Guatemala said on Sunday it would postpone President Jimmy Morales’ visit to Washington to discuss Guatemala’s potential designation as a ‘safe third country’ for asylum seekers, stressing it had no plans to sign such an agreement.

In a statement, Guatemala said the planned meeting between Morales and U.S. President Donald Trump this week had been postponed until the Guatemalan Constitutional Court had ruled on legal challenges. Last week, five former senior officials appealed to the court to block any agreement with the United States that would declare Guatemala a ‘safe third country.’ Under such a deal, Guatemala would be obliged to offer asylum to migrants who entered its territory en route to the United States. Migrants from Honduras and El Salvador heading to the U.S.-Mexican border overland usually cross into Mexico via Guatemala.

Over the past week, opposition has mounted to such a designation for Guatemala, which would reshape migration in the region.

“The government of the republic reiterates that at no point it considers signing an agreement to convert Guatemala into a safe third country,” the Guatemalan government said:  A senior U.S. official said: “The meeting is being rescheduled.”

“The United States will continue to work with the Government of Guatemala on concrete and immediate steps that can be taken to address the ongoing migration crisis,” the U.S. official added.

…

A healthy lifestyle can cut your risk of developing Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia even if you have genes that raise your risk for these mind-destroying diseases, a large study has found.

People with high genetic risk and poor health habits were about three times more likely to develop dementia versus those with low genetic risk and good habits, researchers reported Sunday. Regardless of how much genetic risk someone had, a good diet, adequate exercise, limiting alcohol and not smoking made dementia less likely.

“I consider that good news,” said John Haaga of the U.S. National Institute on Aging, one of the study’s many sponsors. “No one can guarantee you’ll escape this awful disease” but you can tip the odds in your favor with clean living, he said.

Results were discussed at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Los Angeles and published online by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

50 million people

About 50 million people have dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type. Genes and lifestyle contribute to many diseases, but researchers only recently have had the tools and information to do large studies to see how much each factor matters.

One such study a few years ago found that healthy living could help overcome genetic risk for heart disease. Now researchers have shown the same to be true for dementia.

Dr. Elzbieta Kuzma and colleagues at the University of Exeter Medical School in England used the UK Biobank to study nearly 200,000 people 60 or older with no signs or symptoms of dementia at the start. Their genetic risk was classified as high, medium or low based on dozens of mutations known to affect dementia. They also were grouped by lifestyle factors.

By the numbers

After about eight years of study, 1.8% of those with high genetic risk and poor lifestyles had developed dementia versus 0.6% of folks with low genetic risk and healthy habits.

Among those with the highest genetic risk, just more than 1% of those with favorable lifestyles developed dementia compared to nearly 2% of those with poor lifestyles.

One limitation: Researchers only had information on mutations affecting people of European ancestry, so it’s not known whether the same is true for other racial or ethnic groups.

Genes are not destiny

The results should give encouragement to people who fear that gene mutations alone determine their destiny, said Dr. Rudy Tanzi, a genetics expert at Massachusetts General Hospital. Less than 5% of the ones tied to Alzheimer’s are “fully penetrant,” meaning that they guarantee you’ll get the disease, he said.

“That means that with 95% of the mutations, your lifestyle will make a difference,” Tanzi said. “Don’t be too worried about your genetics. Spend more time being mindful of living a healthy life.”

One previous study in Sweden and Finland rigorously tested the effect of a healthy lifestyle by assigning one group to follow one and included a comparison group that did not. It concluded that healthy habits could help prevent mental decline. The Alzheimer’s Association is sponsoring a similar study underway now in the United States.

Healthy living also is the focus of new dementia prevention guidelines that the World Health Organization released in February.
 

…

Police and protesters are gearing up for a fight in Hawaii as construction is set to begin on a massive telescope on Mauna Kea, the islands’ highest peak, considered sacred by some native Hawaiians.

State officials said the road to the top of Mauna Kea mountain on the Big Island will be closed starting Monday as equipment is delivered to the construction site.

Scientists chose Mauna Kea in 2009 after a five-year, worldwide search for the ideal site for the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere. Construction was supposed to begin in 2014 but was halted by protests.

Opponents of the $1.4 billion telescope will desecrate sacred land. According to the University of Hawaii, ancient Hawaiians considered the location kapu, or forbidden. Only the highest-ranking chiefs and priests were allowed to make the long trek to Mauna Kea’s summit above the clouds.

Supporters of telescope say it will not only make important scientific discoveries but bring educational and economic opportunities to Hawaii.

The company behind the telescope is made up of a group of universities in California and Canada, with partners from China, India and Japan.  

Astronomers hope the telescope will help them look back 13 billion years to the time just after the Big Bang and answer fundamental questions about the universe.

It is not clear what the opponents of the project have planned for Monday but Gov. David Ige said unarmed National Guard units will be on hand to help enforce road closures and transport workers and supplies.

…

India aborted the launch Monday of a spacecraft intended to land on the far side of the moon less than an hour before liftoff.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission was called off when a “technical snag” was observed in the 640-ton, 14-story rocket launcher, Indian Space Research Organization spokesman B.R. Guruprasad said.

The countdown abruptly stopped at T-56 minutes, 24 seconds, and Guruprasad said that the agency would announce a revised launch date soon.

Chandrayaan, the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit, is designed for a soft landing on the lunar south pole and to send a rover to explore water deposits confirmed by a previous Indian space mission.

With nuclear-armed India poised to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, the ardently nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is eager to show off the country’s prowess in security and technology. If India did manage the soft landing, it would be only the fourth to do so after the U.S., Russia and China.

