RFE/RL contributed to this report.

Despite the arrest of a top Kremlin critic and police raids on the homes of several political activists, opposition leaders in Russia remained determined to go ahead with a planned protest in Moscow on Saturday.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was ordered jailed Wednesday for 30 days for calling “unauthorized protests” for this weekend to protest the disqualification of several opposition-minded candidates from the Sept. 8 Moscow city council elections.

Election officials have barred about 30 independent candidates from the ballot, saying some of the 5,500 signatures they needed to get on the ballot were invalid. The rejected candidates say the reason for not validating the signatures is to keep genuine independents off the ballots and ensure the ruling United Russia party and others who do President Vladimir Putin’s bidding maintain dominance.

“If the United Russia swindlers don’t register the independent candidates and spit on the opinions of the citizenry, then all of us … will come to the mayor’s office at Tverskaya 13,” Navalny wrote on a social media post earlier this week.

Last weekend, more than 20,000 people marched in the streets of Moscow to protest the disqualifications. That’s when Navalny called for an even bigger rally Saturday.

Mass protests

Rejected candidate Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer with Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, also called for mass protests after a meeting between the disqualified candidates and Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova.

The Russian authorities appear to be adopting a carrot-and-stick approach as the July 27 demonstration nears. Pamfilova met with the opposition candidates and heard their complaints — one of which was that Moscow election officials had refused to meet with them and hear their complaints.

Pamfilova promised to consider the complaints of the disqualified candidates, but warned them that the CEC does not have the authority to overturn decisions of the Moscow Election Commission. She said the law grants local election commissions such autonomy to prevent Moscow from exerting influence on them.

Pamfilova also urged candidates not to participate in protests, saying “the influence of street protests on the CEC is zero.”

Navalny was arrested just hours after the meeting with Pamfilova.

On the ballot

Sixteen regions will choose governors in Russia’s Sept. 8 elections, including the city of St. Petersburg. Fourteen regions and the city of Moscow will select legislative assemblies, and 21 other cities will choose municipal councils.

United Russia has entered the election season with a record-low public approval rating. Analysts and Kremlin critics say the authorities are resorting to numerous “dirty tricks” and other tactics to ensure the party maintains the grip on power it has enjoyed through most of Putin’s nearly two decades at the country’s helm.

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Joe Biden no longer plans to turn the other cheek.
 
His front-running status fragile, the former vice president is embracing an aggressive plan to confront Democratic rivals who have tried to undermine his popularity with black voters.
 
After ignoring his Democratic competition for much of the year, Biden and his team shrugged off the risks Thursday and leaned into a deliberate campaign to push back against New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris, the only high-profile African-American candidates in the race.
 
Biden’s team highlighted Booker and Harris’ past praise of Biden while raising questions about their own records related to race. And Biden’s allies made clear that the former vice president was prepared for a fight in next week’s debate. They also point to numerous surveys showing Biden with durable support among black voters that far exceeds that of Booker or Harris.
 
“He’s going to forcefully defend his record and not let it get distorted,” declared Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana congressman and national co-chairman of Biden’s campaign. The comments echoed Biden’s own from the night before in Detroit when he warned his competitors that he was “not going to be as polite” in the upcoming prime-time faceoff, where Biden will share the stage with both Booker and Harris.
 
Biden’s shift underscores the escalating racial rift roiling the Democratic primary just days after President Donald Trump issued racist calls for four female congresswomen of color to leave the country, even though all of them are American citizens. For Democrats, the evolving fight represents an unwelcome distraction away from Trump’s record.
 
In some respects, however, it is only beginning.

 
Both Harris and Booker have hit Biden in recent weeks by highlighting his support for criminal justice reform that disproportionately hurt the minority community and his willingness to cooperate with segregationist senators in the 1970s, among other trouble spots from his nearly four-decade career in Congress. Booker this week called Biden the “architect of mass incarceration” for his support of a crime bill in 1994.
 
Biden struggled to defend himself against Harris on race in the first debate, but his team insists he won’t be caught off guard again.
 
The strategy marks a critical test for Biden, who has worked in the past month, with varying degrees of success, to stress his eight-year partnership with President Barack Obama over a 36-year Senate career he long saw as worthy of the presidency.
 
In the past month, he has sought to move beyond those early Senate years, attempting to untangle himself from awkward comments lauding his collaboration with segregationist colleagues and his opposition to federally mandated busing. Instead, he has stressed key roles alongside Obama and married his own policy proposals to gains made during that administration.
 
During a speech in South Carolina last month, he apologized for anguish caused by the segregationist comments, but also said he did not plan to relitigate in 60-second debate answers his long Senate career, a sentiment reflected in some supporters’ observations that Biden has appeared defensive or dismissive.
 
Biden’s preemptive criticism of Booker’s time as Newark, New Jersey, mayor suggests Biden sees value in a level of defiance. But in some cases, he has come off as defensive and dismissive, even to his supporters.
 
In an interview, the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose support many candidates covet to help win votes from African Americans, said he didn’t know if Biden could execute the delicate strategy.
 
“In the past he has had fumbles. We’ll see if he can operate with discipline now,” Sharpton said. “He needs to be cautious.”
 
Indeed, Biden’s strategy pits an older white male against two younger people of color at a time when the Democratic Party’s most passionate voters are demanding a new generation of diverse leaders.
 
So far, Biden can take comfort in polls that show him with a commanding edge among black voters. A survey released Thursday by Monmouth University found that 39% of likely South Carolina Democratic voters supported Biden. That was more than any other candidate — including Harris, who had support from just 12%, and Booker, with 2%. Biden’s support was particularly strong among black voters, winning 51%.
 
Biden strategist Kate Bedingfield used his strong support from black voters as ammunition to attack Booker on social media on Thursday, tweeting pictures of poll results that showed Biden far ahead of Booker among black voters.
 
The day before, she released a statement condemning Booker’s tenure as mayor of Newark, where, she said, he ran “a police department that was such a civil rights nightmare that the U.S. Department of Justice intervened.’ She also highlighted Booker’s “zero-tolerance” policy for minor infractions and a stop-and-frisk policy that disproportionately hurt African Americans.
 
Biden himself noted this week that Harris has been a vocal supporter long before she used his record on school busing to attack him in the first debate.

 
At the 2016 California Democratic convention, Harris heaped praise on then-Vice President Biden. “I say from my personal experience that the Biden family truly represents our nation’s highest ideals, a powerful belief in the nobility of public service,” she said.
 
