training and less of an emphasis on the systems themselves.” Saudi Arabia’s military performance has been hobbled by a number of issues, analysts said, including shortcomings in logistics and maintenance, a weak noncommissioned officer corps and a system for military appointments based on connections rather than merit. Saudi Arabia has requested less hands-on training from the U.S. military than some other Arab nations. It also relies on outside help to maintain much of its high-tech weaponry. “The bang they get for that large buck is extremely low,” said Thomas Juneau, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa and a former analyst at Canada’s Department of National Defense. “It’s especially shocking given how much money they spend and the fact they have some of the most advanced systems in the world.” American military officials continue to see elite forces from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Iraq as their preferred tactical ground partners among Arab nations. The war in Yemen, where Riyadh is leading a coalition of nations battling Houthi militants linked to Iran, has laid bare those challenges as Saudi Arabia remains mired in an expensive war it started over U.S. objections more than three years ago. The kingdom maintains a small force on the ground, relying on local and third-country forces to battle the Houthi troops. Saudi planes have repeatedly struck civilian sites, raising questions about their targeting practices and, for the first time, stirring a growing tide of opposition in Congress. Lawmakers have delayed one major sale because of concerns about civilian harm and have advanced proposals that could block U.S. military aid to the Yemen operation, which includes aerial refueling and intelligence sharing. The war in Yemen also has diminished Saudi ability to contribute to the campaign against the Islamic State, the chief U.S. counterterrorism


Trump says he will call Saudi king about Khashoggi’s disappearance, calls it ‘a terrible thing’

President Trump said Friday that he plans to call Saudi Arabia’s king to discuss the disappearance and alleged killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul earlier this month. “We’re going to find out what happened with respect to the terrible situation in Turkey having to do with Saudi Arabia and the reporter,” Trump told reporters. “And nobody knows quite yet. Nobody’s been able to put it all together. People are starting to form ideas, and as they’re formed, we’ll let you know, but it’s certainly a terrible thing.” Trump, who made his comments upon landing in Ohio to headline a campaign rally, said he plans to call Saudi Arabia’s King Salman “at some point” to discuss Khashoggi’s unexplained disappearance. Trump has long boasted of his warm relationship with Salman, who feted the U.S. president when he visited Riyadh in May 2017 for his first foreign stop while in office. Asked whether Saudi Arabia’s history of authoritarian rule and restrictions on human rights had been overlooked for too long, Trump defended the oil-rich Arabian Desert kingdom. “I think a lot of records are overlooked,” Trump said. “If you look at Iran, if you look at some of the other countries, if you take a look at Syria, if you take a look at a lot of countries, a lot of countries’ records have been overlooked. But this is a very serious thing and we’re looking at it in a very serious manner.” Saudi Arabia is hosting the Future Investment Initiative, a high-profile international business conference, next week in Riyadh, but several media organizations as well as some headlining attendees have withdrawn because of the Khashoggi situation. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is scheduled to represent the Trump administration at the conference, and he said Friday morning on CNBC that he was planning on going “at this point.” But Trump told reporters Friday afternoon that it was undetermined whether Mnuchin would attend. “He will make that determination,” Trump said. “A lot of people are going over to the investment conference. We’ll see what happens. Maybe some won’t be going. We’ll make that determination very soon.” Philip.Rucker@washpost.com


The backlash to Khashoggi’s alleged murder is growing — except in the White House

sponsors, along with editors and executives from the Economist, CNBC and the Los Angeles Times. The chief executives of Viacom and Uber have canceled their appearances, along with investor Steve Case. Meanwhile, four board members of the planned NEOM business zone — a pet project of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — have said they will step aside until questions are answered about Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance. The Harbour Group, one of a number of lobbying firms working for the Saudi government, canceled its contract. Several Wall Street executives, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group, have not yet changed their plans to attend the conference, even though its host, the crown prince, is credibly suspected of ordering the capture or killing of Mr. Khashoggi, who had been living in Washington and writing regularly for The Post. That looks like poor judgment: Do they really want to be photographed next to a tyrant with fresh blood on his hands? The real outliers, however, are President Trump and other senior officials in his administration, who continue to play down a horrific and virtually unprecedented crime — the alleged murder of a distinguished journalist in one of his own country’s consulates — and excuse Saudi Arabia’s failure to offer credible answers to their requests for information. Mr. Trump responded to queries about the Khashoggi case on Thursday by calling it “a terrible thing” — but also by underlining that Mr. Khashoggi is not an American citizen (he is a legal resident with two U.S. citizen children) and by calling relations with Saudi Arabia “excellent.” The president harped on what he claims are $110 billion in pending Saudi arms purchases — deals The Post’s fact checker has described as “fanciful and unlikely to come to fruition.” On Friday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was still “planning on going at this point” to the conference, adding, “If more information comes out and changes, we can look at that.” That is the opposite of the appropriate position, which would be to suspend official U.S. participation unless and until Saudi authorities provide satisfactory answers. As they did before Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance, Mr. Trump and his aides are sending the message that they will tolerate even the most reckless and unlawful adventures by the crown prince, provided he buys U.S. weapons. It’s hard to imagine a more irresponsible and amoral stance.


Jamal Khashoggi’s long road to the doors of the Saudi Consulate

Salem, one of Khashoggi’s closest friends, first met him in 2002 when she was working for the Middle East Institute. (She now heads the Qatar Foundation International, an institute in Washington partially funded by Qatar that supports cross-cultural education.) The venue was a conference organized by the Arab Thought Foundation, an organization that was supported by the Faisal family. Salem remembers an ambitious journalist whose rise was linked with the Faisal clan — Turki and his brother Saud al-Faisal, the longtime Saudi foreign minister. Educated at Georgetown and Princeton, respectively, the Faisal brothers represented the thoughtful, moderate face of the royal family. Khashoggi was close to these royals, but he was prepared to criticize the monarchy’s clerical establishment, too. In 2003, he became editor of Al Watan, a progressive newspaper owned by the Faisal family. But he lasted less than two months. He was fired, after he published criticism of the Saudi religious leadership. The Faisal family came to Khashoggi’s rescue. Turki was ambassador to London at the time, and he invited Khashoggi to come work for him there. “To save his life, they got him out of the kingdom,” remembers Salem. When Turki moved to Washington in 2005 as ambassador, he brought Khashoggi with him as spokesman. It was a difficult time: Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former ambassador (nicknamed “Bandar Bush” because of his close relationships with Bush 41 and 43), was continuing to visit the White House secretly. That angered Turki; the new ambassador was also trying to trim spending for Saudi Arabia’s public-relations firm in Washington, Qorvis Communications. Salem recalls talking with Khashoggi about the tension between Turki and Bandar. “He thought that was what royals do to each other,” she recalls. “He felt frustrated for Prince Turki.” Khashoggi, as Turki’s spokesman, was caught in the crossfire. It was “death by a thousand paper cuts,” for Khashoggi, says Salem. After Turki was replaced as ambassador in 2007, Khashoggi returned to the kingdom for a second stint as editor of Al Watan. He managed to hold that job until 2010, when he published criticism of Salafist extremism, a problem that had worried him for more than 20 years. He was out in the cold again. Rubin recalls visiting Khashoggi in Riyadh in 2009, after Rubin had joined the Obama administration as the Afghanistan expert for special envoy Richard Holbrooke. He says that one of his Saudi contacts


