US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has imposed new sanctions on China and said its policies on Muslims and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang constitute a “genocide”.

Mr Pompeo made the determination just 24 hours before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. There was no immediate response from the incoming Biden team, although several members have been sympathetic to such a designation in the past.

Many of those accused of having taken part in repression in Xinjiang are already under US sanctions, and Tuesday’s move is the latest in a series of steps the outgoing Trump administration has taken against China.

Since last year, the administration has steadily ramped up pressure on Beijing, imposing sanctions on numerous officials and companies for their activities in Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.

Those penalties have become harsher since the beginning of last year when President Donald Trump and Mr Pompeo began to accuse China of trying to cover up the coronavirus pandemic.

On Saturday, Mr Pompeo lifted restrictions on US diplomatic contacts with Taiwanese officials, prompting a stern rebuke from China, which regards the island as a renegade province.

Five days ago, the administration announced it would halt imports of cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang with Customs and Border Protection officials saying they would block products from there suspected of being produced with forced labour.

Xinjiang is a major global supplier of cotton, so the order could have significant effects on international commerce. The Trump administration has already blocked imports from individual companies linked to forced labour in the region, and the US has imposed sanctions on Communist Party officials with prominent roles in the campaign.

China has imprisoned more than a million people, including Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups, in a vast network of concentration camps, according to US officials and human rights groups.

People have been subjected to torture, sterilisation and political indoctrination in addition to forced labour as part of an assimilation campaign in a region whose inhabitants are ethnically and culturally distinct from the Han Chinese majority.

China has denied all the charges, but Uighur forced labour has been linked by reporting from The Associated Press to various products imported to the US, including clothing and electronic goods such as cameras and computer monitors.

China says its policies in Xinjiang aim only to promote economic and social development in the region and stamp out radicalism. It also rejects criticism of what it considers its internal affairs.

Read more: Anger as China says that it is freeing Uighur women from being ‘baby making machine’

The Home Secretary will call on public figures to “moderate their language” to halt the spread of poisonous ideologies.

In a speech on Friday, Sajid Javid is expected to call for an honest “national conversation” about extremism and challenge anti-immigration rhetoric, which he says is stoking division and fear.

It comes after Donald Trump sparked a racism row when he sent tweets telling four female Democratic politicians to “go back” to the countries from which they came.

Mr Javid is expected to say: “I’m from an immigrant family, I know what it’s like to be told to go back to where I came from.

“We must confront the myths about immigration that extremists use to drive divisions.

“We know the scale is exaggerated to stoke up fear and that they use immigration as a proxy for race.

“Anyone can challenge the myths peddled by extremists that deepen divisions.

“So tell your friends, shout it loud and proud: people from minority backgrounds did not steal our jobs, they’re not terrorists, that there is no global ‘Zionist conspiracy’.”

Mr Javid will outline a three-pronged approach of tackling extremism – confronting narratives, strengthening communities’ resilience and tackling causes of confronting extremist narratives – in what is being touted as one of the first major interventions since the Counter Extremism Strategy was launched in 2015.

He will call for further integration within society, more help for people to learn English, greater support for communities and a celebration of national identity.

“I will not flinch from confronting extremism. I will do everything in my power to stop those who seek to undermine our country,” Mr Javid is expected to tell civil society groups, charities and academics.

“If we are to stop extremism in its tracks we must have the courage to confront it, the strength to take decisive action, and the foresight to tackle the root causes.

“Public discourse is hardening and becoming less constructive.

“Everyone has a part to play: broadcasters who must not give a platform to extremists; police who must swoop on the worst offenders; public figures who must moderate their language.”

The speech will take place following the publication of a poll carried out by the independent Commission for Countering Extremism, which is working on a review of the threat and response to extremism in England and Wales.

Almost 3,000 people replied to the call to share their experience of extremism, the commission said.

The results show more than half (52%) of the respondents have witnessed extremism, with 45% of them saying they had seen it online and 39% of them reporting seeing it in their local area.

Of those, 59% said they had seen Islamist extremism, 37% far right extremism and 29% far left extremism.

Speaking ahead of the Home Secretary’s speech entitled Confronting Extremism Together, lead commissioner Sara Khan said: “I was shocked to see that more than half of the respondents have witnessed extremism in some way, and that two-fifths of those that had witnessed it said they’d seen it in their local area.

“The findings underline the breadth and severity of the concerns we have in 2019.