To complement the campaign against his Democratic opponents, Biden has also tweaked his message on the campaign trail.
 
Since the first debate, he has almost completely dropped references to his Republican friendships and focused instead on his eight years as President Barack Obama’s vice president.
 
“I think anybody in this race would love to have the record of achievement alongside Barack Obama that Joe Biden has,” Bedingfield said. “If they want to tear it down, I’d say best of luck to them.”
 
Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright worries about the long-term consequences of sustained Democratic attacks on Biden’s commitment to minority communities, who will play a vital role in the November 2020 general election. Still, he says Biden has a real opportunity to project strength ahead of a prospective general election matchup against Trump.
 
“When you get swung at, you don’t have to swing back, but you also have to show that you know how to fight,” he said.

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The U.S. government plans to resume executions after a 16-year hiatus, picking five killers of children to be the first to die.

The five men — four white and one black — range in age from 37 to 67. They are being held in a high-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where they will be executed.

Here is a look at the five men and their crimes:

Daniel Lee, 46, is scheduled for execution Dec. 9.

Lee, a white supremacist, was convicted in 1999 for killing an Arkansas gun dealer, along with his wife and 8-year-old daughter.

Lezmond Mitchell, 37, is scheduled for execution Dec. 11.

Mitchell was convicted in 2003 for killing a 63-year-old grandmother and her 9-year-old granddaughter in Arizona. After stabbing the grandmother to death, Mitchell and his accomplice forced the child to sit next to the body for a more than 50-kilometer drive, before fatally slashing her throat.

Wesley Purkey, 67, is scheduled for execution Dec. 13.

Purkey was found guilty in 2003 for raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering and burning her body in Missouri. Months before that murder, Purkey had used a hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio.

Alfred Bourgeois, 55, is scheduled for execution Jan. 13, 2020.

Bourgeois was found guilty by a Texas court in 2004 of the murder of his 2-year-old daughter. Witnesses, including family members, told the court that Bourgeois had repeatedly beaten the child before her death. An autopsy found the girl had sustained more than 300 injuries. Bourgeois is the only African American man on the list.

Dustin Honken, 51, is scheduled for execution Jan. 15, 2020.

Honken was found guilty in 2004 for the shooting deaths of five people in Iowa, including two men, a single mother and her daughters, ages 6 and 10. The Justice Department has said the two men were drug dealers who planned to testify against Honken, a methamphetamine dealer.
 

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The clamor from “Game of Thrones” fans for a do-over of the drama’s final season has been in vain.

HBO programming chief Casey Bloys said Wednesday there was no serious consideration to remaking the story that some viewers and critics called disappointing.

There are few downsides to having a hugely popular show like “Game of Thrones,” Bloys said, but one is that fans have strong opinions on what would be a satisfying conclusion.

Bloys said during a TV critics’ meeting that it comes with the territory, adding that he appreciates fans’ passion for the saga based on George R.R. Martin’s novels.

Emmy voters proved unswayed by petitioners demanding a remake: They gave “Game of Thrones” a record-breaking 32 nominations earlier this month. The series also hit record highs for HBO.

HBO will want to keep the fan fervor alive for the prequel to “Game of Thrones” that’s in the works. The first episode completed taping in Ireland and the dailies look “really good,” Bloys said. The planned series stars Naomi Watts and is set thousands of years before the original.

Asked whether negative reaction to the “Game of Thrones” conclusion will shape the prequel, Bloys replied, “Not at all.”

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A federal judge is considering whether to order Georgia to immediately stop using its outdated voting machines, even as state officials prepare to announce their replacement.

A lawsuit filed by election integrity activists argues that the paperless touchscreen voting machines Georgia has used since 2002 are unsecure, vulnerable to hacking and can’t be audited. It seeks statewide use of hand-marked paper ballots.

A law passed this year and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides specifications for a new system, which state officials said will be in place for the 2020 presidential election.

But the plaintiffs are asking U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg to order the state to immediately stop using the current system, which it plans to use for special and municipal elections this year and which the plaintiffs fear would be used in 2020 if a new system isn’t implemented in time. Totenberg has scheduled a hearing Thursday on those requests.

Georgia’s voting system drew national scrutiny last year during the closely watched governor’s race in which Kemp, a Republican who was the state’s top election official at the time, narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams.

The plaintiffs in this case _ the Coalition for Good Governance and individual voters asked Totenberg last August to force Georgia to use hand-marked paper ballots for the November election. While Totenberg expressed grave concerns about vulnerabilities in the state’s voting system and scolded state officials for being slow to respond to evidence of those problems, she said a switch to paper ballots so close to that election would be too chaotic.

The plaintiffs argue the state has done nothing to address the problems, and the outdated machines should not be used. They argue a switch to hand-marked paper ballots would be relatively easy since the state already uses such ballots for absentee and provisional voting, and the scale is smaller given that there are no statewide elections this year.
 
They cite problems they say arose in last year’s election, including malfunctioning voting machines, long lines, electronic poll book errors and an extreme undervote in the lieutenant governor’s race on ballots cast using voting machines.

In addition to the use of hand-marked paper ballots, they asked the judge to order the state to take some other immediate steps, including post-election audits to verify results.

Lawyers for state election officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, argue concrete steps have been taken to address the concerns, including arranging for the purchase of new voting technology statewide and adding security measures to existing systems.

They also argue that paper ballots have vulnerabilities and that putting an intermediate system in place while the state is moving to a new voting system “places an impossible burden on both state and local election officials and may result in voter frustration and disaffection from the voting process.”

The new law calls for voters to make their selections on electronic machines that print out a paper record that is read and tallied by scanners. The state is expected to choose a vendor soon. The request for proposals specifies that vendors must be able to distribute all voting machine equipment before March 31, which is a week after the state’s presidential primary election is set to be held on March 24.
 
The plaintiffs argue the ballot-marking machines provided for in the new law have many of the same fundamental flaws as the machines they’re replacing. They say any system that puts a computer between the voter and the permanent record of the vote can’t be effectively audited and is unconstitutional. They’ve said they plan to challenge the new system once the state announces which machines it plans to use.

The plaintiffs also say the state’s plan to implement a new system statewide in time for the 2020 elections is extremely ambitious and that putting a hand-marked paper ballot system in place now would be a secure and constitutional backup plan, unlike using the current system.

This lawsuit is one of several that challenge various aspects of Georgia’s election system. Another, filed by a group founded by Abrams, alleges systemic problems in the election system and accuses election officials of mismanaging the 2018 election.

