China on Tuesday denied it was to blame for fentanyl deaths in the United States after President Donald Trump accused Beijing of reneging on its promise to crack down on the opioid.

U.S. authorities have long accused China of being the main source of the potent drug, which caused 32,000 overdose deaths in the United States last year alone.

In an apparent gesture to Washington amid the U.S.-China trade war, Beijing announced a crackdown on fentanyl earlier this year, designating all analogues of the drug as controlled substances from May 1.

The move aimed to prevent smugglers from skirting the law by changing formulas to make drugs similar to the painkiller.

Fentanyl sellers have used parcel services to send the drug to the United States, and China had also vowed to step up customs checks.

But Trump wrote on Twitter last month that while Xi had pledged to stop exports of fentanyl, “this never happened, and many Americans continue to die!”

Liu Yuejin, vice commissioner of China’s National Narcotics Control Commission, countered on Tuesday that no case of fentanyl smuggling has been reported since the May 1 ban.

“What President Trump concluded on Twitter is groundless,” Liu said.

“China has strengthened its control of fentanyl but the number of deaths linked to this substance continue to rise in the United States,” Liu said, suggesting that the drug came from elsewhere.

…

The eco-minded Prince Harry announced a massive travel sustainability initiative Tuesday in partnership with key service providers that’s aimed at bettering the practices of the global industry amid an ever-increasing number of travelers. 
 
The Duke of Sussex unveiled Travalyst at a news conference in Amsterdam, a city hit hard by over-tourism. He was joined by representatives of his partners, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Visa, China’s largest travel company, Ctrip, and the Ctrip-owned fare aggregator Skyscanner.

The long-term initiative is focused on tackling the travel industry’s impact on climate change, improving wildlife conservation and protecting the environment in top tourist spots. It will also look at ways to better serve local communities through tourism dollars.

…

Former Navy SEAL James Hatch says heading to class as a freshman at Yale University is just about as nerve-wracking as preparing for the uncertainty of combat. 
 
At 52 years old, Hatch does not fit the profile of the traditional Yale freshman.

“My experience in academia is somewhat limited, at best,” he said. “But I want to learn, and I feel this can make me a better person. I also feel my life experience, maybe with my maturity — which my wife would say is laughable — I think I can help some of the young people out.”

Hatch’s journey to the Ivy League has been serpentine.

He joined the military out of high school, became a SEAL and spent just short of 26 years in the Navy, fighting in Afghanistan and other hot spots.

His military career ended after he was seriously wounded in 2009 during a mission to find Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had walked off his post. 
 
Eighteen surgeries and some notoriety followed after his story became public during Bergdahl’s trial. He suffered from serious post-traumatic stress, fell into drinking and drugs, and even attempted suicide.

But he got help from professionals and his family, he said, and is now better able to cope. 
 
Hatch has authored a memoir, become a speaker and runs Spikes K-9 Fund, a nonprofit organization that helps cover the health care costs and provides ballistic vests for police and military dogs.

It’s a cause he has been passionate about since being a dog handler in the military. He credits dogs with saving his life several times, including on his final mission, when one alerted him to the position of the enemy.

Hatch was admitted to Yale after applying to be an Eli Whitney scholar, a program for nontraditional students who have had their educational careers interrupted.

“I was shocked to get accepted,” he said. “But my wife told me I would be silly not to take this opportunity, and she’s right. So I’m going to do my best, get in there and start swinging.”

Hatch is in Yale’s Directed Studies program, which teaches students how to analyze great texts and write persuasive essays through courses in philosophy, literature, and historical and political thought. Tuition and other costs are being covered by the G.I. Bill, scholarships from veterans groups and Yale.

He will attend classes with his PTSD service dog, Mina, who he said has already become popular with other students. His biggest worries, he said, are that he’s too old and might not fit in or be able to do the work.

“I think everyone there has a little bit of this ‘impostor syndrome’ where you feel, ‘Oh, my gosh, am I good enough to be here,'” he said. 

‘Incredibly different perspective’
 
But Hatch is just the type of person the Yale wants, said Patricia Wei, the director of admissions for the Eli Whitney Students Program.

“He brings just an incredibly different perspective,” she said. “We don’t have anyone here that is like Jimmy and just his life and professional experiences will add tremendously to the Yale classroom, to the Yale community.”

Hatch said he believes having a Yale degree will open more doors for him in seeking funding for his charity work. He also believes it might broaden his world view and help get him a seat at the table when government officials start discussing where and when to use the U.S. military.

“I feel like the political folks and the senior military folks spend so much time in that particular fish tank, that they some of the givens in their mind, should not be givens,” he said. “I believe getting a classical education can help fill in my base and combined with my military experiences can be the most beneficial thing I can have. I think I have a voice that should be heard.”

…

The gunman in a West Texas rampage “was on a long spiral of going down” and had been fired from his oil services job the morning he killed seven people, calling 911 both before and after the shooting began, authorities said.

Officers killed 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator on Saturday outside a busy Odessa movie theater after a spate of violence that spanned 10 miles (16 kilometers), injuring around two dozen people in addition to the dead.

FBI special agent Christopher Combs said Monday that Ator called the agency’s tip line as well as local police dispatch on Saturday after being fired from Journey Oilfield Services, making “rambling statements about some of the atrocities that he felt that he had gone through.”

“He was on a long spiral of going down,” Combs said. “He didn’t wake up Saturday morning and walk into his company and then it happened. He went to that company in trouble.”

Fifteen minutes after the call to the FBI, Combs said, a Texas state trooper unaware of the calls to authorities tried pulling over Ator for failing to signal a lane change. That was when Ator pointed an AR-style rifle toward the rear window of his car and fired on the trooper, starting a terrifying police chase as Ator sprayed bullets into passing cars, shopping plazas and killed a U.S. Postal Service employee while hijacking her mail truck.

Combs said Ator “showed up to work enraged” but did not point to any specific source of his anger. Ator’s home on the outskirts of Odessa was a corrugated metal shack along a dirt road surrounded by trailers, mobile homes and oil pump jacks. On Monday, a green car without a rear windshield was parked out front, the entire residence cordoned off by police tape.

Combs described it as a “strange residence” that reflected “what his mental state was going into this.” Combs said he did not know whether Ator had been diagnosed with any prior mental health problems.

A neighbor, Rocio Gutierrez, told The Associated Press that Ator was “a violent, aggressive person” that would shoot at animals, mostly rabbits, at all hours of the night

“We were afraid of him because you could tell what kind of person he was just by looking at him,” Gutierrez said. “He was not nice, he was not friendly, he was not polite.”

