The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has protested Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest visit to Ukraine’s Crimea region, calling a it a “gross violation” of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“Attempts by the Russian side and the mass media to describe such ‘visits’ as ‘ordinary’ domestic trips by Russian officials are futile,” the ministry said in a statement on August 11, adding that Crimea was an “integral part” of Ukraine.

On August 10, Putin was shown on state television in a leather jacket at a biker show organized by the Night Wolves motorcycle club in Sevastopol, a city in the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow seized in 2014.

The Night Wolves club is known for its allegiance to the Kremlin.

Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power by the pro-European Maidan protest movement the previous month.

Moscow has also fomented unrest and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where more than 13,000 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict since April 2014.

Putin’s visit to Sevastopol took place as tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Moscow to demand fair municipal elections. More than 250 people were detained by police.

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The apparent suicide while in federal custody of well-connected U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein is being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General.

Epstein, who had friendships with U.S. President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew, was facing the possibility of 45 years in prison if convicted on charges of orchestrating a sex trafficking ring and sexually abusing dozens of underage girls.

Media reports said Epstein had been placed on suicide watch after a suspected earlier attempt to kill himself, but was removed from the watch at the end of July.   The New York Times reported that Epstein was supposed to have been checked on every 30 minutes, but that procedure was not being followed the night before he was found dead.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in a statement he was “appalled” by Epstein’s death while in federal custody. “Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered,” Barr said.

Epstein was being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.  

Epstein to plead guilty in 2008 to Florida state prostitution charges, for which he served a 13-month term and most days was freed to work at his office in south Florida. He also was required to register as a sex offender and pay restitution to the underage girls he abused.

President Trump’s former Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who had been the federal prosecutor handling the Epstein case in Florida at the time of that plea deal, has resigned over his handling of the matter.

 

 

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Russia’s communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, says it has asked Google to take measures to prevent the advertising of “illegal mass events” on its video-hosting site, YouTube.

Roskomnadzor said on Sunday that it had sent a letter to Google saying that Russia would consider it interference in its sovereign affairs and a hostile influence should the U.S.-based tech giant fail to respond to the request.

The announcement comes a day after tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered outside Moscow’s center for a sanctioned rally demanding fair municipal elections.

Hundreds of people later gathered in more central parts of the city, prompting police to detain more than 250 people, according to the independent watchdog OVD-Info.

OVD-Info said 79 people were also detained in St. Petersburg, 13 in Rostov-on-Don, two in Bryansk, and two more in Syktyvkar as “solidarity” rallies attracted smaller crowds there and in other cities.

Earlier on Sunday, Andrei Klimov, head of the Committee for the Defense of State Sovereignty in Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, said that “foreign opponents took advantage of information and computer technologies in order to manipulate Russian citizens who attended” the unauthorized Moscow protests, TASS news agency reported.

In July, Roskomnadzor fined Google 700,000 rubles ($11,000) for failing to censor content blacklisted by the agency in accordance with strict Russian Internet laws.

 

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NEW DELHI — India’s main opposition Congress party on Saturday appointed Sonia Gandhi to serve as interim president until it elects a new party chief. 
 
The party accepted the resignation of her son Rahul Gandhi, who quit in July after Congress’ crushing defeat in national elections. He continues to be a member of Parliament. 

A party working committee then asked Sonia Gandhi, 72, to take over in a stop-gap arrangement, party spokesman K.C. Venugopal said. 
 
Sonia Gandhi handed the top party post to her son in 2017 after she suffered health problems. The party has long been led by the politically powerful Nehru-Gandhi family. 
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won 303 out of 542 seats in the lower house of Parliament, while the Congress party won 52 seats in April-May elections. 
 
In January, Rahul Gandhi inducted his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra into politics as a party general secretary months before the national elections. 
 
Several Congress leaders want Vadra, 47, to  succeed Rahul Gandhi as party president.  She has in the past helped her mother and brother campaign in their constituencies in northern Uttar Pradesh state. 
 
Rahul Gandhi’s father, Rajiv Gandhi, his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, have all served as prime minister since India’s independence from British colonialists in 1947. 
 
Rahul Gandhi entered politics in 2004. 

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EL PASO, TEXAS — More than 100 people marched through the Texas border city of El Paso on Saturday, denouncing racism and calling for stronger gun laws one week after 22 people were killed in a mass shooting that authorities say was carried out by a man targeting Mexicans.  
 
Chanting “Gun reform now,” ” El Paso strong” and “Aqui estamos y no nos vamos” — Spanish for “Here we are and we are not leaving” — the marchers included Hispanic, white and black people dressed in white to symbolize peace and carrying 22 white wooden crosses to represent the victims of the shooting at an El Paso Walmart. 
 
The man charged in with capital murder in the attack, Patrick Crusius, 21, told investigators he targeted Mexicans at the store with an AK-47 rifle, an El Paso detective said in an arrest affidavit. Federal prosecutors have said they’re weighing hate-crime charges. 
 
Jessica Coca Garcia, who was among those wounded in the shooting, spoke to those gathered at the League of United Latin American Citizens’ “March for a United America.” 
 
“Racism is something I always wanted to think didn’t exist. Obviously, it does,” Coca Garcia said after rising from a wheelchair. Bandages covered gunshot wounds to her leg. 
 
“I love you, El Paso,” she said, her voice cracking. “This is where I’m going to stay.”  
 
Former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also attended and spoke to the crowd.  
 