Dr. K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, said at a news conference last week that the estimated $140 million Chandrayaan-2 mission was the nation’s “most prestigious” to date, in part because of the technical complexities of soft landing on the lunar surface, an event he described as “15 terrifying minutes.”

After countdown commenced Sunday, Sivan visited two Hindu shrines to pray for the mission’s success.

Criticized program pays off

Practically since its inception in 1962, India’s space program has been criticized as inappropriate for an overpopulated, developing nation.

But decades of space research have allowed India to develop satellite communications and remote sensing technologies that are helping solve everyday problems at home, from forecasting fish migration to predicting storms and floods.

With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission this month, the world’s biggest space agencies are returning their gaze to the moon, seen as ideal testing grounds for technologies required for deep space exploration, and, with the confirmed discovery of water, as a possible pit stop along the way.

“The moon is sort of our backyard for training to go to Mars,” said Adam Steltzner, NASA’s chief engineer responsible for its 2020 mission to Mars.

Seeking water on the moon

Because of repeated delays, India missed the chance to achieve the first soft landing near the lunar south pole. China’s Chang’e 4 mission landed a lander and rover there last January.

India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission orbited the moon in 2008 and helped confirm the presence of water. The Indian Space Research Organization wants its new mission’s rover to further probe the far side of the moon, where scientists believe a basin contains water-ice that could help humans do more than plant flags on future manned missions.

The U.S. is working to send a manned spacecraft to the moon’s south pole by 2024.

Modi has set a deadline of 2022 for India’s first manned spaceflight.

…

Unknown armed assailants killed a reporter for a local radio station in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province.

Nader Shah Sahibzada, a reporter for Voice of Gardiz local radio, went missing on Friday and authorities found his dead body on Saturday near his home in capital city, Gardiz.

Initial autopsy reports suggest that Sahibzada has been severely tortured and stabbed to death.

Aminullah Amiri, an editor of the Voice of Gardiz radio, told VOA that Sahibzada was running entertainment shows at the station and had no conflicts with anyone, suggesting he may have been killed because of his work.

Sardar Wali Tabassum, the provincial police spokesperson, told VOA that an investigation has been launched into the killing of Sahibzada and efforts are under way to bring those responsible for his death to justice.

Sahibzada’s case is not an isolated incident.  According to media advocacy groups in Afghanistan, so far this year seven local journalists have been killed by unknown armed men.

No group has immediately claimed responsibility for Sahibzada’s killing, but late last month the Taliban warned Afghan media outlets that if they do not stop what the militant group called “anti-Taliban statements”, they would be targeted.

“Those who continue doing so will be recognized by the group as military targets who are helping the Western-backed government of Afghanistan,” the insurgent group said in a statement.

“Reporters and staff members will not remain safe,” the statement added.

Both U.S. and Afghanistan condemned Taliban’s threats against the Afghan media outlets.

“Freedom of expression and attacks on media organizations is in contradiction to human and Islamic values,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said in a statement.

John Bass, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said in a tweet that the Taliban should stop threatening Afghan journalists.

“More violence, against journalists or civilians, will not bring security and opportunity to Afghanistan, nor will it help the Taliban reach their political objectives,” Bass said.

Deadliest place for journalists

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which advocates for freedom of the press around the world, reported that Afghanistan was the world’s deadliest country for journalists in 2018 followed by Syria.

The group said in its annual report in late December that 15 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan and 11 others have been killed in Syria, making both countries the deadliest places for journalists around the world.

The increased fatalities among journalists in Afghanistan is due in part to bombings and shootings that targeted media workers.

In April of 2018, a double bombing in Kabul killed nine journalists, including six Radio Free Europe reporters.

The Islamic State (IS) terror group claimed responsibility for those attacks, which they said deliberately targeted journalists.

Some of the materials used in this report came from Reuters.

…

In the early hours of Monday, India is set to launch a mission to an uncharted area of the moon, marking a significant milestone in its steadily expanding ambitions in space.

If successful, India would become the fourth country to land a probe on the moon after the United States, Russia and China and secure its place as a leading space-faring nation.

India’s most powerful rocket launcher is scheduled to carry the Chandrayaan-2, which means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, from Sriharikota in eastern India. It will have a lunar orbiter, lander and rover.

The real test of the mission will come about 50 days later, around Sept. 6, when the lander will attempt a controlled landing on the lunar surface at the South Pole of the moon, which no country has attempted so far.

South Pole

“The challenge is to demonstrate our capacity to undertake such a complex mission for the soft and precise moon landing on the South Polar region for the first time,” according to P. Kunhikrishnan, director, UR Rao satellite center at the Indian Space Research Organization.

Space scientists say that the moon’s South Pole is interesting because it holds the promise of water.

The lunar rover will operate for 14 days, mapping the moon’s surface and through experiments look for signs of water and assess its topography and geology.

“From a technological perspective it is very relevant because it will be a leapfrog as far as India’s technology level is concerned,” says Ajay Lele at the Indian Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, pointing out that the orbiter, lander and rover have been indigenously designed. “You want your robotic equipment to function on the surface of the moon.”

The Chandrayaan-2 was originally planned as a collaboration with Russia’s space agency, but Indian scientists went it alone after the tie-up was shelved.

Decade after first mission

Monday’s mission is being launched a decade after India’s first in 2008 placed an unmanned spacecraft in an orbit around the moon. That mission helped confirm the presence of water on the lunar surface.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission comes amid a resurgence of interest in the exploration of the moon both in the United States and in Asia and is seen as a signal that India does not want to be left behind in a growing space race. China made a soft landing on the moon in early January and has announced plans for more missions.