The daylight attack over the Labor Day holiday weekend came just weeks after another mass shooting killed 22 people in the Texas border city of El Paso. Authorities have not said how Ator obtained the gun used in the shooting, but Ator had previously failed a federal background check for a firearm, said John Wester, an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Wester did not say when Ator failed the background check or why.

Online court records show Ator was arrested in 2001 for a misdemeanor offense that would not have prevented him from legally purchasing firearms in Texas. Federal law defines nine categories that would legally prevent a person from owning a gun, which include being convicted of a felony, a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, being adjudicated as a “mental defect” or committed to a mental institution, the subject of a restraining order or having an active warrant. Authorities have said Ator had no active warrants at the time of the shooting.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Monday that “we must keep guns out of criminals’ hands” — words similar to his remarks that followed the El Paso shooting on Aug. 3, when he said firearms must be kept from “deranged killers.” But Abbott, a Republican and avid gun rights supporter, has been noncommittal about tightening Texas gun laws.

Abbott tweeted that Ator didn’t go through a background check for the weapon he used in Odessa. He did not elaborate, and a spokesman referred questions to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which didn’t immediately respond for comment.

Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said Ator’s company also called 911 on Saturday after Ator was fired but that Ator had already taken off by the time police showed up.

“Basically, they were complaining on each other because they had a disagreement over the firing,” Gerke said.

Gerke said he believes Ator had also been recently fired from a different job but did not have any details.

Authorities said they remain unable to provide an exact timeline of the shooting, including how much time passed between the traffic stop at 3:13 p.m. and police killing Ator at the movie theater.

Odessa officials Monday released the names of those killed, who were between 15 and 57 years old. Among the dead were Edwin Peregrino, 25, who ran out of his parents’ home to see what the commotion was; mail carrier Mary Granados, 29, slain in her U.S. Postal Service truck; and 15-year-old high school student Leilah Hernandez, who was walking out of an auto dealership.

Ator fired at random as he drove in the area of Odessa and Midland, two cities more than 300 miles (482 kilometers) west of Dallas. Police used a marked SUV to ram the mail truck outside the Cinergy Movie Theater in Odessa, disabling the vehicle. The gunman then fired at police, wounding two officers before he was killed.

Police said Ator’s arrest in 2001 was in the county where Waco is located, hundreds of miles east of Odessa. Online court records show he was charged then with misdemeanor criminal trespass and evading arrest. He entered guilty pleas in a deferred prosecution agreement where the charge was waived after he served 24 months of probation, according to records.

The weekend shooting brings the number of mass killings in the U.S. so far this year to 25, matching the number in all of 2018, according to The AP/USATODAY/Northeastern University mass murder database. The number of people killed this year has already reached 142, surpassing the 140 people who were killed all of last year. The database tracks homicides where four or more people are killed, not including the offender.

…

Joe Biden entered the Democratic primary promising “from day one” to reject campaign cash from lobbyists.

“I work for you _ not any industry,” he tweeted.

Yet hours after his April campaign kickoff, the former vice president went to a fundraiser at the home of a lobbying executive. And in the months since, he’s done it again and again.

It’s difficult to quantify how much Biden has raised from the multibillion-dollar influence industry, but the roughly $200,000 he accepted from employees of major lobbying firms is far more than any of his rivals has received, according to a review of campaign finance data by The Associated Press.

Though it’s a small fraction of the $21.5 million he reported raising in the second quarter of 2019, the money demonstrates a comfort with an industry that is the object of scorn of Democratic activists and some of Biden’s principal rivals.

Biden’s pledge applies only to federally registered lobbyists, and most of the money tracked by the AP was from others in the influence industry. But thousands of dollars did come from federally registered lobbyists, and Biden’s campaign said it is returning such donations.

His campaign accepted roughly $6,000 in contributions from at least six federally registered lobbyists, including representatives of Google, aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin, and pharmaceutical companies, records show. An additional $5,750 was donated by two lobbyists who had been registered shortly before making contributions to Biden’s campaign, records show.

In at least two instances, donations came from lobbyists with criminal records who have served time in federal prison.

Former Florida Rep. Lawrence J. Smith, a federally registered lobbyist representing the city of Pembroke Pines, gave Biden $1,000 after attending a fundraiser in May. Smith left Congress in 1993 after it was revealed he bounced 161 bad checks. He was convicted months later of tax evasion and using campaign cash to settle a gambling debt.

Maryland statehouse lobbyist Gerard E. Evans gave Biden $2,600, records show. He was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison in 2000 after being found guilty of participating in an elaborate fake legislation scheme that bilked clients out of more than $400,000 in lobbying fees, according to court records.

Excluded from Biden’s pledge are lobbyists who work at the state level and those who lobby, or supervise lobbyists, but do not meet the legal threshold requiring them to register.

Spokesman Matt Hill said in a statement that Biden will “fight the influence of corporations and special interests in our political system, which is why his campaign refuses donations from corporations, their PACs, and federal lobbyists.”

Biden’s approach contrasts sharply with Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who have built their campaigns around a vow to reject big money in politics. Both have sworn off big-dollar fundraisers, while Biden has embraced them.
Such an embrace “doesn’t mean your positions are up for sale,” said John Wonderlich, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group that advocates for government transparency. But it “can certainly change what issues seem the most salient and whose voice gets heard.”

Biden is not alone in accepting contributions from the influence industry. President Donald Trump vowed to “drain the swamp” but has since reaped contributions from powerful industries with business before his administration. And many of Biden’s Democratic rivals have made similar pledges that also include subtle caveats and omissions.

Still, he collected about $30,000 more from employees of top lobbying firms than California Sen. Kamala Harris and roughly $100,000 more than South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, both of whom made similar pledges but have been in the race longer than him. Every other White House hopeful received far less.

Several recent fundraisers held for Biden highlight his ties to prominent figures in the influence business, many of whom have been active in Washington for decades.

In August, Biden was feted at the home of Nelson W. Cunningham, president and co-founder of McLarty Associates and a former adviser to Bill Clinton. The global public affairs firm represents Chevron, General Electric, Walmart and Uber, but notes on its website that the list only includes “the ones we can mention.”

Several days before, Biden attended a fundraiser at the Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home of Peter Shields, the leader of Washington-based Wiley Rein, a firm with recent lobbying clients that include AT&T, global mining company Glencore, Nucor steel, Verizon and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

His campaign kickoff fundraiser was at the Philadelphia home of David L. Cohen, a Comcast executive who oversees the telecom giant’s lobbying operation.

