The lander module from India’s moon mission was located on the lunar surface on Sunday, one day after it lost contact with the space station, and efforts are underway to try to establish contact with it, the head of the nation’s space agency said.

The Press Trust of India news agency cited Indian Space and Research Organization chairman K. Sivan as saying cameras from the moon mission’s orbiter had located the lander. “It must have been a hard landing,” PTI quoted Sivan as saying.

ISRO officials could not be reached for comment.

The space agency said it lost touch with the Vikram lunar lander on Saturday as it made its final approach to the moon’s south pole to deploy a rover to search for signs of water.

A successful landing would have made India just the fourth country to land a vessel on the lunar surface, and only the third to operate a robotic rover there.

The space agency said Saturday that the lander’s descent was normal until 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the lunar surface.

The roughly $140 million mission, known as Chandrayaan-2, was intended to study permanently shadowed moon craters that are thought to contain water deposits that were confirmed by the Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008.

The latest mission lifted off on July 22 from the Satish Dhawan space center in Sriharikota, an island off the coast of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

After its launch, Chandrayaan-2 spent several weeks making its way toward the moon, ultimately entering lunar orbit on Aug. 20.

The Vikram lander separated from the mission’s orbiter on Sept. 2 and began a series of braking maneuvers to lower its orbit and ready itself for landing.

Only three nations – the United States, the former Soviet Union and China – have landed a spacecraft on the moon.

 

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Bianca Andreescu displayed the same brand of big-serving, big-hitting, in-your-face tennis that Serena Williams usually does. 
 
And now the 19-year-old from Canada is a Grand Slam champion, earning her first such title while preventing Williams from collecting a record-tying 24th. 
 
Andreescu took charge early in the U.S. Open final, going up by a set and two breaks, then held off a late charge by Williams to win 6-3, 7-5 for the championship Saturday night. 
 
“Being able to play on this stage against Serena, a true legend in this sport, is amazing,” said Andreescu, who was appearing in her first major final, while Williams was in her 33rd. “Oh, man, it wasn’t easy at all.” 
 
This is the second year in a row that Williams has lost in the final at Flushing Meadows. This one had none of the controversy of 2018, when she got into an extended argument with the chair umpire while being beaten by Naomi Osaka.   

Still trails Court
 
Williams has now been the runner-up at four of the seven majors she has entered since returning to the tour after having a baby two years ago. The 37-year-old American remains stuck on 23 Grand Slam singles titles, one shy of Margaret Court’s mark for the most in history. 
 
“I’m just so proud that I’m out here and competing at this level. My team has been so supportive through all the ups and downs and downs and downs and downs,” Williams said. “Hopefully, we’ll have some ups soon.” 
 
Andreescu, the first player from Canada to win a major singles title, went up 5-1 in the second set and served for the victory there, even holding a match point at 40-30. But Williams erased that with a forehand return winner off a 105-mph serve. 
 
That launched a four-game run for Williams, who broke Andreescu again to make it 5-all. 
 
“I was just fighting at that point,” said Williams, a six-time U.S. Open champion. “Just trying to stay out there a little bit longer.” 
 
The Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd was overwhelmingly supporting Williams, not surprisingly, and spectators got so loud as she tried to put together a successful comeback that Andreescu covered her ears with her hands after one point. 
 
“I just tried to block everything out,” Andreescu said afterward. “I’m just glad with how I managed, really.” 
 
Suddenly, this was a contest. 
 
Or so it seemed. 

Not Williams’ best
 
But as well as Andreescu handled everything — herself, her far-more-experienced and successful opponent, and even the moment — Williams was far from her best, especially while serving. She got broken for the sixth time in the final game. 
 
This was the largest age gap in a Grand Slam final, and it came almost exactly 20 years to the day since Williams won the U.S. Open for her first major title in 1999, a year before Andreescu was born. 
 
Andreescu is the first woman to win the trophy at Flushing Meadows in her main-draw tournament debut in the Open era, which started in 1968 when professionals were allowed into Grand Slam tournaments. She has participated in only four majors in her brief career. 

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John Walker of VOA’s Afghanistan service contributed to this report. 

WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Donald Trump says he has called off secret talks that were to be held Sunday at Camp David with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and “major Taliban leaders.” 

Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019

Trump, in a series of Saturday evening tweets, explained he immediately canceled plans for the meeting at the presidential retreat in the state of Maryland following a car bomb blast in Kabul that killed 12 people, including an American soldier.

Trump said the Taliban carried out the attack “in order to build false leverage.”

The president added that if the Taliban “cannot agree to a cease-fire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then it probably doesn’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight.”

Negotiations to reach a peace agreement have been underway for months between U.S. diplomats and the Taliban, who have rejected calls for a cease-fire.

Stunning announcement

Trump’s tweeted revelation of the planned secret talks and his cancellation of them stunned analysts.

“For months, U.S. negotiators had worked in painstaking fashion to get a deal. They were on the cusp of one. And now, seemingly, a single Trump tweet has yanked the rug from under them,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia program and South Asia senior associate at The Wilson Center.

Kugelman tells VOA he does not think that talks are completely dead.