O’Rourke, who is from El Paso, has blamed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric for spreading fear and hate, leading Trump to tweet that O’Rourke should “be quiet.” 

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Written by Eugen Tomiuc with reporting by RFE/RL’s Romanian Service, Hotnews.ro, G4media.ro, and Digi24.ro. 

Romanians rallied in Bucharest and other cities across the country Saturday to mark the first anniversary of a massive anti-corruption protest that the government violently quelled. 

The demonstrations came amid public outrage over the authorities’ response to the kidnapping and killing last month of a 15-year-old girl, a case that revealed deep flaws in the police system of the European Union and NATO member state. 
 
About 20,000 people turned up for a rally outside government headquarters in central Bucharest, filling much of Victoria Square into the evening, according to G4media.ro. 
 
Protests had also been urged over social media for Brasov, Cluj, Constanta, Iasi and other large cities, under slogans such as, “We don’t forget what you did last summer,” “We’re watching you” and “Reset Romania.”  

2018 crackdown 
 
Last year, about 100,000 Romanians, many of them expatriates, gathered on Aug. 10 in front of the same government building to protest the leftist government’s moves to reverse anti-graft reforms and weaken the judiciary in one of the EU’s most corrupt countries. 
 
Riot police then used water cannons and tear gas in a display of violence unseen since the early 1990s. 
 
Television footage of protesters and bystanders with hands up being chased and beaten with batons sparked fury across the country and prompted condemnation from the EU and the United States. More than 450 people needed medical assistance and one person reportedly died after the crackdown. 
 
Some observers cited the Aug. 10, 2018, violence, as well as the “failure of so-called judicial reforms,” as the reason for the Social Democratic Party (PSD)-led coalition’s losses in European Parliament elections May 26. 
 
A day after the August 2018 crackdown, PSD leader and lower-house speaker Liviu Dragnea was imprisoned following the rejection of his appeal of a conviction in an abuse-of-office case. 

Teen’s death
 
However, public anger has recently grown over what many see as an increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional public administration after the gruesome slaying of a 15-year-old girl from Caracal, in southern Romania, whose calls for help were mishandled by police in July. 
 
Alexandra Macesanu phoned the European emergency number three times to say she had been kidnapped, beaten and raped. It took the authorities 19 hours to locate and enter the premises where she had been taken, as they initially made light of her calls and then struggled to trace them. 
 
Authorities later found burned bone fragments on site, which they identified with DNA tests earlier this month as being Macesanu’s. A 65-year-old car mechanic has confessed to killing Alexandra and Luiza Melencu, 18, in April 2019. 
 
The authorities’ handling of the case has triggered street protests across the country and stark condemnation from opposition-backed center-right President Klaus Iohannis. 
 
Iohannis, who is up for re-election in November, said the PSD-led coalition was “the moral author of the tragedy” because of its measures against the judiciary. 
 
The interior minister resigned, while the chief of Romanian police, the education minister and several other officials were fired. 

Allegations of crime, trafficking
 
However, media allegations of organized crime and human-trafficking networks’ ties to senior politicians and local police continue to surface, adding to what many Romanians already see as growing social insecurity. 
 
According to U.N. estimates, at least 3.4 million people have left Romania since 2007, when it joined the EU — a number second only to the refugee total from war-torn Syria. The World Bank said roughly 3 million to 5 million Romanians are working and living abroad, in jobs ranging from day laborers to doctors. 
 
Furthermore, the latest Romanian statistics show that almost 220,000 people emigrated in 2017 after the PSD-led coalition took over in December 2016 and initiated a series of measures to weaken the judiciary and the rule of law. 
 
Many Romanian expatriates had planned to attend Saturday’s protests. 
 
“We were defeated last year,” a woman from the northeastern city of Iasi told reporters on her way to Bucharest. ‘We failed to push for change after August 10. We did not continue the fight to reform the system. As a result of our complacency, two girls are now dead.” 

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JERUSALEM – The Israeli army said its troops fatally shot four heavily armed Palestinians on the Gaza border early Saturday, alleging one of them had crossed and thrown a grenade at soldiers. 
 
Separately, security forces said they had arrested two Palestinians suspected of killing an off-duty Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank earlier this week. 
 
There have been frequent clashes along the Gaza border since the Palestinians began organizing regular mass protests there in March 2018. But Saturday’s exchange was unusual because of the weaponry the Israeli army said was involved on the Palestinian side. 
 
“The terrorists were equipped with AK-47 assault rifles, RPG grenade launchers and hand grenades,” an army statement said.  
 
A spokeswoman said the army “opened fire after one of the terrorists scaled the barrier and hurled a grenade at the soldiers.” 
 
No Israeli casualties were reported. 

‘Uniforms’
 
Army spokesman Jonathan Conricus said the four Palestinians were all wearing “uniforms” — without elaborating — and were equipped with food and a medical kit as well as the rifles. 
 
A Hamas statement condemned Israel’s killing of the four Palestinians as a “crime.” 
 
But the Islamist rulers of the Palestinian enclave made no claim of responsibility and did not say whether the four were members of its armed wing. 
 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his government’s stance that Hamas is responsible for all attacks emanating from Gaza. 
 
“Israel will continue to act to thwart infiltrations of its territory and attacks on our citizens,” he said in a statement. 

Blockade spurs protests
 
Palestinian demonstrations at the border demanding the lifting of Israel’s blockade, in effect for more than a decade, have often led to violence and a deadly response from the Israeli army. 
 
At least 301 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza or the border area since March 2018, the majority during the demonstrations. 
 