Biden’s campaign says the fundraiser hosts are not registered lobbyists and often have diverse work portfolios that include much more than government relations. But they are also players in the influence game.

Biden’s pledge to reject money from lobbyists is a change for him. Before he entered the 2020 race, his American Possibilities political action committee had no such prohibition.

The PAC, which Biden used to finance his political activities after leaving the White House in 2017, accepted at least $113,000 from at least a dozen current and formerly registered lobbyists, in addition to more than 30 others who work in the influence industry, records show. Among them are representatives for Boeing, Apple, the NFL, Facebook, General Motors and the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, as well as other representatives of the big pharmaceutical, tech, telecom and financial services companies, records show.

One of the top recipients of money from the PAC was a company Biden created.

His campaign says the $137,000 routed to Biden’s company, Celtic Capri, was used to pay or reimburse aides for work, such as during last year’s midterm elections when Biden kept up an aggressive campaign schedule.

Yet the move is commonly used to avoid disclosing how political money is spent. Because the money was routed to Celtic Capri, campaign finance records don’t detail the end recipient of the payments, which are listed as reimbursements or “staff support.” Around the same time, Biden collected $425,000 in salary from Celtic Capri, according to a financial disclosure.

Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney, said the use of limited liability companies such as these is a growing problem. “The ultimate recipients of the money aren’t disclosed. Sometimes it’s for legitimate, or quasi-legitimate, reasons. And sometimes it’s for illegitimate reasons.”

…

Two senior allies of Burkina Faso’s deposed former president Blaise Compaore were sentenced to up to 20 years in prison on Monday for organizing a 2015 coup attempt against a transitional government.

Protesters, angered by Compaore’s attempt to change the constitution to extend his 27-year rule, forced him to flee the West African nation in 2014. He now lives in exile in neighboring Ivory Coast.

Troops from the elite Presidential Security Regiment under the command of General Gilbert Diendere, Compaore’s right-hand man, took members of the transitional government hostage less than a month before elections the following year.

The week-long power grab failed, but 14 people were killed and more than 250 others were wounded as they attempted to resist the putsch.

Former spy chief Diendere was sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder and threatening state security.

Compaore’s former foreign minister Djibril Bassole, who was accused of being the coup’s mastermind, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason.

…

Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky hopes a new documentary film about his life chronicling his journey from being Russia’s richest man to an exiled dissident will open the West’s eyes to the nature of modern Russia.

The film, “Citizen K”, was made by Oscar-winning U.S. filmmaker Alex Gibney and premiered at the Venice Film festival this weekend. It was based on more than 24 hours of interviews that Khodorkovsky, who is now based in Britain, gave over a period of months.

It tells the story of Khodorkovsky’s dramatic 2003 arrest on an icy Siberian runway by armed men and his fall from grace, punishment for what he and his supporters believe was his interest in Russian politics and fighting corruption.

The bespectacled tycoon, then head of the now defunct Yukos oil company, went on to serve a decade in jail on fraud charges he says were politically motivated before being freed in 2013 after President Vladimir Putin pardoned him.

“Today’s Kremlin regime has learned the art of window dressing very well, but it’s important to understand that behind these beautiful windows there is not just an ordinary authoritarian state but a real mafia, which has taken over this state,” Khodorkovsky, 56, told Reuters.

“If we look at how these methods are applied in relation to the West, we will see corruption, blackmail, compromising materials and even violence. While negotiating with the current Russian regime the West should understand it’s dealing with a criminal organization.”

Russia, which rejects his criticism as false, has issued an international arrest warrant for Khodorkovsky, accusing him of ordering at least one successful contract killing in the 1990s, something Khodorkovsky denies.

Putin has said he regards the former businessman as a common thief, while Russian authorities have moved to curb the activities of Open Russia, a pro-democracy movement founded by Khodorkovsky.
“A VERY TALENTED KGB GUY”

In “Citizen K,” Khodorkovsky says he misread Putin when the former Soviet intelligence officer first came to power.

“It seemed to me ideologically that he was one of us. A person who gets it and wants to push Russia in the same direction that we want to. That is towards openness, towards democracy,” said Khodorkovsky.

“Boy was I mistaken. He’s a very talented KGB guy.”

Despite living in Britain, Khodorkovsky said he “lived for Russia” and that it occupied his thoughts for 12 out of every 16 waking hours a day, adding that he and his supporters were acutely aware of the risks they ran.

“If the Kremlin decides to kill somebody, it is very difficult for this person to avoid this fate,” he said, a reference to allegations that Moscow has assassinated some of its critics abroad, a charge the Kremlin flatly rejects.

“I tell all my colleagues that the only thing we can do for you is to help you not to be forgotten, as I was not forgotten during 10 years in prison. But it will be difficult, or even impossible, to save you if anything happens.”

…

Almost every day 20-year-old Rizaldian Syahputra puts on his blue uniform, laces up his high boots and leaves his wooden house on stilts for a job many nature-lovers would envy.

But by next year, he may no longer be employed.

Syahputra works as a wildlife guide at Komodo National Park on the eastern Indonesian island of Komodo, taking visitors around the park on foot to get up close to the leathery Komodo dragons, the world’s largest living lizard species.

The Indonesian government plans to close the island to the public from January next year in a bid to conserve the rare reptiles.

The scheme also involves moving about 2,000 villagers off the island. Authorities are holding talks with community leaders on how to relocate the residents, Josef Nae Soi, deputy governor of the province of East Nusa Tenggara, told Reuters recently.

It is hoped that closing the island to tourists will cut the risk of poaching and allow a recovery in the numbers of the animals’ preferred prey, such as deer, buffalo and wild boar.

The island could reopen after a year, but the plan is to make it a premium tourist destination, Soi said.

Syahputra, who says he enjoys his job because of his passion for nature and conservation, shares the fears of many others on the island who rely on tourism for a living.

“The closure is definitely something that makes us unhappy,” he said.

“If we really have to do it, I hope we can find a middle ground on the solution, not closing the whole island but just a certain area.”

More than 176,000 tourists visited Komodo National Park, a conservation area between the islands of Sumbawa and Flores, in 2018. The whole area was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991.

About 1,700 Komodo dragons are estimated to live on Komodo island. Other islands in the national park that are home to more than 1,400 of the giant lizards, such as nearby Rinca and Padar, will remain open to tourists.

Villagers who have lived on Komodo island for generations are unsurprisingly opposed to the idea of having to leave.