Western walkout of Saudi ‘Davos in the Desert’ conference over Jamal Khashoggi undermines kingdom’s modernization plans

San Francisco and Los Angeles to cultivate ties to the tech and entertainment industries. Before the protests against Khashoggi’s disappearance began gathering momentum, the second Future Investment Initiative conference was scheduled to draw dozens of top Western business officials as speakers, according to the event’s website. It listed more than a dozen Western companies as “partners” of the event. That began to shift Thursday night. Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement that he was withdrawing and was “very troubled” by the reports about Khashoggi. “We are following the situation closely, and unless a substantially different set of facts emerges, I won’t be attending the FII conference in Riyadh,” Khosrowshahi said. Tech investor Steve Case said he was suspending plans to attend the conference and a meeting for a Saudi tourism project. Bob Bakish, chief executive of Viacom, owner of MTV and movie studio Paramount Pictures, also said through a spokesman Thursday that he would no longer be attending the conference. Earlier Thursday, Viacom said it was “aware of the reports regarding Jamal Khashoggi” and “monitoring the situation closely.” Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is organizing the event, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The companies’ announcements follow some by U.S. media organizations and executives, including Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and the New York Times, that they would not participate in the event. Friday morning, CNN and Bloomberg also pulled out. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson was one of the first non-journalism executives to break with the Saudis. “I had high hopes for the current government in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and it is why I was delighted to accept two directorships in the tourism projects around the Red Sea,” Branson said in a blog post Thursday. “What has reportedly happened in Turkey around the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, if proved true, would clearly change the ability of any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi Government. We have asked for more information from the authorities in Saudi and to clarify their position in relation to Mr. Khashoggi.” Well-known figures in the U.S. tech world also backed away from a Saudi project called NEOM, aimed at building a tech and tourism hub in the northwestern corner of the country. Sam Altman, president of start-up investment firm Y Combinator, said he


Khashoggi mystery fixes spotlight on Saudi official described as crown prince’s strategist, enforcer

In the months before he disappeared, Jamal Khashoggi told friends he had received calls from a senior Saudi official urging him to end his self-imposed exile and come home to Riyadh. The invitation included the promise of a safe return and even the possibility of a job with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia whom Khashoggi had been so critical of in his columns for The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section. Khashoggi told his friends he did not trust the offer or the official delivering it, Saud al-Qahtani, a 40-year-old adviser to Mohammed described as the mercurial prince’s enforcer. In the West, Qahtani is not among the better-known members of Mohammed’s stable of young aides. But in the Persian Gulf, he is the loudest and most visible Saudi official. He tweets often and in populist terms, urging his 1.33 million Twitter followers to identify critics of the kingdom to add to his blacklist. As Saudi Arabia has campaigned to isolate its small neighbor Qatar, Qahtani has been the chief promoter of the kingdom’s most provocative ideas, such as digging a canal to turn Qatar into an island. He is also a powerful amplifier of fake news and social media bots that purport to show Qatari popular discontent with Qatar’s royals. The New Arab, a Qatari news outlet, has dubbed him the Saudi Steve Bannon. But above all, Qahtani is known for being a fierce loyalist to the crown, having served under Saudi kings since 2003, and a firm believer in Mohammed’s project to modernize Saudi Arabia while enforcing the strict restrictions on free speech and movement that have ensnared dozens of Saudi activists, clerics and social media users. In Khashoggi’s estimation, Qahtani is the official through whom Mohammed maintains total control over Saudi media. “Over the past 18 months, MBS’s communications team within the Royal Court publicly has chastised, and worse, intimidated anyone who disagrees,” Khashoggi wrote in a Post column in February, referring to Mohammed by his initials. “Saud Al-Qahtani, leader of that unit, has a blacklist and calls for Saudis to add names to it. Writers like me, whose criticism is offered respectfully, seem to be considered more dangerous than the more strident Saudi opposition based in London.” But in a column in the Saudi-controlled al-Arabiya news in April, Qahtani portrayed himself as Mohammed’s humble servant, awed and intimidated by his vision


Trump is kissing Saudi backsides. He’s not alone.

royals’ greatest fear is a theocratic Iran leading the Shiite Muslim world in a struggle to dominate Islam. The ruthless Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his family need Trump to stifle Iran at every turn. Toward that end, we delivered the goods, loading up the Saudis with firepower galore. They then used those weapons with abandon in neighboring Yemen. Today, Yemen’s shell-stricken capital, Sanaa, is not the city I saw in the 1980s during my call on financial institutions. The sad fact is that the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen’s civil war couldn’t have taken out markets, weddings and a school bus carrying kids without the help of U.S.-made bombs. The Saudis aren’t worried about a cutoff of U.S. aid. The 33-year-old crown prince and his 82-year-old pop, King Salman, play Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, like drums. Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia helped do the trick. The royal court recognizes that Trump is an emotionally needy narcissist. So it blared the trumpets, boomed the cannons and flew fighter jets trailed by red, white and blue over Trump’s head after he disembarked onto Saudi soil. The Saudis couldn’t remain where they are on the world stage, however, without rhetorical cover from the Trump administration. I reread the July speech of Vice President Pence, the Trump administration’s point man on religious freedom, before the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom conference in Washington. Positioning America as a “nation of faith” that stands for religious freedom, Pence called out by name North Korea, Russia, Iran and the Islamic State as depraved persecutors of religion. Pence, however, uttered not a word about Saudi Arabia. Pence knows that Saudi-financed religious schools operate freely in the United States. He also knows there is not one church or synagogue in the kingdom, and that criticizing Islam or the royal family there may be the last thing you do. Ah, but Pence and Trump avert their gaze. For big bucks, they will kiss Saudi backsides. “What good does that do us?” Trump said Thursday, when asked if he would consider blocking billions in U.S. arms sales to the Saudis over Khashoggi’s disappearance. “That would not be acceptable to me.” Jamal Khashoggi is to be publicly weeped and wailed about. But in the Saudi-Trump grand view, our courageous colleague is just an annoying and complicating blip on the screen. kingc@washpost.com Read more from Colbert King’s archive.


‘It’s not a citizen’: Trump telegraphs a soft line on Jamal Khashoggi — even as evidence becomes more damning

Update: Later on Thursday, Trump repeatedly alluded to the fact that Khashoggi was not a U.S. citizen. “It’s in Turkey, and it’s not a citizen, as I understand it," he said. "But a thing like that shouldn’t happen.” Trump added later: “Again, this took place in Turkey, and to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen. Is that right?” An aide specified that Khashoggi has been a U.S. resident. Combined with Trump’s comments downplaying the prospect of sanctioning Saudi Arabia and limiting arms sales, it seems Trump is not inclined to take a hard line here -- even as For the second time in his presidency, President Trump is dealing with the apparent targeting of a dissident at the hands of a despotic regime with which Trump has sought to curry favor. And even more than Russia’s alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Britain, Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance poses some impossible choices that are ripe for error. To this point, Trump has been mostly — and understandably — cautious in talking about Khashoggi, a longtime journalist and Washington Post contributor who vanished while visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. We simply don’t know enough for certain, and everything is extremely delicate. But the evidence is increasingly pointing to a Saudi plot to make him disappear or kill him, and as The Post’s Shane Harris reported Wednesday night, it’s also increasingly pointing to the top of the Saudi government, and specifically to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: The crown prince, a young leader known as “MBS,” has made great efforts to craft an image as a reformer and modernizer and to endear himself to the West. Part of that effort included a lengthy, coast-to-coast visit to the United States this year, where he was received warmly. Should the intercepts Harris described produce firmer evidence that he was behind Khashoggi’s disappearance or death, it would be an international incident and certainly test the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia. And the specifics of it are almost a perfect storm. Khashoggi, of course, is a journalist, and Trump’s history with journalists has been marred by occasional references to violence and regular allusions to “fake news” media being the “enemy of the American people.” In Khashoggi, Trump is tasked with seeking answers about a contributor to a newspaper he regularly lumps into those latter categories. Khashoggi also wasn’t just a critic