 

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An African Union special envoy is urging South Sudan’s leaders to enact and enforce laws to end the pervasive problem of sexual violence in the country. AU special envoy on youth, Aya Chebbi, said authorities must involve men if South Sudan is going to end gender-based violence. 

“Men should be doing all these initiatives to end gender-based violence. Why? Because these women are their mothers, their sisters, their daughters, they are not some women out there who are suffering and I don’t care about; these are their communities,” Chebbi told South Sudan in Focus.

During a five-day visit to South Sudan, she said the AU’s plan for ending gender-based violence focuses on eliminating all forms of violence, including genital mutilation and child marriage.  “So I call on civil society to advocate for legal frameworks that protect women. For the communities, there is also resilience and community policing which means the community must protect itself,” Chebbi told VOA.

Simon Marot Tonloung, a member of the African Union’s Youth Advisory Council, says preventing sexual violence begins at home.  

“How will you feel if your sister, if your daughter, or your mother undergoes such kinds of troubling experiences? It’s sad. So it will start from families. It will not come from outside,” Tonloung told South Sudan in Focus.

Tonloung said AU member states like South Sudan must ratify policies that protect all citizens including women, and it is the duty of every citizen to hold the government of South Sudan accountable for enforcing those policies.

“So, if we don’t hold out our institutions at the grassroots level accountable, then we’ll not have an impact even if we pass a lot of policies,” Tonloung told VOA.

Earlier this month, the AU’s legal counsel signed a document to form the Hybrid Court for South Sudan as stipulated in the 2018 peace deal.  Once in operation, the court will combine South Sudanese and other African judges and staff to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

After a gang rape last Friday in Jonglei state, women rights activists and leaders called on state officials to do more to protect women and girls against sexual abuse. Jonglei officials accused armed cattle raiders from neighboring Fangak state of gang-raping two women in Jonglei state’s Duk-Padiet county.
 
A 30-year old mother of three who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the stigma attached to rape victims in South Sudan, said she was walking to Bor from her village about five kilometers away when armed men attacked her.

 “When that happened, I hated myself and felt like that was the end of my life. I felt so crushed and useless. But because God can turn a bad situation around, that is why I am here today talking to you,” the woman told South Sudan in Focus.

She said a local non-profit called African Leadership And Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM) brought her to a counseling center in Bor where she received counseling.

Jonglei state information minister Atong Kuol Manyang said the men were hiding until the women came along the road.
 
“They went and hid in the bush for some hours and they met two women who had gone to collect firewood in the forest. So in that process they continuously raped the women and these men were from Gaweer [of Fangak state],” Manyang told South Sudan in Focus.

Manyang did not explain how he knew the women’s attackers were from neighboring Pangak state.

Jonglei state assembly lawmaker Hellen Akech Marial said South Sudanese women are often at high risk of being attacked while carrying out daily chores.

“We don’t have electricity so that people cook in the houses and so women always resort to going out to look for firewood. Once they are out, they are subjected to such criminal acts,” Marial told South Sudan in Focus.

The United Nations has repeatedly expressed concern about the high level of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls in South Sudan.

 

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ASAP Rocky will be tried for an alleged assault next week over a June street brawl, a Swedish court said Thursday, in a decision likely to infuriate fans already indignant over his three weeks in custody.

“Today I have pressed charges against the three suspects for assault, because in my judgement what has happened amounts to a crime, despite the objections about self-defence and provocations,” prosecutor Daniel Suneson said in a statement published Thursday morning.

The 30-year-old rapper, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, was arrested on July 3 along with three other people, following the brawl in Stockholm on June 30. One of them, the rapper’s bodyguard, was later released.

Part of the fight was captured in an amateur video published by US celebrity news outlet TMZ. The rapper later published videos of his own to Instagram purporting to show the lead up to the fight.

Mayers has claimed he was acting in self-defence, saying he was responding to harassment and provocations by the plaintiff.

But Suneson said in his statement: “I have had more material to consider than what has been available on the internet.”

Heading to trial

According to the charge document filed with the Stockholm District Court, the evidence includes surveillance footage, witness testimony and text conversations that the prosecutor says prove there was no need for self defence and that a bottle was used as a weapon in the alleged assault.

On July 5 the court ordered that Mayers should be kept in custody pending investigation of the case as he was considered a “flight risk”.

The court originally gave the prosecutor two weeks to decide on whether to press charges, and later granted a week-long extension.

Suneson’s decision to press charges means the rapper can be kept in custody until his trial, which the court has set for next week.

The trial is scheduled to take place over three days, starting on July 30 and then continuing on August 1 and 2, the Stockholm District Court said in a statement.

Mayers can request to have his detention reviewed by the court and argue for conditional release until the trial is held.

Assault carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail in Sweden.

Mayers’ lawyer Slobodan Jovicic told reporters on Thursday that the decision was “expected” and that his client maintains that he is innocent.

“He is extremely disappointed that the prosecutor has put the other account (of the events) ahead of his own,” Jovicic said during a press briefing.

FreeRocky

The musician, who had his breakthrough in 2011 with the release of the mixtape “Live. Love. A$AP”, was on a European tour and has already had to cancel over a dozen shows.

Since his arrest, fans, fellow artists and US Congress members have campaigned for the artist to be freed.

US President Donald Trump contacted Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven directly to discuss the case.

Trump on Saturday tweeted that he had called Lofven and been assured that ASAP Rocky would be “treated fairly”.

“I assured him that ASAP was not a flight risk and offered to personally vouch for his bail, or an alternative,” Trump added.

Lofven’s press secretary Toni Eriksson confirmed the call had taken place and told AFP that “the prime minister was careful to point out that the Swedish justice system is completely independent”.

An online petition called #JusticeForRocky has garnered more than 620,000 signatures, and posters emblazoned with “Free ASAP Rocky ASAP” have been put up around Stockholm.

Artists including Post Malone, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Nicki Minaj, Meek Mill and Justin Bieber have all voiced their support for Mayers, with rapper Tyler, the Creator saying he would no longer perform in Sweden.

 

 

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Jeffrey Epstein, the financier facing charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls, was found unconscious in a Manhattan jail cell with injuries to his neck, media reported late on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources.

Epstein was found by guards sprawled on the floor of cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Wednesday, media reported. Some media reported that his face appeared blue.

The billionaire financier was taken to hospital, the New York Post reported, but it was unclear where he was taken or what his condition was.