“We have been living as one for years with this village,” said resident Dahlia, who gave only one name. “The graves of my father and ancestors are here. If we move, who will take care of those graves?”

…

The U.S. Coast Guard says 34 people are missing after a fire erupted aboard a dive boat off the coast of Southern California.

Local media are reporting that several people died in the fire, but the Coast Guard could not immediately confirm any fatalities.

Coast Guard officials said five crew members were rescued after the fire broke out on the 20-meter commercial dive boat near Santa Cruz Island off the coast of Santa Barbara.

They said are searching for other passengers who have not been accounted for.

Officials say the missing passengers were sleeping below desk when the fire broke out before dawn Monday morning.

An image posted by the fire department showed the dive vessel engulfed in flames. The Coast Guard says most of the fire has now been extinguished.

The boat was on a Labor Day weekend cruise taking divers to the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California.

…

Updated Sept. 2, 2019, 3:40p.m.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatened Monday to expel any Conservative Party rebels if they try to block his push for a no-deal exit next month from the European Union.

Johnson has only a one-seat majority in the House of Commons. But as parliament returns Tuesday from its summer recess, as many as 20 Tory rebels could join opposition lawmakers to tie the government’s hands against Johnson’s efforts to quit the EU on Oct. 31 without spelling out the terms of the divorce.

He assailed attempts to delay Britain’s departure from the EU, contending that it would “chop the legs” out of Britain’s attempt at negotiating better terms for splitting from the bloc.

Johnson met with his Cabinet ministers, stoking speculation that he would call for a snap election next month if parliament rejects his Brexit plans, possibly a vote ahead of a mid-October summit of EU leaders on final terms of Britain’s departure from the 28-nation bloc after 46 years of membership. But Johnson said he does not want a new election.

Britain Set For Explosive Week Ahead In Brexit Showdown

“Let’s let our negotiators get on with their work, without that ‘sword of Damocles’ over their necks, and without an election, without an election,” he said. “I don’t want an election, you don’t want an election. Let’s get on with the people’s agenda.”

Johnson became prime minister after the country’s former leader, Theresa May, failed in three parliamentary votes to win approval for the Brexit terms she negotiated with the EU.

A no-deal departure from the EU could lead to economic turmoil, ending decades of Britain’s seamless trade with the EU, its biggest trading partner.

But Johnson said he is determined to leave the EU, even without a deal.

“There are no circumstances under which I will ask Brussels to delay,” Johnson said. “We’re leaving the 31st of October, no ifs or buts.”
 
Former Justice Minister David Gauke told the BBC, “Their strategy to be honest is to lose this week and then seek a general election having removed those of us… who believe we should leave with a deal.”

Opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said, “We want a general election” to oust what he described as Johnson’s “phony, populist cabal.”

Corbyn said, “We must come together to stop no deal – this week could be our last chance.”

But former Labor leader Tony Blair warned Corbyn, a veteran socialist, said that an election is an “elephant trap” Johnson has laid for Labor.

“Boris Johnson knows that if no-deal Brexit stands on its own as a proposition it might well fail,” Blair said, “but if he mixes it up with the Corbyn question in a general election he could succeed despite a majority being against a no-deal Brexit because some (voters) may fear a Corbyn premiership more.”

The Ladbrokes betting house said odds now are that there will be an election next month, with a 75% probability there would be one before the end of 2019.

…

Wall Street stock futures weakened in early trade on Monday, setting a dour tone for Asian markets after tit-for-tat tariffs between the United States and China took effect, reinforcing investors’ gloomy expectations for global growth prospects.

The E-mini futures for U.S. S&P500 ESc1 fell as much as 1.06% in early trade and last stood down 0.68% at 2,905 while Chicago-traded Nikkei futures NIYcm1 suggest Japan’s Nikkei .N225 is on course to fall 0.7%.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS, which lost 4.7% last month, is likely to stay under pressure.

The United States slapped 15% tariffs on a variety of Chinese goods on Sunday – including footwear, smart watches and flat-panel televisions – while China imposed new duties on U.S. crude, the latest escalation in a bruising trade war.

In EscalatingTrade war, US Consumers May See Higher Prices

In China, authorities began charging higher duties on American imports at midday Sunday

A variety of studies suggest the tariffs will cost U.S. households up to $1,000 a year and the latest round will hit a significant number of U.S. consumer goods.

In retaliation, China started to impose additional tariffs on some of the U.S. goods on a $75 billion target list. Beijing did not specify the value of the goods that face higher tariffs from Sunday.

Many market players say the market’s reaction was likely exaggerated by algorithm-driven players’ flows in thin trading conditions at start of Asian trade on Monday.

Liquidity could be even more limited than usual because of a U.S. market holiday on Monday.

“(The market move) goes to show you how many data mining algos are involved with equity linked compared to forex-linked. Was anyone surprised by these tariffs that took effect yesterday?” said Takeo Kamai, head of execution at CLSA in Tokyo.

Trade War Sowing Seeds of Doubt With US Farmers

The typical routines of life on a family farm carry a heavier burden these days for Pam Johnson.

“First thing I do is make a pot of coffee,” she told VOA in an interview in one of the cavernous sheds that contain her green and yellow John Deere farming equipment. Once she has that coffee, she “(goes) to the computer and look at what grain prices have done overnight and usually do a gut clutch, because they’ve been going down. They’re at five-month lows.”

Driven there in part by retaliatory tariffs imposed by one of the largest importers of U.S.

Despite the volatility, the moves lower reflect investors’ underlying worries about increasing costs of Sino-U.S. trade war on the global economy.

An official survey published on Saturday showed factory activity in China shrank in August for the fourth month in a row, further evidence of hit to the world’s second-largest economy from trade war.

Tension is also running high in Hong Kong, with police and protesters clashing in some of the most intense violence since unrest erupted more than three months ago over concerns Beijing is undermining democratic freedoms in the territory.

Thousands of protesters blocked roads and public transport links to Hong Kong airport and police made several arrests after demonstrators smashed CCTV cameras and lamps with metal poles and dismantled station turnstiles.

China, eager to quell the unrest before the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, has accused foreign powers, particularly the United States and Britain, of fomenting the unrest.

Oil prices also fell in early Monday trade.

Brent crude LCOc1 futures fell 0.68% to $58.85 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 lost 0.54% to $54.80 per barrel.

The currency market was calmer for now, with the dollar down slightly against the yen at 106.12 yen JPY=, down 0.13% from late U.S. levels.

