Top News Stories for Today – Oct 1, 2018
Top News Stories for Today – Oct 1, 2018
New US-Canada trade pact reached
US and Canada, with only hours to spare, reached a deal that keeps Canada part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the US and Mexico. Negotiations lasted throughout the weekend, as the White House had imposed a deadline of midnight Sunday. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the accord, which will be renamed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), will result in “freer markets, fairer trade, and robust economic growth in our region.”
The agreement gives the United States more access to the Canadian dairy market and safeguards Canada should the Trump administration impose tariffs on automobiles. In August, the US and Mexico reached a bilateral deal. CBS News
Indonesia death toll tops 800
The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday grew by Sunday to 832 people, with hundreds of additional injuries. Rescuers have struggled to reach remote areas as communication services remain down.
Dozens of people are thought to still be trapped inside two hotels and a mall that collapsed in the city of Palu. “We are trying our best,” said rescue chief Muhammad Syaugi. “Time is so important here to save people.” While initial reports estimated the tsunami at 10 feet tall, updated estimates say waves were up to twice that large. Reuters, The Associated Press
Koreas Begin removing landmines
Troops and teams of experts from North and South Korea began to remove mines along their heavily fortified border Monday under tension-reducing agreements the two countries reached last month, the South defense ministry said in a statement.
There has been no immediate confirmation from North Korea that its troops had begun to implement the project endorsed in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un. According to South’s statement, the two sides agreed to remove all landmines in the so-called Joint Security Area (JSA) within the next 20 days. Work will also be carried out in part of Cheorwon in Gangwon Province, scene of some of the fiercest fighting during the Korean War at the so-called “Arrow Head Hill.” VOA
US bombers in South China Sea
Recent U.S. bomber flights over the contested South China Sea could boost the security of Southeast Asian countries that claim the waterway as Washington’s planes help check any maritime expansion by the dispute’s major player, China. Analysts believe the periodic B-52 bomber flyovers, including two last month, would give Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam a layer of protection against Beijing, which is pressuring the maritime sovereignty claims of all four in the resource-rich South China Sea.
Stratofortress bomber aircraft “conducted operations” in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean September 23 and 25, the U.S. military’s Pacific Air Forces said in a statement last week. The B-52-model aircraft had set out from Guam for a “routine training mission,” the statement said. VOA
Iran launches missiles into Syria
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said Monday that it launched ballistic missiles into eastern Syria, targeting militants the force blames for a recent attack on a military parade in Iran. The launch was the Islamic Republic’s second such missile attack on Syria in over a year.
Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency said the attacks “killed and wounded” militants in Syria, without elaborating. Syrian state media did not immediately acknowledge the strike. VOA
FBI interviews second Kavanaugh accuser
Deborah Ramirez spoke with the FBI on Sunday as part of the investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Ramirez told The New Yorker last week that during a party at Yale their freshman year, Kavanaugh exposed himself to her. CNN reports Ramirez gave the FBI the names of witnesses to the alleged encounter, but it’s unclear if agents will speak to those people or if the scope of the investigation allows this.
An attorney for Christine Blasey Ford, the professor who testified Thursday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, said she has not been contacted by the FBI. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. CNN
A Yale friend says about Kavanaugh
One of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s friends from Yale, Charles Ludington, will give the FBI a statement Monday about Kavanaugh’s drunken behavior during college, Ludington tells The Washington Post. Ludington, an associate professor at North Carolina State University, writes in his statement that when Kavanaugh “got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive.”
Ludington said he once witnessed Kavanaugh “respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.” Ludington also said that Kavanaugh “lied about his past actions on national television” during his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony last week. The Washington Post
WH sues California over new net neutrality rules
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Sunday signed a new net neutrality law that prohibits internet service providers from slowing down or blocking websites and charging customers higher fees for faster speeds, and within hours, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the state. In a statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department “should not have to spend valuable time and resources to file this suit today, but we have a duty to defend the prerogatives of the federal government and protect our Constitutional order.”
While Oregon, Washington, and Vermont have passed their own measures, California restored Obama-era protections that were repealed by the Federal Communications Commission late last year. USA Today