Hurricanes like Michael show why we can’t ignore climate change

shifting statistics of risk. Unfortunately, as the climate report indicates, we need to be preparing for things to get worse. The full costs of relying on outdated estimates of coastal flooding risk can already be measured in the currency of lost lives, ruined local economies and deep, multigenerational scars gouged into our country’s social fabric. Scientists can provide decision-makers with estimates of the rates of sea-level rise over the next decades, including some worst-case scenarios. But a more complete understanding of the physical risks of coastal flooding is only the first step. We’ll also need to consider how the natural and built environments may compound or mitigate flood risks to communities. And policymakers must decide how to allocate finite public resources to protecting lives and property across communities marked by huge disparities in economic capacity and inherent resilience. There is no doubt that we will be playing catch-up with our new climate reality for decades to come, even as it shifts under our feet, in a vicious and unforgiving game of cat and mouse. The new climate report outlines a path for an aggressive drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels that would avoid some of the worst damages associated with climate change, and we must get started in earnest on a host of no-regrets actions toward this end. We have some promising success stories from many American cities and states, but federal action is long overdue. Hurricane Michael pointedly reminds us that reducing emissions is only part of the climate change solution. The real lesson from the recent spate of record-breaking heat waves, hurricanes and wildfires is that the highly polarizing political debates around emissions reductions have sidelined important conversations about protecting American lives, property and livelihoods from natural disasters fueled by climate change. Here’s hoping we can find common purpose in uniting to protect our front-line communities, including the vulnerable urban and rural poor, from the ravages of ongoing climate change. Evidence-based policy is a critical ingredient for designing community-based climate solutions, as are healthy, rich partnerships between policymakers, community leaders, scientists, engineers, educators, businesses and artists. That is the future I want for my four children and all of America’s children. That is the future we can reach for, together, beginning today. Read more: It’s time to move away from the coasts Hurricanes reveal our vulnerabilities. They also show our strengths. Why do people stay put during hurricanes?


Saudi Arabia’s repressive power grip

As excruciatingly painful as it is to his family and free press worldwide, the mysterious disappearance of Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and his possibly having been slain is nothing new to the sheikhdom turned “kingdom” of Saudi Arabia. The modus operandi of its royal clan is to engorge itself with national wealth and impose an ever-intensifying and repressive power grip. The country remains commissioned to safeguard the easy and economical flow of oil and gas to the West. The United States must fully hold this despotic regime accountable for Mr. Khashoggi, its violation of human rights and its export of terrorism. Pirouz Azadi Recent speculation about the What if the Saudi government’s legitimacy cannot be divorced from its legitimacy in the eyes of Wahhabi clerics opposed to the reforms? And what if the very reforms necessary to refresh the legitimacy of the Saudi regime would preclude the ruthless suppression of all opposition? Stephan P. Carrier


Saudi Arabia says it rejects ‘threats’ and political pressure following Trump’s comments on missing Saudi journalist

The statement came after President Trump vowed “severe punishment” if Saudi Arabia is found to be responsible for the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul nearly two weeks ago. Turkish authorities say they believe a team of Saudis killed Khashoggi, and U.S. intelligence intercepts show Saudi officials discussing an operation to lure Khashoggi — a Saudi citizen who had been living in the United States — back to Saudi Arabia from his home in Virginia and detain him.This is a developing story. It will be updated.


The U.S. should never turn a blind eye to this sort of inhumanity

John Brennan served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from March 2013 to January 2017. It appears increasingly likely that Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was detained and killed at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul. There is still much that we don’t know, but if such an audacious act was carried out, it almost certainly would have required the approval of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Since the passing of King Abdullah in 2015 and the ascension of Mohammed’s father, King Salman, to the throne, the crown prince has been on a relentless march to consolidate political power. He has used his royal standing as the king’s favored son to outmaneuver, sideline and effectively neuter both royal and nonroyal obstacles in his path. Taking advantage of his father’s diminished mental acuity, Mohammed gained the king’s acquiescence to push his uncle, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz, and his older and more senior cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, off the crown prince perch in short succession, grabbing for himself the role of day-to-day decision-maker in Riyadh. His political consolidation campaign did not stop there. The well-publicized detention and shakedown of more than 100 princes, senior technocrats and businessmen at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh that began in November 2017, under the guise of an anti-corruption crusade, was akin to a single pot calling dozens of kettles black. The move was intended to root out and intimidate potential opposition as well as to fill Mohammed’s royal purse with more than $100 billion in funds needed to pursue his domestic ambitions and regional adventures, including his disastrous military foray into Yemen. To leaven some of his aggressive political moves and gain popular support, the crown prince also spearheaded some long-overdue social initiatives, such as allowing women to drive, curtailing the activities of the much-resented religious police and breaking down some mixed-gender prohibitions. But here, too, he brooked no criticism of the pace and scope of social change, ordering the arrest of activists, including outspoken Saudi women, who dared to challenge him. Khashoggi was a particular irritant to the crown prince. Khashoggi was widely known and respected inside and outside the kingdom for his literary talent, political acumen and principled opposition to Mohammed’s increasing authoritarianism and arrogance. Several decades ago, Saudi intelligence and security services had a well-deserved reputation for heinous extrajudicial acts against Saudis and non-Saudis alike. Much of that sordid history was left


Clean up climate change? It’s just good for business.

2018, down 1 percent from the same period in 2017. The slippage reflected lower capital costs for photovoltaic projects, with fewer dollars spent per megawatt installed; and a cooling-off in China’s solar boom, the firm said. Consumer demand and employee expectations are driving some of the investments. In many cases, companies are finding that their own customers and employees prefer to patronize and work at firms that are responsive to climate issues. And thanks to the falling prices of renewable energy, it can be cheaper to be climate-friendly than not. Walmart, for example, has installed more than 1.5 million energy-efficient LED light fixtures across more than 6,000 stores, parking lots, distribution centers and corporate offices in 10 countries, driving down lighting costs by hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, the company said. Walmart said it also exceeded its goal to double the efficiency of its trucking fleet by 2015. The retail giant said that by working with equipment manufacturers and others, it saved nearly $1 billion and avoided emissions of almost 650,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2015 compared with 2005. Sell less, make more Many of the nation’s biggest utilities have figured out that they can make more by selling less, especially when public service commissions can guarantee them healthy rates of return. New Jersey-based PSEG, one of the nation’s largest utilities, last month unveiled a six-year, $4.1 billion climate plan, with two-thirds of the money aimed at boosting energy efficiency. An additional $300 million will go toward 40,000 new charging stations for electric vehicles. At the end of 2017, New Jersey had just 517 public charging stations. “I really do believe that while we pay an appropriate amount of attention to solar and wind, where we should be focusing far more of our attention is energy efficiency,” said Ralph Izzo, chief executive of PSEG. A physicist by training, Izzo said the time for action is now, because the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere will not dissipate for centuries. “We need to step up our game,” he said, “and that’s what we’re intending to do.” The world’s major oil companies — including BP, Shell and Total — contributed $100 million each to establish a fund called the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), which invests in small companies working on technologies that could sharply cut emissions. ExxonMobil and Chevron recently joined the group. That


Saudi Arabia will allow Turkish investigators to search consulate in Istanbul where journalist disappeared, Turkish officials say

Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2. Two Turkish officials said the search was expected to take place as soon as Monday afternoon. Turkish officials had publicly scolded the Saudi government in recent days for refusing repeated requests for a search. Turkish investigators have said they believe Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents while inside the consulate.This is a developing story. It will be updated.