“India has a much smaller space program and has limited capacities when you compare it to the U.S. and so on,” said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “So the kind of things India is trying to do if it becomes successful one with the Chandrayaan 2 mission, that will be a significant achievement for India.”

India, which prides itself on its low cost space missions, is spending around $141 million on the mission. Although the country was a relative latecomer to the space race, it has developed a reputation for conducting its space explorations at a fraction of the cost spent by countries like the United States.

Among other goalposts India has set in the coming years is to put a space station in orbit, an astronaut in space by 2022, a robotic mission to Mars and a mission to explore the sun.
 

…

Barry, which made landfall as a hurricane Saturday along the Louisiana Gulf Coast, quickly weakened to a tropical storm.

The storm made landfall in Louisiana near Intercoastal City, according to the National Hurricane Center, which warned that Barry is likely to bring dangerous storm surges, plus strong winds and heavy rain that could cause “life threatening flooding” in parts of the Gulf Coast and the Lower Mississippi Valley.

The storm had been expected to dump up to 50 centimeters (nearly 20 inches) of rain throughout the state by Sunday. The main threat from the storm is expected to be its flood potential rather than its high winds.

On Saturday night, Gov. John Bel Edwards urged residents across south Louisiana to stay “vigilant,” warning that Barry could still cause disastrous flooding across a wide stretch of the Gulf Coast overnight.

“This storm still has a long way to go before it leaves this state,” Edwards said. “Don’t let your guard down.”

The storm, the first Atlantic hurricane of the season, was briefly a Category 1 hurricane. By late Saturday night, its maximum sustained winds had fallen to 50 mph (80 kph).

National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said Barry has collected “a big slug of moisture” and is expected to rain on the region throughout the weekend.

Residents in New Orleans fortified their homes and stocked up on supplies as Barry began to roll in from the Gulf of Mexico. However, by late Saturday night, the city had been spared the worst of the storm, receiving only light showers and gusting winds.

By early Sunday, forecasters had downgraded rainfall estimates for New Orleans through the day to between 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters). Forecasters earlier said New Orleans could get up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain.

City officials have advised residents to shelter in their homes, with the exception of two coastal parishes south of the city, where mandatory evacuations were ordered.

Two parishes harder hit

No levees along the Mississippi River failed or were breached, but two levees were overtopped in Terrebonne and Plaquemines parishes.

Officials said an estimated 400 people were ordered evacuated in Terrebonne Parish, which is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of New Orleans. The Coast Guard also rescued a dozen people from flooded areas in the parish. Some had sought refuge on rooftops, a parish spokeswoman said.

Late Saturday night, authorities were trying to rescue a family of five trapped by high water in the south Louisiana town of Franklin, according to KTBS-TV. The National Guard had to halt its initial rescue mission because waters were too high to safely reach the family’s home. Franklin is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Lafayette.

In other parts of Louisiana on Saturday, Barry flooded highways, forced people to scramble to rooftops and dumped heavy rain. Downpours also lashed coastal Alabama and Mississippi.

Tourists had largely left New Orleans Friday. Some airlines canceled outbound flights Saturday.

The storm is widely seen as a test of the city’s weather defenses put in place following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which left about 1,800 people dead.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency in Louisiana Thursday night, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate federal funds and resources to help the state cope with the storm and its aftermath.

In Mandeville, a city on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain across from New Orleans, storm surge and choppy waters sent waves over the seawall and into nearby communities. Dozens of people waded through knee-high water to take a look at the pounding surf. 

…

The power of song can heal the hearts and bring people together.  A girls’ chorus named Pihcintu sings to do just that.  Most members are from war-torn countries and refugee camps around the world. Together they sing as one and spread a message of hope. VOA’s June Soh caught up with the group in Washington and has this story narrated by Carol Pearson 
 

…

At a time when podcasts, e-books and smartphones are blossoming, old-fashioned books are still popular in the United States. That is why tiny free libraries, where people exchange books, are sprouting up across the nation to help book lovers. For VOA, Iryna Matviichuk visited some exchanges in the Washington area. Anna Rice narrates our story.
 

…

Tall buildings made of wood are beginning to pop up around the world, from the United States and Canada to Norway and soon England. Builders say wood may well be the construction material of the future. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
 

…

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service.

WASHINGTON — Sometimes history has a funny way of confounding its chroniclers.

In a recent Financial Times interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the liberal world order obsolete.

Sitting with reporters at the Kremlin hours before attending the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, where he roundly condemned open-door policies toward migrants, the Russia leader decried “the so-called liberal idea” as a moribund enterprise at odds with “traditional values” of ordinary people the world over.

“Our Western partners have admitted that some elements of the liberal idea, such as multiculturalism, are no longer tenable,” Putin said, criticizing immigration policies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and touting President Donald Trump’s continued push to build a wall as part of a broader crackdown on migrants.

It was 30 years ago this summer, just months before another wall came tumbling down, that a young economist named Francis Fukuyama published his landmark essay, The End of History?, in which he asked whether liberalism had triumphed over competing ideologies.

Because the highest aspiration of all humans is recognition and acceptance of their rights, he argued, liberalism would inevitably triumph.

But as even the Stanford scholar himself now acknowledges, there are competing elements in human nature, and the sometimes predominant human desire for freedom is eclipsed, especially in the face of tumultuous change and uncertainty, by an equally predominant desire for the security of strongman rule.

VOA’s Russian Service sat down with Fukuyama to get his take on Putin’s latest claim.

The following has been edited for brevity and concision.

Question: Does Putin’s claim that liberalism has “outlived its purpose” for the majority of the world’s population have any substance?