“People are scared that violent extremists will incite or carry out an attack.

“Communities are also deeply concerned about the impact of groups exploiting local tensions to spread hate and division.”

A 97-year-old woman, two brothers in their 50s and a married couple in their 80s were among the 11 worshipers shot dead at a Pittsburgh synagogue during Sabbath prayers in the deadliest attack ever on America’s Jewish community, officials said on Sunday.

The names of the dead were released a day after a gunman, armed with an assault rifle and three handguns, stormed the Tree of Life temple in the city’s heavily Jewish Squirrel Hill neighbourhood yelling “All Jews must die” as he opened fire on the congregation.

In addition to the 11 mostly elderly victims who were killed, six people, including four police officers, were wounded before the suspect was arrested.

Robert Bowers, 46, who has a history of posting anti-Semitic material online, was charged under federal hate crime statutes, and could face the death penalty if convicted.

“The fact that this attack took place during a worship service makes it even more heinous,” U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said. Brady told a news conference that Bowers was to make his first court appearance on Monday afternoon before a federal judge in Pittsburgh.

The Squirrel Hill area was home to the late Fred Rogers whose long-running children’s television show “Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood” featured lessons on friendship and kindness. Five of the dead were from Squirrel Hill and the rest were from other parts of Pittsburgh.

The mass shooting sparked security alerts at houses of worship around the country and condemnation from politicians and religious leaders.

Some complained that the confrontational, nationalistic rhetoric of U.S. President Donald Trump has encouraged right-wing extremists and fed a surge in activity by hate groups.

Trump, who quickly branded Saturday’s shooting an act of pure evil and called on Americans to rise above hatred, was already facing similar criticism ahead of the Nov. 6 congressional elections following a spate of pipe bombs mailed last week to some of his prominent critics. The targets, mostly Democrats, included former U.S. President Barack Obama.

CLIMATE OF DIVISION

“Honestly I think this president’s whole modus operandi is to divide us. He gets up in the morning with new and inventive ways to divide us,” U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who is Jewish, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” broadcast on Sunday.

Trump told reporters the killings might have been prevented if there had been an armed guard at the temple. Synagogue officials said police would only normally have been present for security on high holidays.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto on Sunday said keeping guns out of the hands of irrational people was a better way to prevent violence, and called for unity in facing Saturday’s tragedy.

“We’ll get through this darkest day of Pittsburgh history by working together,” he told reporters.

Among those killed were: David Rosenthal, 54; his brother Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Sylvan Simon, 86, and his wife Bernice Simon, 84; Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Daniel Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 88; and Irving Younger, 69. The eldest victim was Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News Sunday that DHS officials visited the Pittsburgh synagogue in March to provide training on active shooter responses.

FBI Special Agent Robert Jones said he did not know why Bowers targeted the Tree of Life synagogue.

Authorities believe the suspect entered the synagogue, opened fire on the worshippers and was fleeing when he encountered a police officer, Jones said. The two exchanged gunfire, he said, and Bowers reentered the building before a police tactical squad arrived.

Bowers surrendered and was taken to a hospital where he was listed in fair condition with multiple gunshot wounds.

News of the attack spread quickly through the surrounding neighbourhood. Congregants at a nearby Synagogue, Beth Shalom, were alarmed before learning that the perpetrator had been captured, said Ira Frank, a past president of the congregation. He said he could imagine a scene of pandemonium if the assailant showed up at his temple.

“What was going through my mind was people who were going to walk, or children who run in front of their parents, behind their parents, people in wheelchairs, in strollers,” he said. About half of the congregants at Beth Shalom do not drive on the Sabbath, he said.

Federal prosecutors charged Bowers late on Saturday with 29 criminal counts including violating U.S. civil rights laws.

Bowers’ virulent anti-Semitic views were evident in prolific online postings. In one, early on Saturday, he wrote that a Jewish refugee group, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in”.

The Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Council for Public Affairs described Saturday’s rampage as the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States.

In Israel, cabinet ministers stood for a moment of silence on Sunday to honour the victims of the shooting.

President Donald Trump took his enthusiasm for his detente with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to new heights on Saturday, declaring at a rally with supporters that “we fell in love” after exchanging letters.

Trump and Kim have said they want to work towards denuclearising the Korean peninsula, holding an unprecedented meeting earlier this year in Singapore to discuss the idea.