“Trump is a savvy negotiator and this may well be a ploy of sorts, meant to intimidate the Taliban and get it to scale down violence and come back to the negotiating table in a weaker position,” he said.

A peace deal, which would be expected to see the withdrawal of 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, could end the longest war in U.S. history.

It is estimated 150,000 people — including 40,000 civilians — have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in Kabul for providing refuge to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, who were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Fighters for the Taliban launched fresh attacks on Kabul and two other cities over the past week. The group now controls more territory in Afghanistan than at any other time since 2001.

U.S. officials contacted by VOA following the president’s tweet declined to comment.

The American diplomat leading the effort to reach an accord, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Aug. 31, “We are at the threshold of an agreement that will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honorable and sustainable peace, and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies or any other country.”

A draft agreement between the American and Taliban negotiators was reached days ago, but a full peace pact hinges on subsequent intra-Afghan talks.

It was known before Trump’s tweets that Ghani had scheduled and abruptly postponed a trip Saturday to the United States.

Analysts in Kabul had told VOA that it was a signal that the government there was not happy with the U.S.-Taliban peace deal and that there were differences in finding common ground on the process between Kabul and Washington.

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China urged U.S.-led foreign troops Saturday to withdraw from Afghanistan in an “orderly and responsible” manner if a prospective peace deal is signed with the Islamist Taliban to end the 18-year war.

U.S. negotiators are in the final stage of their yearlong bilateral dialogue with the insurgent group. The peace process, being hosted by Qatar, could end America’s longest overseas military intervention.

“We call on the United States and the Taliban to continue with the negotiations and to implement the agreement after it is signed,” visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in neighboring Pakistan.

The top Chinese diplomat spoke after attending a trilateral dialogue with Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani and their host and Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

“In particular, we call on them [the U.S. and Taliban] to make good on their commitments regarding the troop drawdown and counterterrorism efforts so that the seeds of peace can be sown and take root,” Wang said. He reiterated China’s resolve to increase its economic and political engagement with Afghanistan to help in rebuilding efforts there.

Draft framework agreement ‘in principle’

U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad said Monday that he had reached “in principle” a draft framework agreement with the Taliban. The document outlines a foreign troop drawdown timetable in return for Taliban assurances they will not harbor transnational terrorist groups that threaten U.S. and allied nations.

Khalilzad, however, said the agreement would have to be reviewed and approved by U.S. President Donald Trump before it was signed.

Khalilzad explained the deal would require 5,000 American forces to immediately withdraw from five Afghan bases within the first 135 days, but he did not discuss the fate of the residual U.S. military force of roughly 8,600 service members.

Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen told VOA this week, without elaborating, that all U.S. troops and their NATO allies would have to leave Afghanistan under the deal. Some reports said that could happen by the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

China’s Wang, however, cautioned against a hasty foreign troop withdrawal.

“The situation in Afghanistan is now at a critical stage. The withdrawal of foreign troops needs to be conducted in an orderly and responsible manner in order to ensure the smooth transition of the situation in Afghanistan,” Wang said.

Beijing’s increased regional involvement stems from concerns that fugitive anti-China militants could exploit continued instability in the neighboring country to threaten fragile security in western Chinese border regions.

Khalilzad has said the Taliban would also be bound under the deal to engage in peace negotiations with Afghan officials and other members of the turmoil-ridden Afghan society to discuss a cease-fire and the country’s political future.

But the Taliban refuse to engage in direct talks with the Afghan government, rejecting it as an American puppet.

Urged engagement

Wang supported U.S. calls for the insurgents to commit themselves to engaging in talks with government officials and other Afghan stakeholders to build a framework for intra-Afghan negotiations on a political arrangement that is acceptable to all parties in the event of foreign troop drawdown.

Afghanistan’s Rabbani, while addressing reporters, reiterated Kabul’s worries that the framework agreement Washington has reached with the Taliban could encourage the insurgents to try to militarily seize control of power if foreign forces leave the country.

“As the peace efforts continue, the Taliban have yet to show genuine commitment to peace. This is manifested by their decision to continue terrorist attacks, killing innocent Afghans from all walks of life on a daily basis,” Rabbani said.

The Taliban have intensified attacks across the country in recent days, killing scores of Afghan forces and bringing more territory under their control. The insurgents maintain that cessation of hostilities is not being discussed with the U.S., saying the issue will be on the agenda when intra-Afghan negotiations begin as an outcome of the deal with Washington.

China established the trilateral dialogue forum in 2017 with a mission to ease tensions between its two neighbors, Afghanistan and Pakistan, through increased bilateral security, political and economic cooperation. The tensions stem from long-running Afghan allegations that the Taliban leadership directs insurgent activities from alleged sanctuaries on Pakistani soil.

Islamabad rejects the charges, saying for the past decade its security forces have eliminated all militant infrastructures on the Pakistani side of the long, porous Afghan border. Pakistan also takes credit for arranging the ongoing U.S.-Taliban dialogue.

Pakistan’s Qureshi said Saturday that his country hoped the framework agreement being finalized between the U.S. and Taliban would lead to intra-Afghan negotiations for a sustainable and durable peace.