The only way to uncover the truth about Khashoggi’s disappearance

within the next four to six weeks. If any country blocks a Security Council-sanctioned investigation, the U.N. Human Rights Council should authorize one, as it has done for Syria, Myanmar, Burundi and elsewhere. What might that investigation look like? There have been similar investigations in the past, and there’s ample drafting expertise for getting this right. We believe the importance of this issue calls for a Security Council authorization. Just last year the Security Council appointed an investigative team to look at the crimes of the Islamic State. In 2004, it authorized a key commission about crimes in Darfur. At a minimum, an international investigation should involve the appointment, by the secretary general, of a high-profile and well-respected former international prosecutor or judge. That person would lead a small team of international investigators with global experience to examine the existing evidence, provided by Turkey, and have the authority to seek additional evidence. The resolution authorizing the investigation should welcome Turkey’s consent to full cooperation and compel Saudi Arabia to provide access to the consulate and to relevant officials and other sources. We are not calling for an international tribunal but rather for an independent investigation that could produce credible findings and provide the basis for clear punitive actions, including the possible expulsion of diplomatic personnel, removal from U.N. bodies (such as the Human Rights Council), travel bans, economic consequences, reparations and the possibility of trials in third states. There is another reason for the international community to engage in this way right now. Khashoggi’s disappearance comes at a moment of extreme threat to journalists worldwide. The Committee to Protect Journalists has identified 44 cases of journalists killed this year. A few days ago Bulgarian TV reporter Viktoria Marinova was raped and killed. An international investigation would at least start to change that narrative. To be sure, several countries in the Security Council are dangerous places for journalism and free expression. An inquiry investigation cannot be cover for their own bad behavior. But Khashoggi’s disappearance must lead to accountability and consequences. Only an independent investigation can put this case on that path. Read more: The Post’s View: We need answers on Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance David Ignatius: Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved. Read Jamal Khashoggi’s columns for The Washington Post Manal al-Sharif: Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance spreads fear worldwide, but we won’t be silenced


Missing morality in the Jamal Khashoggi saga

President Trump’s handling of the Jamal Khashoggi affair is further evidence of his lack of background, experience and moral ethics requisite to satisfactorily perform his duties as president. Mr. Trump’s responses to the media concerning the mysterious disappearance and possible murder of Mr. Khashoggi have been dismal. His only concern is economic, without a scintilla of regard for the moral consequences involved. No other U.S. president of either political party would fail to take a strong position, including demands for immediate full disclosure, from Saudi Arabia in this case. The Saudis need us far more than we need them. Yes, we might have more than $100 billion worth of defense contracts with the Saudis. Yes, they can order arms, ships and planes from others. So what? James Carville said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But there are things even more important. Such as the national morality based on the Constitution and forged in 242 years of history, during which wars were fought for those principles and ideals. This is not about politics. It is about the very principles upon which this nation is based and exists. Jerry Rose The writer is a retired U.S. Army colonel and Foreign Service officer. That was nice of Mr. Abrams used his op-ed to send helpful advice to the “enlightened despot” so that he can better whitewash this little mess he has created. At least Mr. Abrams clearly identified himself as a “defender of the new regime.” In this role, he helps to ensure that the crown prince can “regain control of his own” fate and to strengthen his assertion that Saudi Arabia “will remain for a very long time an absolute monarchy.” What a noble objective. Phelan Wyrick


Why Trump wants to keep Lockheed, Boeing and others in business with Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has long been fertile territory for United States defense contractors, an oil-rich kingdom with an appetite for weapons. Since 1950, the country has spent nearly $90 billion on arms from U.S. defense contractors, according to data compiled by the Pentagon. Last year alone, it spent nearly $5.5 billion. While that isn’t anything close to what the Pentagon spends, it is enough for defense firms to court the kingdom and its young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. But now Saudi Arabia is under scrutiny about the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who wrote opinion columns for The Washington Post. Turkish officials have said they believe he was killed and dismembered while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul about two weeks ago. The international backlash has been swift and damning, with a growing roster of top American executives bowing out of a Saudi investment conference in Riyadh later this month. Tech investor Steve Case and Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, have said they are no longer going. Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, said he was suspending his work as a director of two tourism projects and has called off discussions about a possible $1 billion investment in his space companies. By contrast, top U.S. defense firms have kept quiet. Spokesmen from Boeing and Raytheon did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether their executives would attend the conference. A Lockheed Martin spokeswoman declined to comment. And President Trump said he does not want to jeopardize a major arms sale to Saudi Arabia that he said was worth $110 billion, though defense experts have disputed that amount and have said it’s hard to calculate precisely how many jobs would be at stake. Speaking Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Trump said that he didn’t “want to hurt jobs” at contractors such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. “I don’t want to lose an order like that,” he said. With so much on the line, Loren Thompson, a consultant who counts many of the top defense firms as clients, said he “would be willing to bet that every major defense contractor that was scheduled to appear at the conference will go. Because the Saudi weapons market is too big for any defense contractor to ignore, and the Saudi leadership is too sensitive to take chances with.” Lockheed Martin, the largest defense firm in


There’s grim news on climate change. Will it lead to mass migration and conflict?

perceptions, like reported actual conflict, in their new location do. We find that migrants who experienced gradual, long-term environmental events in their former locations are more likely to perceive conflict in their new location, compared with those having experienced sudden, short-term environmental events. Here’s why this happens. We believe that long-term environmental events hit some people harder than others. Think of how farmers vs. civil servants might be differently affected by gradually deteriorating environmental conditions because of climate change. Such environmental events exacerbate actual or perceived inequalities in a society. The key concept linking inequality to conflict is relative deprivation. This means the extent to which people become discontent by the widening gap between their actual level of economic achievement and the level they feel they deserve — and could have achieved under better environmental conditions. These feelings of suffering typically develop over a long period and arise because individuals differ in their adaptive capacities and their exposure to these environmental changes. Consequently, some individuals can become frustrated because some segments of the affected population can better adapt and thus are able to maintain their standards of living despite declining environmental conditions. In contrast, sudden, short-term environmental events are less likely to foster feelings of relative deprivation — many individuals are affected equally, and exposure to these events is typically limited to a short time. Therefore, despite their potential to cause immense, absolute amounts of destruction and harm, short-term environmental events do not seem to lead to heightened conflict perceptions among migrants at their new location. What does this mean for policies to deal with climate change and migration? Responses to climate change vary from general pleas to the international community to cut greenhouse gases now and concrete plans to reduce emissions, to suggestions to enhance resilience to weather-related events for rural inhabitants. All of these are important responses, though our research emphasizes the relevance of promoting adaptation opportunities for those affected by climatic changes. Many governments agree and increasingly incorporate climate-adaptation plans into broader regional development policies. A recent World Bank report on climate change and migration reveals that, given adequate development opportunities, including adaptation measures, internal migration in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America triggered by climate change could be reduced by up to 80 percent. This prediction is in line with our findings on the impact of environmental change on internal migration. Furthermore, the World Bank