It was not clear how he suffered his injuries.

Neither a representative for the correctional center nor Epstein’s attorney returned calls or email inquiries from Reuters.

Epstein was recently denied bail, a move his lawyers plan to appeal according to a court notice made public on Tuesday.

Epstein was expected to ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the judge’s July 18 rejection of his request to remain under house arrest in his $77 million mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Epstein has pleaded not guilty to the charges and the appeal for bail was expected. His lawyer Reid Weingarten did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan declined to comment.

The charges, concerning alleged misconduct from at least 2002 to 2005, were announced more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida.

In denying him bail, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan said the government had shown by clear and convincing evidence that Epstein would pose a danger to the community if released pending trial.
 

 

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The Trump administration’s new asylum rule survived an initial court challenge Wednesday, keeping in place a directive that disqualifies a significant proportion of mostly Central American asylum-seekers who reach the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly denied requests to block the rule while a pending court case goes forward, saying, “It’s in the greater public interest to allow the administration to carry out its immigration policy.” 

Announced earlier this month, the new rule bars asylum for migrants who reach the U.S. southern border without having applied for and been denied asylum in any country they passed through on their way to the United States.

The case was brought by two immigrant rights organizations: the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and RAICES, or Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. Both organizations argued the asylum rule would harm migrants fleeing dangerous situations.

Kelly, who serves on the U.S. District Court in the nation’s capital, voiced doubts that plaintiffs could demonstrate the administration exceeded its authority by issuing the asylum rule. 

The White House’s legal victory could be short-lived, as a federal judge in San Francisco was to consider a separate challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union later in the day.

“We’ve filed suit to stop the Trump administration from reversing our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect people fleeing danger,” the ACLU tweeted.

Trump administration officials have said the new rule is meant to ease the strain on the U.S. asylum system. 

In a recent statement, U.S. Attorney General William Barr noted a “dramatic increase in the number of aliens” arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding that “[o]nly a small minority of these individuals” qualify for asylum. 

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The Gulf of Guinea is a hot spot for illegal activities, which affect global trade and security. This week a conference in Ghana’s capital, Accra, seeks solutions to overcome issues that plague the region. Experts say collaboration will be the focus of a seaborne law enforcement effort.

On board the USNS Carson City, which is visiting Sekondi, in Ghana’s Western Region, Admiral James Foggo thanked the American crew, telling personnel how important its role is in building partnerships and bringing security to the Gulf of Guinea – a coastal region of West and Central Africa.

The ship arrived for a port visit Sunday as part of the U.S. Navy’s effort to support African navies in anti-piracy, small boat maintenance and marine law enforcement. Personnel from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian forces are also part of the collaborative mission.

Alongside naval leaders from other nations, Foggo toured U.S., Ghanaian and Nigerian vessels at the port of Sekondi.

“Our interest in the Gulf of Guinea is helping our African partners and friends legitimize and control the sea lines of communication that lead to the ports of Africa. Ninety percent of their commerce travels by those sea lines of communication. There is a lot of activity that is legal, probably more legal than illegal. We want to stop the illegal activity, it takes away from their tax base, their profitability and detracts from their economy,” Foggo said.

But for success to endure, Foggo said there is a need for more emphasis on arresting, charging and prosecuting those committing illegal activities in the Gulf.

“There has got to be some kind of deterrence or punishment applied in order to keep people from doing this in the future, otherwise if they go into a detention facility or jail and they get out, they just go back and do it again,” he said.

Foggo is the commander of U.S. Allied Joint Force Command Naples, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, and U.S. Naval Forces Africa.  

The Accra conference is focused on tackling threats from illegal fishing, piracy, kidnappings for ransom, illegal oil bunkering and drug trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea.

Commander Veronica Arhin, a spokesperson for Ghana’s Navy, says the goal of the meeting is to get as many experts and navies together to address security in the Gulf of Guinea.  

”Collaboration between the navies in the Gulf of Guinea is extremely important because crimes or insecurity is transnational, it can move from one country to another, so there is a need for us to have that collaboration, such that if a ship has a problem in another country’s waters or there is a piracy attack and the pirates move to another country, there could be that communication. And the navies around the various countries could come together to fight such crimes,” said Arhin.

Those ideas are endorsed by Ahmed Tabsoba, who grew up in Ghana and is now an American citizen in the U.S. Navy.

Tabsoba has been stationed in Naples where the U.S. works with its 28 NATO allies. He was back in his home country, traveling with Admiral Foggo.

“We live in a world that you cannot predict what is going to happen next, so it’s really good to always build this relation[ship] and make sure we are there to help if something happens,” Tabsoba said.

The two-day International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference ending Thursday brings together 25 countries represented by speakers and exhibitors who hope to find ways to collaborate on solutions to the region’s challenges.
 

 

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The acting head of the Homeland Security Department is complimenting what he says is cooperation with Guatemala to tighten immigration security.

Kevin McAleenan’s statement comes a day after President Donald Trump railed against Guatemala and threatened retribution against the Central American nation over immigration.
 
McAleenan says the collaboration is “already yielding significant results” and he mentions a joint operation in Guatemala that broke up a human smuggling ring in May.
 
McAleenan tells counterparts from Honduras, El Salvador and Panama, and the Costa Rican ambassador that he wants similar cooperation.
 
Trump tweeted that he may impose tariffs and tax remittance money, and he alleged that Guatemala refused to sign an asylum deal with the U.S. even though the country’s government didn’t say it had agreed to the arrangement.

 

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One year after a catastrophic dam collapse in southern Laos killed dozens of people and displaced thousands, rights groups are demanding that multinational companies behind the $1 billion project do more for the hundreds of families still living in cramped shelters on meager rations.

On the night of July 23, 2018, an auxiliary — or saddle — dam of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy hydropower project collapsed, sending a wall of water crashing through more than a dozen villages. More than 7,000 people in Laos and thousands more in neighboring Cambodia were forced from their homes.

Homes and farms were wiped out. In the aftermath, one survivor told VOA that the water hit his village “like a tsunami.”

The Lao government put the final death toll at 49, with another 22 missing, although rights groups say the official tally may be a “gross underestimation.”

Some 5,000 displaced villagers are still living in temporary camps in Laos in sweltering, tightly packed tin shacks, surviving on irregular allowances and thin rations from the government. Some have been given plows and seeds, but no new land on which to use them, while much of the old farmland remains buried under silt and debris.