Seven Israelis have also been killed. 
 
The protests have declined in intensity in recent months following a truce brokered by the United Nations and Egypt, under which Israel agreed to ease aspects of its blockade in return for calm. 
 
Sporadic violence has continued but the Israeli army has said most of it consisted of lone-wolf attacks. 
 
Netanyahu is widely seen as wanting to avoid a major flare-up in the Palestinian territories as Israel prepares for a snap general election on Sept. 17, its second election this year. 
 
But he is likely to face political pressure to act firmly against any significant attack. 
 
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008. 
 
On Aug. 1, a Palestinian seeking to avenge his brother’s death by Israeli fire entered Israel from Gaza armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and hand grenades. He was killed and three Israeli soldiers wounded, the army said. 

Soldier slain
 
The latest killings on the Gaza border came days after off-duty soldier Dvir Sorek was found dead “with stabbing marks” near the West Bank settlement of Migdal Oz. 
 
Israel’s domestic intelligence agency said Saturday that two Palestinians suspected of killing him had been arrested.  
 
“After an intensive intelligence operation by security services, the Israeli police and army arrested suspects” in his slaying, Shin Bet said in a statement. 
 
The killing of the 19-year-old, between Bethlehem and the flashpoint city of Hebron, further hiked Israeli-Palestinian tensions ahead of the elections. 
 
The Israeli army said separately that 100 “rioters” had attacked security forces with rocks as they apprehended “the terrorist squad” suspected of killing him. 
 
Netanyahu commended the swift arrests. “In recent years our forces have laid hands on all of the Palestinian murderers who have attacked Israelis, and today they have done so again,” he said. 

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Some material for this report came from RFE/RL. 

Republican and Democratic lawmakers joined forces to oppose moves by the White House that critics fear could lead to sharp cuts in foreign aid for international health, narcotics and peacekeeping initiatives, and development assistance. 
 
Members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees sent a letter Friday to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expressing “deep concern” after it had instructed the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to freeze about $4 billion in their budgets until it reviewed any money that hadn’t yet been spent. 
 
Critics have said the freeze could be the first step in making cuts to foreign aid.  The lawmakers sent the letter to the OMB seeking to head off such a move and threatening a response if the administration moved ahead with cuts. They also pointed out that, under the Constitution, it is Congress that appropriates money, which they said was “essential” to U.S. global leadership and security. 
 
“Slashing crucial diplomacy and development programming would be detrimental to our national security while also undermining Congress’ intended use for these funds,” said the letter, signed by Sens. James Risch, R-Idaho, and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Reps. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas. 

‘Direct affront’
 
In the letter, the lawmakers wrote, “It would be inappropriate for any administration, under any circumstance, to attempt to override Congress’ most fundamental power. Such action would be precedent-setting and a direct affront to the separation of powers principle upon which our nation was built.” 
 

The freeze affects 10 bank accounts overseen by USAID and the State Department, a senior administration official told RFE/RL. 
 
The OMB made the request to USAID and State Department on Aug. 3 and has yet to receive information about how much is in those accounts and how they plan to use the money. 
 
The funds under scrutiny cover fiscal 2018 and 2019 and would otherwise expire if not spent by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. 
 
Last weekend’s order came at the beginning of an extended congressional recess that ends Sept. 9, a time when lawmakers would have more difficulty blocking such a move. 
 
Funding for a Pakistan space initiative and Uzbek education program are two of the projects funded by the 10 accounts under review. 
 
The chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee urged the heads of the OMB to make money available right away. 
 
Republican dissent

Republicans in both houses of Congress have typically been extremely supportive of President Donald Trump’s policies, although many have spoken up against moves related to foreign affairs, including his close ties to Saudi Arabia, plans to withdraw troops from Syria and a reduction in aid to Central America. 
 
The Trump administration has made repeated efforts to reduce the amount of money Washington spends on foreign aid. 
 
In April, the administration unsuccessfully tried to cut the budget on foreign aid and diplomacy by 23 percent. 
 
At the time, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally, called the proposal “insane.” 
 

Last week, Engel said, “This administration’s contempt for Congress is astounding. … When Congress decides how much we can spend on foreign assistance, it isn’t a suggestion. It’s the law, backed up by the Constitution.” 
 
The Democrat added that the Republican administration’s order “would devastate our ability to project American values and leadership around the globe.” 
 
‘Reckless and irresponsible’

InterAction, a global alliance of nongovernmental organizations that serves “the world’s poor and vulnerable,” also denounced the order. 
 
“It is both disappointing and saddening that President Trump consistently undermines the decisions that our elected representatives in Congress have made to support foreign assistance,” said CEO Sam Worthington. “Data tells us that the small fraction of America’s budget that goes to foreign aid yields big results. The White House’s repeated political ploys to halt aid threaten the effectiveness of U.S. assistance and put America’s global leadership at risk.” 
 
Liz Schrayer, CEO of the nonprofit U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, called the administration’s order “a reckless and irresponsible move” and added, “OMB appears set on taking a sledgehammer to one of the most minuscule parts of the entire federal budget that would significantly damage America’s security and economic interests — and thwart congressional authority.” 
 
OMB spokeswoman Rachel Semmel said federal agencies have a responsibility to appropriately spend the congressionally approved funds.  
 
“In an effort to ensure accountability, OMB has requested the current status of several foreign assistance accounts to identify the amount of funding that is unobligated.”