The unmistakable tell that Trump doesn’t want to avenge Jamal Khashoggi

I wrote Friday that President Trump’s rhetoric about Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance suggested that he wasn’t terribly inclined to get tough on Saudi Arabia — even if Saudi Arabia were indeed responsible. Trump had noted repeatedly that Khashoggi wasn’t an American citizen and suggested that both sanctions and scaling back an arms deal would hurt Americans. Trump has spoken in broad terms about punishing Saudi Arabia, but he’s also laying a clear pretext for not doing much of anything. This would hurt the United States, you could infer from Trump’s language, and this isn’t even about an American. And now Trump has issued his most telling tell: repeatedly noting that Saudi Arabia denies any role in Khashoggi’s disappearance. Twice in recent days, Trump has made a point to emphasize that the Saudis claim complete innocence. “It’s being looked at very, very strongly, and we would be very upset and angry if that were the case,” Trump told CBS News’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday night, referring to the potential Saudi role in the disappearance. “As of this moment, they deny it. And deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes.” After some crosstalk with Lesley Stahl, Trump said it again: “They deny it. They deny it every way you can imagine.” The morning after the interview aired, Trump again pointed out Saudi Arabia’s denial, while slipping in yet again that Khashoggi isn’t an American citizen. “Just spoke to the King of Saudi Arabia who denies any knowledge of whatever may have happened ‘to our Saudi Arabian citizen,’ ” Trump tweeted. The White House has said that Trump is merely relaying Saudi Arabia’s denials. But to accept that, you would have to be willfully blind to history. Over and over again, Trump has used supposedly ironclad denials to find a way to believe things he wants to believe — or at least avoid punitive actions. He has done it many times with Vladimir Putin’s denials of Russian interference in the 2016 election: Trump did it with the sexual misconduct allegations against Roy Moore in the U.S. Senate race in Alabama: And the abuse allegations against former senior White House aide Rob Porter: And allegations against Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager: And, most recently, the White House cited Brett M. Kavanaugh’s denial in defending him during the fight to confirm him as a Supreme Court justice: In each


Trump’s civil service plans greeted with praise and doubts

that critical to national security. For example, what happens if government cannot recruit and retain cybersecurity experts?” said Jeff Neal, a senior vice president at the ICF strategic consulting firm and former chief personnel officer for the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Logistics Agency. The departments of homeland security and defense “are on the front lines of defending the U.S. against bad actors who would be happy to bring our power grid, financial markets, and other critical infrastructures down. They cannot do their job without the right mix of government and industry talent.” Don Kettl, a University of Texas professor, called the OPM’s action “a very important breakthrough.” Kettl, academic director of the university’s LBJ Washington Center, has been critical of the Trump administration, but on this issue he is not. “The administration’s action focuses squarely on hiring reforms,” he said. “... It creates a solid hiring plan for areas in especially great need, especially cyber, where the federal government is struggling to keep up.” Kettl led a new National Academy of Public Administration report on the federal workforce. The OPM’s plan is consistent with the report, which argued that “the alignment between the government’s mission, strategy, and tactics on one hand, and the capacity of its workforce on the other, has fallen further out of sync. … The need is urgent. … The consequences of our failed system are serious.” It urged the government to move from hiring employees “into individual job descriptions by each agency” to having “individuals receive qualification for positions across government, based on their professional and personal competencies.” The urgency NAPA recommends must contend with the political reality that any civil service changes Trump’s OPM proposes will probably run into deep skepticism from Democrats and federal union officials. Trump’s aggression against federal employee pay, benefits and their labor organizations feeds their suspicions. Jacqueline Simon, public policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, said, “The problem with direct hire is that it can allow agencies, effectively, to bypass veterans' preference … and it closes off opportunities for lateral moves and career development for the existing workforce.” Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said, “Certain job classifications in the federal government require special salary rates in order to remain competitive with the private sector . . . [but] the General Schedule has a number of incentives built into it to


Two more Washington lobbying firms drop representation of Saudi Arabia in wake of alleged killing of Jamal Khashoggi

Two more Washington lobbying firms dropped their representation of Saudi Arabia on Monday amid an escalating uproar about the disappearance and alleged killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to people familiar with the decisions. The Glover Park Group notified the Saudi Embassy in Washington that is was canceling its two-year-old contract to represent the kingdom, according to a person with knowledge of the move. The consulting firm, which was established in 2001 by Democratic political veterans, had been receiving a fee of $150,000 a month to help the Saudis with a range of government relations issues, according to disclosure reports filed with the Justice Department. Separately, the GOP-founded lobbying powerhouse BGR Group, which had an $80,000-a-month contract with the Saudi government, announced it was also dropping the kingdom as a client. “BGR is no longer working for Saudi Arabia,” said Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, president of BGR’s public-relations division. In all, three major Washington lobbying firms have severed ties with Saudi Arabia in the wake of reports that Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post, was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month. Late last week, the Harbour Group announced it was terminating its relationship with the kingdom. The defections underscore the depth of the crisis facing Saudi Arabia, which plowed $27 million into lobbying in Washington last year, making it one of the highest-spending countries seeking to influence U.S. policy, according to public records. On Monday, the Saudi Embassy canceled a long-planned reception that had been set to be held Thursday evening honoring the country’s annual National Day, which commemorates the renaming of the kingdom in 1932. Guests who were invited to the celebration at the Saudi Embassy received a short email Monday morning informing them that the event was off. “Please be advised that the reception for the National Day of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Thursday, October 18, from 6:00 pm-8:00 pm has been canceled,” said the email, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. It did not explain the reason for the change in plans. The reception, which had been planned for weeks, would have been part of a weeks-long celebration. An embassy spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. tom.hamburger@washpost.com


Two Koreas agree to push ahead with road, rail links despite sanctions

TOKYO — North and South Korea agreed on Monday to press ahead with plans to establish road and rail links, pledging to hold a groundbreaking ceremony on the project in late November or early December. The plan comes despite sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and it is unclear how far or how fast the project can proceed without violating those sanctions, which Seoul has vowed to respect. It also comes amid some concerns in Washington about the enthusiasm with which South Korean President Moon Jae-in has embraced North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, despite the fact that North Korea has so far taken no concrete steps to disarm. Plans to establish road and rail links were a key part of the agreement reached between Moon and Kim when they first met at the border village of Panmunjom in April. The commitment to move ahead on the transport links was announced after high-level talks Monday between the two sides, at which they also agreed to hold a series of discussions on other areas of cooperation in coming weeks. Talks are planned this month and next about increasing military engagement to reduce the threat of conventional warfare, about a joint bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics and about stepping up contacts between families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War. Lim Eul-chul, an expert on the North Korean economy at South Korea's Kyungnam University, said the tight timeline for the groundbreaking ceremony reflects Pyongyang’s determination to make rapid progress on talks over denuclearization. But it also reflects the North’s efforts to have sanctions lifted as soon as possible, a position with which Moon appears to sympathize. “Once North Korea reaches a certain stage in the denuclearization process, from that point on, gradual relief of economic sanctions on North Korea should also be seriously considered,” Moon told the BBC in an interview last week. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Kim last week and came away saying that the leaders of North Korea and the United States both believed they could make “substantive progress” at a second summit meeting. But no date for that summit has yet been set, with President Trump saying it could only happen after the Nov. 6 midterm elections. The United States has repeatedly insisted that sanctions will be lifted only after North Korea completely and verifiably dismantles its nuclear weapons