“In order for Pakistan to be peaceful, Afghanistan has to be peaceful,” Qureshi said. “We have undertaken serious [security] operations to clear our areas from terrorist activity … and there is international recognition for it.”

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Former top officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are assailing the agency for undermining its weather forecasters as it defends President Donald Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian had threatened Alabama. 
 
They say NOAA’s action risks the credibility of the nation’s weather and science agency and may even risk lives. 
 
The critics served both Republican and Democratic presidents. Among them are four former top NOAA officials and a former disaster response chief. 
 
On Friday, a NOAA statement from an anonymous spokesperson lent support to Trump’s warning days earlier that Alabama faced danger from Dorian. Alabama had never been included in official hurricane advisories and his information was outdated. 
 
The statement undermined a National Weather Service tweet from Sunday that had said Alabama would see no impact from Dorian. 

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Thousands of displaced people are living in “rapidly deteriorating” conditions in the worst-hit parts of the Bahamas six days after Hurricane Dorian made landfall, the U.N. World Food Program warned Saturday. 
 
The warning came as aid groups rushed emergency aid to the storm-ravaged islands and officials warned that an official death toll of 43 was likely to spike as the number of missing among the archipelago nation’s 400,000 residents became clear. 
 
Even as the aid ships and aircraft headed in, thousands fled the devastation, some abandoning hard-hit Great Abaco Island to seek safety in the capital, Nassau, and others heading to Florida for shelter, supplies and perhaps jobs. 
 
Ninety percent of the homes, buildings and infrastructure in Marsh Harbour, where Dorian rampaged for almost two full days as one of the strongest Caribbean hurricanes on record, were damaged, the WFP said. It noted that thousands of people were living in a government building, a medical center and an Anglican church that survived the storms, but had little to no access to water, power and sanitary facilities. 

“The needs remain enormous,” WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel said in an email Saturday. “Evacuations are slowly taking place by ferry, as hundreds of residents reportedly flee daily.” 
 
One of those who fled Abaco was Isaiah Johnson, 19, who staying in a hotel in Nassau with his mother and three sisters after the storm’s 200-mph (320-kph) winds destroyed their homes. 
 
A wealthy friend had paid for a two-week stay, but after that it was unclear where they would go. His mother was already searching for work in the United States, Johnson said, reckoning that jobs would be hard to find in Nassau. 
 
“Two weeks might be enough time for me to figure things out,” Johnson said  Saturday. “For my mom, I’m not so sure.” The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were shipping in relief supplies and had already rescued 290 people from isolated areas in the islands hard-hit by the storm. 
 
About 70,000 people needed food and shelter, the WFP estimated, and private forecasters estimated that $3 billion in insured property had been destroyed or damaged in the Caribbean. 
 
Dorian also pounded parts of North Carolina’s Outer Banks Islands on Friday and it continued to push northward along the U.S. Atlantic coast on Saturday. 
 
‘Staggering’ number of bodies
 
The medical chief of staff at Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau said two refrigerated, 40-foot trucks would be needed to hold the “staggering” number of bodies that were expected to be found. “We’ve ordered lots of body bags,” said Dr. Caroline Burnett-Garraway. 
 
The American Red Cross said it had committed an initial $2 million help the Bahamas recover from the hurricane, with food, water and shelter and other necessities. 
 
“Our relief operation is growing, but we are also facing serious challenges in terms of delivering aid,” Red Cross spokeswoman Jennifer Eli said. “Even search-and-rescue choppers haven’t been able to reach some people because there’s no place to land. These challenges are affecting everyone.” 
 
Near an area called The Mudd in Marsh Harbour, a commercial hub, a Reuters witness reported most houses leveled, the body of a man lying near a main street and dead dogs floating in water. 

Some residents were leaving the area with meager possessions, while others were determined to remain. 
 

Relief groups were focusing on getting doctors, nurses and medical supplies into the hardest-hit areas and helping survivors get food and safe drinking water. 
 
The risk of outbreaks of diarrhea and waterborne diseases was high as drinking water might be tainted with sewage, according to the Pan American Health Organization. 
 
Travis Newton, a 32-year-old carpenter who survived the storm in Marsh Harbour, said he arrived in Nassau on Saturday morning with his family, trying to find a safe place to live. 
 
He said residents of the town foraged for food and water in the wreckage of damaged stores after the storm passed. “We had to survive. We had to make it happen. We had to find food, water. Where we were aid couldn’t get to us. We had to find what we could from the damaged stores,” Newton said. “Everybody needs to get out of that place.” 

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People around the world are living longer according to the World Health Organization.  By 2020 there will be more people who are 60 or older than children younger than 5. Many adult children are painfully seeing their parents experience cognitive decline and symptoms of dementia.  What if virtual reality, or VR, can help prevent or delay the onset of cognitive decline?  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee visits one VR lab at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles with the details.
 

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A senior Iranian nuclear official said Saturday that the clock was ticking for other parties to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal and that it had the capacity to raise its uranium enrichment beyond 20%, although it had no plans to do so for the time being.