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Amanda Browder works with fabrics of all kinds. But, instead of creating clothing for people, she “dresses up” buildings with her unique style of installation art. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.
 

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More than a year has passed since protests against changes to Nicaraguas pension program turned into a full scale socio-political crisis. The government crackdown by President Daniel Ortega has resulted in more than 200 deaths, and forced more than 65,000 people to leave the country. Among them journalists who say they’ve been targeted. But even though they’re not there, many of these journalists are still sending the news back home. VOA reporter Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story.
 

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For many years, the United States has been issuing advisories, warning potential travelers about countries plagued by terrorism or armed conflict.  But now, Amnesty International, Japan, Uruguay and other countries are warning about the danger of travel to the U.S., citing gun violence. This sparked a response from President Donald Trump, as VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
 

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This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. Some information is from AFP.

WASHINGTON — The fundraising chief for prominent Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny says a Moscow court’s decision to freeze financial assets of the jailed activist’s anti-corruption watchdog is a laughably predictable outcome that says more about the group’s success in exposing widespread corruption than the money laundering charges it’s now facing.

A Moscow district court Thursday froze the assets of Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption (FBK), which was set up to spotlight the excessively lavish lifestyles of top government and Kremlin officials.

“It is actually very funny,” Leonid Volkov told VOA’s Russian Service just hours after criminal charges landed, pointing out that the investigation coincides with a crackdown that has seen Navalny jailed and thousands of people detained at some of the largest free-election rallies Moscow has seen since Putin’s 2012 term began.

“It has already been noted that when someone needs to be accused of murder, the call always comes from MP Lugovoi, who is actually accused of murder in Britain,” said Volkov, referring to former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi, a member of the State Duma committee on security and countering corruption, who stands accused in the 2006 poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko.

Russian ‘projection’

Shortly after Thursday’s court ruling was announced, Navalny’s web site posted security camera footage of Russian Investigative Committee officials, Moscow’s equivalent of the FBI, entering FBK headquarters accompanied by masked guards in tactical gear. Other investigators raided the homes of FBK attorneys Vyacheslav Gimadi, Alexander Pomazuyev, Evgeny Zamyatin and Vladlen Los.

Agents also searched the homes of FBK video-producer Vitaly Kolesnikov and regional manager Anastasia Kadetova, and called in other FBK representatives for questioning.

“Everything is done according to this logic,” Volkov told VOA, explaining that just as a pro-Kremlin legislator who stands accused of murder would call for murder charges against an opposition figure, it was members of the State Duma’s financial crimes committee who filed the motion to bring money laundering charges against Navalny’s group.

“Allegations we’ve ‘laundered a billion rubles’ are being levied by the very officials whose homes we’ve proven are worth literally millions of dollars,” he said. “Thieves make accusations of theft; murderers make accusations of murder; rapists make accusations of violence and rape. In psychology, I believe this is what’s called ‘projection.’”

Corruption watchdog

Since being founded in 2011, Navalny’s FBK corruption watchdog has published reports detailing the lavish lifestyles of figures close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Moscow first deputy mayor Natalia Sergunina.

A court spokesperson said the order would freeze assets estimated at a billion rubles ($15.3 million). Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, however, said the Moscow district court ordered a freeze of 75 million rubles ($1.1 million) held in accounts of the FBK and those of several staff members.

Russian investigators say the FBK knowingly used a large amount of money that was gained by third parties through criminal enterprises. Yarmysh says the foundation solicits donations on its website.

Four FBK employees are currently incarcerated, and several others are under an ongoing investigation. FBK lawyer Lyubov Sobol, who called for protests after she was barred from running for a seat on the Moscow City Duma, has been on hunger strike for almost a month.

“What we are seeing now is the most aggressive attempt so far to silence us,” Navalny recently wrote in his blog, vowing not to give in.

“The strategic aim of this raid and all the made-up legal affairs is to create fear. … Do not be afraid to go and demonstrate,” he added.

The opposition is planning another large protest in Moscow on Saturday, although hundreds were detained at the last gathering Aug. 3.

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Prosecutors on Friday filed a terrorist threat charge against a 20-year-old man who said he walked into a Missouri store wearing body armor and carrying a loaded rifle and handgun to test whether Walmart would honor his constitutional right to bear arms.

The incident, just days after 22 people were killed during an attack at another Walmart in El Paso, Texas, caused a panic at the Springfield, Missouri, store. Dmitriy Andreychenko walked through filming himself with his cell phone Thursday afternoon.

No shots were fired and Andreychenko was arrested after he was stopped by an armed off-duty firefighter at the store.

“Missouri protects the right of people to open carry a firearm, but that does not allow an individual to act in a reckless and criminal manner endangering other citizens,’’ Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson said in a statement announcing the charge. Patterson compared the man’s actions to “falsely shouting fire in a theater causing a panic.”

If convicted, the felony charge of making a terrorist threat in the second degree is punishable by up to four years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, according to the prosecutor’s office. The charge means he showed reckless disregard for the risk of causing an evacuation or knowingly caused fear that lives were in danger.

“I wanted to know if Walmart honored the Second Amendment,” a probable cause statement released Friday with the charges quoted Andreychenko as saying.

Recorded his deed

Andreychenko started to record himself with his phone while he was still in the car parked at Walmart. He got the body armor from the trunk of his car and put it on before grabbing a shopping cart and walking into the store, according to the statement.

Andreychenko said his intention was to buy grocery bags. The rifle had a loaded magazine inserted, but a round was not chambered. A handgun on his right hip was loaded with one round in the chamber.