Francis Fukuyama: Putin is fundamentally wrong about that. In a liberal society, people agree that they’re going to put aside deeply held beliefs, particularly religious beliefs, in the interest of living together. The reason that liberal societies emerged in Europe was that after the Reformation, Protestants and Catholics ended up spending 150 years killing each other. In Germany, a third of the population was killed during the Thirty Years War because people at that time believed that the state had to support a single religious doctrine. I think people should remember that, because today we live in diverse societies with globalization; even if you try to build walls, it’s not really possible to keep people out in the long run. And if you don’t have a society that’s built on a certain degree of tolerance for diversity — religious diversity, ethnic diversity, racial diversity — then you’re going to have a formula for endless conflict.

Those kinds of systems are the ones that have evolved in Western Europe and in North America. In Eastern Europe you had a different situation where, under communism, there was a pretense that you’d achieve this kind of society where religion was not important, where you were open to diverse types of people. But the fact of the matter was that that simply suppressed people’s feelings. When those countries opened up to democracy after 1989 or 1991, there hadn’t been a kind of social acceptance, a kind of tolerance that’s needed to really sustain a liberal society. And so there’s been conflict over refugees, over immigration. These [conflicts over refugees, over immigration] in Eastern Europe tend to be more based on fear rather than any real experience with that kind of diversity. So I think Putin is fundamentally wrong. In fact, I actually think the Russian Federation is liberal in many respects. [Putin] is not imposing Orthodox Christianity as a religion that all members of the Russian Federation have to follow, because a lot of them are Muslim or follow other religious beliefs. So even in his country, liberalism is a key value. And if they don’t observe that kind of tolerance, there’s going to be a lot of conflict within the borders of the Russian Federation. That’s something that people need to keep in mind. That liberalism is really about allowing people to live peacefully while perhaps disagreeing about some of the more fundamental issues raised by religion.

Q: We see a rising tide of nationalism in both the United States and in Europe. Are liberal democracies imperiled? And might it be impossible to balance core values of postwar liberalism with national identities, as Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson recently argued?

Fukuyama: Nationalism oftentimes takes a dangerous form because it excludes certain people within the nation and oftentimes leads to conflicts with other nations. But I think that national identity is nonetheless important. In fact, it’s kind of necessary if you’re going to sustain a democracy, because people must have a common set of values to believe in the legitimacy of their own institutions. So what’s critical, I think, is avoiding the rise of exclusive forms of nationalism. And this is what’s been going on with many populist leaders. Viktor Orban, for example, says Hungarian national identity is based on Hungarian ethnicity. That is very problematic because not everybody in Hungary is an ethnic Hungarian, and, furthermore, there’s lots of ethnic Hungarians living in all of the surrounding countries and in Europe. So I think that what we want is a form of democratic and open, tolerant national identity, where it’s based on shared democratic values but not necessarily on things like race or religion or ethnicity.

Q: Why have liberal ideas seen such a backlash, and can the trend be reversed? Do you anticipate the rise of more illiberal leaders around the world, even in the Western countries?

Fukuyama: I think that part of [the backlash] is created by globalization and the nature of economic change. In our globalized world, people that live in cosmopolitan cities have a lot of opportunities — they’ve done well economically and a lot of people that don’t live in those places have not done as well. So, in almost every country, people who vote for populists tend to be older, less educated, and living not in the big capital city but in, you know, other places. That sets up a kind of social conflict, and I think it’s important for people that are better educated and do accept globalization to understand that not everybody has profited from the kind of world that’s been created. And so I think governments need to take that into account. On the other hand, populist voters tend to be in the declining parts of the society because people continue to move to cities. People continue to get educated. In the end, [populism] isn’t going to be the dominant force in any society.

Q: Many argue that countries built on liberal ideals are more economically successful. But what’s your take on, say, economically successful Communist China?

Fukuyama: I think that liberal values are important for a market economy because a market economy depends on the rule of law. It depends on rules that are established, that are clear and transparent and don’t get changed as a result of politics. And that’s not what happens in many of these new populist countries, because the populist takes power, having been voted into office by an election, but then immediately begins to attack the legal bases [or] attack judges. When the law goes against him or her, they try to undermine the law. This has certainly been true of Donald Trump; it’s been true of Orban and many other populist leaders in Europe. In the long run I think that’s a formula for corruption, you know, for a kind of crony capitalism where you don’t have a level playing field for all of the participants. And in the end, I think that is going to hurt economic growth.

And by the way, Hungary looks like it’s doing well economically, but it gets 5 percent of GDP as subsidies from the European Union. And so the performance of that country, if left to its own devices without Europe, would be substantially worse than it is today. And I think that’s what people need to consider when they make the choice of voting for a populist leader.

Q: The Council of Europe, which is based on Western liberal values, recently restored Russia’s voting rights. Some call this an example of Russian successfully undermining Western democratic institutions.

Fukuyama: Russia has been trying to use every means in its power to expand its influence. It’s been very clever at using social media and the internet in order to weaken the confidence of the Western public in itself. And it’s tried to create alliances with these new populists. I think that vote was a big mistake because I don’t think that Russia fundamentally shares the liberal values that are necessary to sustain the Council of Europe.

Q: Putin also told The Financial Times that it seems there are no rules in post-Cold War international order? Are there rules in today’s global order?

Fukuyama: There are plenty of rules, most of them regarding economic interactions. That’s the purpose of the World Trade Organization and the EU and many other trade deals that have been created. What there is not, I think, is a consensus on security issues, because there are fundamental differences between the U.S., Europe, Russia and China. So in that sense we’ve returned to a more multipolar kind of world that existed in the 19th century. That’s not a terrible thing. I think if countries observe certain moderate norms of behavior, that’s the world that can be stable. But I think Russia has been trying to undermine that stability because it feels that it’s one of the weakest of those players and wants to use every means at its disposal to expand its influence.