The joint venture behind the dam, the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Power Company, or PNPC, has reportedly started offering victims compensation, according to Maureen Harris, Southeast Asia program director for International Rivers, a non-profit organization. She spoke Tuesday in Bangkok at the release of a new report, “Reckless Endangerment: Assessing Responsibility for the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam Collapse.”

“But the communities report for the most part that these offers of compensation are too low; they don’t properly account for the real value of what’s been lost in terms of the property, but also the lost livelihoods as a result of losing that property,” Harris said.

While some victims are refusing the offers, others have relented. The government says it will be four or five years before a permanent resettlement site is ready.

Accountability

Rights groups say the many companies building and backing the dam, which is slated for completion later this year, are bound by international law to do more for the victims, and that their governments should compel them to follow through.

To date, none of the companies has been held accountable for the collapse, despite mounting evidence that the lead developer and builder, South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction, compromised safety for profit.

An independent investigation commissioned by the Lao government ruled out force majeure — an unforeseen “act of God.” Authorities have yet to release the investigation report but said the expert panel decided that a poor foundation was “the major cause” of the collapse.

A Stanford University scientist, who parsed data from the dam, concluded that the reservoir the saddle dam was holding back had been built over a sinkhole, causing the dam to sink and crack and finally fail when the rising waters mounted the top. A company document leaked by a Korean lawmaker also showed that all five saddle dams were several meters lower than intended by the original design plan and made of different material, saving millions of dollars.

“So there is growing evidence basically from different quarters that suggests that the lead developer … may have caused the collapse by their actions and inactions,” Harris said.

Of the other PNPC partners, the rights groups also place much of the burden on Thailand’s Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding, the project’s construction supervisor responsible for overseeing SK Engineering’s work.

SK Engineering has rejected the independent investigation’s findings and denied responsibility. The company has said it followed industry standards, but failed to offer an alternate explanation for the collapse.

SK Engineering did not reply to a request for comment from VOA.

A public relations officer for Ratchaburi declined to answer any questions and referred all inquiries to PNPC. A project manager for PNPC also declined to comment.

Lao government officials could not be reached.

Insurance policy

Citing an industry source, rights groups say the project took out a massive insurance policy that includes roughly $50 million in liability coverage that the affected families could tap into, some of it from U.S. insurance company AIG.

“There is a pot of insurance money here for exactly this kind of situation, and the affected people should have the capacity to claim against this insurance to remediate them for the losses,” said Craig Bradshaw, Southeast Asia legal coordinator for Inclusive Development International, which co-authored the report.

Harris and Bradshaw said their groups were in talks with lawyers on the potential for filing legal claims, most likely in South Korea, but possibly in Thailand as well.

Rights groups are urging the companies to halt construction until those affected are made whole again. Without a full and public accounting of exactly what went wrong, they say, locals are also left to wonder if the other four saddle dams holding back the reservoir face the same risks as the one that collapsed.

Premrudee Daorung, a coordinator with the Laos Dam Investment Monitor, a grass-roots group set up in the wake of the collapse, said the group hoped the fallout would also convince the government to reconsider its ambitious — critics would say overly so — hydropower plans. 

“One of our first proposals, or the hope, was that Laos might be able to make use of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy case in order to turn the direction of the plan to become ‘the battery of Asia,’ to review that plan,” she said.

But with 27 more dams in the works and hundreds more still on the drawing board, she worried, those hopes appear dashed.

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Australian researchers are looking to Africa and the Middle East for drought- and heat-resistant crops as many grain farmers face another failed season.

Key farming regions in southern Queensland are forecast to miss their third winter grain crop in a row. The national crop this year is expected to be about 10 percent below the 10-year average.

Australia’s Grains Research and Development Corporation, the GRDC, is carrying out a global search for climate-proof grains. GRDC’s northern panel chairman, John Minogue, says crops in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa could be adapted to help farmers become more resilient in the face of a warming climate and less rainfall.

“We have got people in Syria, in Africa, in all of the parts of the world, which have historically had these crops grown for thousands of years,” he said. “We have a lot of investments in people on behalf of the grain growers searching the world for plants that are resistant to drought and also that are able to handle stress conditions and heat, and identifying the germplasm [genetic material] that we can then integrate into the Australian crops.”

Large areas of eastern Australia have been in drought for periods ranging from one to seven years. More than 95 percent of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, is officially in drought.

The national climate outlook for August to October suggests drier-than-average conditions for large parts of Australia, with higher-than-average daytime temperatures across the entire continent.

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Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a law returning the OPEC nation to a regional defense treaty on Tuesday, but opposition leader Juan Guaido sought to tamp down supporters’ hopes it could lead to President Nicolas Maduro’s imminent downfall.

Opposition hardliners had been pressuring Guaido to join the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, as a precursor to requesting a foreign military intervention to oust Maduro, a socialist who has overseen an economic collapse and is accused of human rights violations.

“The TIAR is not magic, it is not a button that we press and then tomorrow everything is resolved,” Guaido told a rally of supporters in Caracas, using the treaty’s Spanish initials. “In itself it is not the solution – it obliges us to take to the streets with greater force to exercise our majority.”

The treaty states that an attack on one of the members – which include most large Western Hemisphere countries including the United States, Brazil and Colombia – should be considered an attack on all. Venezuela and other leftist Latin American countries left the alliance between 2012 and 2013.

Venezuela plunged into a deep power struggle in January when Guaido invoked the constitution to declare a rival presidency, arguing Maduro’s May 2018 re-election was illegitimate. He has been recognized as the rightful leader by most Western countries, including the United States.

Maduro, who calls Guaido a U.S. puppet seeking to oust him in a coup, remains in control of government functions six months into Guaido’s campaign. The economy and public services have continued to deteriorate in that time, and on Monday much of the country went dark in the biggest blackout since March.

That has led some Maduro opponents, such as former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma, to push Guaido to request foreign military intervention to oust Maduro.

U.S. officials have said a military option is “on the table” for Venezuela, but has so far focused on economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure to choke off cash flow to Maduro and try to convince top military officials to get behind Guaido.

Latin American and European countries are pushing a diplomatic solution to Venezuela’s political and economic crisis, and many have criticized the possible use of force.

Norway’s government is currently mediating negotiations between the government and the opposition in Barbados.

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday told young people a number of falsehoods he’s been relating to adults for months and took a misleading swipe at the female Democratic lawmakers he’s trying to turn into foils.