He said he bought the rifle and body armor because of three recent shootings and a stabbing, and said he wanted to protect himself.

Wife, sister warned him

His wife, Angelice Andreychenko, told investigators that she warned him it was not a good idea, adding that he was an immature boy.

His sister, Anastasia Andreychenko, said he had asked her if she would videotape him going into Walmart with a gun and she also told him it was a bad idea, according to the probable cause statement.

The statement does not allege that he pointed the weapons at anyone, although patrons in the surveillance video could be seen in the background running away.

Walmart bans him

Walmart issued a statement Friday that praised authorities for stopping the incident from escalating. It said Andreychenko is no longer welcome in its stores.

“This was a reckless act designed to scare people, disrupt our business and it put our associates and customers at risk,” said spokeswoman LeMia Jenkins. “We applaud the quick actions of our associates to evacuate customers from our store, and we’re thankful no one was injured.”

Since January 2017, Missouri has not required a permit to openly or conceal carry a firearm for those 19 years or older. Roughly 30 states allow the open carrying of handguns and rifles and shotguns in public without a permit.

San Francisco-based Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence said six states generally prohibit the open carrying of rifles and shotguns — California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New Jersey — along with the District of Columbia, the law center said.

California, Florida and Illinois also generally ban the open carry of handguns, as do New York and South Carolina.

Springfield is about 165 miles (266 kilometers) south of Kansas City, Missouri.
 

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Effects of the largest immigration raid in at least a decade are likely to ripple for years through six Mississippi small towns that host poultry plants.

A store owner who caters to Latino poultry plant workers fears he will have to close. A school superintendent is trying to rebuild trust with the Spanish-speaking community. And the CEO of a local bank says the effects are likely to touch every business in her town.

More than 100 civil rights activists, union organizers and clergy members in Mississippi denounced the raid, but the state’s Republican Gov. Phil Bryant commended federal immigration authorities for the arrests, tweeting that anyone in the country illegally has to “bear the responsibility of that federal violation.”

Officials said 680 people were initially detained during Wednesday’s operation. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement sent more than 300 of those people home by dawn Thursday, with notices to appear before immigration judges, said ICE spokesman Bryan Cox.

In the coming months, as those people await hearings, they’re unlikely to be able to work, and local churches are gathering food and money to provide aid.

Juan Garcia and his wife own Hondumex, a grocery store and restaurant catering to Latinos in downtown Morton, a small town of roughly 3,000 people about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of the capital of Jackson. Sales have been terrible since the raid, Garcia said Thursday, surrounded by plantains, pastries and specially butchered meat. Garcia said even those who have been released will have trouble before they go to court.

“All the workers, the people that have been taken, they’re not going to be able to spend money,” Garcia said. “They’re not going to be able to work in the plant.”

Garcia said many workers at the two raided poultry plants — Koch Foods and PH Foods — have bought houses. He questions whether they will be able to keep up their mortgage payments. Garcia said he and his wife also own a restaurant in nearby Philadelphia, Mississippi, and he may close the Morton store.

“I was thinking about shutting down my business,” Garcia said. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to stay here.”

Martha Rogers, the chairman and CEO of the Bank of Morton, also expressed concern for the local economy. Rogers said many Spanish-speaking residents have become customers of the bank.

“Every business in town will be affected,” said Rogers, whose family has owned a controlling interest in the small bank since the 1950s.

Scott County Superintendent Tony McGee said more than 150 students were absent Thursday from the 4,100-student district, including a number of students in Morton, where the enrollment is about 30% Latino.

Parents are saying they’re afraid for their children to come back to class, McGee said. School officials have been making phone calls and visiting homes to try to coax the parents to let the students return.

“We’re just trying to reassure them that if those kids come to school, we’re going to do everything possible to make sure they come back to you,” McGee said. “We want those children at school.”

McGee said some longtime teachers told him that Wednesday “was by far the worst day they have ever spent as educators.”

ICE didn’t have much space to detain workers, even overnight, because the number of people in custody is hovering near all-time highs. The agency has been housing thousands more than its budgeted capacity of 45,274 people, largely because of an unprecedented surge of Central American families arriving at the Mexican border. Those released included 18 juveniles, with the youngest being 14 years old, said Jere Miles, special agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit in New Orleans. Workers were assessed before they were released, including for whether they had any young children at home.

The companies involved could be charged with knowingly hiring workers who are in the county illegally and will be scrutinized for tax, document and wage fraud, said Matthew Albence, ICE’s acting director.

Koch Foods, one of the country’s largest poultry producers based in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, said in a statement Thursday that it follows strict procedures to make sure full-time employees are eligible to work in the country.

Gabriela Rosales, a six-year resident of Morton who knows some of those detained, said she understands that “there’s a process and a law” for those living in the country illegally. “But the thing that they (ICE) did is devastating,” she said. “It was very devastating to see all those kids crying, having seen their parents for the last time.”

The Rev. Mike O’Brien, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church in Canton, said he waited outside the Peco Foods plant in the city until 4 a.m. Thursday for workers returning by bus. O’Brien said he visited parishioners whose relatives had been arrested. He said he also drove home someone who had hidden from authorities inside the plant.

“The people are all afraid,” he said. “Their doors are locked, and they won’t answer their doors.”

Children whose parents were detained were being cared for by other family members and friends, O’Brien said.

“They’re circling the wagons that way and taking care of each other,” he said.