Q: Parting thoughts?

Fukuyama: The ultimate check on a populist leader is an election, and we’re going to have a very important election in the United States next year when Mr. Trump comes up for a second term. So I think people should pay attention to that, and I think they should also realize that in their own countries elections are important. And if people that support liberal values don’t go out and organize and mobilize and vote, then the populists are going to take over. That’s a lesson all of us need to keep in mind.

…

The UN Human Rights Office is calling on Yemen’s Appellate Court to dismiss the death sentences handed down on 30 people earlier this week by the Houthi authorities in the capital Sana’a.

Most of the 30 men sentenced to death are academics, students and politicians.  The UN human rights office says they have been affiliated with the Islah party, a group that has been critical of the Houthis.  

The Houthi rebels, believed to be backed by Iran, have been at war with the Saudi-backed Government of Yemen for more than four years.

Human rights spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani says the men have been languishing in prison since their arrest in 2016.   She says they were charged in 2017.  While they have had dozens of hearings in court since then, she says none has been able to present a proper defense.

“The arrests also took place without warrants for the most part and they were held without being brought to a court for several months or up to a year in many cases…And suddenly, in fact it came as a surprise to all of us,” said Shamdasani. “Suddenly on Tuesday, the court read out the judgement and the convictions and the sentencing.”

US Wants Military Coalition to Safeguard Waters Off Iran, Yemen

Under the plan, the United States would provide command ships and lead surveillance efforts for the military coalition, and allies would patrol waters and escort commercial vessels

The 30 men are charged with allegedly participating in an organized armed group with the intention of carrying out criminal, violent acts against Houthi affiliated committees and personnel.  Shamdasani says the convictions and sentences reportedly will be appealed.

“This is why we felt it important to come out now and speak about the high likelihood that many of these charges are politically motivated, that there are very credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment,” said Shamdasani. “Our colleagues on the ground in Yemen have been able to interview some of the detainees and their families and to document these allegations.” 

Shamdasani says it is clear the defendants have been denied their right to a fair trial and due process.  She says the court should dismiss any politically motivated charges and abide by international fair trial standards.

…

A team of researchers across three universities is working on a cell-killing machine invisible to the naked eye.

“We want to be bacteria’s worst nightmare,” said James Tour, T.T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry at Rice University in Houston. He is also a professor of materials science and nanoengineering, and computer science.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose one of the biggest threats to global health, according to the World Health Organization. Researchers at Rice University, Durham University in Britain and North Carolina State University may have discovered a way to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Harmful Bacteria’s Worst Nightmare May Be a Microscopic Drill video player.

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They’re experimenting with tiny, manmade nanomachines that can drill into a cell, killing it. The machines are single molecule motors that can spin at about 3 million rotations a second when a blue light shines on them. As they spin, they drill into the cell. Harmful bacteria cannot mutate to overcome this type of weapon, Tour said.

“We may have found something that the cell could never build a resistance to,” he added.

The nanomachines are so small that about 50,0000 of them can fit across the diameter of a human hair. In comparison, only about 50 cells can take up that amount of space.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are not the only enemies this weapon can fight.

Cancer killer

The nanomachines can drill into cancer cells, causing the cells’ nucleus to disintegrate into fragments.

“We’ve tried four different types, and every cancer cell that it touches is toast,” said Tour, whose team tested the nanomachines on a couple strains of human breast cancer cells, cancerous skin cells and pancreatic cancer cells.

The way it works is that a peptide, also a molecule that consists of amino acids, is added to the nanomotor. That peptide recognizes specific cells and binds the nanomachine to that cell so that only cancer cells, not healthy cells, are targeted. A blue light activates the machine.

“Generally, it’s not just one nanomachine, it’s 50, and each cell is going to get 50 holes drilled in it generally,” Tour said.

The nanomachines can fight cancerous cells in the mouth, upper and lower gastrointestinal tracts and bladder “wherever you can get a scope in, a light, apply it right there, and use the light” to activate the motors, Tour said.

It would only take a few minutes to kill cancerous cells with nanomachines, in contrast to days or longer using radiation or chemotherapy, Tour said.

Sculpt away fat

In another application, nanomachines could be used to sculpt away fat cells when applied onto the skin through a gel.

“You just take a bright light and just pass it over and these start attacking the adipocytes, which are the fat cells and blow those open,” Tour said.

Next steps

Researchers have only worked with nanomachines in a lab, so using this method in a clinical setting is still some time off. Later this year, researchers will start testing nanomachines on staphylococcus bacteria skin infections on live rodents.

One challenge scientists will have to overcome as nanomachine research progresses is how to get the blue light deep into the body if the motors are to fight bacteria or tumor cells that are well below the skin’s surface.

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A report submitted to the UN human rights council this week accuses Nicaragua of continuing to repress, threaten and harass human rights defenders and other opponents one year after the government’s violent crackdown on nationwide demonstrations.

More than 300 people were killed, 2000 injured, and hundreds arbitrarily arrested during last year’s violent repression of peaceful nationwide protests.  More than 70,000 people also fled into exile to escape the heavy-hand of the Nicaraguan government.  

U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kate Gilmore, says peaceful protests and dissent continue to be repressed in Nicaragua.   She says more than 440 imprisoned protestors have been released, but more than 80 remain in custody under severe conditions.

