Peter Schweizer says Hunter Biden worked in Ukraine despite lacking credentials: 'What is he being paid for?' - Fox News

Peter Schweizer on Hunter Biden's Ukraine connections

New questions surround Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's son and his ties to the Ukraine; insight from investigative reporter Peter Schweizer, author of 'Secret Empires,' and Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett, author of 'Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.'

Author Peter Schweizer on Friday night addressed the questions surrounding Hunter Biden’s involvement with a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, oversaw America’s Ukraine policy.

"The underlying story here involves Hunter Biden going around the world really collecting large payments from foreign governments and foreign oligarchs in the case of Ukraine," Schweizer, the author of "Secret Empires," said on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle."

CONTROVERSY OVER TRUMP PHONE CALL CENTERS ON UKRAINE, AS PRESIDENT DECRIES 'PARTISAN' COMPLAINT

Joe Biden, now the Democratic presidential frontrunner for 2020, faced scrutiny for months over accusations that he pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, who at that time was leading a corruption investigation into a natural gas company that had ties to Biden's son.

Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Trump, has suggested that Biden worked to protect the company from investigation while in office. Biden said Friday that the claim has no credibility.

The issue involving the Bidens resurfaced Friday after The Wall Street Journal reported that, in a July phone call, Trump repeatedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to work with Giuliani on a probe into Hunter Biden's business activities in Ukraine.

Schweizer implied Hunter Biden's credentials didn't match with the position he held, and that the situation looked suspicious.

"He is supposed to be advising them on natural gas regulatory issues. He has no background in Ukraine. He has no background in energy or natural gas. So the question is, What is he being paid for? He's not being paid for his expertise, he has none," Schweizer said. "His father at this time is the point person on U.S. policy to Ukraine."

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The author said Trump was "right" to ask for an investigation and accused Hunter of lying.

"Donald Trump is right to ask the question and to ask that there be an investigation to see what Hunter Biden was being paid for. Joe Biden has offered no answers," Schweizer said. "Hunter Biden, when he's been asked about this, has lied repeatedly and they've been proven lies by ABC News and other outlets."

Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

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2019-09-21 06:25:34Z
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A historic first? Israel's Arabs could lead parliamentary opposition - Reuters

HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) - Israel’s Arab parties are set to be the largest non-ruling bloc in parliament - and could even lead the opposition - if a national unity government emerges from Tuesday’s election.

FILE PHOTO: Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint List, gestures as he hands out pamphlets during an an election campaign event in Tira, northern Israel September 5, 2019. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

A surge in turnout gave the Arab-dominated Joint List 13 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, making it the third-largest grouping behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party, with 31 seats, and Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White, with 33.

That would make the Joint List the largest opposition grouping in parliament if a unity government takes shape, a realistic possibility even though Gantz rebuffed Netanyahu’s initial invitation.

No party drawn from the 21 percent Arab minority has ever been part of an Israeli government. But if Joint List head Ayman Odeh, 44, becomes opposition leader, he would receive monthly briefings from the Mossad intelligence agency and meet visiting heads of state.

This would provide a platform to voice Arab complaints of discrimination against them and give a bigger platform to Arab parties that differ with parties drawn from the country’s Jewish majority.

“It is an interesting position, never before held by someone from the Arab population. It has a lot of influence,” Odeh told reporters outside his home in Haifa, a mixed Arab and Jewish city in northern Israel.

But although the Joint List will be the single biggest group, other opposition parties combined would have enough seats to block his appointment through an absolute majority vote, analysts said.

GRAPHIC: Seat projections in Israel's election - here

“There’s no way the other parties will agree to have Ayman Odeh as head of the opposition, and grant our community recognition and legitimacy,” said Aida Touma-Sliman, an Arab lawmaker from Odeh’s Hadash faction.

Arab lawmakers often call for an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and the dismantling of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.

“SYMBOLIC WIN”

The Arab community in Israel is mainly descendants of the Palestinians who remained in Israel after its creation in 1948, and some in the younger generation openly identify as Palestinian.

They make up 1.9 million of Israel’s 9 million population, and often complains of discrimination in health, education and housing, living in cities such as Nazareth and Acre in the north and Bedouin towns in the southern Negev desert.

The Mossawa Center rights group says Israel’s state budget often favors Jews, allocating more funds to Jewish localities and schools than to Arab ones. Some 47% of Arab citizens live in poverty, far above a national average of 18%, it says.