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Indonesian investigators will give their final report next month on the crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet that killed 189 people last October, the country’s civil aviation authority said on Friday.

The 737 MAX, Boeing’s best-selling jet, was grounded globally in March following another fatal crash of the jet operated by Ethiopian Airlines. The two crashes together killed 346 people.

A draft of the report by the transport safety agency (KNKT) will be sent next week to Boeing, Lion Air, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and other parties to seek feedback, said Polana Pramesti, director general of civil aviation.

“After getting the responses, KNKT will release it in September,” Pramesti told Reuters.

The report will include the facts and a chronology of the Lion Air crash, the causes of the incident and give recommendations, said KNKT deputy chairman Haryo Satmiko.

Boeing and the FAA provided data for the report, he said, which is expected to be released at the end of September.

Boeing has been working on an upgrade for a stall-prevention system known as MCAS since the Lion Air crash, when pilots were believed to have lost a tug of war with software that repeatedly pushed the nose down.

Boeing said last month it would give $100 million over multiple years to governments and non-profit organizations to help families and communities affected by the crashes of its 737 MAX planes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

The airline is the target of a U.S. Department of Justice criminal investigation into the development of the 737 MAX, regulatory probes and more than 100 lawsuits by victims’ families.

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The U.N. refugee agency says fighting over Libya’s capital of Tripoli has displaced more than 105,000 people since April, when a Libyan commander launched an offensive to take the city from the U.N.-backed government.

The UNHCR tweeted on Friday that its relief aid could only reach about 2,200 out of 21,000 displaced families and that those displaced “continue to be in need of support, peace and stability.”

Libya has been plagued with political instability since the ouster and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Qaddafi in 2011.

In April, the self-styled Libyan National Army of commander Khalifa Hifter launched an offensive on Tripoli.

Although Hifter, who is based in eastern Libya, boasts support from key Arab governments, his military campaign has so far resulted in a stalemated conflict.

 

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Cameroon has instructed its military to be on the alert as Equatorial Guinea says it is building a border wall to stop Cameroonians and West Africans from illegally entering its territory. Equatorial Guinea’s announcement comes as officials of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) regional economic bloc, of which Equatorial Guinea is a member, are encouraging the free movement of people and goods to boost economic growth in the region.

Thirty-two-year old Cameroonian merchant Kome Pascal imports wine from Equatorial Guinea. He also exports cement, roofing sheets and farm produce from Cameroon to the neighboring nation. 

“I feel very bad because goods will not come again into Cameroon and farmers who sell in Equatorial Guinea, what do they expect them to do with their goods,” he told VOA. “Building that particular wall is not going to permit Cameroonians to sell their goods.” 

When Equatorial Guinea said it was building the wall and erected milestones on the border near the Cameroon town of Kye-Ossi, Cameroon army chief Lieutenant General Rene Claude Meka visited the border. Meka said he was told the neighboring state was not respecting territorial limits and was encroaching on Cameroon land. He said the Cameroonian army would not tolerate any unlawful intrusion.

Anastasio Asumu Mum Munoz, Equatorial Guinea ambassador to Cameroon, was called up by Cameroon’s minister of external relations on Thursday to explain his country’s plans for the border.

Ambassador Munoz said his country plans to build a wall, but that reports that the its military had installed milestones in Cameroon territory are misleading.

Equatorial Guinea has always accused Cameroon of letting its citizens and West Africans enter its territory illegally.

More than 100 migrants from Togo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Benin on their way to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are currently stranded in Cameroon after they were rescued from their capsizing vessel in the Atlantic Ocean.
 
Cameroonian-born Christian Mbock, visiting lecturer of international relations at the National University of Equatorial Guinea, said the wall will stop illegal migrants and secure Equatorial Guinea.

“There was a problem in Equatorial Guinea because there was a coup there, then the government had to protect itself and said that the government was suspending the implementation of [CEMAC’s decision for free movement],” he said. “It is a complex situation.”

Equatorial Guinea has often sealed its border with Cameroon, complaining of security threats posed by illegal immigration.

In December 2017, Equatorial Guinea said it had arrested 30 foreign armed men from Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan on the border.  The report said they possessed rocket launchers, rifles and a stockpile of ammunition to destabilize the government of President Theodoro Obiang, who has led oil-rich Equatorial Guinea since 1979.

Cameroon said it also arrested 40 heavily-armed men on the 290-kilometer boundary. 

Both countries are members of the CEMAC, which in 2017 said it had reached a milestone when heads of state meeting in Chad lifted visa requirements for their 45 million citizens traveling within the six-member nation economic bloc.  
 

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Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said Friday he is not quitting despite facing mounting criticism for failing to properly take his oath of office.

Prayuth led the inauguration of his Cabinet in a ceremony presided over by the king on July 16.

However, he omitted a phrase in the oath of office in which he was supposed to pledge to uphold every aspect of the constitution. The omission has raised questions over whether the inauguration was legally valid.

Prayuth told reporters Friday that he was continuing to conduct his duties “to the best of my abilities because I am the prime minister.”

The oath of office is required under Article 161 of Thailand’s Constitution, which includes the complete oath and states it must be said to the king before Cabinet ministers take office.

Prayuth’s failure to recite the oath in full, which also led to other ministers making the same error because they repeated what he said, was pointed out by opposition politician Piyabutr Saengkanokkul during a Parliament session on July 25.

Legal activist Srisuwan Janya filed a complaint over the issue to the Office of the Ombudsman on Monday which has been accepted for consideration.