“Our Office has received allegations that some of them were subjected to torture or ill-treatment by correction officers. . . . We are deeply concerned that human rights defenders and community leaders continue to be targets of attacks, of threats, harassment and constant surveillance,” Gilmore said.

Nicaragua Says Released all Considered Political Prisoners

President Daniel Ortega’s government said in a statement that it has complied with a 90-day period for releasing such prisoners as part of negotiations this spring, a period that expired Tuesday

Gilmore says people are deprived of the right to freedom of expression, including freedom of the media.  She says journalists and other media workers are threatened, harassed and censored.  She notes two prominent journalists were detained for more than five months under terrorism charges.

She urges the government of President Daniel Ortega to engage in a genuine and meaningful dialogue to address people’s legitimate demands for justice and reparation.

Nicaragua’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Carlos Ernesto Morales Davila dismisses the charges as ill-founded.  He says human rights defenders are not persecuted.  They can freely promote and defend human rights.  However, he accuses some of these groups of perverting their cause and engaging in destructive activities.

He says they are trying to destroy the constitutional order of the country and to undermine the work of the government to restore peace and reconciliation.

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New Zealand has held its first public fire-arms collection event in Christchurch Saturday as part of the government’s response to the city’s mosque shootings in March.  Ownership of the types of high-powered weapons used in the attacks that killed 51 people has been restricted.

There were long lines at a racecourse in Christchurch as gun-owners waited to hand in weapons that are now illegal.  It is the first of more than 250 buy-back events that will be held across New Zealand.  The police expect that tens of thousands of guns will be surrendered, although the exact number is unknown.

Semi-automatic weapons were outlawed following attacks on two mosques in Christchurch that left 51 people dead.  The government said the law would remove the most dangerous guns from the community.

New Zealand Announces Assault Weapons Ban in Wake of Christchurch Mass Shootings

Nearly one week after 50 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand were gunned down, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed an immediate ban on all military-style semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles.

The ban, which Prime Minister Ardern announced Thursday in Wellington, includes high-capacity magazines, which can hold multiple rounds of ammunition, and accessories that can convert ordinary rifles into fast-acting assault rifles.

Chris Cahill, from the New Zealand Police Association, which represents officers, believes the buy-back scheme will go smoothly. 

“We know the vast majority of firearms owners are law-abiding citizens,” said Cahill. “While disappointed they have to lose these sorts of firearms they understand why and they want to abide by the law.”

More than $130 million has been set aside to compensate owners of semi-automatic weapons.  The amount each individual will receive will depend on the value and condition of their guns.

But some owners are complaining that the compensation is inadequate.  There are concerns, too, that farming communities, which rely on firearms for hunting and pest control, will suffer because of the ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons.

Judicial Probe Opens Into Christchurch Mosque Shootings

A judicial inquiry into whether New Zealand’s police and intelligence services could have prevented the Christchurch mosque attacks in which 51 worshippers died began taking evidence on Monday.

The royal commission — the most powerful judicial probe available under New Zealand law — will examine events leading up to the March 15 attack in which a lone gunman opened fire on two mosques in a mass shooting that shocked the world.

“This is a critical part of our ongoing response to the attack — the commission’s findings will help to ensure such an attack never happens here again,” Prime

Nicole McKee is a spokesperson for New Zealand’s Council of Licensed Firearms Owners.

“We are a rural and farming community here at the bottom of the world and we use firearms as a tool and there is quite a few of us that hunt as well to put food on the table,” said McKee.

New Zealand authorities hope the scheme will be as successful as one in Australia that was implemented after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 on the island of Tasmania, where a lone gunman murdered 35 people. It prompted more than 700,000 weapons to be surrendered.

The Australian man accused of the Christchurch shootings has denied 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and a terrorism charge.  He is expected to go on trial next year.

The gun collection event in Christchurch will continue Sunday.

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Islamic State media operatives appear to have regrouped, at least in part, intent on showing the world that the terror organization is living up to its motto of “remaining and expanding” despite its lack of a physical caliphate.

For almost a month, the group’s core media channels have been pumping out a series of videos showing fighters pledging allegiance, or renewing their pledges, to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  

Intelligence officials and analysts say, so far, the group, also known as ISIS or by its Arabic acronym, Daesh, has produced and disseminated eight of these videos under the title, “The Best Outcome is for the Pious.”
 
The video series “aims at proving that ISIS has not been defeated and that its militants in several parts of the world remain loyal to their leaders,” a U.S. counterterrorism official told VOA.

IS media operatives issued the most recent of the videos this past Wednesday, the first-ever video from the terror group’s Turkish province.

“If you think that by weakening the Islamic State and its soldiers, that they will divert from their path or leave their jihad, you have great delusions,” said a fighter, identified as Abu Qatada al-Turki, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.

Turki further threatened Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling him an “arrogant tyrant.”

“Do not think that the swords of the soldiers of the Caliphate are far from you or from those who stand on your side,” he warned.

Previous videos highlighted fighters from IS provinces in West Africa, Sinai, East Asia (Philippines), the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Libya and Azerbaijan, another first.

Some of the videos have featured large groups of fighters. Others, like the video from Turkey and another from Azerbaijan, feature just five and three fighters, respectively.

Yet there is a sense that, in this case, size does not matter.

“Do we really expect ISIS to show us a terror training camp with 200 fighters primed and ready,” Raphael Gluck, the co-founder of Jihadoscope, a company that monitors online activity by Islamist extremists, told VOA in an email.  

“ISIS is in insurgency mode but wants to remind you, its presence and influence remains everywhere,” he added.

And while IS has long been practiced in the art of smoke and mirrors, finding ways to make itself look bigger than it really is, dismissing the latest videos could be a mistake.