The euro stood almost flat at $1.09905 EUR=, not far from two-year low of $1.0963 hit in U.S. trade on Friday.

…

The United States and China on Sunday put in place their latest tariff increases on each other’s goods, potentially raising prices Americans pay for some clothes, shoes, sporting goods and other consumer items before the holiday shopping season.

President Donald Trump said U.S.-China trade talks were still on for September. “We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters as he returned to the White House from the Camp David presidential retreat. “But we can’t allow China to rip us off anymore as a country.”

The 15% U.S. taxes apply to about $112 billion of Chinese imports. All told, more than two-thirds of the consumer goods the United States imports from China now face higher taxes. The administration had largely avoided hitting consumer items in its earlier rounds of tariff increases.

But with prices of many retail goods now likely to rise, the Trump administration’s move threatens the U.S. economy’s main driver: consumer spending. As businesses pull back on investment spending and exports slow in the face of weak global growth, American shoppers have been a key bright spot for the economy.

“We have got a great economy,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. “But I do think that the uncertainty caused by volatile tariff situation and this developing trade war could jeopardize that strength, and that growth, and that is I think that’s a legitimate concern,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”

As a result of Trump’s higher tariffs, many U.S. companies have warned that they will be forced to pass on to their customers the higher prices they will pay on Chinese imports. Some businesses, though, may decide in the end to absorb the higher costs rather than raise prices for their customers.

In China, authorities began charging higher duties on American imports at midday Sunday, according to employees who answered the phone at customs offices in Beijing and the southern port of Guangzhou. They declined to give their names.

Tariffs of 10% and 5% apply to items ranging from frozen sweet corn and pork liver to marble and bicycle tires, the government announced earlier.

After Sunday’s move, 87% of textiles and clothing the United States buys from China and 52% of shoes will be subject to import taxes.

On Dec. 15, the Trump administration is scheduled to impose a second round of 15% tariffs — this time on roughly $160 billion of imports. If those duties take effect, virtually all goods imported from China will be covered.

The Chinese government has released a list of American imports targeted for penalties on Dec. 15 if the U.S. tariff hikes take effect. In total, Beijing says Sunday’s penalties and the planned December increases will apply to $75 billion of American goods.

Washington and Beijing are locked in a war over U.S. complaints that China steals U.S. trade secrets and unfairly subsidizes its own companies in its drive to develop global competitors in such high-tech industries as artificial intelligence and electric cars.

“I give the president credit for challenging China on some of its really egregious behavior” on intellectual property and technology transfers, for example, Toomey said. He said he hopes that’s what Trump’s focus is, “not just the fact that Chinese clothing and shoes are popular among consumers. That’s not the problem.”

If China changes its behavior “in a meaningful way in that area … then we will have ended up in a better place. That’s what I’m hoping for. But let’s be honest. In the meantime, we’re doing damage. It’s a double-edged sword,” he said.

To try to force Beijing to reform its trade practices, the Trump administration has imposed import taxes on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese imports, and China has retaliated with tariffs on U.S. exports.

“It’s a good thing taking on China. Unfortunately, he’s done it the wrong way,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“To take on China there has to be a multilateral approach. One country can’t take on China to try to dry up its overcapacity because they just send it through to you in other ways,” he said.

Trump has insisted that China itself pays the tariffs. But in fact, economic research has concluded that the costs of the duties fall on U.S. businesses and consumers. Trump had indirectly acknowledged the tariffs’ impact by delaying some of the duties until Dec. 15, after holiday goods are already on store shelves.

A study by J.P. Morgan found that Trump’s tariffs will cost the average U.S. household $1,000 a year. That study was done before Trump raised the Sept. 1 and Dec. 15 tariffs to 15% from 10%.

The president has also announced that existing 25% tariffs on a separate group of $250 billion of Chinese imports will increase to 30% on Oct. 1.

That cost could weaken an already slowing U.S. economy. Though consumer spending grew last quarter at its fastest pace in five years, the overall economy expanded at just a modest 2% annual rate, down from a 3.1% rate in the first three months of the year.

The economy is widely expected to slow further in the months ahead as income growth slows, businesses delay expansions and higher prices from tariffs depress consumer spending. Companies have already reduced investment spending, and exports have dropped against a backdrop of slower global growth.

Americans have already turned more pessimistic. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, released Friday, fell by the most since December 2012.

“The data indicate that the erosion of consumer confidence due to tariff policies is now well underway,” said Richard Curtin, who oversees the index.

Some retailers may eat the cost of the tariffs. Target confirmed to The Associated Press that it warned suppliers that it won’t accept cost increases arising from the China tariffs. But many smaller retailers won’t have the bargaining power to make such demands and will pass the costs to customers.

Philip Levy, chief economist at the San Francisco freight company Flexport who was an adviser in President George W. Bush administration, said it’s hard to say for sure when the latest tariffs may hit U.S. customers in the form of higher prices.

But, he added, “If you had to pick a time to do it, this is the worst possible time” because it’s when the bulk of holiday goods are brought into the country.

…

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen staged multiple airstrikes on a detention center operated by the Houthi rebels in the southwestern province of Dhamar, killing at least 100 people and wounding dozens more Sunday, officials and the rebels’ health ministry said.

Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen, suggested that the death toll could be higher after visiting the site of the attack, saying relatively few detainees survived. A Red Cross statement said the detention center held around 170 detainees. It said 40 of those were being treated for injuries and the rest were presumed dead.

“Witnessing this massive damage, seeing the bodies lying among the rubble, was a real shock. Anger and sadness were natural reactions,” Rauchenstein said.

The attack was the deadliest so far this year by the coalition, according to the Yemen Data Project, a database tracking the war. The coalition has faced international criticism for airstrikes that have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, killing thousands of Yemeni civilians.

Saudi Arabia intervened on behalf of the internationally recognized Yemini government in March 2015, after the Iran-backed Houthis took the capital. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, thrust millions to the brink of famine and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The attack comes as the Saudi-led coalition’s partners — chiefly the United Arab Emirates and an array of Yemeni militias — are increasingly at odds over the war’s aims. The past weeks have seen heavy fighting in Yemen’s south between Saudi-backed and Emirati-backed forces.

Yemeni officials said Sunday’s strikes targeted a college in the city of Dhamar, which the Houthi rebels were using as a detention center. The coalition denied it had struck a detention center, saying it had targeted a military site used by the rebels to restore drones and missiles.

