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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Pakistan warned Wednesday that India was “sowing the seeds” of another war in the region through its controversial actions in Kashmir, a disputed territory that has long been a flashpoint between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a month ago revoked a decades-old constitutionally provided limited autonomy for the two-thirds part of the divided Muslim-majority territory administered by India.

New Delhi also has since imposed curfew-like restrictions in Kashmir, deployed tens of thousands of additional troops there, cut off all communication and arrested thousands of people, including mainstream Kashmiri politicians and activists.

Now in its fifth week, the clampdown to quell violent protests in Kashmir has spurred severe international criticism of India.

Pakistan, which also controls a portion of Kashmir, swiftly denounced and rejected Indian actions, downgrading diplomatic as well as bilateral economic ties.

“India’s actions in occupied Kashmir come at a time when the region as a whole is inching towards stability, but India is sowing the seeds of a new war,” Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor told reporters Wednesday.

Ghafoor explained that Pakistan has successfully fought domestic terrorism and it is now closely cooperating with the United States to facilitate a political settlement to the 18-year-old war in neighboring  Afghanistan to promote regional stability.

The Kashmir dispute has already triggered two wars between India and Pakistan, and their militaries regularly trade fire across the Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned that India could attempt to open another conventional war with his country to try to divert global attention from human rights abuses in Kashmir.

Ghafoor said Pakistan doesn’t want war between the two countries. He reiterated Pakistan’s stated stance that its nuclear weapons are for deference.

Khan, meanwhile, has reached out to world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, to press the Modi government over settling the Kashmir issue. But India maintains its recent actions in its part of the disputed region are an “internal matter.”

Modi has also defended his decision to bring Kashmir under federal rule, saying it would help bring economic development and prosperity to the region.

Khan has also described Modi as “facist” and “supremacist,” comparing his Hindu nationalist government with Nazi Germany.

On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met with Khan in Islamabad to discuss Kashmir.

India has long alleged Pakistan-based militant groups foment separatist violence and terrorism in Indian-administered Kashmir. Islamabad maintains it offers only political and diplomatic support for what it calls an indigenous Kashmiri struggle for freedom from Indian rule. 

On Wednesday, armed forces and youth in Indian-held Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar clashed after news broke that a student, who reportedly sustained bullet wounds during last month’s protests, died from his injuries, the first confirmed civilian death since the region was stripped of its autonomy.

Analysts note that international media coverage of the recent events in Kashmir has been highly critical of India. 

Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based expert on South Asian affairs, said India knows if it ends the prolonged lockdown in Kashmir, unrest is all but inevitable. 

“Given New Delhi’s awareness that the international media is already shining a critical lens on New Delhi’s tactics in Kashmir, it doesn’t want to have to face a situation where it needs to launch fresh crackdowns,” Kugelman said.  

That will severely undercut New Delhi’s narrative of Kashmir being calm and normal and fully behind the central government, he added.

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Nearly two years later, the Syrian city of Raqqa, the former de facto capital of Islamic State (IS) terror group, continues to suffer from the aftermath of the war against the Islamic State. Recently, a new mass grave was unearthed that contained more than 200 bodies of IS victims. Sirwan Kajjo reports from Raqqa, Syria.

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People in the Bahamas are running out of ways to describe the devastation left by Hurricane Dorian.

Words including “apocalyptic,” “shock” and “looking like a bomb went off” have been used, but just about any description seems too weak to describe conditions on Abaco and Grand Bahama Island.

Dorian spent nearly two days parked on top of the northern Bahamas, drenching the islands with massive rainfall and pounding it with winds as high as 251 kilometers per hour (156 miles per hour).

“We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country’s history,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said.

Entire villages are gone and beaches usually packed with tourists are instead covered with parts of buildings, destroyed cars and the remains of people’s lives.

The death toll late Wednesday stood at 20, but officials said search-and-recovery missions were just starting.