“We have started lifting limitations on our Research and Development imposed by the deal … it will include development of more rapid and advanced centrifuges … all these steps are reversible if the other side fulfills its promises,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency, said in a televised news conference.

“The U.N. nuclear watchdog has been informed about our new nuclear steps and it still has access to our nuclear sites.”
 

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Anyone who has tried booking interesting and affordable accommodations in New York City knows how difficult it is. Renting a room for less than $30 a night sounds impossible. But it’s true, even if the accommodations are a bit… unconventional. Elena Wolf has the story narrated by Anna Rice. 
 

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An Iraqi resort is welcoming visitors again after years of war, terrorism and chaos kept families away. Habbaniya Lake was once one of Iraq’s most popular tourist destinations. Now, managers say they plan to restore it in the next couple of years. VOA’s Jim Randle narrates our report.
 

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Hurricane Dorian has weakened as it hits the U.S. southeastern coast Friday, lashing North Carolina, southeast Virginia and parts of New England with torrential rain, flooding and strong winds. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump has created a potential firestorm of his own, by continuing to insist he was right when he said that Alabama was also in the storm’s path earlier this week, despite evidence that it wasn’t. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
 

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 A new U.S. Congress opened in Washington on January 3 with a historic class of new legislators, many without political experience. The racially diverse class has set some records, including the most women elected to Congress, the first Native American and Muslim women, the first U.S. Army Green Beret. Voice of America is following the challenges these lawmakers will face in their first year. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to two new U.S. representatives who are “Climbing the Hill.”

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Officials said Friday Taliban militants conducted an overnight attack on the western Afghan city of Farah, the capital of Farah province.

There was no immediate word about casualties among Afghan forces or the Taliban.

On Thursday, the NATO-led military alliance said an American soldier and a Romanian soldier were killed “in action”  in Kabul, Afghanistan, raising the number of U.S. military fatalities to 16 this year.

The Resolute Support mission did not immediately disclose additional details, citing policy restrictions.

The announcement came hours after the Taliban took responsibility for a suicide car bombing in the city that the insurgent group claims killed foreign and local military personnel.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi confirmed in a statement the blast killed a least 10 people and injured 42 others. He asserted all the victims were civilians.

The bombing occurred in an area of downtown Kabul that houses NATO’s headquarters, the U.S. embassy and the office of the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS). The blast destroyed several vehicles and nearby shops.

Meanwhile, intensifying public outrage at an overnight security operation conducted by NDS forces in eastern Afghanistan that killed four civilians prompted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Thursday to dismiss the NDS chief.

Officials and witnesses said the slain men were brothers, one of them a government employee, who became the target of a Wednesday night security operation against a suspected Islamic State hideout in the city of Jalalabad.

The NDS in a statement took credit for the raid, saying these brothers were IS “facilitators.” In recent months, the spy agency has been increasingly blamed for conducting raids against civilian homes and killing people with impunity in the name of fighting terrorism.

“As a responsible state, we have zero tolerance for civilian casualties. I have regretfully accepted the resignation of NDS chief, Mr. Stanikzai who had had success in other areas of his work,” Ghani said in a statement. “The attorney general has been ordered to investigate the incident immediately to bring the perpetrators to justice,” the president said.

The Taliban said they also were behind Thursday’s car bomb attack near a security meeting of local and foreign personnel in the eastern Logar province. Afghan officials confirmed the killing of four civilians in that attack, saying it also injured 11 others.

The Taliban continues to launch deadly attacks even as its leaders are negotiating a deal with the U.S. on a foreign troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in return for security assurances.

There are roughly 14,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in the country, along with several thousand NATO allies there to train, advise and assist embattled Afghan security forces battling the Taliban.

The insurgent group also took credit for Monday’s suicide bombing on a compound in another part of Kabul housing international organizations and offices of diplomats. That attack killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 100 others.

Afghan media reported at least eight foreigners were among the dead, including a staff member at Romania’s embassy in the country.

Worries about US-Taliban deal

U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad told an Afghan television station on Monday his team of negotiators have drawn up a draft framework agreement that, if approved by President Donald Trump, would allow 5,000 American troops to leave five military bases in the country within 135 days. 

Khalilzad, however, did not discuss whether the prospective deal with the Taliban has outlined the drawdown timeline for the roughly 8,600 residual U.S. forces.

After concluding the ninth round in his yearlong dialogue with the insurgent negotiators in Qatar last Sunday, Khalilzad traveled to Kabul where he shared details of the draft agreement with President Ghani to seek his observations before it is firmed up and signed.

A top Afghan presidential aide, Waheed Omar, told reporters Thursday the government has formally shared its reservations and concerns with U.S. officials about the draft agreement.

Omar would not outline exactly what the concerns were, but he said the government “wishes to reach a permanent and not temporary peace that would, God forbid, result in instability or another war” in Afghanistan.

Khalilzad has said the deal would require the Taliban to engage in intra-Afghan talks to discuss a permanent cease-fire and future power-sharing settlement.

 

 

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WAGGA WAGGA, Australia — After the horrors of fleeing to Sinjar Mountain in northern Iraq to escape Islamic State fighters in 2014, several hundred Yazidi refugees are starting new lives in the Australian outback. 