The Daily 202: Joe Biden appeals to working-class whites who defected to Trump. Is that how Democrats win again?

movements that both condone political violence and practice it with some regularity on their opponents In New York: In Portland: -- The Metropolitan Republican Club defended its decision to invite the Proud Boys founder to speak. -- New York police released photos of unnamed men they want to question in connection to the Proud Boys assault. -- Hillary Clinton defended her husband’s decision not to resign over his misconduct during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in an appearance on CBS's “Sunday Morning”: -- “How Newt Gingrich Broke American Politics,” -- “He’s ‘One of Us’: The Undying Bond Between the Bible Belt and Trump,” -- “SNL has skewered every president since Ford. All of them reacted the same way — until now,” THE NEW WORLD ORDER: -- Voters spurned Angela Merkel’s conservative allies in Bavaria’s state parliamentary election — scrambling the status quo as voters instead redistributed their support to parties on both ends of the political spectrum -- A dispute over Britain’s border with Ireland diverted a possible Brexit deal before this week’s E.U. summit. THE REST OF THE AGENDA: -- White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow defended Trump for saying the Fed has “gone crazy,” -- Trump has tapped Catholic activist and longtime Washington lawyer Pat Cipollone as the next White House counsel, -- The Chinese ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, said that it is “very confusing” trying to discern who Trump listens to on trade. -- “After the devastation of Hurricane Michael and a recent [U.N.] report warning of a looming climate crisis, [Kudlow] and [Rubio] on Sunday questioned the extent of human contribution to rising global temperatures,” SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ: The Council on Foreign Relations president struck down Trump’s claim about the European Union: A former U.S. ambassador to Russia questioned Trump’s foreign policy: From a New York Times reporter: From an NYU professor and former Middle East bureau chief for Newsday: From Obama’s former ethics czar: A New York Times reporter analyzed Trump’s comments about Mattis’s potential departure: An Atlantic writer reminded his Twitter followers of this: Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) mocked polling about potential 2020 Democratic candidates: Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is traveling around North Dakota in the final runup to Nov. 6: A Post reporter noted this of a Senate debate: A New York congressman accepted a questionable donation, per a New York Times reporter: The Post’s fact checker commented on Republican


Trump is reluctant to give up Saudi deals over Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance. So is Europe.

BERLIN — By the time the German coalition government was formed this spring, the country had become one of Saudi Arabia’s most outspoken critics. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel had just taken on the Saudis, prompting the withdrawal of the Saudi ambassador and of Saudi investments in the country. The Germans also agreed they wouldn’t sell any more arms to Riyadh. Yet six months later, the Saudi ambassador is back in Berlin, and Germany is once again pushing to sell defense equipment to the kingdom, which has come under criticism for its involvement in the devastating war in Yemen. Germany’s top diplomat now calls the previous diplomatic spat a “misunderstanding.” The silent reversal of Germany’s confrontational approach toward Riyadh couldn’t have come at a more awkward time. Since the Oct. 2 disappearance of Saudi Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, companies and governments worldwide have come under pressure to abandon their ties to the Saudi Arabian leadership. Saudi Arabia has denied allegations that it is behind the columnist’s disappearance, but Turkish authorities say they have audio and video recordings that prove Khashoggi died inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. In the United States, President Trump has found himself under growing pressure to act after a bipartisan group of senators triggered global Magnitsky sanctions procedures last week. The Magnitsky legislation forces Trump to determine whether any country or individual responsible for the writer’s disappearance should be held accountable. Trump himself said there would be “severe punishment” if an investigation found Saudi Arabia to be responsible. There has been far less pressure on other countries with deep Saudi ties to act, however. While Britain, France and Germany issued a joint statement over the weekend in which they called for a “credible investigation,” none of the three countries have gone beyond the remarks so far voiced by the White House. If anything, they’ve been even less vocal. While U.S. pressure on Trump has been bipartisan, in Europe, calls to punish Saudi Arabia have mostly come from opposition parties. Britain’s Labour Party pressed the Conservative government over the weekend to stop arms sales to the country “until they changed their ways,” said Labour foreign policy expert Emily Thornberry. While German observers have lashed out at Trump for refusing to punish the Saudis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said the Khashoggi case and German exports to Riyadh were “two unrelated things.” The European joint statement during


Top banker Dimon drops out of Saudi conference as Treasury Secretary Mnuchin weighs whether to attend

evaluate the information that comes out this week,” a Treasury spokesman said Sunday. Dimon follows nearly a dozen other executives from the technology, media and entertainment industries who have backed out of the Future Investment Initiative conference, nicknamed “Davos in the Desert.” Many of those business leaders have cited Khashoggi’s alleged killing inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month as their reason for backing out. The relationship with Saudi Arabia is important to Wall Street executives like Dimon because the country is a major investor around the world and does significant business with Western financial firms. Saudi Arabia, for example, has hired JPMorgan and other big banks to help it sell government bonds in recent years. Western banks have also hoped to help the kingdom privatize its giant oil company, Saudi Aramco, although the country’s plans for an initial public offering appear to have stalled. It is not clear whether decisions by Dimon or other financial executives about attending the conference will have any longer-term consequences for the business relationships between the oil-rich nation and Wall Street firms. A decision by Mnuchin not to attend would be a rebuke by the Trump administration of the Saudis, although whether it would be accompanied by other punishments is not clear. The Saudi conference is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s effort to modernize the kingdom’s economy and diversify it away from oil. The crown prince has also promoted other projects meant to attract more foreign investment to the country, including the NEOM project that aims to build a tech and tourism hub in the northwestern corner of the country. Western tech-industry officials have backed away from NEOM in the wake of Khashoggi’s alleged killing. Sam Altman, president of start-up investment firm Y Combinator, said last week he was suspending involvement with NEOM’s advisory board “until the facts regarding Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance are known.” On Thursday, a spokesman for Dan Doctoroff, chief executive of Sidewalk Labs, a sister company to Google, said NEOM had been “incorrect” to include Doctoroff on its list of advisory board members. Doctoroff “is not a member” of the board, the spokesman said. The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings proving that Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month. Saudi officials have denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance, saying he left the consulate shortly after entering.


After several high-profile murders in Iraq, here’s what headlines missed about their cause.