A sampling of his remarks at a Turning Point USA gathering of conservative youth:

Trump, on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York: “She called our country and our people garbage. She said garbage. That’s worse than deplorable. Remember deplorable?”

The facts: Ocasio-Cortez did not label people “garbage.” She did use that term, somewhat indirectly, to describe the state of the country.

Arguing for a liberal agenda at a South by Southwest event in March, she said the U.S. shouldn’t settle for centrist policies because they would produce only marginal improvement — “10% better” than the “garbage” of where the country is now.

Trump has been assailing Ocasio-Cortez and three other liberal Democratic women of color in the House for more than a week, ever since he posted tweets saying they should “go back” to their countries, though all are U.S. citizens and all but one was born in the U.S.

Voter fraud

Trump: “And when they’re saying all of this stuff, and then those illegals get out and vote — because they vote anyway. Don’t kid yourself, those numbers in California and numerous other states, they’re rigged.  You got people voting that shouldn’t be voting. They vote many times, not just twice, not just three times. They vote — it’s like a circle. They come back, they put a new hat on. They come back, they put a new shirt. And in many cases, they don’t even do that.  You know what’s going on. It’s a rigged deal.”

The facts: Trump has produced no evidence of widespread voting fraud by people in the country illegally or by any group of people. 
 
He tried, but the commission he appointed on voting fraud collapsed from infighting and from the refusal of states to cooperate when tapped for reams of personal voter data, like names, partial Social Security numbers and voting histories. Studies have found only isolated cases of voter fraud in recent U.S. elections and no evidence that election results were affected. Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt found 31 cases of impersonation fraud, for example, in about 1 billion votes cast in elections from 2000 to 2014. 
 
Trump has falsely claimed that 1 million fraudulent votes were cast in California and cited a Texas state government report that suggested 58,000 people in the country illegally may have cast a ballot at least once since 1996. But state elections officials subsequently acknowledged serious problems with the report, as tens of thousands on the list were actually U.S. citizens.

U.S. economy

Trump: “We have the best economy in history.”

The facts: No matter how often he repeats this claim, the economy is nowhere near the best in the country’s history.

In fact, in the late 1990s, growth topped 4% for four straight years, a level it has not reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth reached 7.2% in 1984. The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under President Barack Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

The economy is now in its 121st month of growth, making it the longest expansion in history. Most of that took place under Obama.

Unemployment rate

Trump: “The best employment numbers in history.”

The facts: They are not the best ever.

The 3.7% unemployment rate in the latest report is not a record low. It’s near the lowest level in 50 years, when it was 3.5%. The U.S. also had lower rates than now in the early 1950s. And during three years of World War II, the annual rate was under 2%.

Employment numbers

Trump: “The most people working, almost 160 million, in the history of our country.”

The facts: Yes, but that’s only because of population growth.

A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still far below record highs.

According to Labor Department data, 60.6% of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in June. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7% in April 2000, though higher than the 59.9% when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

Veterans Choice

Trump, on his efforts to help veterans: “I got Choice.” 
 
The facts: He is not the president who “got” the Veterans Choice program, which gives veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense. 
 
Obama got it. Congress approved the program in 2014, and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.

NATO

Trump: “We’re paying close to 100% on NATO.”

The facts: The U.S. is not “paying close to 100%” of the price of protecting Europe.

NATO has a shared budget to which each member makes contributions based on the size of its economy. The United States, with the biggest economy, pays the biggest share, about 22%.

Four European members — Germany, France, Britain and Italy — combined pay nearly 44% of the total. The money, about $3 billion, runs NATO’s headquarters and covers certain other civilian and military costs.

Defending Europe involves far more than that fund. The primary cost of doing so would come from each member country’s military budget, as the alliance operates under a mutual defense treaty.

The U.S. is the largest military spender, but others in the alliance have armed forces, too. The notion that almost all costs would fall to the U.S. is false. In fact, NATO’s Article 5, calling for allies to act if one is attacked, has only been invoked once, and it was on behalf of the U.S., after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said Tuesday he plans to meet with the Taliban to persuade them to hold negotiations with the government in Afghanistan but cautioned that securing a political settlement to war will not be easy. 

While delivering a public talk at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, Khan noted that for the first time in the 18-year-old Afghan conflict, Pakistan and the United States are working together to advance peace efforts in the neighboring country. 

Khan spoke a day after he met with President Donald Trump at the White House where the two leaders agreed to work together to end to the conflict. 

“Now, when I go back after meeting President Trump … I will meet the Taliban and I will try my best to get them to talk to the Afghan government so that the elections in Afghanistan must be inclusive where the Taliban also participate in it,” he said.

 The Taliban is strongly opposed to engaging in any formal intra-Afghan negotiations, involving the Kabul government, until securing a peace deal with the U.S.

Khan said that a Taliban delegation had wanted to meet him a few months back but he had to cancel the meeting because of objections from the Afghan government. He said he has now spoken to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani about his possible upcoming meeting with the insurgent group.

Pakistani leader visits Capitol Hill

Later, the Pakistani prime minister attended a reception at the Capitol Hill where he addressed a large number of American congressmen. Khan said his country has already arranged U.S.-Taliban talks and it will do all within its powers to advance the Afghan peace process. 

“Pakistan is now trying its best to get the Taliban on the table to start this dialogue and, so far, we have done pretty well. But it’s not going to be easy. Do not expect this to be easy because it’s a very complicated situation in Afghanistan,” Khan cautioned. “We all have one object and it’s exactly the same objective as the U.S., which is to have a peaceful solution as quickly as possible in Afghanistan,”  he added. 

Afghan leaders have consistently accused Islamabad of covertly backing the Taliban-led violent insurgency in their country, charges Pakistani officials reject and insist continued instability in the neighboring country is hurting Pakistan’s own stability and economic development. 

American and Taliban officials in their months-long talks are said to have come close to concluding an agreement toward ending the Afghan war. The proposed truce would require the insurgents to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a base for international terrorists in exchange for U.S. troops leaving the country. 

Afghan reaction to Trump’s remarks 

Meanwhile, U.S. chief negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, arrived Tuesday in Kabul to brief the Afghan leadership on his talks with the Taliban before he visits Qatar for another round of negotiations with insurgent envoys based there. The Afghan-born American diplomat tweeted he is focused on achieving an enduring peace that ends the war. 

Khalilzad arrived in Kabul a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he has military plans that could wipe Afghanistan “off the face of Earth,” killing millions of people.