Members of the minority religious group have been resettled in a handful of regional centers, like Wagga Wagga, to relieve pressure on refugee services in Australia’s main cities.

Wagga Wagga is proud of its country roots. It is a farming and transport hub halfway between Sydney and Melbourne.

Yazidis settling in

Several hundred Yazidis are joining others here who fled persecution in Africa, Myanmar and Afghanistan.

Layla explains how she fled to Sinjar Mountain.

“In Iraq, ISIS kill lots of men and kill the children. Very, very hard story for Yazidi in Iraq. The ISIS came. We go to the mountain. With my whole family we lived in [the] mountain. Not eat, not have any water, not eating. After five days by walk[ing] we go to Kurdistan,” she said.

Layla came to Australia with her husband and young child. Earlier this year, she was reunited with relatives she had to leave behind in Iraq.

“After my family all come to here, now it is easier for me here. I am very happy in Australia because my whole family [is] here. We [are] all safe in Australia. I love Australia,” she said.

The refugees have hope for the future.

“I am Shahab and I am here about three months. [I] come from Iraq, directly from Iraq to Australia,” she said.

Shahab is a former university teacher who spent more than five years in a camp after fleeing Islamic militants.

“We are eight people and we live in the one tent, and also the tent was made by like nylon. So if it is a winter, it was very, very cold. If it is summer it is very hot,” she said. “I want to be a university teacher, a good university teacher maybe in the future. My sister wants to be a doctor.”

A new life in the outback

Starting a new life in the suburbs of an outback city is not easy. Language is a problem, but there is a healthy dose of neighborly goodwill from Ian Lockwood, who lives nearby.

“Iraqi people moved in two doors from me and I went up and introduced myself because I noticed no people were going there, and I help and do whatever I can,” he said.

“People do not realize what these people have been through,” he continued. “If you spent a couple of weeks with them you’d find out. Very, very hard. Harsh. Because I didn’t realize all this stuff was going on.”

Belinda Crane is the head of the local Multicultural Council. She says refugees are mostly welcomed in Wagga Wagga, although there is occasional racism.

“I sort of say to families, you know, they said, you know, occasionally they might have someone yell out something to them in the car. But they don’t feel unsafe about that. They say it is few and far between but they have experienced people sort of going, you know, go back to where you come from or whatever,” Crane said.

Helping relatives back home

Several thousand refugees have helped to revitalize Wagga, a city of about 70,000 people.

Yazidis held a rally in Wagga urging Australia to help relatives stuck in camps back home. Haji Gundor, a 21-year-old refugee, is pleading for justice.

“Yazidi people had everything; money, food, house, family, so they want to live in Iraq but they want justice to stop what is happening to them,” Gundor said.

Life in Australia for Yazidis does come at a cost. For Adlan Osman and her 14-year-old son Aeham, there is guilt that they are safe, while others are not.

Osman said that Australia is good, but they worry about the people in Iraq a lot. “It makes it very difficult for us,” she said.

Almost 3,000 Yazidis have been granted visas under Australia’s humanitarian program. Campaigners are urging the government to give refuge to many more.
 

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Maurice, a French rooster, now has a legal victory to crow about. 
 
A court in Rochefort in western France on Thursday rejected complaints by Maurice’s neighbors that he was a nuisance and made too much noise. 
 
The rooster’s owner, Corrine Fesseau, who lives in the village of Saint-Pierre-d’Oléron, was sued by neighbors who claimed Maurice’s crowing had made their holidays stressful. 
 
Fesseau made several attempts to silence the rooster, including placing black sheets around his coop to trick him into thinking that morning had not yet broken.  

Ultimately, the judge found that Maurice, being a rooster, had a right to crow. 
 
“This rooster was not being unbearable,” Julien Papineau, Fesseau’s attorney, said. “He was just being himself.”   

The court also awarded Fesseau $1,100 in damages. 

Maurice’s case made headlines worldwide as an example of urbanites moving to rural areas and trying to change them. 
 
The mayor of Maurice’s hometown called the case the “height of intolerance.” 
 
In May, Bruno Dionis, mayor of the southwestern village of Gajac, wrote an open letter to French lawmakers defending the rights of church bells to ring, cows to moo and donkeys to bray throughout rural France. Such noises are part of “the rhythm of the countryside and things that make it what it is, which are as dear as they are simple,” Dionis wrote, who also asked the government to add the sounds to France’s heritage list. 

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Democratic presidential candidates are flocking to Silicon Valley but this time it’s different. Once candidates wooed wealthy tech executives at Facebook, Google and other mega companies. Some now attack companies over issues such as data privacy, antitrust and worker rights. Michelle Quinn looked at how this election season reflects the changing views of tech across the United States.
 

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Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has a book deal.

St. Martin’s Press announced Thursday that her memoir will come out in Fall 2020. Sanders will write about her time in the Trump administration, “including the most dramatic and challenging moments,” and will also describe balancing an “all-consuming job” with raising a family.
 
The memoir is currently untitled.

The book’s timing will likely add to speculation that Sanders is planning a run for governor in Arkansas. Her father, Mike Huckabee, served as the state’s governor from 1996-2007.