However, Netanyahu’s Likud party counters that its 15 billion shekel ($4.19 billion) investment plan for the Arab sector during the last parliament “is the largest such commitment in Israel’s history”, according to Eli Hazan, Likud’s foreign affairs director.

In Tuesday’s election, Odeh and his group of four Arab parties ran a united front and Arab turnout increased sharply. That helped them regain seats lost in April when they were divided and turnout plummeted.

The Joint List held up its stronger showing on Tuesday’s rerun as a victory over what is described as an “unprecedented campaign of incitement against the Arab public” by Netanyahu and right-wing parties.

Netanyahu made allegations of voter fraud in Arab communities an issue in his election campaign, and sought to deploy cameras to the country’s polling centers in what Arab leaders described an attempt to scare off voters. Israel’s top court refused to allow cameras.

Eid Jbaili, a 55-year-old gym teacher from Haifa, said he boycotted the April election but voted on Tuesday “because my community’s leaders showed they could exude unity in the face of adversity”.

But Jbaili was unsure an Arab opposition leader would be able to provide anything beyond a “small symbolic win” for his community.

“We still won’t be decision-makers in this country,” he said.

Editing by Stephen Farrell and Timothy Heritage

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2019-09-20 15:00:00Z
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China Detains FedEx Pilot Amid Rising U.S.-China Tensions - The New York Times

SHANGHAI — Authorities in southern China have detained an American pilot who works for FedEx, the latest in a series of difficulties for American travelers and companies in China.

The authorities seized the pilot on Sept. 12 in the city of Guangzhou after they found 681 air-gun pellets in his luggage, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday. The pilot was trying to take a commercial flight to nearby Hong Kong, a day after flying an air freighter into FedEx’s huge hub in Guangzhou.

The pilot has been released on bail but remains in China under investigation for weapons smuggling, said Geng Shuang, the ministry’s spokesman, at a regular daily news briefing. Under Chinese regulations, a person released on bail typically has little ability to move around and must remain at a local hotel or residence until officials have completed an investigation.

In a statement, FedEx said authorities had found an object in its pilot’s luggage, though it did not specify what the object was.

“We are working with the appropriate authorities to gain a better understanding of the facts,” the company said in a statement, declining to comment further.

The Wall Street Journal, which reported the detention on Thursday, said the pilot was a United States Air Force veteran named Todd A. Hohn who lives in Hong Kong but was being kept at a Guangzhou-area hotel.

The Air Line Pilots Association International, the union representing most American pilots, declined to discuss the case, as did Mr. Hohn’s lawyer. The municipal foreign affairs office in Guangzhou declined to comment and referred questions to the police, who did not answer telephone calls.

FedEx is one of a number of companies that have been caught between Washington and Beijing as their trade war has intensified. But it is not clear whether the pilot’s detention was related to the company’s problems in China.

Mr. Geng said that the Chinese authorities had become aware that the pilot worked for FedEx only after finding the pellets in his luggage.

As trade frictions and other disputes fester between the United States and China, and as China itself becomes more authoritarian, more Americans have found themselves stuck in China and unable to leave. A Koch Industries executive was held in southern China and interrogated for days in June before being allowed to exit the country.

The State Department issued a travel advisory for China in January, warning Americans, particularly those with dual Chinese-American citizenship, that they may not be allowed to leave China if they go there.

A growing number of foreign companies, particularly American companies but also Canadian and European businesses, have responded by scrutinizing but not prohibiting travel to China by executives and employees.

But the quick release of the pilot, though without allowing him to leave the country, may indicate that China is not eager to turn him into a bilateral issue, said James Zimmerman, a partner in the Beijing office of Perkins Coie, a global law firm.

“The fact that he was released is a critically important message and a positive sign — Beijing probably ordered his release to minimize the significance of the issue, and this is an indication that Beijing doesn’t want this case to be a huge distraction.” Mr. Zimmerman said.

The detention comes as the United States and China are trying to reach at least a partial truce in their 15-month trade war. Chinese officials have been eager to head off further tariffs that President Trump has planned to impose on Oct. 15 and Dec. 15, but are also loath to agree to the broad Chinese policy changes sought by the Trump administration.

The detention came as Chinese airports have visibly increased security measures in recent months. The authorities have paid particular attention to travelers going to or from Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory where large and increasingly violent protests have taken place every weekend this summer.