“Right now there are just a lot of unknowns,” Bahamian lawmaker Iram Lewis said, adding, “We need help.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has sent the Coast Guard and urban search-and-rescue teams to help. The British Royal Navy, Red Cross and United Nations are also rushing in food, medicine, and any other kind of aid that may be needed.

The White House said Trump spoke to Minnis on Wednesday, assuring him the U.S. would provide “all appropriate support” and sending American condolences to the Bahamian people for the destruction and loss of life.

U.N. Humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock was in Nassau Wednesday, meeting with Minnis. Lowcock said 20% of the Bahamian population had been affected and 70,000 people needed food.

“Nothing of this sort has been experienced by the Bahamas before,” he said, adding that he was immediately releasing $1 million from the U.N. central emergency fund for water, food, shelter and medical services.

The National Hurricane Center said late Wednesday that Dorian had strengthened a little bit and was located about 245 kilometers (152 miles) south of Charleston, South Carolina. Its top sustained winds were at 175 kph (109 mph).

A hurricane warning was out for the Savannah River, along the Georgia-South Carolina border, north to the Virginia-North Carolina border.

Forecasters did not expect Dorian to directly hit the Carolinas, but said hurricane- and tropical storm-force winds extended up to 315 kilometers (196 miles) from the center, putting the coastline at risk of life-threatening storm surges, heavy rain, flash floods and isolated tornadoes.

Forecast maps showed Dorian moving away from land as it drifts up the U.S. Atlantic Coast, reaching the tip of Nova Scotia in Canada by Saturday.

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The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Wednesday subpoenaed the Department of Homeland Security for documents that could shed light on President Donald Trump’s alleged offer of pardons to officials implementing U.S. immigration policy.

The committee, which is considering whether to recommend impeachment against Trump, cited press reports that the president offered pardons to officials should they face legal action for following his instructions to close a section of the U.S.-Mexico border, aggressively seize private property and disregard environmental rules in erecting a border fence.

“The dangling of pardons by the president to encourage government officials to violate federal law would constitute another reported example of the president’s disregard for the rule of law,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrod Nadler said in a statement.

Two weeks to turn over documents

Neither the White House nor DHS responded immediately to requests for comment.

The subpoena gives acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan until 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) Sept. 17 to turn over a number of documents, notes and communications, including those related to March 21 and April 5 meetings between Trump and DHS officials.

The House panel is heading for what could be a politically explosive period in its investigation of the Trump presidency.

Democrats are gathering evidence of alleged misconduct by the president and planning hearings in hopes of deciding by the end of the year whether to recommend his impeachment to the full House of Representatives.

Previous subpoenas

Last month, the committee subpoenaed testimony from Trump’s former campaign chairman Corey Lewandowski and two White House aides. The three men were cited in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation report as witnesses to actions by which Democrats say Trump sought to obstruct the probe.

Mueller also documented the role of pardons in alleged efforts by Trump to dissuade his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former lawyer Michael Cohen from cooperating with federal investigators.

In addition to possible obstruction and pardon dangling, the House committee is investigating alleged hush payments made before the 2016 presidential election to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump and the president’s business dealings that could violate constitutional restrictions against officials receiving profits from foreign and domestic governments.
 

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The focus in the Bahamas is on rescue and recovery efforts Wednesday after the bulk of Hurricane Dorian finally moved north after flooding neighborhoods, ripping roofs off buildings and leaving thousands of people in need of aid.

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said there were seven confirmed deaths from the storm, but that the number was expected to increase. He pledged, “No effort or resources will be held back,” in responding to the disaster.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said flood waters on Grand Bahama and Abaco islands should start to slowly subside.  

Aid efforts have been hampered by the long duration of the storm as it sat over the islands and pummeled the area with strong winds and rain, leaving the runway at Grand Bahama Airport under water.

The Red Cross said Dorian severely damaged or destroyed nearly half the homes on Grand Bahama and Abaco and that 62,000 people were in need of clean water.  The United Nations said some 60,000 people need food after the storm.