“We were sleeping and around midnight, there were maybe three, or four, or six strikes. They were targeting the jail, I really don’t know the strike numbers,” wounded detainee Nazem Saleh said while on a stretcher in a local hospital. He said the Red Cross had visited the center two times before the airstrike.

A line of over a dozen white body bags were laid out in the rubble beside flattened buildings and crushed cars, while rescue workers dug through the debris.

“We have seen now under the ruble that there are still many, many dead bodies that its very, very difficult to extract,” said Rauchenstein.

The U.N. human rights office for Yemen said 52 detainees were among the dead, and at least 68 detainees were still missing.

The Red Cross, which inspects detention centers as part of its global mission, said it had visited detainees at the site in the past.

Former detainees said the Houthis had previously used the site to store and repair weapons.

Youssef al-Hadhri, a spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry, said at least seven airstrikes hit three buildings in the complex overnight.

The rebels’ Health Ministry said in a statement that more than 60 people were killed in Sunday’s airstrikes and another 50 wounded. Later in the day, health officials said the death toll climbed to 65. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

The Saudi-led coalition said it had hit a military facility “in accordance with international humanitarian law,” and that “all precautionary measures were taken to protect civilians.”

Col. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the coalition, was quoted by the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV as denying the target was a prison.

Local residents said family members arrested for being critical of the Houthis were imprisoned in the detention center. They said at least seven airstrikes hit the area.

Omat al-Salam al-Haj, a mother of a detainee, said the center housed anti-Houthi political detainees who were rounded up over suspicions of cooperating with the coalition.

Former detainee Mansour al-Zelai said the Houthis were restoring weapons in and close to the detention center.

Houthi rebels have been using scores of sites as detention centers, including schools, mosques, and houses, filling them with thousands of political detainees to use later in prisoner-swap deals.

The Associated Press documented that many of these sites were rife with torture and abuses including Dhamar’s community college.

Former detainees recalled torture and abuses inside the detention center, which came under a series of airstrikes before.

Rights groups have also previously documented that Houthis place civilian detainees in detention centers as human shields by placing them next to army barracks, under constant threat of airstrikes.

In October 2016, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a prison complex in the Red Sea port of Hodeida, killing at least 58 people, mostly prisoners. At the time, the coalition said the prison complex was used as a command center for Houthis.

On Sunday, Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi in Amman to discuss her efforts to relaunch negotiations after years of stalemate between Yemen’s warring sides.

“Yemen has been at the center of my attention,” she said in a statement.

Wallstrom also met with Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed and other government officials in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, according the official Yemeni news agency SABA.

Airstrikes have also punctuated the infighting between erstwhile coalition allies in southern Yemen.

On Thursday, Emirati jets bombed convoys of Saudi-backed government forces, killing scores in series of airstrikes to prevent them from retaking the interim capital, Aden, from militias backed by the UAE.

The Emirati strikes sparked popular anger in Yemen against the UAE. Activists launched an online petition collecting signatures to “kick Emiratis out of Yemen” and members of the Yemeni government issued a statement demanding the president end the UAE’s role in Yemen.

On Sunday, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash posted a reminder on Twitter that the coalition’s goal is to “confront the challenge of the Houthi coup.”

…

Tensions are rising between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as the Israeli military said on Sunday that a number of anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon, targeting an Israeli military base and vehicles.

“A number of hits have been confirmed,” the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that it “is responding with fire towards the sources of fire and targets in southern Lebanon.”

No casualties were reported from the attack, Israeli officials said.

Retaliation

Hours before the incident, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had vowed to retaliate for the recent “Israeli aggression” in south Beirut.

“This time I wanted to say it would be open-ended where we would retaliate from,” he said during a televised speech Saturday night, which was broadcast on Hezbollah channel al-Manar TV.

Hezbollah: Israeli Drone Crashes Into Hezbollah Media Center

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri describes crash of two drones as violation and ‘aggression’ against Lebanese sovereignty as well as ‘threat to regional stability’

The leader of the Iranian-backed group said that the first response against Israel was downing its two drones in Lebanon last week.

Two explosive-laden drones crashed and exploded in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh in Beirut last Sunday. The attack was blamed on Israel by the Lebanese government and Hezbollah.

Israel hasn’t officially commented on the alleged incident. But Israeli officials have warned that they would target Iran and its proxies should they continue to threaten Israel’s security.

In the meantime, the Lebanese military said on Sunday that “a drone belonging to the Israeli enemy violated the Lebanese airspace… and threw flammable materials over the area, which led to a fire.”

The Lebanese military added that it was following this incident with U.N. forces in Lebanon.

The Sunday exchange of fire were part of a series of recent events in which Israel has targeted Iranian military targets in Syria and reportedly in Iraq.

The “question is whether Hezbollah will regard this [attack on Israel] as a response to both the Beirut events and the Aqraba incident [in Syria],” said Jonathan Spyer, a research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

He told VOA that as long as there are no Israeli causalities, the situation on the Israel-Lebanon border will eventually calm down.

Last week, the Israeli air force also carried out strikes against a cell belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps near the Syrian capital, Damascus, which Israel says was on its way to launch drone attacks against northern Israel.

Israel believes that Iran, which has a significant military presence in Syria, has been using Hezbollah and its bases in Lebanon and Syria to transport weapons to areas near Israel’s borders with both countries.  

Israel also has accused Iran of helping Hezbollah to stockpile precision-guided missiles that could cause “massive” human casualties in Israel.

Risking Lebanon for Iran?

Experts charge that the Shi’ite militant group has increasingly become a main force for Iran’s hostility towards Israel.  

“Hezbollah seems to be ready to put itself on the frontlines for the Iranians,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former National Security Advisor to the prime minister of Israel and a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).

He told VOA that, “If the Lebanese let Hezbollah and Iran build their launch pads and facilities in Lebanon, at the end of the day the price will be paid by the Lebanese.”

But Lebanese researcher Michel Shamai believes that Hezbollah doesn’t have the capabilities to enter an all-out war with Israel, because it “isn’t ready to risk the entire state of Lebanon for the sake of its masters in Iran.”

“And it won’t stand by idly in front of its audience that has been mobilized with fulfilling promises,” he said in a recent article in the Lebanese daily newspaper An-Nahar.

Since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the two sides have occasionally exchanged attacks. In the wake of Syria’s war, Israel has also hit Hezbollah targets inside Syria.

Deterrence

Israel continues its military buildup on its northern border with Lebanon. The Israeli military has sent artillery batteries to the area and the Israeli navy also has been put on high alert.

Analyst Amidror said that “this build is primarily to deter Hezbollah from making any mistakes.”