China has strict laws not just against the possession of weapons, but also against the possession of any kind of ammunition.

FedEx has had a series of difficulties in China in recent months. China has accused FedEx of delaying shipments last May by Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant accused by American officials of working with Chinese intelligence — accusations that Huawei denies.

FedEx has also been working with Chinese authorities to investigate how one of its American clients was allowed to send a gun to a sporting goods store in southeastern China. The gun was also detected and stopped by Chinese authorities.

Chinese nationalists have called in recent weeks for FedEx to be included on a list of “unreliable entities” that the country’s Commerce Ministry has been drafting. The drafting has begun in response to the United States Commerce Department’s decision to begin putting Huawei on an “entities list” of foreign companies to which goods can only be exported from the United States with special licenses.

Cathay Pacific, a large airline based in Hong Kong, has separately come under heavy scrutiny by the Chinese government after some of its employees expressed support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. China threatened to revoke the airline’s access to its airspace unless Cathay reined in its employees.

Cathay Pacific and FedEx are two of the largest airlines hauling Chinese exports to the United States. Much of China’s electronics exports, particularly higher-value items like iPhones, travel by air.

In addition to scrutinizing travelers to and from Hong Kong very closely, the Chinese government has also increased its medical checks on foreigners visiting or living in the country for any possession or recent use of drugs, using tests that can detecting drug use that may have taken place weeks or months before the foreigners came to China. The medical checks have also produced a series of detentions.

Travel experts now strongly advise anyone going to China to carry prescription medicines in their original containers, and not to carry any prescription medicines that may be illegal in China, like prescription cannabis.

FedEx is a well-known company in China as well as in the United States. By coincidence, HBO showed in China on Thursday night the Tom Hanks movie “Cast Away,” the fictional story of a FedEx manager marooned on a Pacific island for years.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/fedex-china-pilot-detained.html

2019-09-20 12:08:00Z
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Attack on Saudi Arabia oil field would likely not have been stopped by any country: expert - Fox News

Saudi Arabia defended itself as well as possible from the recent massive attack on its oil facilities -- an attack that the U.S. has blamed on Iran, a military expert said.

"I don't think there is any country that could have defended any better than Saudi Arabia did, and that includes the United States," Peter Roberts, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, told The New York Times.

"I don't think there is any country that could have defended any better than Saudi Arabia did, and that includes the United States."

— Peter Roberts, director of military sciences, Royal United Services Institute

Eighteen drones and seven cruise missiles bombarded the facilities in an asault described as a “Pearl Harbor-type" attack. Defending against swarms of sophisticated unmanned drones has been an ongoing concern for militaries.

EXPERT ON WHY SAUDI ARABIA WON'T EXPLICITLY BLAME IRAN FOR ATTACKS: 'THEY WOULD BE TOAST'

But even though Riyadh has a capable military with air defense systems, its forces could do little to stop the onslaught, Roberts told the Times.

JACK KEANE SAYS US 'MUST CONDUCT A RETALIATORY STRIKE' IN WAKE OF SAUDI ARABIA OIL SITE ATTACKS

The Guardian, in an article titled,  “Middle East Drones Signal End to Era of  Fast Jet Air Supremacy,” called Sunday’s attack “the first full-blown drone attack on a strategic site of global significance.”

Countries are investing in laser technology to defend against drones. Companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are more than 10 years away from the technology, according to MarketWatch.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia both placed blame on Iran for carrying out the attack. Iran denied responsibility. Yemen’s Houthi fighters claimed they were behind the attack. Military drone use in the region is not uncommon. Israel has employed them in Syria and Iran has a fleet.

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"The bottom line is that we are likely to see many more of these sorts of attacks, and in particular, coordinated attacks on multiple targets are likely, possibly in tandem with a cyber attack component," Milena Rodban, an independent risk consultant in Washington, told The Sydney Morning Herald.

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2019-09-20 09:25:34Z
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China Detains FedEx Pilot Amid Rising U.S.-China Tensions - The New York Times

SHANGHAI — Authorities in southern China have detained an American pilot who works for FedEx, the latest in a series of difficulties for American travelers and companies in China.

The authorities seized the pilot on Sept. 12 in the city of Guangzhou after they found 681 air-gun pellets in his luggage, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday. The pilot was trying to take a commercial flight to nearby Hong Kong, a day after flying an air freighter into FedEx’s huge hub in Guangzhou.