Dorian has weakened from its peak power, but still presents a threat to the southeastern United States.

The NHC said early Wednesday the storm still carried maximum sustained winds of 175 kilometers per hour and would move “dangerously close” to the coasts of Florida and Georgia during the day and into Wednesday night.  The states of South Carolina and North Carolina are under threat for Thursday and Friday.

Even if the center of Dorian does not make landfall in those states, it is still bringing bands of heavy rains, strong winds that extend out far from the center, and high surf to shorelines. Rainfall forecasts range from seven to 25 centimeters in the coming days.

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Rescue workers said Tuesday they have recovered the bodies of 20 people killed in a middle-of-the-night fire aboard a dive boat off the coast of Southern California, while continuing to look for 14 more people feared dead.

Divers, in water 20 meters deep, scoured the submerged remains of the 23-meter commercial dive boat, called Conception, where the blaze broke out before dawn Monday, trapping 34 people, who likely were asleep below deck and unable to escape.

The U.S. Coast Guard, however, said it had ended 24 hours of aerial searches of the surrounding waters after finding no sight of survivors swimming to escape the disaster.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown said that among the 20 bodies recovered so far, there were 11 women and nine men. He said the bodies of another four to six victims were spotted, but divers could not immediately pull them from the wreckage.

The U.S. Coast Guard said five crew members were awake on the boat’s bridge when the fire broke out and jumped to safety in a dinghy.

While authorities have not disclosed the names of the victims, a 41-year-old marine biologist with years of diving experience, Kristy Finstad, was identified by her brother Brett Harmeling as the leader of the dive trip and among the missing.

Authorities have not said what they believe caused the fire.

In a recording of a desperate call to the Coast Guard, a man is heard gasping for air, shouting, “Mayday, mayday, mayday!”

The federal National Transportation Safety Board said it has dispatched a team of engineers and fire specialists to investigate the accident.

The Conception was on a Labor Day weekend cruise taking divers to the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California. The vessel was chartered by Worldwide Diving Adventures, a Santa Barbara excursion company.

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Russia’s natural resources and environment minister said on Wednesday he supported allowing private oil and gas companies to work on the Arctic shelf.

Speaking to reporters at an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, the minister, Dmitry Kobylkin, said he supported “any decision linked to an increase in investment in projects related to hydrocarbons.”

The Russian economy is heavily reliant on natural resources and the Arctic’s vast oil and gas reserves are expected to become more accessible as climate change melts the ice and technology advances.

“We clearly understand that Russia’s Arctic zone has not been studied enough,” Kobylkin said in separate comments to TASS news agency. “Of course we would like to study it more, but the government cannot allow itself to make such investments. It’s very expensive.”

In August deputy prime ministers Dmitry Kozak and Yuri Trutnev proposed that Russia’s Arctic shelf be opened to private investors and proposed to draft legislation to expand access to it.

Only state-controlled Gazprom and Rosneft are currently authorized to operate on Russia’s Arctic shelf. Kobylkin told TASS that his ministry was also in talks with Gazprom and Rosneft to increase their Arctic exploration.

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Vienna has held off Melbourne to retain the top spot on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index for 2019, further strengthening its reputation as the world’s most pleasant city, while the ‘gilets jaunes’ protests hurt Paris’ score.

The Austrian capital, which attracts tourists for its classical music scene and imperial history but also has abundant green spaces and excellent public services, last year ended Melbourne’s seven-year run at the top of the survey of 140 cities, helped by an improved security outlook across Europe.

Vienna and Melbourne have been neck and neck in the EIU survey for years, but the Austrian capital also regularly tops a larger ranking of cities by quality of life compiled by consulting firm Mercer.

The gap between the two cities – of 0.7 point out of 100, with Vienna scoring 99.1 – was unchanged in the 2019 ranking published on Wednesday, as were the cities in the top 10, though Sydney closed in on its old rival.