Trump’s remarks, which he made during meeting with Khan at the White House, have outraged Afghan officials, opposition leaders and the Taliban as well.

President Ghani’s office in a statement issued Tuesday demanded a clarification from Washington.

Trump said if he wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan he could win that war in a week. 

“I just don’t want to kill 10 million people … Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone … It would be over in, literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to do that — I don’t want to go that route,” the president said. 

Former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, while talking to VOA Afghan service strongly condemned Trump’s statement, saying it comes from a “criminal mindset” and shows “contempt” toward Afghanistan and the Afghan people.” 

“The U.S. shouldn’t have come in the first place. They should go. They should go now,” Karzai said when asked about the possible U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Karzai came to power with the help of the U.S. and for most of his time in office American special forces had been doing the job of his personal security. 

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement, denounced as “irresponsible” the comments made by the American president.

“We believe that Trump should pay close attention to the actual cause of the problem instead of irresponsible comments and take practical steps towards finding a solution instead of failed policies and impractical hubris,” Mujahid asserted. 

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Opening up another legal front against the Democrats investigating him, President Donald Trump on Tuesday sued the House Ways and Means Committee and New York state officials to prevent his state tax returns from being turned over to the congressional committee.
 
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to block the application of a new New York state law that could allow the Democratic-controlled House and Ways Means Committee to obtain the returns. The lawsuit, filed in Washington, comes amid a furious White House attempt to prevent the president’s tax returns to wind up in Democratic hands.
 
“We have filed a lawsuit today in our ongoing efforts to end presidential harassment,” said Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s lawyers. “The targeting of the president by the House Ways and Means Committee, the New York Attorney General, and a New York tax official violates article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. The harassment tactics lack a legitimate legislative purpose. The actions taken by the House and New York officials are nothing more than political retribution.”
 
The state’s attorney general, Letitia James, said the act “will shine a light on the president’s finances and finally offer transparency to millions of Americans yearning to know the truth.”
 
“President Trump has spent his career hiding behind lawsuits,” James said in a statement, “but, as New York’s chief law enforcement officer, I can assure him that no one is above the law — not even the president of the United States.”
 
Trump’s tax returns have been a source of mystery — and contention — ever since the celebrity businessman broke with tradition and did not release his returns during his 2016 presidential campaign.
 
The House Ways and Means Committee sued the Treasury Department and IRS officials this month in an attempt to enforce a law that allows its chairman to obtain any taxpayer’s returns. Its chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., hasn’t indicated whether he would use the New York law, focusing instead on the federal lawsuit.
 
The lawsuit echoes what has become the White House consistent argument: that the committee’s pursuit of the president’s tax returns, as well as most of the Democrats’ investigative efforts, lack a legitimate legislative purpose and thus is outside Congress’s authority.
 
The suit also argues that the committee can’t have a legislative purpose in getting state records because its jurisdiction is limited to federal taxes. However, New York officials have argued that the state returns would contain much of the same information found on the president’s federal returns.
 
Trump has cited repeated IRS audits as a reason not to disclose his returns, but he isn’t legally prevented from releasing returns while under audit.
 
“Ultimately, this issue was litigated in the 2016 election,” the lawsuit said. “Voters heard the criticisms from Secretary (Hillary) Clinton, and they elected President Trump anyway. Democrats in Congress and across the country, however, have only become more eager to disclose the president’s tax returns for political gain.”
 
Democrats have argued that they need to review the returns in their search for potential conflicts of interest or corruption.
 
The administration and the Trump’s business have repeatedly tried to stall Democrats’ investigations by filing lawsuits and not cooperating. The White House has blocked several current and former officials from testifying, has refused to comply with document requests and the president has considered invoking executive privilege to stifle a series of probes.

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Most Americans think that tanking levels of distrust in the government and in other people are hindering efforts to solve pervasive, persistent issues, ranging from immigration and racism to healthcare, taxes and voting rights. Pew Research Center released results for the poll on Monday. It was conducted from November to December 2018 and included over 10,000 adults.

“Many people no longer think the federal government can actually be a force for good or change in their lives,” Pew quoted one survey participant as saying. “This kind of apathy and disengagement will lead to an even worse and less representative government.”

Nearly 70% of Americans say the federal government purposely withholds information that it could safely release, and a further 64% say that when elected officials speak, it’s hard to tell what’s true and what isn’t.

Public confidence in government, which dipped in the 60s and 70s, made a recovery in the 80s and early 2000s, according to an April Pew poll. Now, at 17%, the American populace’s trust in government is near historic lows.

And a large majority of people think this distrust is justified, with 75% answering that the government shouldn’t have more public confidence than it does.

Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents were more likely to pin the blame for distrust on corruption and poor government performance, while their Democrat and Democrat-leaning counterparts were more likely to point at U.S. President Donald Trump’s performance.

Confidence in other people has dropped too, but most prominently when politics come into the mix. While majorities trust others to “do the right thing,” such as in following the law, this changes when it comes to accepting election results, voting in informed ways, reconsidering views upon learning new information and a host of other situations.

Trust in others differed based on race, age, income and education, with older, richer and more educated participants holding higher levels of personal trust. White people had high levels of trust for others 27% of the time, more than double the share of black and Hispanic respondents.

“Americans who might feel disadvantaged are less likely to express generalized trust in other people,” Pew noted.

Strikingly, Republicans and Democrats held similar levels of personal trust in others, but had markedly different views regarding the government, with Republicans expressing more general confidence.

Why does public trust in government matter? Besides being the basis of any government that proclaims its power is drawn from the people, 64% of Americans say low trust in government is hampering responses to the country’s biggest problems. Exactly 70% think the same for distrust in other people. Solutions to persistent, divisive issues, like immigration, healthcare, taxes, voting rights and gerrymandering, were suffering, survey respondents said.

However, fully 84% of participants thought low confidence in the federal government could be remedied. In open comments, participants suggested solutions, including tamping down political partisanship and minimizing sensationalist he-said-she-said media coverage.

“Trust is the glue that binds humans together. Without it, we cooperate with one another less, and variables in our overall quality of life are affected,” wrote one 38-year-old man.

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South Korea says it fired warning shots at a Russian military aircraft after the plane breached South Korea’s airspace.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry says three Russian aircraft entered its air defense identification zone early Tuesday morning off its east coast before one of them breached the airspace. South Korean air force jets were deployed to intercept the plane and forced the Russian plane to leave the airspace. 