The pilot has been released on bail but remains in China under investigation for weapons smuggling, said Geng Shuang, the ministry’s spokesman, at a regular daily news briefing. Under Chinese regulations, a person released on bail typically has little ability to move around and must remain at a local hotel or residence until officials have completed an investigation.

In a statement, FedEx said authorities had found an object in its pilot’s luggage, though it did not specify what the object was.

“We are working with the appropriate authorities to gain a better understanding of the facts,” the company said in a statement, declining to comment further.

The Wall Street Journal, which reported the detention on Thursday, said the pilot was a United States Air Force veteran named Todd A. Hohn who lives in Hong Kong but was being kept at a Guangzhou-area hotel.

The Air Line Pilots Association International, the union representing most American pilots, declined to discuss the case, as did Mr. Hohn’s lawyer. The municipal foreign affairs office in Guangzhou declined to comment and referred questions to the police, who did not answer telephone calls.

FedEx is one of a number of companies that have been caught between Washington and Beijing as their trade war has intensified. But it is not clear whether the pilot’s detention was related to the company’s problems in China.

Mr. Geng said that the Chinese authorities had become aware that the pilot worked for FedEx only after finding the pellets in his luggage.

As trade frictions and other disputes fester between the United States and China, and as China itself becomes more authoritarian, more Americans have found themselves stuck in China and unable to leave. A Koch Industries executive was held in southern China and interrogated for days in June before being allowed to exit the country.

The State Department issued a travel advisory for China in January, warning Americans, particularly those with dual Chinese-American citizenship, that they may not be allowed to leave China if they go there.

A growing number of foreign companies, particularly American companies but also Canadian and European businesses, have responded by scrutinizing but not prohibiting travel to China by executives and employees.

But the quick release of the pilot, though without allowing him to leave the country, may indicate that China is not eager to turn him into a bilateral issue, said James Zimmerman, a partner in the Beijing office of Perkins Coie, a global law firm.

“The fact that he was released is a critically important message and a positive sign — Beijing probably ordered his release to minimize the significance of the issue, and this is an indication that Beijing doesn’t want this case to be a huge distraction.” Mr. Zimmerman said.

The detention comes as the United States and China are trying to reach at least a partial truce in their 15-month trade war. Chinese officials have been eager to head off further tariffs that President Trump has planned to impose on Oct. 15 and Dec. 15, but are also loath to agree to the broad Chinese policy changes sought by the Trump administration.

The detention came as Chinese airports have visibly increased security measures in recent months. The authorities have paid particular attention to travelers going to or from Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory where large and increasingly violent protests have taken place every weekend this summer.

China has strict laws not just against the possession of weapons, but also against the possession of any kind of ammunition.

FedEx has had a series of difficulties in China in recent months. China has accused FedEx of delaying shipments last May by Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant accused by American officials of working with Chinese intelligence — accusations that Huawei denies.

FedEx has also been working with Chinese authorities to investigate how one of its American clients was allowed to send a gun to a sporting goods store in southeastern China. The gun was also detected and stopped by Chinese authorities.

Chinese nationalists have called in recent weeks for FedEx to be included on a list of “unreliable entities” that the country’s Commerce Ministry has been drafting. The drafting has begun in response to the United States Commerce Department’s decision to begin putting Huawei on an “entities list” of foreign companies to which goods can only be exported from the United States with special licenses.

Cathay Pacific, a large airline based in Hong Kong, has separately come under heavy scrutiny by the Chinese government after some of its employees expressed support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. China threatened to revoke the airline’s access to its airspace unless Cathay reined in its employees.

Cathay Pacific and FedEx are two of the largest airlines hauling Chinese exports to the United States. Much of China’s electronics exports, particularly higher-value items like iPhones, travel by air.

In addition to scrutinizing travelers to and from Hong Kong very closely, the Chinese government has also increased its medical checks on foreigners visiting or living in the country for any possession or recent use of drugs, using tests that can detecting drug use that may have taken place weeks or months before the foreigners came to China. The medical checks have also produced a series of detentions.

Travel experts now strongly advise anyone going to China to carry prescription medicines in their original containers, and not to carry any prescription medicines that may be illegal in China, like prescription cannabis.