Before they turned the page on decades of public acrimony, the leaders regularly traded threats and insults as North Korea pushed to develop a nuclear missile capable of hitting the United States.

“I was really being tough – and so was he. And we would go back and forth,” Trump told a rally in West Virginia.

“And then we fell in love, okay? No, really – he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters,” he said.

His supporters laughed and applauded. Trump grumbled that commentators would cast him as “unpresidential” for describing Kim in such glowing terms.

The Trump administration is preparing for a second summit with Kim to talk about denuclearisation. The time and location have not yet been announced.

Despite the warmer tone to the relationship, North Korea has not complied with U.S. demands to provide a complete inventory of its weapons programs and take irreversible steps to give up its arsenal.

Three senior U.S. officials involved in North Korea policy said this week that no progress has been made in moving towards serious negotiations on eliminating or even halting Kim’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

So far, all three said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, the North has not even agreed to define basic terms such as “denuclearisation”, “verifiable”, and “irreversible”. Most of the steps it has said it has taken could easily be replaced or reversed.

Every few weeks, Susan Bro walks down 4th Street in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, until she gets to a brick wall covered in chalked messages like “Love over hate” and “Gone but not forgotten.”

“I come just to absorb the energy of the place,” Bro, 61, said on Tuesday as she stood on the block now named for her daughter, Heather Heyer, who was killed a year ago while marching against a white supremacist rally.

Since August 12, 2017, when James Fields rammed his car into counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heyer and injuring several others, Bro has channelled her rage and grief into spreading the same message that drew her daughter downtown that day.

Bro said she made a promise to her daughter at her funeral, when she saw her bruised, broken body for the first time and broke down in tears.

“I held her hand and said, ‘I’m going to make this count.'”

Heyer’s death capped a day of clashes after hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others descended upon the city, drawing national attention to the “alt right” movement that had grown bolder since President Donald Trump’s election.

Trump faced intense criticism after the protests when he seemed to equate the white nationalists with the counter-protesters, saying there were “very fine people on both sides.”

Bro said she chose not to return several phone calls from the White House after learning of the president’s remarks.

As the city prepares for the first anniversary of the so-called “Unite the Right” rally, Bro is readying herself for another difficult milestone in a year full of painful moments without Heather.

“The ‘firsts’ are always hardest,” she said, her voice cracking. “I got through the others: Mother’s Day, her birthday, Christmas. This will be the last one.”

Bro said she would bring flowers to Heather Heyer Way on August 12 before speaking at an event to mark the anniversary.

Law enforcement agencies have made extensive plans to combat any potential violence, though the leader of last year’s gathering, local white nationalist Jason Kessler, failed to secure a permit for a sequel this year. Instead, he has obtained a permit to hold a rally in Washington outside the White House.

Before last summer, Bro, a former elementary schoolteacher, led a relatively quiet life, doing secretarial work and living in a modest trailer home about 30 minutes north of Charlottesville.

At Heyer’s memorial service, which drew nearly 2,000 mourners and was broadcast live on large screens, Bro said the national response to the tragedy was “just the beginning of Heather’s legacy.”

“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well guess what? You just magnified her,” she said, drawing a standing ovation.

Within weeks of Heyer’s death, Bro created the Heather Heyer Foundation, in part to install a formal and legal structure to handle the hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds that poured in from sympathizers around the country.

Bro runs the foundation from her home and from an office at a Charlottesville law firm, filled with tributes to Heyer that she has received over the last year: a portrait painted by an artist, a humanitarian award given posthumously by the Muhammad Ali Center, notes written by Heyer’s friends at her memorial service.

The foundation has organised a scholarship programme and is planning to launch a social justice youth programme.

Bro found herself making appearances on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show and at MTV’s Video Music Awards. She acknowledged that the intense media attention has caused resentment among some activists in Charlottesville who feel the focus on Heyer, a white woman, has distracted from the racial issues at the core of the clashes.

It has been a bit of a balancing act, she said, to amplify Heyer’s message without making it seem as though her daughter was the only victim who mattered. She noted that violence against black people often does not generate the same level of interest and warned against the “white-centred” narrative that portrayed Heyer as a leader rather than simply one of many people who decided to march.

“The issues have not changed,” Bro said. “We still have police shootings, over-policing, a lack of affordable housing, the prison pipeline.”

A year after burying her daughter, Bro reflected on the activism that brought Heyer to the protests.