“It is a clear message from Israel that any retaliation from Hezbollah will face a big response from Israel. That’s why Hezbollah’s [Sunday] response was very minor,” he said.

The tensions between the two sides are unlikely to escalate, Amidror added.

…

Germany’s president bowed his head and asked for forgiveness for the suffering his nation inflicted on Poland and the rest of Europe during World War II.

“This war was a German crime,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Poland’s leaders, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others Sunday at a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II.

“I bow in mourning to the suffering of the victims,” Steinmeier said. “I ask for forgiveness for Germany’s historical debt. I affirm our lasting responsibility.”

The ceremony, which was also attended by President Andrzej Duda of Poland, was held at 4.37a.m. local time, exactly 80 years after the air strikes that started the Second World War.

“Here began the trail of violence and destruction which was to go through Poland and Europe for six years. We call it war, because we are at a loss to express the horror of those years,” Steinmeier said.
 
U.S. President Donald Trump had originally been scheduled to attend the event, but canceled as Hurricane Dorian barreled toward the U.S.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t invited to attend the ceremony but that didn’t stop Russia officials from marking the role Soviet Union played in ending the war.

 “One may have varying opinions on Soviet policy during the initial period of World War II, but it is impossible to deny the fact that it was the Soviet Union that routed Nazism, liberated Europe and saved European democracy,” the Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted Sunday.

…

Indonesian police have arrested dozens of people in the easternmost region of Papua following protests last week in which buildings were set ablaze, a police spokesman said Sunday.

The area has been racked by civil unrest for two weeks over perceived racial and ethnic discrimination. Some protesters are also demanding an independence vote, although authorities have ruled out such a possibility.

Reports of Racism by Indonesian Police Spark Riots in West Papua video player.

Embed

Copy

In the provincial capital of Jayapura, 28 people have been arrested and named as suspects, and more face investigation, Papuan police spokesman Ahmad Kamal said by telephone.

“Twenty-eight people are suspects in cases of damaging and burning properties, violence, provocation, and looting,” Kamal said, adding that all had been arrested after a protest in Jayapura Thursday.

The rioters set cars and buildings ablaze, including a local parliament office and a building housing the offices of the state-controlled telco firm, during the protest.

Kamal said the situation in Papua was now calmer.

In Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta, two students suspected of crimes against state security have been arrested, police said in a statement Saturday.

The evidence against them included their mobile telephones, and a shirt and a shawl emblazoned with the Morning Star flag pattern, a banned symbol of Papuan nationhood.

Jakarta Legal Aid lawyer Michael Himan said the two were arrested from a Papuan dormitory in Depok, in a southern part of the capital, late Friday. They were charged with treasonous intent against the unity of the nation, Himan told Reuters Sunday.

In a statement, Jakarta Legal Aid said the police also arrested several other Papuan students and an activist in Jakarta Saturday.

Himan said the reason for the arrest of the rest was still unclear. Spokesmen for national police and Jakarta police were not immediately available to comment.
 

…

A team of researchers and humanitarian professionals have developed a unique approach to combat domestic violence in the refugee camps of Dollo Ado in Ethiopia.

The approach involves the co-creation of a podcast series called Unite for a Better Life, together with Somali refugees living in the camp to target the underlying factors that contribute to intimate partner violence in this setting.

Theodros WoldeGiorgis, research manager and intervention specialist in humanitarian crisis, told VOA displacement and the breakdown of social structures is driving intimate partner violence in the refugee camps.

“People are always on the move, they are suffering from displacement, they are traumatized and their troubles have been aggravated by poverty,” he said.

WoldeGiorgis explained that “when displaced people have [a] shortage of basic needs, they will get into conflict and particularly the women and children are mostly affected.”

Over the past month, eight young Somali refugees have been trained and mentored to produce these podcasts in the local language. Together with researchers on the team, they have been developing content they believe will be effective in changing the way domestic violence is viewed in their community.

Podcaster Ikra Dagan said one episode was about empowering change.  

“So if I talk about a bystander, you don’t just stand by and look as someone is being victimized or subjected to violence. You must take action and help our sisters, mothers and even our friends,” Dagan said after rehearsing her script.

The podcasts tackle a broad range of themes, including understanding gender and gender norms, providing insights into healthy and unhealthy relationships, discussing sexuality and pleasure, and addressing Khat, a stimulant drug derived from a plant that is widely chewed for cultural and social reasons and is linked to intimate partner violence.

How to handle conflict

The Unite for a Better life podcasts give people practical advice on how to build healthy relationships based on, for example, effective listening skills, or handling conflict in a healthy way.

“We gave them some take home messages like violence is never acceptable, there is always an alternative to violence. We also informed them that violence hurts everyone,” said podcaster Mahad Noor.

Belete Seyoum, the humanitarian assistance and program head at the Administration for Refugee/ Returnee Affairs in Bokolmanyo Camp, hopes that the podcasts will help reduce intimate partner violence in the refugee camps.

“It is one of the major Information education communication mechanism to minimize and mitigate any violence happening in the camp,” Seyoum said.

The podcast project is the brainchild of a team of researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, and Women and Health Alliance (WAHA) Ethiopia. It builds on research being conducted in the camps since 2014.

Vandana Sharma, the principal investigator of the research study, says there is a growing interest in using technology-based solutions to address intimate partner violence, especially in humanitarian settings.

“Typically, programs addressing intimate partner violence involve in-person participatory sessions.  We believe that an approach such as the podcast series, could have a much farther reach, as people could download the podcasts and share them peer-to-peer and in a humanitarian context. This means we could reach many people very quickly,” she said.

Negussie Deyessa of Addis Ababa University acknowledges that podcasts are a unique and promising intervention that can help relay important messages, change attitudes and behavior and enable community members to unite for a better life.

Already though, the creation of the podcasts has been a transformational experience for the podcasters.

“Whenever I hear about podcasts, I seem to be an expert. Now I can go with my mic, I can record the voice, I can edit, I can produce very fantastic audios, now I am a great podcaster,” said Mahad.

With intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings increasingly coming under the spotlight, podcasts are providing a unique intervention, which can help relay important messages, change attitudes and behaviors and enable community members to unite for a better life.  

…

Using water cannons, gunshots, batons and tear gas, Hong Kong police pursued protesters through city streets and into subway stations, seeking people who defied and blocked police in several districts on a tense and chaotic Saturday. The demonstrations coincided with the fifth anniversary of Beijing’s denial of free, unimpeded elections in the territory.