FedEx is a well-known company in China as well as in the United States. By coincidence, HBO showed in China on Thursday night the Tom Hanks movie “Cast Away,” the fictional story of a FedEx manager marooned on a Pacific island for years.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/fedex-china-pilot-detained.html

2019-09-20 09:58:00Z
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Boris Johnson Is in Trouble With Brexit. Many Voters Don’t Mind. - The New York Times

LONDON — By any standards it has been a miserable start for Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who stands accused of subverting the country’s unwritten constitution and has yet to win a vote in Parliament.

Lawmakers have twice rejected his call for an election, and have passed legislation that upended his strategy for exiting the European Union on Oct. 31 “do or die.”

Yet his Conservative Party enjoys a healthy opinion-poll lead over the opposition Labour Party, his personal ratings well exceed those of Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and they have increased several percentage points since Mr. Johnson came to power two months ago. In light of that apparent paradox, some analysts see his unorthodox style and communication skills as setting him on the road to electoral victory.

“I think what we are seeing is a bit like Donald Trump in the U.S., where those who dislike Boris Johnson see confirmation in what he does of how appalling he is, whereas those better disposed to him are willing to discount all manner of things,” said Roger Awan-Scully, head of politics and international relations at the University of Cardiff.

After three years of slow political convulsions, Brexit has reordered British politics to such an extent that almost everything is now refracted through voter perceptions of that issue.

And in this polarizing context, Mr. Johnson seems to be presenting himself as the man who will deliver Brexit despite the opposition of lawmakers and the establishment, limbering up for a “people against Parliament” campaign.

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Protesters in London outside the Supreme Court, which is hearing a lawsuit accusing Mr. Johnson of acting unconstitutionally.CreditMatt Dunham/Associated Press

“We are seeing everything through Brexit lenses,” said Mr. Awan-Scully. This tendency, he said, may break well for the Conservatives in a general election that most analysts considered inevitable.

Sara Hobolt, a professor at the London School of Economics, goes further, describing a Conservative majority as the “most likely outcome” of the next general election, “if the vote splits the right way.”

That is remarkable given accusations that Mr. Johnson has undermined democracy by sending Parliament away for five weeks and split his own party by banishing 21 Tory lawmakers over Brexit, a move that compelled his own brother, Jo, to quit the government.

Even his trademark presentational skills have abandoned Mr. Johnson — for example during a bumbling speech to a group of police cadets (one of whom came close to fainting behind him), or when faced by voters who plainly dislike him.

When confronted by the father of a sick child in a hospital on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson denied that the visit was a publicity stunt, insisting that there was no press anywhere nearby. Then his interlocutor pointed to a television crew, which had captured an awkward prime minister in the act of uttering an evident untruth.

But just as Mr. Trump appeals to core supporters, Mr. Johnson’s tough stance on Brexit has won over voters determined to leave the bloc. Doubling down on that base helps him draw support from the Brexit Party that won the European elections in Britain this year, just weeks after the party had been created by the populist campaigner, Nigel Farage.

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Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg gesturing at an empty podium, where Mr. Johnson was to have stood, at a news conference on Monday.CreditJoshua Sammer/Getty Images

If that sounds like a move from Mr. Trump’s playbook, British voters were warned last year, by Mr. Johnson, that it might happen.

“Imagine Trump doing Brexit,” Mr. Johnson said in private comments that were recorded and leaked. ”He’d go in bloody hard. There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. It’s a very, very good thought.”

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson defies many of the normal rules of politics, laughing off setbacks and ignoring questions he would rather not answer. (He has, for example, never said publicly how many children he has fathered.)

Some political pollsters say Mr. Johnson’s relative success may say more about the nation he leads than about him.

“You are not talking about one country, it is two, made up of Remain supporters and Brexit supporters and they usually disagree over just about everything,” said John Curtice, a professor at the University of Strathclyde and Britain’s most respected polling expert.

By historical standards, Mr. Johnson is not particularly popular for a new prime minister, said Mr. Curtice, but in a society polarized by Brexit, he is a “Marmite politician” — referring to the thick yeasty paste that Britons love or loathe.

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A protester held a sign disparaging Mr. Johnson as the “Incredible Sulk” outside the Supreme Court in London on Tuesday.CreditToby Melville/Reuters

YouGuv, a London-based polling concern, said Conservatives have nearly doubled their voter preference rating compared with three months ago to 32 percent, around nine percentage points ahead of Labour.