“The point of Heather’s death is that we have a responsibility to rise up to address that hate,” Bro said. “Don’t sit by and wring your hands.”

U.S. President Donald Trump blasted former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on Wednesday as having “lost his mind” in the fallout over damaging comments Bannon made about Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. in excerpts from a new book.

Trump, who had continued to speak privately with Bannon after firing him in August, essentially cut ties with his former aide at least for now in a blistering statement issued after Bannon’s comments came to light.

“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” Trump said.

Trump had relied heavily on Bannon, chairman of the right-wing Breitbart News website, for advice in the months leading up to his upset victory in the November 2016 election.

Bannon helped Trump shape a populist, anti-establishment message and has been the president’s link to his conservative base of support. It was not clear if the split would push Bannon to be even more aggressive in his campaign against the Republican establishment and whether he would now also target Trump, or would emerge much weaker.

According to excerpts from “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” by Michael Wolff, to be released on Tuesday, Bannon described a June 2016 meeting with a group of Russians at Trump Tower in New York as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” The meeting was arranged by the president’s son and attended by top Trump campaign officials.

Trump has in the past praised Bannon for his friendship, but the president said in his statement on Wednesday Bannon had little to do with his election victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, calling him “a staffer who worked for me” after he had already won the Republican nomination.

The president said Bannon was to blame for the loss of a Republican-held U.S. Senate seat in Alabama in December when Republican Roy Moore, whose campaign was derailed by accusations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls, lost to Democrat Doug Jones. Trump and Bannon backed Moore in the campaign.

“Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans,” Trump said.

‘NIGHTMARE OF BACKSTABBING, HARASSING’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had been upset over Trump’s backing of Moore at the urging of Bannon, was clearly pleased Trump was willing to rid himself of the former aide. McConnell’s campaign organization posted on Twitter an image of the normally taciturn senator with a beaming smile.

Donald Trump Jr. attacked Bannon in a tweet.

“Steve had the honour of working in the White House & serving the country. Unfortunately, he squandered that privilege & turned that opportunity into a nightmare of backstabbing, harassing, leaking, lying & undermining the President. Steve is not a strategist, he is an opportunist,” he said.

The president, an expert at self-promotion, said Bannon was trying to promote himself by “leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was.”

“Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phoney books,” said Trump, who famously values loyalty in associates and employees.

Lawyers for the president sent a cease and desist letter to Bannon on Wednesday. They said in the letter, seen by Reuters, Bannon had breached an agreement by communicating with Wolff about Trump, his family members and the campaign and made disparaging remarks about Trump and his family.

With elections looming in November that could cost Republicans control of Congress, Trump praised Republican lawmakers and candidates, words likely to be welcomed by McConnell and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan.

“Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down,” Trump said.

‘BRAIN TRUST’

As with much in the Trump White House, the story that triggered the harsh back-and-forth was an offshoot of the investigation into whether Trump campaign aides colluded with Russia to sway the election to Trump, allegations Trump and Moscow deny.

Bannon expressed derision about the June 2016 meeting in which a Russian lawyer was said to have offered damaging information about Clinton, according to the book.

The meeting was attended by Trump’s son, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Bannon was also quoted as saying he was sure Trump Jr. would have taken the Russians who took part in the meeting to meet his father in Trump Tower.

“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers,” Bannon said in the book in excerpts seen by Reuters.

“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” he said.

When an intermediary proposed the meeting, saying the Russians were offering damaging information about Clinton, Trump Jr. Responded in an email: “I love it.”

Bannon was incredulous about the meeting shortly after it was revealed, according to the book, concluding sarcastically: “That’s the brain trust they had.”

The Wolff book, parts of which were published by New York magazine, portrayed Trump as shocked that he won the election and said his wife, Melania Trump, was in tears, and “not of joy.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders called the book “trashy tabloid fiction.”

The first lady’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said: “The book is clearly going to be sold in the bargain fiction section. Mrs. Trump supported her husband’s decision to run for President and in fact, encouraged him to do so. She was confident he would win and was very happy when he did.”

President Donald Trump was likely to open the door on Monday to a modest increase in U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan, where America is fighting its longest military conflict.

In the past, Trump, who took office in January, was critical of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s approach to Afghanistan, saying the United States should not be nation-building and calling for Obama to withdraw troops.

Obama also had evolving views, first committing an increase of tens of thousands of U.S. troops to reverse Taliban gains, then committing to a troop draw down that he was unable to complete before leaving office.