This year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to 25-year-old Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman from Iraq, and Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege for their activism against sexual violence in war. In 2014, Murad survived the massacre of her village, Kocho, in northern Iraq and the systematic enslavement of Yazidi women. Her mother and six brothers were killed by Islamic State militants. Many hope this prize will draw attention to the ongoing plight of Yazidis and all victims of the Islamic State, thousands of whom are still reported missing or remain in captivity. Recent weeks have also seen the assassinations of two prominent Iraqi women, human rights defender Suad al-Ali in Basra and social media star Tara Fares in Baghdad. Both were shot on the street in broad daylight. And while coverage of these atrocities raises important issues, sensationalized news reports often divert attention from the structural conditions that made the killings possible in the first place. In Iraq, ‘democracy’ hides a regime of militias These deaths cannot be disconnected from social and political developments provoked by the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq and the political economy and mechanisms of the “war on terror.” The 2003 U.S. invasion provoked an ethno-sectarian fragmentation of the country and a cycle of violence, creating the conditions for the emergence of armed groups, including the Islamic State. The war against the Islamic State in Mosul and parts of northern Iraq exacerbated Iraq’s militarization by arming and strengthening various political groups, paramilitary forces and militias. Many Iran-backed militias have been armed and institutionalized through their involvement in the war against the Islamic State in Mosul. These armed groups are deeply connected to the corrupt sectarian political elite that came to power after 2003. And through their participation in the parliamentary elections in May, groups such as the Badr Organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (Righteous League), Ashura Brigades and Kitaeb Hezbollah have been further normalized. Leaders of paramilitary forces and militias are now institutionalized members of parliament who participated in negotiations to form a new government. Yet some of these same leaders are accused of bearing responsibility for the threatening, kidnapping and killing of civil-society activists as well as for human rights violations in Mosul and elsewhere. Some of these groups have also fought alongside Bashar al-Assad’s Baath regime in neighboring Syria. Repression of protest movements Suad al-Ali was president of the Basra-based al-Weed al-Alaiami for Human


Jamal Khashoggi now represents something bigger than his enemies

See more cartoons and blog posts Trump will punish Saudi Arabia if his idea of an investigation finds anything The world must not look away from the assault on free expression Cartoons: Behold the Devil’s Triangle in Washington


Senators urge swift action if Saudi Arabia is found responsible for Khashoggi death

Senators called Sunday for swift and united action against Saudi Arabia if the United States determines that Saudi agents killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, with one Republican saying Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin should refuse to attend an economic summit in Riyadh this month until the facts are clear. “I don’t think we should continue with business as usual until we know what happened here,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I don’t think he should go,” Rubio said when asked about Mnuchin’s plan to attend the conference. Khashoggi, whose writings criticized the Saudi government, has not been seen since Oct. 2, when he walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document for his upcoming wedding. Turkish authorities say a team of Saudis killed him, but the Saudi government has denied involvement. President Trump, in excerpts of an interview with CBS News’s “60 Minutes” released Saturday, promised “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if the country is found responsible, but he said canceling arms sales to the kingdom, one proposed response, would be “very foolish” and would ultimately harm U.S. industries. Rubio suggested that Trump should not rule out the possibility, saying, “Every option needs to be there in a response.” The senator, a member of the foreign relations and intelligence committees, he vowed that if Saudi Arabia is found guilty of Khashoggi’s death and the Trump administration does not respond, Congress would step in. “It can’t be symbolic,” Rubio said of the administration’s response. “It can’t be just words.” Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) also called for a robust response if the Saudi government is found responsible, including limiting or suspending arms sales and reconsidering U.S. involvement in the civil war in Yemen. “Severe action needs to be taken,” Flake said on ABC News’s “This Week.” He said the Saudis’ explanation for Khashoggi’s disappearance “just isn’t plausible.” Former CIA director John Brennan agreed. “If Khashoggi had disappeared in Turkey when he was at a hotel or a private residence, I think there is plausible deniability on the part of the Saudi government. But he disappeared when there is video evidence of him being at the consulate,” Brennan said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “Their denials ring hollow, very much ring hollow,” he said. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told “Fox News Sunday” that Trump is “very, very


We’re on mission impossible to solve global warming

If there were any doubt before, there should be none now. “Solving” the global climate change problem may be humankind’s mission impossible. That’s the gist of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. group charged with monitoring global warming. Unless we make dramatic reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane and others), warns the IPCC, we face a future of rapidly rising temperatures that will destroy virtually all the world’s coral reefs, intensify droughts and raise sea levels. We need to take action immediately, if not sooner. The IPCC says emissions need to be cut 45 percent from present levels by 2030 and virtually eliminated by 2050. This would keep the projected increase in global temperatures since the early 1800s to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. We would escape the worst consequences of global warming. It’s not clear how this would be done. The reality is that global carbon emissions are rising, not falling. Emissions today are about 60 percent higher than in 1990, according to the World Bank. There are at least three obstacles frustrating the IPCC’s agenda. First, we don’t have the technologies to reduce and eventually eliminate emissions from fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas). Yes, solar and wind power have made advances, but they still provide only a tiny share of the world’s total energy, about 4 percent. Electric vehicles don’t solve the problem, because natural gas and coal are the underlying energy sources for much of the electricity. Second, even if we had the technologies to replace fossil fuels, it’s doubtful that we have the political will to do so. Democracies — or, for that matter, dictatorships — have a difficult time inflicting present political pain for future, hypothetical societal gains. Voters abhor higher gasoline and heating-oil prices, which are an integral part of most proposed solutions for global warming. They would dampen demand for fossil fuels and spur investment in substitutes. The clearest proof of the United States’ political bias against the future is the treatment of Social Security and Medicare. For decades, we have known that an aging population would significantly boost spending for these programs. What did we do to prepare for this inevitability? Not much. Finally, assuming (unrealistically) that today’s advanced societies — led by the United States — overcome these obstacles, it’s unclear whether poorer and so-called emerging market countries would


This is why so many journalists are at risk today

different political context, and in each of them the killers have different things to hide. But in a deeper sense, they are connected, for this is one of the defining issues of our time: The murders are the consequence of the clash between a 21st century technological revolution, which has made it possible to obtain and spread information in new ways, and a 21st century offshore banking revolution, which has made it possible to steal money in new ways, to hide it in new ways and to use it to maintain power. These two rapid changes have had a dramatic impact on democracies such as Malta and Slovakia as well as dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia and Russia. Often, it is journalists, especially investigative journalists, who are caught in the fault lines between them. Why? Because we already live in a global news network, whether we want to or not. And because the information they reveal spreads so much more quickly than it once would have done. The Soviet Union — or indeed Saudi Arabia before the Internet — could effectively silence a critic through censorship or exile. Someone like Politkovskaya would not have mattered as much back then, because nobody inside the U.S.S.R. could have easily read what she wrote. Outside of his country, someone like Khashoggi would have had little influence in the pre-Internet era, either. But in 2018, everything he wrote was accessible to any Saudi citizen with a smartphone. At the same time, elected politicians and unelected autocrats have a far greater personal and political interest, in 2018, in hiding the real extent of what they do. In China, Russia and now Saudi Arabia, authoritarian regimes stay in power by staging fake campaigns against “corruption,” even as their members continue to hide huge caches of money and to spend it abroad. Democratically elected leaders can be tempted in much the same way. When Caruana Galizia died, she was on the trail of corrupt money linked to the Maltese ruling party. When Kuciak died, he had just exposed the tax-fraud schemes used by wealthy business executives linked to the Slovak ruling party. In all of these countries, newspapers, websites and activist groups that publish stories about hidden wealth, illicit business activity, secret wars and secret funding schemes are dangerous: They undermine the claims of powerful politicians, both democrats and autocrats, to be acting on behalf of “the


Two princes: Kushner now faces a reckoning for Trump’s bet on the heir to the Saudi throne