Asked in one YouGuv survey who would be the best prime minister, Mr. Johnson scored 38 percent among respondents, while Mr. Corbyn scored 22 percent (lower even than Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, who scored 29 percent in June.)

“Boris Johnson’s reputation among leavers is simply reinforced by recent developments — and similarly among Remainers,” Mr. Curtice said.

That was illustrated on Monday in Luxembourg when, greeted by a small group of protesters, Mr. Johnson skipped a news conference with the Luxembourg prime minister, Xavier Bettel, who proceeded without him and blamed the British for the Brexit “mess.”

Just before the meeting Mr. Johnson compared Britain’s efforts to escape the European Union to the adventures of the Incredible Hulk, the Marvel superhero. So, when he withdrew from the news conference, critics christened Mr. Johnson the “incredible sulk.” But Brexit supporters saw a continental leader victimizing their man. (“Luxembourg laughs in Johnson’s face” was the banner headline in the pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph.)

According to his supporters, such events further cement Mr. Johnson in the public mind as “Mr. Brexit,” helping him to marginalize Mr. Farage and cannibalize support from his insurgent Brexit Party.

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Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, northeastern France, on Wednesday.CreditFrederick Florin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Awan-Scully said that, by uniting the pro-Brexit right, Mr. Johnson could win enough of a fragmented electorate for election victory. Britain’s electoral system operates on a winner-take-all basis, so divisions among his opponents could allow Mr. Johnson a path.

But Mr. Curtice expressed caution that Mr. Johnson’s core vote might not be enough.

“He’s loved by Leavers and almost universally disliked by those who voted Remain. So he only has about 50 percent of the population that he can appeal to,” said Mr. Curtice. “Half the country dislikes him and he does not seem to be certain in his public performances, so we are wondering how this is going to pan out.”

The Conservative lead over the Labour Party probably says more about the opposition’s weakness than the government’s strength, and illustrates the scramble for votes on both sides of the Brexit divide.

While Mr. Johnson is battling with Mr. Farage, Mr. Corbyn is in a fight with the newly revived centrist and pro-European Liberal Democrats under the leadership of Jo Swinson.

“The competition is not between Johnson and Corbyn, it’s between Johnson and Farage on the one hand, and Corbyn and Swinson on the other,” Mr. Curtice said. “The reason Johnson is ahead is not because he has squeezed the Labour vote, it’s because he has squeezed the Brexit Party.”

So Mr. Johnson’s prospects may depend largely on whether he can continue to do that as Brexit reaches another decisive moment.

Having promised repeatedly to leave the bloc on Oct. 31, Mr. Johnson is hemmed in. Parliament has passed a law requiring him to request another delay if he cannot get a new Brexit agreement — and a deal with Brussels still remains a long shot.

If Mr. Johnson fails to deliver Brexit, or compromises too much in the eyes of pro-Brexit Britons, Mr. Farage will be on the attack again, crying betrayal, Mr. Curtice said. Such an outcome would be ominous for the Tories and their leader.

“The $64,000 question is can he deliver and what can he deliver?” Mr. Curtice said. “If he can’t get an agreement and can’t get no-deal through Parliament the question will be: ‘Is this any more than a joke?’”

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2019-09-20 09:00:00Z
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As Narendra Modi Heads to U.S., Controversy Follows Him - The New York Times

MUMBAI, India — As Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India prepares for a big trip to the United States, human rights groups and three Nobel Peace Prize winners have criticized the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its plan to bestow a prestigious award upon Mr. Modi next week during his visit.

The Nobel laureates sent a letter to the Gates Foundation stating that under Mr. Modi’s leadership, “India has descended into dangerous and deadly chaos that has consistently undermined human rights, democracy.’’

“This is particularly troubling to us as the stated mission of your foundation is to preserve life and fight inequity,” said the letter signed by Mairead Maguire, a peace activist from Northern Ireland; Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman, a Yemeni journalist and politician; and Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and political activist.

The controversy threatens to cast a shadow over Mr. Modi’s much anticipated visit to the United States, which begins this weekend and includes meetings with oil executives, a speech at the United Nations and a planned appearance with President Trump at an Indian diaspora event in Houston called Howdy, Modi!

The Gates Foundation, which focuses on health and anti-poverty programs, is honoring Mr. Modi for his ambitious Clean India campaign, centered on an initiative that has built 100 million new toilets in India over the past five years — roughly 40 every minute.