Following are some of Trump’s comments on the war, before and after he launched his White House run in June 2015.

Oct 7, 2011 – When will we stop wasting our money on rebuilding Afghanistan? We must rebuild our country first. (Posted on Twitter, during a year when Obama’s troop surge had taken U.S. troop levels to more than 100,000.)

Feb 27, 2012 – It is time to get out of Afghanistan. We are building roads and schools for people that hate us. It is not in our national interests. (Posted on Twitter)

Jan 1, 2013 – Can you believe that the Afghan war is our “longest war” ever—bring our troops home, rebuild the U.S., make America great again (Posted on Twitter)

March 1, 2013 – We should leave Afghanistan immediately. No more wasted lives. If we have to go back in, we go in hard & quick. Rebuild the US first. (Posted on Twitter)

Dec 1, 2014 – Now Obama is keeping our soldiers in Afghanistan for at least another year. He is losing two wars simultaneously. (Posted on Twitter)

March 3, 2016 – I think you have to stay in Afghanistan for a while, because of the fact that you’re right next to Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons, and we have to protect that. Nuclear weapons change the game. (Said during a debate among Republican presidential candidates, when asked if he would withdraw troops from Afghanistan)

July 18, 2017 – We’ve been there for now close to 17 years, and I want to find out why we’ve been there for 17 years, how it’s going, and what we should do in terms of additional ideas. I’ve heard plenty of ideas from a lot of people, but I want to hear it from the people on the ground. (Said during a meeting with service members to discuss Afghanistan.)

President Donald Trump plans to nominate Callista Gingrich as ambassador to the Vatican, the White House said in a statement on Friday.

She is the wife of former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich and produces documentary films on public policy and history.

The announcement came as Trump embarked on Friday on his maiden foreign trip as president, which will include a visit to the Vatican.

Pope Francis said on Saturday he would be “sincere” with U.S. President Donald Trump over their sharp differences on subjects such as immigration and climate change when the two hold their first meeting at the Vatican later this month.

But the pope also told reporters aboard a plane returning from Portugal that he would keep an open mind and not pass judgement on Trump until first listening to his views at their meeting on May 24.

“Even if one thinks differently we have to be very sincere about what each one thinks,” Francis said in a typically freewheeling airborne news conference.

“Topics will emerge in our conversations. I will say what I think and he will say what he thinks. But I have never wanted to make a judgement without first listening to the person.”

The pope’s meeting with Trump could be potentially awkward given their diametrically opposed positions on immigration, refugees and climate change, which he told reporters on the plane “are well known”.

Last year, in response to a question about then-candidate Trump’s views on immigration and his intention to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, Francis said a man with such views was “not Christian”.

Trump, who grew up in a Presbyterian family, shot back saying it was “disgraceful” for the pope to question his faith.

SEEKING COMMON GROUND

The two men also disagree strongly about climate change.

Trump signed an executive order dismantling Obama-era environmental legislation.

Francis has made defence of the environment a key plank of his papacy, strongly backing scientific opinion that global warming is caused mostly by human activity.

Still, Francis said he was willing to find common ground with Trump.

“There are always doors that are not closed. We need to find the doors that are at least partly open, go in, and talk about things we have in common and go forward, step by step,” he said.

Trump will visit the Vatican during a tour of the Middle East and Europe that will also include a meeting in Sicily of the leaders of the Group of Seven leading economies.

The pope is a head of state as well as being leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. Such meetings allow for an exchange of views on world affairs and a chance for the pope to encourage ethical solutions to world problems.

About 21 percent of Americans, or 70 million people, are Catholic. Washington has had full diplomatic relations with the Vatican since 1984, when President Ronald Reagan saw Pope John Paul, a Pole, as a crucial ally against communism.

Pope Francis on Saturday criticised the naming of the U.S. military’s biggest non-nuclear explosive as “the Mother of All Bombs”, saying the word “mother” should not be used in reference to a deadly weapon.

The U.S. Air Force dropped such a bomb, officially designated as the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) on suspected Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan last month. The nickname was widely used in briefings and reporting on the attack.

“I was ashamed when I heard the name,” Pope Francis told an audience of students on Saturday. “A mother gives life and this one gives death, and we call this device a mother. What is happening?”

Pope Francis is set to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on May 24 in a potentially awkward encounter given their opposing positions on immigration, refugees and climate change.