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Villagers near Meiganga, a town in northern Cameroon, are protesting against Chinese gold miners for allegedly ruining their land. The villagers say they are poorer than before the Chinese arrived, with their farms and forests now destroyed.  

Area cattle ranchers and farmers say that if nothing is done to save them from Chinese miners, famine may strike their locality soon. 

Their spokesman, rancher Mamoudu Poro, 54, says the miners destroy farms and do not bother to cover holes and trenches they dig on roads and ranches before leaving. He says they want the Chinese to build the roads they destroyed and fill the trenches they dug, give them electricity and at least a school and a market before leaving. 

Until 2014, Meiganga and surrounding villages cultivated maize, beans and groundnuts and produced cattle for markets in Cameroon, Nigeria and the Central African Republic. 
 
Then, 300 new mining sites producing gold, zinc, nickel and other materials were discovered in the region.  Among the explorers were Chinese companies. 
 
More than a hundred of the companies’ miners work in and around Meiganga. They use tractors and equipment that clean stones and sift soil, allowing them to detect gold faster than locals who use manual tools.  Locals are paid about $2 per day to work at the Chinese mining sites. 
 
Cameroon’s minister of mines, Gabriel Dodo Ndoke, says the complaints of the villagers are legitimate. He says he has asked the companies to respect the terms of their contract with the government.  

Ndoke says the population suffers as a result of environmental degradation and does not benefit as expected because their mineral resources are exploited in a disorganized manner. He says he has given instructions to all exploitation companies to make sure they respect environmental laws and stop destroying farms and cattle ranches, which for now are the only sources of earnings for the people of the area. 
 
Officials with the China Mining Company in Meiganga declined to be interviewed about the allegations.  However, company official Hu Long said the firm has assisted communities by providing aid to hospitals and building or refurbishing schools when solicited.  He says the company also employs about 100 youths.  

This is not the first time Cameroonian villagers have protested against alleged exploitation by the Chinese.  In 2016, residents of eastern Cameroon had conflicts with small-scale Chinese gold miners who had been there for six years. The local miners said the Chinese had taken away their livelihoods and were not living up to promises to develop the area. 
 
Cameroon has not officially announced how much it gains from the mining business but says it contributes a significant amount to the country’s gross domestic product. 

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The Botswana government has issued a travel warning to its citizens over the growing unrest in South Africa. The attacks, targeting foreign nationals in South Africa, are likely to affect Botswana, which is dependent on its neighbor for food imports and petroleum products. 

Mpho Keitumetse is a cross-border trader who buys second-hand clothes in Johannesburg, for resale in her home country, Botswana.

However, her business has come to a standstill since attacks targeting foreign nationals in South Africa broke out last week.

Keitumetse has been forced to stay home until the situation improves.

“The attacks in South Africa are really bad for business,” Keitumetse said. “They are affecting us all. As neighboring countries, we do business together. Ever since these attacks started, I have not been able to deliver on my business because I buy my stock from South Africa. Everything has been put on hold, for how long I don’t know.”

While Botswana immigration officials say it has been business as usual at entry points, taxi operators are not taking chances, with some, like Mompati Kobe, grounding their fleet.

Kobe argues it is too risky to drive to Johannesburg where most of the attacks have occurred.

“These unrests have really affected us,” Kobe said. “It is now difficult to take our vehicles there because you never know, they might burn them. Some of the vehicles are not insured. For now, we have grounded our services until the situation calms down.”

Botswana imports two-thirds of its goods from South Africa, which includes petroleum products. While the country has allayed fears of looming fuel shortages, fuel truck drivers are not prepared to risk their lives by crossing into South Africa.

Albert Phiri, a Zambian truck driver who works for a South African fuel company, has been stuck in Botswana since the start of the week, afraid of driving back to Johannesburg.

“Our trucks are grounded, I have been at the border since the start of the week,” Phiri said. “We can’t cross for fear of violence. I don’t even know when I will cross to South Africa, I fear for my life, but at the same time, I still want to keep my job.”

Gaborone-based political analyst Lawrence Ookeditse says all affected countries should voice their concerns to the South African government and bring back their emissaries if necessary.

“In the event that the South Africans are not responding adequately, then they (affected countries) need to immediately consider all options, and all options including recalling their envoys or ambassadors,” Ookeditse said.

While Botswana issued a warning to citizens about traveling to South Africa, the country’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, flew to Cape Town on Tuesday for the World Economic Forum on Africa.

Leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Rwanda have pulled out of the meeting, amid concerns over the deteriorating situation.

 

 

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Nigeria will experience torrential downpours and massive flooding this month, the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency warns.

Nigeria is approaching the peak of its rainy season, and flooding is expected to hit 15 out of its 36 states this month. The agency has issued a red alert because of above-normal water levels on the country’s two largest rivers, the Benue and the Niger.

In August, many communities along the rivers were cut off due to collapsed bridges and impassable roads. Four students were killed when a pedestrian bridge fell at a university in the northern region.