But the aircraft violated the airspace 20 minutes later, and stayed briefly before South Korean fighter jets fired another warning shot.

The ministry says it was the first time a Russian military aircraft violated South Korean airspace. Two Chinese aircraft also flew into the South’s air defense identification zone off the east coast hours earlier. The ministry says it will summon both Russian and Chinese embassy officials later Tuesday to lodge a formal protest.

The violation happened near a disputed group of islands claimed by both South Korea, which calls it Dokdo, and Japan, which calls it Takeshima.  

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Brazil seized 25.3 tons of cocaine bound for Europe and Africa in the first half of 2019, up more than 90 percent on the same period last year, officials said Monday.

Nearly half of the drugs were found at Santos port in southern Brazil, not far from where police recently arrested two men suspected of belonging to Italian mafia ‘Ndrangheta.

Customs officials attributed the increase in seizures to better intelligence and increased vigilance along Brazil’s borders.

“Last year we seized 31.4 tons of cocaine, a record that we will surely beat again,” Arthur Cazella told AFP. 

The amount of cannabis confiscated more than doubled to 10.2 tons in the January-June period, up from 3.9 tons year-on-year.

Brazil, which has some 17,000 kilometers (10,500 miles)of land borders, is an important hub for international drug trafficking. 

Drugs produced in Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Paraguay are smuggled into Brazil and then sent to mainly European markets. 

Some routes to Africa are also opening up, Cazella said.

Cocaine seizures have soared in recent years, from 958 kilograms in 2014 to last year’s record 31.4 tons.

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Once upon a time, not too far from Hollywood, two of the world’s biggest movie stars were talking about what it’s like to screw up on set.  

“Messing up the lines in front of the entire cast and crew?” Leonardo DiCaprio said.  “It’s the going to school in your underwear nightmare.”

“It’s awful,” Brad Pitt chimed in. “When a scene’s not working. When YOU’RE not working in a scene…It goes beyond not being able to get the lines. You have 100 people there who are all ready to get on with their day and get home.”

DiCaprio hasn’t exactly had to resort to dunking his head in ice water after a too-late and too-fun night out, as his actor character does in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”

But Pitt? “Oh I’ve done that,” he laughed.

The two actors, who skyrocketed to fame around the same time more than a quarter century ago, have joined forces for the first time in a major motion picture to take on their own industry, their own town and even their own egos in a time of great change — 1969 Hollywood. Out nationwide Friday, it’s also reunited them with Quentin Tarantino.

Once known only as “Tarantino’s Manson Movie,” the actual film is something very different. Manson is a character, as are his most notorious followers. And of course, Sharon Tate is depicted too and played by Margot Robbie. But as with most Tarantino movies, it’s not exactly what you think.

“The best of what 1969 had to offer you kind of experience through Sharon,” Robbie said.

Like going to the Playboy Mansion with Mama Cass and go-go dancing the night away. Or rolling up to a movie theater to check out your latest matinee and getting a free ticket because you’re on the poster.

“She kind of represented the arms open, doors open sort of policy,” she added. “After 1969 and after her death, things kind of changed in Hollywood and people closed their doors and shut the gates.”

The light and the dark of the imminent end of the ’60s is the backdrop to what is otherwise a classic star-driven two-hander. “Once Upon a Time…” is awash in nostalgia, showbiz lore (and cameos), wistfulness and Tarantino-wit that allows DiCaprio, as a past his prime television cowboy in a moment of crippling self-doubt, and Pitt, as his devoted stuntman, to do what they do best: Charm.

“I don’t think you can completely act that kind of dynamic,” Pitt said.

The change happening in Hollywood around 1969 led to many on-set discussions of what was going on at the time with the new batch of filmmakers upending the establishment and leaving room for the Coppolas and the Scorseses to break in.

“The ‘take and wait,'” Pitt said. “Like, we’ll get the take but we’re getting through this story.” Tarantino does that often.

It also made them all reflect on their own industry at the moment, where streaming is disrupting the old ways but once again ushering in new voices. As producers, Pitt, DiCaprio and Robbie all find it exciting.  

“What’s incredible is this wealth of talent from writers to directors to actors that are getting opportunities now. It’s quite extraordinary,” Pitt said. “You see that we’re not so special.”

DiCaprio is even a little jealous to see some “out of the box ideas” and “really ballsy storytelling” that he tried and failed to get made just a decade ago now not only being financed, but made at a high quality too.

“There’s so many more opportunities,” Robbie added. “I’m very grateful to be playing roles in this day and age than perhaps when Sharon was.”

But it’s not lost on them that they all happen to be promoting a “a big budget art piece like this,” as DiCaprio called it, from one of the major studios whose future is going to depend on people actually going to see films like “Once Upon a Time…” in a movie theater.

“Hopefully it becomes like a concert experience,” DiCaprio said. “People want to get together on the Friday night and feel the energy of the crowd and the excitement of a movie coming out that they’ve been anticipating rather than the isolation of being home. Hopefully that’s not lost in the sauce, because that’s half the fun of it, right?”

“Once Upon a Time…” is Tarantino’s ninth film, and, according to him, his second to last.

Pitt and DiCaprio believe him too.

“I always imagined it as his little box set that he wants to just hang up on the wall and that’s it,” DiCaprio said. “That completes the Tarantino, you know, cinematic experience.”

“The Tarantino 10,” Pitt added.

As with many button-pushing Tarantino projects, “Once Upon a Time…” has been at the center of a few heated public discussions, including the morality of making a movie about Tate and Manson, and the casting of Emile Hirsch, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to assaulting a female studio executive at Sundance.

Then there was that tense moment at the Cannes Film Festival press conference where a reporter asked why Robbie’s character has so few lines and Tarantino curtly responded that he rejected the hypothesis.

Tarantino declined to be interviewed for this article. But his response touched a nerve culturally.

“He’s an incredibly unique filmmaker,” DiCaprio said. “And whatever choices he makes, he’s one of those rare filmmakers in this industry that has retained the right to say, ‘This is a piece of art that I’m going to give to the world. And this is what this character represents, and this is what this character represents. And it’s my piece of work’… That’s why we consistently want to work with somebody like that.”

It’s clear his actors are in awe of him and what he brings to their art form. It’s the kind of admiration that can result in two true movie stars talking like fans.

“You know he’s got a four-hour cut of this?” Pitt said excitedly.
 
“Yeah,” DiCaprio responded. “I’m still waiting to see the four-hour cut of ‘Django.'”

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