Before midnight, riot police stormed into two subway stations in the city’s Kowloon area seeking suspects. Videos aired and shared online showed officers snagging a few people, as a phalanx of police charged a train car, whipping and beating seemingly random passengers who cowered and sobbed.

The event was a shocking reminder of the attack in Yuen Long on July 21, when more than 100 white-shirted assailants savagely beat passengers as people frantically called police who didn’t arrive for 39 minutes. Just four men have been charged in the attacks and police actions are under investigation by the city’s corruption agency.

On Saturday, police officials claimed that some protesters vandalized the customer service center and damaged ticket machines in the Mong Kok MTR Station and assaulted citizens and damaged property inside a nearby station in Prince Edward.

At one point, the company that runs rail service, the MTR Corp., suspended service on five lines.

Those events swiftly overshadowed a new tactic in the police arsenal, the spraying of a blue dyed liquid from water cannons to soak protesters. The dye, police have said, would allow them to more easily find violators later.

Protesters responded by throwing Molotov cocktails and setting a fire at a barricade on a major thoroughfare near Hong Kong police headquarters. Police fired two live rounds into the air near Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island, according to journalists at the scene.

“It seems like hurting us doesn’t mean anything, unless we die,” said a 21-year-old protester named Alice, en route to a showdown with police in the neighborhood of Tsim Sha Tsui. “We’re risking our lives. They’re pushing us to do more, crazier things.”

An effort to stop a contentious bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China exploded this spring into a massive campaign for democratic rights.

Residents have marched for 12 straight weekends, initially to demand that the government withdraw the detested extradition bill and, more recently, to seek universal voting rights, a goal that has been repeatedly thwarted in the Chinese territory.

Both Democratic and Republican leaders of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee issued a statement on Hong Kong Saturday saying, “In recent weeks, we’ve seen admirable resolve among Hong Kongers to express their concerns regarding their future. A broad spectrum of Hong Kongers have chosen to put their personal safety and freedom at risk to stand up for their rights because Beijing has denied them a political voice.”

Frustration over the government’s decision to ignore the mass marches prodded younger participants to stage increasingly violent clashes with police. Their refusal to disperse, and to use Molotov cocktails, bricks and poles to fight officers, led officials to deny permission to marches and rallies, saying organizers could not guarantee that the events would be peaceful.

High school students plan to strike Monday. But a coalition of groups, including a major trade union, was denied rally permits for that same day. Police officials said organizers could not guarantee the public’s safety.

…

For more than a century, coal has kept the lights on in the industrialized world. But coal-fired power plants are closing across the United States and Europe. Market forces have shifted to cheaper natural gas and renewables, not to mention the concerns about climate-changing carbon dioxide that the plants produce. But in the state of Wyoming, where coal is an important part of the economy, the government is trying to put the brakes on the transition. VOA’s Steve Baragona reports.
 

…

In 2018, the United States reached an agreement with Mexico and Canada — two of its biggest trading partners — to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. The new USMCA Trade Agreement is billed as “more balanced and reciprocal,” but as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, the lack of a vote in the U.S. Congress to ratify the agreement is a source of frustration for U.S. farmers.

…

A Sudanese judge formally indicted former president Omar al-Bashir on charges of possessing illicit foreign currency and corruption on Saturday.

Questioned in court for the first time, Bashir said that he had received $25 million from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as funds from other sources, but that he had not received or used the money for his own benefit.

A lawyer for Bashir said that his client denied the charges against him and that witnesses for the defense would be presented at the next hearing.

The judge denied a request for bail and said a decision on the duration of Bashir’s detention would be taken at a hearing on Sept. 7.

Sudan’s military ousted and arrested Bashir in April after months of protests across the country. His prosecution is seen as a test of how far military and civilian authorities now sharing power will go to counter the legacy of his 30-year rule.

Bashir was also charged in May with incitement and involvement in the killing of protesters. He has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of masterminding genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.

A police detective told the court earlier this month that Bashir had acknowledged receiving millions from Saudi Arabia.

…

The Taliban have staged a “large-scale” predawn attack on an important city in northern Afghanistan, even as leaders of the insurgent group are engaged in marathon peace talks with the United States on ending the deadly war.

Residents and officials said Saturday insurgents assaulted Kunduz, the capital of the province with the same name, from several different directions, triggering intense gun battles with Afghan government forces.

Both sides reportedly have suffered casualties and civilians also have been harmed, though exact details of the battlefield losses could not be ascertained from independent sources. The fighting disrupted power supplies and cell phone services to Kunduz, cutting off all communications.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Roohullah Amadzai told reporters the Taliban managed to enter central parts of Kunduz and took positions in civilian population, including the main hospital.

Ahmadzai said security forces, backed by airpower, were responding to the insurgent attack to force them out of the city while making sure civilians and patients were not harmed in the process. He confirmed both Afghan and foreign forces carried out airstrikes against Taliban positions in the city, killing at least 25 insurgents.

The Afghan city, located on a key highway providing easy access to much of northern border provinces, repeatedly has come under Taliban attack since 2015 and was briefly held twice by the insurgents. The Taliban has since taken control of much of the province.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed in his latest statement that insurgents remained in control of areas they overran at the start of the assault, and they have inflicted heavy casualties on pro-government forces during ongoing clashes.

The Taliban advances prompted top Afghan security officials to arrive in Kunduz later in the day along with the U.S. commander of international forces, General Scott Miller. A Kabul government spokesman, Feroz Bashari, said the officials will “lead clearance operations” against the insurgents. He also tweeted a picture of Miller with other officials from a meeting in the embattled city.

The latest battlefield insurgent attack came on a day when Taliban leaders resumed talks with U.S. interlocutors in the Gulf state of Qatar after taking a one-day break for internal consultations.

The crucial ninth round in the yearlong dialogue between the two adversaries in the 18-year-old Afghan war started on August 22 amid exceptions it would lead to a peace agreement. But it was not clear whether a deal was imminent.

The Taliban is pressing the United States and its NATO allies to pull out their troops from Afghanistan, while Washington wants counterterrorism guarantees from the insurgents, a nationwide cease-fire and the Taliban’s participation in intra-Afghan talks to permanently end hostilities in the country.

President Donald Trump said this week he plans to reduce U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600 from the current level of roughly 14,000. He would not discuss the fate of the residual force.

The Taliban has not responded to Trump’s latest statement, which runs counter to repeated insurgent assertions that in ongoing peace talks with the U.S., an understanding has been reached on a complete withdrawal of foreign troops.

…