With thousands of houses and hectares of farmland and produce destroyed along with schools and shops, the economic impact of this year’sflooding is expected to be high. The country’s emergency management agency is stepping in to distribute items like cement bags, blankets and hygiene products.

Peter Odjugo, a professor of geography at Nigeria’s University of Benin, works with the Nigerian Meteorological Society. He has been tracking the extreme weather patterns and says the government has repeatedly failed to take preemptive measures to reduce the impact of flooding.

“What they prefer doing or what they are doing now is services after the impact, rather than preventing it from occurring,” he said.

Odjugo suggests that the silt be removed from the rivers to increase the volume of water they can hold. He also recommends that town planners enforce regulation on where buildings are constructed, saying this is a glaring weak spot across the country.

City regulators look out for buildings being constructed near waterways. Such buildings are often marked with an X, designating an order to stop construction work.

Stella Ojeme, the director for information in the Federal Capital Territory Administration, says that even in the nation’s capital ofAbuja, enforcing building codes is a challenge.

“Most of our people will go, buy white paint, paint off the stop work mark,” she said. “First of all, you find people [building] where they shouldn’t build. You find people build on flood plains. You find some people dump their refuse in the gutter.”

Odjugo says climate change is making a real impact in Nigeria, but the government has not made the issue a priority.

Additional challenges

Additionally, the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency says its weather data collection equipment is being vandalized and stolen.

Clement Eze, the agency’s director general, spoke at a workshop last month, asking the public to help stop the illegal activity, as it is hindering the agency’s ability to forecast extreme weather.

“We can no longer take readings, maybe accumulated or about a week or two,” he said. “Or if there are no resources, it can even take more than six months before we can go back and replenish or repair and this equipment is imported from outside Nigeria.”

During Nigeria’s worst flooding in 2012, the Niger River reached a record high level of 12.84 meters. Two million Nigerians were forced from their homes and 363 people were killed, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.

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The government on Thursday ordered Michigan State University to make sweeping changes and pay a $4.5 million fine after determining that it failed to adequately respond to sexual assault complaints against Larry Nassar, a former campus sports doctor who molested elite gymnasts and other female athletes.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced the penalty after the conclusion of two federal investigations. She said Nassar’s actions were “disgusting and unimaginable” and that the university’s response fit the same description.

“Too many people in power knew about the behaviors and the complaints and yet the predators continued on the payroll and abused even more students,” DeVos said in a call with reporters. “This must not happen again, there or anywhere else.”

The fine is the largest levied under the Clery Act , a federal law that requires colleges to collect data on campus crime and notify students of threats. The previous largest fine, $2.4 million, was imposed in 2016 against Pennsylvania State University over its handling of sexual misconduct involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

The department’s investigation concluded that Michigan State violated several key parts of the Clery Act along with Title IX, a federal law forbidding discrimination based on gender in education.

In response, the school announced the resignation of its chief academic officer, Provost June Youatt.

President Samuel Stanley Jr. said his predecessor, Lou Anna Simon, and Youatt “failed to take appropriate action,” especially with regard to William Strampel, a medical school dean and Nassar’s boss, who faced his own harassment allegations.

“In my effort to build a safe and caring campus, we must have a culture of accountability,” said Stanley, who took office on Aug. 1.

The government’s investigation found Michigan State violated law by failing to disclose crime statistics, failing to issue campus warnings about security threats and failing to establish a system to collect crime statistics. As a remedy, the school says it will hire a Clery compliance officer and create measures to protect athletes and children who participate in youth programs on campus.

A separate Title IX investigation found that Michigan State failed to respond to reports of sexual misconduct against Strampel and Nassar, failed to take interim measures to protect students while complaints against both men were pending, and failed to take steps to end any harassment and prevent it from recurring.

As part of its settlement agreement with the department, Michigan State says it will make “substantial” changes to its Title IX procedures and will provide a process to help victims of Nassar, including offering counseling services, grade changes, tuition reimbursement or the opportunity to retake classes at no cost.

The school is also being ordered to consider sanctions against current and former employees who failed to take action after being notified of sexual misconduct by Nassar and Strampel.

Kenneth Marcus, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said the agreement represents an “extensive and robust” resolution. Unlike most Title IX investigations, which are usually triggered by complaints submitted to the department, Marcus’ office launched an investigation into Michigan State in 2018 based on the severity of the allegations, he said.

“This message should be heard loudly and clearly by all universities so that the tragedy at Michigan State University is not repeated elsewhere,” Marcus said.

Nassar was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting athletes, mostly female gymnasts, at Michigan State and a Lansing-area gymnastics club. Former Olympians said he also molested them in Texas and overseas while he worked for USA Gymnastics.

MSU last year agreed to a $500 million deal with Nassar’s accusers. Most of the money, $425 million, was for 333 people, mostly women and girls, who had already sued. MSU so far has settled with 72 people in the second wave of litigation but dozens remain.

Strampel last month was sentenced to a year in jail for neglect of duty and misconduct in office. He was accused of failing to monitor Nassar and of sexually harassing students.

 

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The captain and crew who leapt from a burning dive boat off Southern California saved themselves as 34 people perished below deck.  
 