Prayuth led a military junta that seized power in 2014 and was dissolved with the inauguration of the new Cabinet. The junta had ruled with a heavy fist and regularly cracked down on its critics. It also introduced new election laws to favor Prayuth’s return as prime minister.

Mongkolkit Suksintaranont, a leader of a political party that was part of Prayuth’s coalition, said on Thursday that he and four other parties which hold single seats in the House of Representatives were leaving the coalition.

“I did not think that being part of the government coalition would mean that we would have such little freedom,” Mongkolkit said, adding that he had been told to refrain from criticizing the government in Parliament sessions.

When asked how he would handle the issue of the Cabinet’s incomplete oath of office, Mongkolkit said, “If I was prime minister, I would have resigned already.”

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NEW DELHI – As Indian Kashmir remained in an unprecedented lockdown, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised Kashmiris the beginning of a “new era” as a result of his government’s decision to scrap the region’s special status and bring it under New Delhi’s control.  
 
In an address Thursday on television and radio, Modi defended revoking the constitutional provision under which Kashmir could make its own laws, saying it had impeded its progress, given rise to terrorism and was used as a weapon by rival Pakistan to “instigate some people.” India will now rid the region of “terrorism and terrorists,” he said.  
 
New Delhi blames Islamabad for fomenting a violent three-decade separatist insurgency in the disputed Himalayan region that both counties claim.  
 
With Kashmir in a communications blackout for a fourth straight day, it was not clear how residents of India’s only Muslim-majority region reacted to the Hindu nationalist leader’s assurances of more development, jobs and better governance. Most Kashmiris could have heard his speech only on radio, as internet service and cable television network operations remain suspended.  
 
But with scattered incidents of stone-throwing already being reported, despite curfew-like restrictions, there are fears that widespread protests could erupt in coming days. Anger and resentment are growing, not just at the decision to change Kashmir’s seven-decade-old status but at the clampdown that has been more sweeping than ever before and virtually shuttered the region. Even reporters are finding it difficult to get information.  
 
Police officers in riot gear are deployed every few meters on the streets in the capital, Srinagar, and barbed-wire checkpoints have been set up at major intersections.  

300 in detention
 
Over 300 people including politicians, activists and some professors are in detention, according to reports trickling in. Kashmiris living outside the region say they have not been able to get in touch with families and relatives.  
 
The prime minister, however, painted a picture of a better future for a region ripped apart by a violent Islamic insurgency that he said has claimed 42,000 lives. He promised new rail and road links and said that the region would choose its own representatives.  
 
Although the main opposition Congress Party opposes the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s decision to revoke Kashmir’s special status, most other political parties support it. Modi has won praise in several quarters for taking a bold, decisive step that they say in the long run may address the alienation in Kashmir and integrate it with the rest of the country. Critics, however, fear that it will deepen anti-India sentiment and could fuel insurgency among people worried about opening up the region to the rest of the country.  
 
Meanwhile, India downplayed Pakistan’s decision to downgrade diplomatic ties and said changing the status of Kashmir was an internal affair and was aimed at developing the region. In a conciliatory statement, the Foreign Ministry urged Islamabad to reconsider its decision “so that normal channels for diplomatic communications are preserved.”  

Islamabad, infuriated by India’s move to change Kashmir’s status, has vowed to fight for the rights of Kashmiris. 

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Investigators believe a man who stabbed four people to death and wounded two others targeted his victims at random during a bloody rampage across two Southern California cities, authorities said. 
 
The 33-year-old man from the city of Garden Grove was “full of anger” when he carried out violent attacks and robberies at businesses and killed two men at his own apartment complex during the two-hour wave of violence Wednesday, police said.

He was arrested as he walked out of a convenience store in the neighboring city Santa Ana, dropping a knife and a gun he had taken from a security guard he had just killed.

Authorities planned to release his name Thursday afternoon.

The violence appeared to be random and the only known motives seem to be “robbery, hate, homicide,” Garden Grove police Lt. Carl Whitney told reporters.

“We know this guy was full of anger and he harmed a lot of people tonight,” Whitney said Wednesday.

The attacker and four of the victims were described as Hispanic, while two victims were described as white, police said in a statement. Initially, all had been described as Hispanic.

The two people who were wounded were listed in stable condition Wednesday night and were expected to survive.

Romanian immigrant

One of the dead was identified by his son as a hard-working immigrant originally from Romania.

Erwin Hauprich said in a telephone interview that his father, Helmuth Hauprich, 62, called him Wednesday afternoon and told him his Garden Grove apartment had been burglarized. The father said his passport, green card, sword collection and even a dining table were taken.

Erwin Hauprich said his father never called back and he went to check on him after hearing there had been a stabbing at the complex.

A police officer told him that Helmuth Hauprich had been taken to the hospital, where he died, the son said. He said he was told his father’s roommate was killed in the apartment.

A body was removed from the complex by stretcher late Thursday morning.

Erwin Hauprich said his father left Romania first for Germany and then the United States more than two decades ago. He said his father worked on an assembly line and lived in the complex for years.

He said Helmuth Hauprich was a down-to-earth man who strove to make a life for his family.

Surveillance cameras 

Police said surveillance cameras caught some of the carnage.

“We have video showing him attacking these people and conducting these murders,” Whitney said.

Whitney said the man lived in an apartment building where he stabbed two men during some kind of confrontation. One man died inside and the other at a hospital.

Whitney said a bakery also was robbed.