“Sydney has risen from fifth to third, thanks to an improvement in its culture and environment score, reflecting an increased focus on combating and mitigating the impacts of climate change, as outlined by the city’s ‘Sustainable Sydney 2030’ strategy,” the EIU said.

It poured cold water on Sydney’s prospects of overtaking Melbourne, however.

“With both cities already scoring very highly across all categories, there is only limited potential for Sydney to displace either Melbourne or Vienna at the top of the rankings. No other city in the top ten saw a change to its score.”

Japan’s Osaka was fourth, followed by three Canadian cities – Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto. Toronto was tied with Tokyo for seventh place. Copenhagen and Adelaide in South Australia rounded out the top 10.

The EIU’s index ranks cities by five headline criteria.

Stability and culture & environment are the two most important categories, weighted equally at 25% of the total. Healthcare and infrastructure are also matched at 20%, with education coming in last with a 10% weighting.

“Paris in France is the highest-ranked city to have seen a deterioration in its stability score, owing to the ongoing anti-government gilets jaunes protests that began in late 2018,” the EIU said of the French anti-government movement.

Paris slid six places to 25th, from 19th last year.

The culture and environment scores were reduced for many cities in poorer countries that are among the most exposed to the effects of climate change, including New Delhi and Cairo for their poor air quality.

Damascus in war-torn Syria remained the worst-ranked city, below Lagos in Nigeria and the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, which swapped places.

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Set somewhere in rural eastern Europe towards the end of World War II, “The Painted Bird” is a sombre tale of a young boy trying to survive a harsh wilderness and the cruelty of strangers, and is described by one of its stars as “timeless.”

Based on a 1965 novel by Polish-born novelist Jerzy Kosinski, the 35mm black and white film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, depicts a bleak world where being different is dangerous.

Sent by his persecuted parents to stay with an elderly woman in the desolate countryside of an unnamed country, the lead character, known simply as The Boy, soon finds himself alone when she dies and he sets off on foot to find safety elsewhere.

He wanders from village to village, where he meets and stays with different people – some of them superstitious and cruel, others accommodating and kind.

The Boy, played by Petr Kotlar, endures brutal beatings and abuse and witnesses horrific violence carried out by civilians and soldiers – a man having his eye gouged out, a village ransacked, people shot and a woman kicked in the genitals.

“The questions about humankind, about God, what is the evil, what is the good in all of us, what does it mean that the light is visible only in the dark? That’s the principle of this movie,” director Vaclav Marhoul told Reuters in an interview.

The film, which is just short of three hours long, features very little dialogue. Marhoul, who also wrote the script, said he specifically chose a kind of Slavic Esperanto, a created language, for the villagers’ dialogue.

“I didn’t want the villagers (speaking) Ukrainian or Polish or Russian or something like that because those people (the villagers in the film) are really bad people,” he said. “I didn’t want some nation to be associated with that.”

Brutality and Compassion

In one key scene, one of The Boy’s hosts paints the wings of one of his captive birds and releases it into its flock, only for it to be attacked by the others.

“(The film) depicts Europe at a very dark time, but it’s a dark time that is not specific to that time, that is sort of existing today all over the world in many places,” actor Stellan Skarsgard said.

The “Mamma Mia!” and “Thor” actor plays a Nazi officer in the film, who is also one of the few to feel sympathy for The Boy. The latter also finds kindness in a priest and feels love for a young woman.

“During the most horrible times there are moments of compassion and we as humans, we can be monsters of brutality but we can also be very compassionate and we all have it all in us, if you’re not a psychopath,” Skarsgard said. “So we’re all capable of everything.”

The movie, nearly 11 years in the making, is one of 21 films competing for the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.

“It happens to be set in the period just at the end of the Second World War, but it could be medieval, it could be 50 years in the future,” said actor Julian Sands, who plays one of the crueler people The Boy meets.

“It has more in common with Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ than a Holocaust movie, it has more in common with Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ than a specific Second world War historical account. It’s timeless.”

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