Whether their escape from the Conception before dawn Monday was the only viable option, an act of cowardice or even a crime has yet to be determined. But there are laws providing for punishment of a ship’s master who shirks his duty to safely evacuate passengers. 
 
The responsibilities of master and crew are broadly defined, said professor Martin J. Davies, the maritime law director at Tulane University. With passengers, their duty is take reasonable care in all circumstances. 
 
If the captain made no attempt to save passengers trapped in a burning boat, that would be a violation of his duty. But it wouldn’t necessarily be wrong if crew members decided there was nothing they could do to help the passengers in the berth and abandoned ship to seek help from a boat nearby. 
 
“The notion of the captain always goes down with the ship is consistent with that only because the captain is expected to stay there and do something if that’s going to help,” Davies said. “The idea that the captain is actually supposed to die along with everyone else is not any kind of a legal requirement.” 
 

While authorities have said they view the disaster as an accident, prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles and the Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office are taking part in the investigation.  
 
Whether anyone is criminally charged will depend on the conclusions of a multiagency investigation on land and sea into the cause of the fire. Investigators interviewed the captain and crew members Wednesday but wouldn’t reveal any of what they learned. 
 
Few details have emerged about what happened before the breathless captain made a mayday call at 3:15 a.m. Monday as he was apparently being overwhelmed by smoke on the boat. Passengers would have been sleeping at the time while the boat was anchored just off Santa Cruz Island.  

Blocked stairway, exit hatch 
 
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said fire above deck blocked the one stairway and an emergency exit hatch where 33 passengers and one crew member were sleeping in bunks. It’s not known if any alarm sounded or what the people below deck may have done to try to escape. 
 
Finding the cause of the fire could be difficult with the boat largely destroyed and sitting upside down in 60 feet (18 meters) of water. Other items that could provide valuable clues could have been carried away by the tides or destroyed in the fire, which burned so hot that DNA testing was needed to identify the dead. 
 
“All of that will be a very large hurdle to overcome,” said George Zeitler, a former Coast Guard inspector who runs his own marine investigation firm. “It will definitely make for a complex investigation.” 
 
Investigators will want to produce a timeline of the ship’s final voyage from the moment it pulled from a Santa Barbara dock early Saturday morning until the crew jumped overboard, experts said. They will look at the ship’s layout and whether the bunk room below deck was too cramped and had enough exits. They will also review maintenance records and study photos and videos from people who have been on the boat to look for valuable evidence. 
 
While lawsuits are almost a guarantee with such a high death toll, it’s not clear if any crime was committed, experts said. 
 
Under federal law, a captain or crew member can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if misconduct, negligence or inattention to duty leads to a death. The law can also be extended to a boat owner or charterer who engages in “fraud, neglect, connivance, misconduct or violation of law” that takes a life. 

Italian case
 
High-profile cases of boating disasters have sent ship captains to prison for failing to perform their duties.  
 
Capt. Francesco Schettino was sentenced to 16 years in an Italian prison for abandoning ship and other crimes when he fled in a lifeboat after the Costa Concordia ran aground off Tuscany in 2012 and killed 32 people. He refused an order from the Italian Coast Guard to return to the ship. 
 

The Conception, owned by Truth Aquatics, was being chartered for three days by a commercial dive outfit based in Santa Cruz to explore the rugged Channel Islands, sometimes referred to as the Galapagos of North America, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Santa Barbara. 
 
Coast Guard records show fire safety violations on the Conception in 2014 and 2016 were quickly fixed. There were no deficiencies found in February or August 2018 inspections. 
 
The five survivors were all crew members, including the captain. They apparently jumped from the bow, where the stairway led to the sleeping quarters, and swam to the stern, where they escaped in a dinghy and were taken aboard a nearby boat. 
 
Attorney Gordon Carey, who practices maritime law, said the captain and crew should have done what they could to put out the fire, but not to the point of losing their own lives. 

‘Very, very high’ level of responsibility
 
“They may have an obligation to put themselves at risk, but they don’t have an obligation to commit suicide and certain death to save the passengers,” he said. “The captain’s duty is very, very high. I don’t think he has an obligation to kill himself, but he certainly has an obligation to do everything possible … to get that fire out and to get those people out.” 
 
Carey, who is not a criminal lawyer, said it’s possible the owner of the boat or captain could face charges if found criminally negligent for behavior or a design so reckless they should know people’s lives would be at risk in the event of a fire.  
 
Carey has been a scuba diver for 50 years and has been on many long-distance voyages to exotic dive spots around the world. He said he’s never been on a boat where the passengers slept below deck and he questioned why so many were crammed in a space toward the bow with only one staircase and one emergency hatch.  
 
He said an owner or captain must anticipate the normal range of risks — from collision to a breach of the hull to high seas to fire. 
 
Attorney James Mercante, a former merchant marine officer who has defended thousands of maritime casualty cases, said it was unusual that only crew members survived, but that is likely because they were above deck. 
 
Mercante said he would want to find out what the crew did upon being alerted to fight the fire and how long they had done so before they abandoned ship. 
 
“It must have spread awfully quickly if nobody but the crew got out,” Mercante said. 

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