“There’s no doubt that the group has a presence in these spots,” according to Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Additionally, that the videos have been disseminated by the group’s official media outlets is significant.

“It is one thing for groups to make bay’at (pledges of allegiance), but it is a much more serious affair when the highest levels of Islamic State leadership accept their allegiance,” said Jade Parker, a former counterterrorism analyst in support of U.S. military activities.

“Is it possible that Islamic State central is recognizing their external governance entities earlier in the provincial development process than they previously did? Yes,” Parker added.  “The external provinces would still need to surpass a common minimum benchmark of organizational requirements, though.”

That IS has retained such a strong degree of organizational integrity has worried U.S. intelligence officials for months, some warning that fighters fleeing the collapsing caliphate in Syria and Iraq would find refuge with IS branches in more than a dozen countries, including Turkey.

Just as concerning for analysts is that along with the videos, there has been a steady drumbeat of IS claims, celebrating attacks on government forces and civilians in places like Nigeria, Mozambique, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Tunisia.

Jihadoscope’s Raphael Gluck believes, at the least, the steady stream of propaganda is unlikely to abate.

“ISIS could possibly still spring a few surprises with more videos from Europe and the West,” he said. “From this point, it looks like ‘Wilayat Internet’ [ Internet province] is very much a thing.”

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South Sudanese opposition leader Riek Machar has agreed to a face-to-face meeting with President Salva Kiir, a step that could energize the lagging talks on a government for the civil war-wracked country.

In a letter dated July 8 and sent to President Kiir’s security adviser, Tut Gatluak, Machar said he is ready to talk with the president as long as he can freely move about in South Sudan.

The Kiir administration invited Machar to meet with Kiir after the government and opposition groups missed a May deadline to form a transitional government of national unity. The period was extended for another six months.

In the letter viewed by VOA, Machar said he will meet Kiir to discuss the challenges of implementing pre-transition activities since recent months have passed “without substantial progress.”

Norway Ambassador to South Sudan Lars Anderson said two months of the six-month extension of the pretransitional period have already come and gone with little to show.

He said the parties to last year’s peace deal must implement security arrangements immediately in order to pave the way for the formation of a unity government on time.

“There shouldn’t be more extensions. That is clear from the agreement they have, according to themselves. Now it’s fairly predictable by November there will be another form of political crisis around that. And it is really going to be up to the parties how they manage this,” Anderson told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.

Representatives of the various parties who sit on the National Pre-Transitional Committee have held several meetings on implementing the peace deal. Anderson said the international community wants Kiir and Machar to meet regularly to build trust and confidence among their supporters and to show they are working together to achieve peace.

“I think at this point it’s not about people on the ground working together because we have also seen good working cooperation between the military with the different armed groups. So it is not about people on the ground, it is about top leadership now coming together and showing their strong commitment to this,” Anderson said.

In May, shortly after the parties agreed to extend the pretransitional period, the Kiir administration pledged $100 million to fund pretransitional activities including security arrangements. It’s not clear if the government has released the money it pledged.

Machar urged Kiir to “make a special request” to the Transitional Military Council in Khartoum, where he said he’s being held under house arrest. He wants Sudanese authorities to transport him to Juba and back to Khartoum after the talks.

Stephen Par Kuol, SPLM-IO secretary for foreign relations, said Machar should be able to go wherever he wants once Machar arrives in South Sudan.

“We had been demanding as a party that our chairman should be set free to participate physically in peace dissemination in this process of peace implementation,” Kuol told South Sudan in Focus.

Paar said the two leaders will talk about how to quickly implement critical security arrangements that are behind schedule.

CTSAMM, the body monitoring the implementation of the security arrangements, warned last week that by dragging out the pretransitional activities, the parties risk failing to establish the unity government in November. CTSAMM Chairman Desta Abiche confirmed the parties have yet to assemble and integrate their forces, a key component of the security arrangements.

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Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

U.S.: Undocumented people on alert for federal immigration raids, again.
For the second time in a month, there is talk of federal raids to detain undocumented immigrants across the United States. It’s a fearful time for those who are vulnerable.

U.S.: Break in the border spike
A months-long increase in border apprehensions reversed in June, shortly after the U.S. brokered a migration deal with Mexico amid threats of a tariff. It’s also the time of year when temperatures creep up in the southwestern U.S., leading to fewer attempts to enter the country through some of the nation’s remotest, most desolate areas. But it’s too early to say whether the downward trend in border arrivals will continue.

U.S.: Questions over fast-tracking asylum procedures
As the U.S. faces a monumental backlog of asylum cases and an increase in families and unaccompanied children seeking sanctuary in the country, the Trump administration wants to speed up the process. The move worries many immigration lawyers who tell VOA that hurrying cases could jeopardize asylum-seekers’ ability to seek help or advice.

U.N.: Bachelet blasts Washington over border facilities
The UN’s top human rights official joined a chorus of condemnation over the condition of migrant detention facilities in the southwestern United States. Michelle Bachelet is one of the most high profile international voices to criticize how Washington is handling a spike in young children and families crossing the border from Mexico without authorization, overcrowding Border Patrol facilities and being held in substandard conditions. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers again pushed for more oversight of the border detention system.

CAR and Cameroon: Refusing to return home
Central African Republic refugees seeking safety in Cameroon are reluctant to return home. They aren’t confident life will be better if they go back, either in terms of security, work or education.

Bangladesh and Burma: Monsoon mayhem
The U.N. relocated thousands of refugees living in a Bangladeshi camp after a monsoon brought heavy rains through Cox’s Bazar, triggering dozens of landslides and destroying hundreds of shelters. The camp primarily houses Burmese refugees, many from the Rohingya community.