Public sanitation has vexed India for a long time, and no one can dispute that Mr. Modi has done more than any other Indian prime minister, or perhaps any other world leader, when it comes to building toilets. His campaign is widely credited with reducing disease and greatly aiding women’s safety.

But Mr. Modi is a polarizing figure. While many Indians champion his efforts to fight poverty and see him as a strong, decisive leader, some have accused him of becoming increasingly authoritarian and empowering Hindu fundamentalists at great cost to India’s minorities.

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Melinda Gates and Bill Gates in New Delhi in 2014. Critics say that beyond his public health campaign, Mr. Modi has become increasingly authoritarian and empowered Hindu fundamentalists at great cost to India’s minorities.CreditManish Swarup/Associated Press

During his trip to the United States, he might face questions about his Hindu nationalist political party’s history of stirring up tensions between India’s majority Hindus and its minority Muslims. His government’s recent moves to fully seize Kashmir, a Muslim-majority territory contested by Pakistan, is likely to be an issue.

The Gates Foundation, funded by the Microsoft fortune of Bill Gates, now finds itself in the middle.

The foundation says it still plans to present Mr. Modi with the Goalkeepers Global Goals Award at a ceremony in New York on Tuesday. The award is designed to celebrate an elected official who has promoted sustainable development goals, the foundation says.

On Monday, a handful of protesters, including some wearing “I Stand with Kashmir” T-shirts, delivered a petition with thousands of signatures to the foundation’s headquarters in Seattle. An activist group called Stop Genocide has been pushing the petition.

In response to the mounting questions, the Gates Foundation released a statement explaining its decision.

“Globally, sanitation-related diseases kill nearly 500,000 children under the age of 5 every year,’’ it said. “Yet despite its importance, sanitation has not received significant attention. A lot of governments are not willing to talk about it, in part because there are not easy solutions.’’

The reaction inside India has been muted. One publication, The Economic Times, referred to the people opposing the award as “a motley collection of Indian secularists, Pakistanis, activists and entertainers.’’

A spokesman for the opposition Congress Party, Sanjay Jha, criticized in a Twitter post the decision to give Mr. Modi the award.

“Why are we making a hullabaloo about @BillGates giving an award to PM Modi?” he said. “History tells you that Big Business will always support political establishments wherever it suits their shareholder value. It’s pure algorithm of money.”

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Mr. Modi’s ambitious Clean India campaign has built 100 million new toilets in five years, including this one in a village in the northern state of Haryana.CreditHarish Tyagi/European Pressphoto Agency

A few celebrities have taken a stand, namely the British actor and model Jameela Jamil and the rapper and actor Riz Ahmed, both of whom pulled out of participating in the awards ceremony, as confirmed by the Gates Foundation. Neither have provided public statements on their reasons for it.

Many Indians feel Mr. Modi has bettered the lives of the poor with far-reaching social projects including the toilet initiative and pledging $359 billion in aid to the nation’s struggling farmers, as well as a plan to build 20 million new homes over the next three years. Mr. Modi won a second term in an electoral landslide in May.

But others have pointed to the surge of religiously-driven attacks while Mr. Modi has been in power. The vast majority of the victims have been Muslims or lower-caste Hindus.

And his moves on Kashmir, a flash-point territory also claimed by Pakistan, have raised deep concerns outside India.

Last month, Mr. Modi’s government swiftly and unilaterally removed the autonomy that the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which includes the restive Kashmir Valley, held for decades. The Modi administration also decided to strip the area of its statehood and turn it into two federally controlled enclaves.

To quash any unrest, the government deployed thousands of extra troops, severed internet and mobile phone service to millions of people and arrested thousands of Kashmiri intellectuals, including democratically elected representatives.

The letter by the Nobel laureates expressed concern about the state of education in Kashmir, which has been severely hampered by the security measures. Most schools have been closed for more than a month and Indian officials have been at a loss to say when students will return.

“As one of your organization’s goals is to ‘ensure that young people survive and thrive,’ please consider this statistic: In 2016 (the year the most recent data has been available), schools in Kashmir were open for only four months out of the year,” the letter stated.

An Indian government spokesman would not comment for this article. But Indian officials have defended Mr. Modi’s actions on Kashmir, saying that the area has been plagued with conflict and bloodshed for decades and that the new arrangement will promote peace.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/world/asia/narendra-modi-bill-gates-foundation.html

2019-09-20 08:39:00Z
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