When President Trump chose Riyadh to make his debut on the world stage last year, he was placing a bet on Saudi Arabia, which serenaded him with military bands, dazzled him with a flyover of fighter jets and regaled him with a traditional sword dance. The mastermind behind that wager — the White House adviser who convinced Trump to visit Saudi Arabia for his maiden foreign trip and who choreographed a veritable lovefest between the new president and the desert kingdom’s white-robed ruler, King Salman bin Abdul Aziz — was Jared Kushner. The president’s son-in-law has carefully cultivated a close partnership with the heir to the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Kushner has championed as a reformer poised to usher the ultraconservative, oil-rich monarchy into modernity. But the U.S.-Saudi alliance — and the relationship between Kushner, 37, and Mohammed, 33 — is now imperiled by the unexplained disappearance and alleged gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who had been living in the United States and wrote columns for The Washington Post. The suspected killing has sparked international outcry and calls for tough punishment of Riyadh. Kushner, however, has already signaled that he has no intention of turning his back on the crown prince, known by the initials MBS. Trump himself has threatened “extreme punishment” even while repeatedly casting doubt on the Saudi regime’s guilt and the effectiveness of tough measures. “It’s placed President Trump and the administration now on a tightrope, and we will see how they perform,” said James C. Oberwetter, a U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia under President George W. Bush. As Kushner and his father-in-law see it, the partnership has paid dividends in the form of Saudi pledges to purchase billions of dollars worth of U.S. weaponry as well as the kingdom’s position as an Arab ally in countering Iran and in fighting extremism throughout the Middle East, according to administration officials. Trump and Salman together convened 54 Muslim leaders to jointly condemn terrorism at a Riyadh summit in May 2017. And the Saudis built a center to combat extremist ideology, which Trump inaugurated during his trip by placing his hands on a glowing orb. Kushner has celebrated Mohammed’s moves to modernize the Saudi economy and long-repressed society, including allowing women to drive and encouraging women’s entrepreneurship. Furthermore, he considers MBS an influential and wise sounding board on geopolitics in the Muslim


Behind the scenes, Russia regains a complicated status: Afghanistan power broker

Russia has been cultivating ties with the Taliban to increase its influence in Afghanistan three decades after Moscow’s humiliating defeat there helped hasten the Soviet Union’s collapse. Russian engagement with the militants drew attention, and some flak, when the Kremlin invited Taliban representatives to Moscow for a meeting in September. That invitation was rescinded — at least temporarily — after the Afghan government objected, saying it must take the lead in any talks. Soviet troops haul equipment on the outskirts of Kabul in October 1986 during the Soviet-Afghan war. (Viktor Habarov/PhotoXPress) But the diplomatic kerfuffle laid bare the Kremlin’s effort to reassert itself in Afghanistan, an initiative that has included discreet contacts with Taliban leaders and a military buildup along the country’s northern edge. Moscow has also sought to reclaim its role as regional power broker, convening secret discussions with the United States, Iran, Pakistan, India and China and seeking to ensure any finale to the conflict suits Russian interests. It is part of a strategy, analysts said, to protect Russia’s southern flank from the Islamic State’s emergence in Central Asia and hedge against the possibility of an abrupt U.S. exit from Afghanistan after 17 years of war. The Russian gambit is a relatively modest political investment that could yet yield outsize dividends as Moscow seeks to prove its global heft. “Supporting the Taliban in a small way is an insurance policy for the future,” said Artemy Kalinovsky, a scholar of Central Asian history at the University of Amsterdam. Gen. John Nicholson Jr., who recently stepped down as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Moscow is trying to “drive a wedge” between the United States and its coalition partners. “We know that Russia is attempting to undercut our military gains and years of military progress in Afghanistan and make partners question Afghanistan’s stability,” he said in a recent interview. As Russia has increased its profile, there have been allegations, unsubstantiated but persistent, from Nicholson and other senior U.S. officials that the Kremlin has provided small arms to the Taliban, or at least tolerated a supply of Russian weapons to the militants from Central Asia. Russia has denied the accusations. U.S. officials doubt that Moscow is trying to help secure victory for the militants, the successors of the mujahideen guerrillas who battled the Soviet troops in the 1980s. Instead, the officials said, Russia is trying to strengthen its


Three people in Northwest D.C. attacked by rabid raccoon, officials say

This story has been updated Three people in upper Northwest Washington are being treated after having been attacked by a rabid raccoon, D.C. health officials said. In a statement issued Monday night, the D.C. Health Department said the raccoon was captured in the Chevy Chase neighborhood and humanely euthanized. The city’s public health laboratory said the animal tested positive for the rabies virus. According to the health department, two pets were also exposed to the animal. The pets were evaluated by a veterinarian, given booster shots of rabies vaccine and remain confined. The people have begun to receive treatment administered after bites to prevent infection. Rabies can be fatal is left untreated. One victim described being bitten Sunday morning near 30th Place and Nebraska Avenue NW. The nature and timing of the attacks on the other two could not be immediately learned. Rabies is transmitted through saliva or brain/nervous system tissue, according to information on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most common means of transmission of the virus is through a bite, but it also can be transmitted if saliva of an infected animal comes in contact with an open wound or mucous membranes, such as the eyes or mouth. D.C. animal control officers were alerted Monday that the raccoon had been spotted near Nebraska Avenue and 32nd Street NW, the health department said. It was captured at 2:10 p.m. The site is a residential neighborhood about a half-mile west of Rock Creek Park. Raccoons are among the animals most frequently infected with the rabies virus. Skunks, bats, coyotes and fox are among other animals that are also common carriers. Anyone who may have encountered a raccoon during the time involved is advised to contact D.C. Health at 202-442-9143 or rabies.info@dc.gov martin.weil@washpost.com


Trump joins Saudi Arabia’s Khashoggi coverup

Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? It’s now been two weeks since Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after entering his country’s consulate in Istanbul On Monday morning, Trump held a 20-minute phone call with the Saudi king and then parroted Riyadh’s denials to reporters. “I don’t want to get into his mind, but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers,” Trump said. “Who knows? We’re going to try getting to the bottom of it very soon, but his was a flat denial.” But news broke later in the evening that made the king’s “flat denial” all the more unbelievable. CNN reported that the Saudis were readying to acknowledge that Khashoggi died while in their custody. Citing two sources, the network reported that the journalist’s death “was the result of an interrogation that went wrong, one that was intended to lead to his abduction from Turkey.” The Post’s Shane Harris reported last week that U.S. intelligence intercepts suggested Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved a scheme to lure Khashoggi out of de facto exile in the United States and detain him. Khashoggi, 59, a former Riyadh insider with a colorful career in politics and journalism, had moved overseas to express his disquiet with the kingdom’s leadership, particularly the youthful Mohammed. If the Saudis do confirm that Khashoggi died on their watch, it will be a damning admission after days of obfuscation and denials. Over the weekend, the Saudi government railed against foreign conspirators supposedly bent on undermining the kingdom’s reputation. Its Foreign Ministry issued a defiant statement warning of the “demise” of any pressure campaign against Riyadh. It cajoled a number of Arab nations in the Saudi orbit, including Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, to issue statements affirming their solidarity with the Saudis. The Saudi government also put out a notice threatening any “rumormongers” within the country with five-year jail sentences. To soften the blow of an about-face, the Saudis will offer a version of events that attempts to insulate the crown prince from blame for the debacle, according to reports Monday. But many current and former U.S. officials in Washington still have a hard time believing that what transpired within a Saudi consulate wouldn’t have had the blessing of senior royals in Riyadh. “This