Libya: Detainees march for help, freedom
People detained at a Tripoli facility protested and pleaded for aid organizations to relocate them, in the wake of a recent bombing that killed 53. VOA’s Heather Murdock spoke with one detainee. 

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Federal prosecutors say a Pennsylvania man sexually molested four teenage girls at a Kenyan orphanage he founded with a church’s help.

U.S. Attorney William McSwain announced charges Friday against 60-year-old Gregory Dow of Lancaster, hours after Dow was taken into custody.

McSwain says Dow fled Kenya in September 2017 after being accused in that country of sexual abuse of girls at the Dow Family Children’s Home in Boito, Kenya.

A tipster contacted the Lancaster County prosecutors’ office last year. That started an investigation that produced the new charges that he violated a U.S. law against sexual contact with minors in foreign countries.

Dow told the LNP newspaper this year that he had not done anything wrong.

He is expected to appear in federal court in Philadelphia on Friday.

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Egypt’s legendary movie critic and film historian Youssef Cherif Rizkallah, the man who helped popularize Hollywood movie reviews on Egyptian and Middle East televisions, died Friday.

His death comes two days after revealing he had kidney problems. He was 76.

The famed broadcast journalist, best known as Egypt’s mobile movie encyclopedia, was an invaluable film resource for Arab media. He wrote thousands of movie reviews for Egyptian and Arab newspapers, magazines, radio and TV shows.

Rizkallah, who prepared and co-hosted three iconic and popular movie review shows on Egyptian television, including, Oscar, Telecinema, and The Magic Lantern, started his career as a news editor with the Egyptian TV News in the 1960s after graduating with a political science degree at Cairo University. In the 1980s, he hosted a show that introduced Hollywood stars to Egyptian and Arab audiences.

The Jesuit-educated movie critic, Rizkallah, was drawn most in his early career to romance and classical storytelling of Hollywood greats like Michael Curtiz, David Lean, Blake Edwards, Richard Attenborough, Garry Marshall, and Rob Reiner.  

He introduced several Hollywood stars via satellite on Egyptian televisions, including actress Meryl Streep and American film actor and director Peter Bogdanovich. 
 

“It is a sheer joy for me to invite Hollywood stars to Egypt, watch their movies and write about them,” he once said. He helped establish more than 40 years ago the Cairo International Film Festival, where many colleagues describe him as a perceptive and world movie guide.

Multi-lingual Rizkallah won several awards for film criticism over the past 20 years, during which he travelled the world to cover film festivals, including Cannes in France, where he was a frequent guest critic. He was also granted The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, an Order of France.

Rizkallah was buried Friday in Cairo. He is survived by his wife Mervat el-Ebiary, the daughter of a famed screenplay writer, and their two sons – Ahmed and Karim.

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Women in the Syrian city of Raqqa say their lives have changed dramatically after U.S.-backed forces freed their city from the Islamic State terror group.
…

Women in the Syrian city of Raqqa say their lifestyle drastically changed after U.S.-backed forces freed their city from the Islamic State terror group.

The Syrian Democratic Forces liberated the city in October 2017. Since then, Raqqa residents have been determined to bring a sense of normalcy back to their city, which was once the de facto capital of IS’s self-proclaimed caliphate. 

Throughout the partially restored market in downtown Raqqa, shops selling women’s clothing and cosmetics now openly showcase their merchandise, something unthinkable during IS rule.

“Now, I can exhibit anything I want in front of my store,” said a 37-year-old man who owns a women’s boutique.  

“When Daesh was here, we had to hide things like revealing clothes and lingerie in the back of the store. Men couldn’t sell these things to women, so we had to hire women to sell to other women,” he told VOA, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. 

Under IS rule, strict social codes were imposed on the local population. Men and women who were not related weren’t allowed to interact. 

Women, in particular, were required to wear black dresses covering their entire bodies and faces. Those who disobeyed received harsh punishments, including imprisonment and flogging.

“I remember how my friend’s older sister was humiliated on the street by two female IS members because they thought her face wasn’t covered properly,” said a 21-year-old woman who was a teenager when IS ruled Raqqa. She declined to be identified for security reasons. 

The terror group had established a vice police force, locally known as al-Hisbah, whose sole mission was to implement Islamic laws and persecute those who did not adhere to them. 

“There is no comparison between now and then,” said Khitam al-Musa, 30, of Raqqa.

“At least now, I can walk on the street freely. I can buy what I want. In the past, I could have been arrested for the silliest reason,” she told VOA. “I was taken to interrogation a few times because I painted my fingernails and wore open-toe sandals. It was unbearable to be a woman under [IS] rule.” 

The SDF, a Kurdish-led military alliance that has been an effective partner of the United States in the fight against IS, has established a progressive governing system in areas under its control in northeast Syria. 

Women’s rights and gender equality are the basis of SDF’s newly formed entity, SDF officials claim. 

“What the SDF has offered is a very unique alternative form of governance not only compared to IS’s style, but also compared to the Syrian regime,” said Sadradeen Kinno, a Syrian researcher who closely follows Islamic militancy in the war-torn country. 

Kinno told VOA that while residents in Raqqa and other areas recently liberated from IS enjoy the liberty the SDF offers, it would take a long time before the group could enforce its progressive ideas among a largely conservative population.

“Individual freedoms are important for women and people in general, especially if you’ve just experienced life under one of the most oppressive groups in the world,” he said. “But it will certainly be a major challenge for the SDF to find a receptive population for its broader gender democracy.”  

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