The owner, Dona Beltran, said she sitting in her car charging her cellphone when she saw a tattooed man get out of a Mercedes and go inside the business. Beltran followed him inside to offer help, but kept quiet when she saw him trying to open the cash register. 
 
Beltran, 45, said she thinks he mistook her for a customer. He ended up taking the entire register with him, which had about $200, she said.

“I saved myself because I was in the car,” she said in Spanish on Thursday. “Thank God I am alive.”

‘Very brave’ victim

The man also robbed an insurance business, where a 54-year-old employee was stabbed several times and was expected to survive.

The woman “was very brave,” Whitney said. “She fought as best she could.”

An alarm company saw the robbery on a live television feed and called police.

The man fled with cash and also robbed a check-cashing business next door, the lieutenant said.

Afterward, the attacker drove up to a Chevron station, where he attacked a man pumping gas “for no reason,” Whitney said. 
 
The man was stabbed in the back and “his nose was nearly severed off his face,” the lieutenant said. 
 
Undercover detectives tracked the suspect’s silver Mercedes to the parking lot of the 7-Eleven in Santa Ana and within a minute the man emerged from the store, carrying a large knife and a gun that he had cut from the belt of a security guard after stabbing him, Whitney said.

Police ordered the man to drop his weapons and he complied and was arrested.

Police then learned that a male employee of a nearby Subway restaurant also had been fatally stabbed during a robbery, Whitney said.

The brutal and puzzling attack came just days after a pair of mass shootings in Texas and Ohio left 31 people dead and stunned the nation. 

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The chief facilitator of negotiations between Venezuela’s socialist administration and opposition has downplayed the decision by President Nicolas Maduro to skip a scheduled round of talks.

Dag Nylander of Norway’s Foreign Affairs Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday he’s in contact with both sides about finding a date for talks to resume.

Maduro on Wednesday night said he had decided not to send envoys to the Caribbean island of Barbados, where talks were to resume Thursday. That was to protest the Trump administration’s decision to freeze the Venezuelan government’s assets in the U.S. and threaten to retaliate against foreign companies that continue to do business with his government.

Maduro’s government also said it would review the mechanism of the talks to ensure it contributes to an efficient solution to the problems Venezuelans face.

“Norway is facilitating the negotiation process at the request of the principal political actors in Venezuela and schedules all meetings based on the availability of the parties. Accordingly we are in touch with them regarding the next meetings,” said Nylander, the head of the peace and reconciliation office at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

He added:  “The facilitation continues under the principle that the parties would like it to, and that there are realistic prospects of a negotiated solution that can benefit the Venezuelan people.”

In announcing the sweeping move, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the dialogue between the government and opposition was being used by Maduro to buy time.

“We will not fall for these old tricks of a tired dictator,” Bolton declared Tuesday at a meeting in Peru of more than 50 governments aligned against Maduro. “No more time for tap, tap, tapping. Now is the time for action.”

But some believe Bolton’s admonishments might end of strengthening the negotiations, which have been taking place since May.

The United Nations reiterated Thursday U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “strong support” for Norway’s mediation effort.

“Our position is unchanged — that only a settlement through negotiations will solve this ongoing situation,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric.  

Meanwhile, the U.N.’s top human rights official criticized the U.S.’ response as overhanded and bound to intensify suffering in a country already racked by six-digit hyperinflation, food shortages and an economic recession worse than the U.S. Great Depression.

Michelle Bachelet, who sharply criticized Maduro’s human rights record following a visit to the country in June, said that provision in the new sanctions allowing for the shipment of food and medicine are unlikely to suffice.

“They are still likely to significantly exacerbate the crisis for millions of ordinary Venezuelans, especially as there will certainly be over-compliance by financial institutions around the world that have commercial relations with the governments of the US and Venezuela,” she said.

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Witnesses say fears of the Ebola virus have brought border traffic between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to a virtual standstill. Long lines and lengthy delays at the border crossings have left many traders frustrated, but officials say health checks are necessary to stop the spread of the deadly virus. 

Beatrice Irunga, a 35-year old Congolese trader, says no one can cross the border without washing hands and being checked for fever.

The measures are necessary to prevent people from carrying the virus across the border. But trade-wise, Ebola fears have hit hard.

Jemima Ibrahim, a Congolese trader who sells rice and oil in Rwanda, says the long delays at the crossing are costing her time and money.

“The loss is huge,” she said. “We buy goods here in Rwanda. To export them to Congo is becoming very hard.”

Rwandan Claudine Irunga says she owns a shop in Goma, on the Congolese side, but can’t reach it because of the delays.

“I left Goma in the morning,” she said. “My shop is open now, and here they are not allowing us to go regardless of every document you can have. I am so sad. They say the border is open, but just look.”

The Rwandan government estimates that 80,000 people cross between Goma and the Rwandan city of Gisenyi each day.

The government has not said the border is closed. However, it is urging its people not to enter the eastern DRC, where the Ebola virus has killed more than 1,800 people over the past year.

Dr. Diane Gashumba, Rwanda’s Minister of Health, is encouraging Rwandans not to go to DRC, and instead to find other ways to do their business in the country.

This stance goes against advice from the World Health Organization.

Dr. Kasonde Mulenga Mwinga, WHO country director, supports a flow of people to the member country to be able to address the response that is needed there.

The Rwandan and Congolese health ministers met Tuesday to discuss measures to stop the Ebola outbreak from spreading.

Afterward, they said they resolved to enact ways that allow for smoother border crossings while taking “very strong measures to keep the epidemic at bay.”

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