President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges Friday in connection with his past lobbying efforts on behalf of Ukraine. As part of the plea deal, Manafort has also agreed to cooperate in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election led by special counsel Robert Mueller. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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The seas are angry this month.

While the remnants of Hurricane Florence soak the Carolinas and Typhoon Mangkhut pounds the Philippines, three more tropical cyclones are spinning in the Western Hemisphere, and one is petering out over Southeast Asia.

Experts say some of this extreme tropical weather is consistent with climate change. But some isn’t. And some is unclear.

It’s unusual to have so many storms happening at once. But not unheard of.

“While it is very busy, this has happened a number of times in the past,” said meteorologist Joel Cline at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mid-September is the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. If there are going to be storms in both hemispheres, Cline said, now is the most likely time.

Stronger storms, and a grain of salt

Scientists are not necessarily expecting more hurricanes with climate change, however.

“A lot of studies actually (show) fewer storms overall,” said NOAA climate scientist Tom Knutson.

“But one thing they also tend to simulate is slightly stronger storms” and a larger proportion of Category 4 or 5 hurricanes, Knutson said. Florence made landfall as a Category 1 storm but started the week as a Category 4.

Knutson and other experts caution that any conclusions linking climate and hurricanes need to be taken with a grain of salt.

“Our period of record is too short to be very confident in these sorts of things,” said University of Miami atmospheric scientist Brian McNoldy.

While reliable temperature records go back more than a century in much of the world, comprehensive data on hurricanes only starts with satellites in the 1980s.

​Extreme rainfall

Scientists are fairly sure that climate change is making extreme rainfall more common. Global warming has raised ocean temperatures, leading to more water evaporating into the atmosphere, and warmer air holds more water.

Florence is expected to dump up to 101 centimeters (40 inches) of rain in some spots, leading to what the National Weather Service calls life-threatening flooding.

One group of researchers has estimated that half of the rain falling in the hurricane’s wettest areas is because of human-caused climate change.

Knutson agrees in principle but can’t vouch for the magnitude.

“We do not yet claim that we have detected this increase in hurricane rainfall rate,” he said.

He points to earlier studies that blamed climate change for 15 to 20 percent of the devastating rainfall Hurricane Harvey poured on Texas last year.

However, these studies looked at all kinds of rainfall, not just hurricanes, Knutson notes.

“We think that hurricanes are probably behaving like the other types of processes, but we have the best data for extreme precipitation in general,” he explained.

The latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report has “medium confidence” in the link between climate change and rainfall extremes.

As Florence trudges across the Carolinas, one recent study suggests that hurricanes are moving slower, giving them more time to do their damage.

But that may be natural variation more than climate change.

“I think we’re still early in the game on that one,” Knutson said.

​Rising sea levels

The area where scientists are most confident is sea level rise. Climate change is responsible for three-quarters of the increase in ocean levels, according to the IPCC report.

“Once you have human-caused sea level rise, then all other things being equal, whatever storms you have will create that much higher storm surge,” Knutson said.

That means more erosion and more damage farther on shore.

Whether this hurricane season as a whole will be one for the record books remains to be seen. While the seas are angry at the moment, that may soon change.

An El Niño warming pattern appears to be developing in the Pacific. That tends to squash hurricane activity in the Atlantic.

“It appears that perhaps next week will be much more quiet in both basins,” said NOAA’s Joel Cline. “So it does ebb and flow.”
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At least five people were dead and almost a million homes and businesses were without power Saturday as Tropical Storm Florence forced evacuations and created flooding in a portion of the U.S. South. 

The National Hurricane Center said the storm’s “heavy rains and catastrophic flooding continue across portions of North and South Carolina.” In addition, the center said tornadoes were possible Saturday in southeastern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina.

Forecasters were most worried about the storm’s 6-kph (3.6-mph) westward movement, not its 75-kph (47-mph) wind. The slow speed was giving it more time to whip up massive amounts of rain. The hurricane center predicted as much as 101 centimeters of rain (40 inches) for some parts of North Carolina.

Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm after barreling into North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane with damaging winds and heavy rain.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Saturday that despite the downgrade, Florence was still “unloading epic amounts of rainfall” and still very capable of wiping out entire communities.

“The flood danger from this storm is more immediate today than when it made landfall 24 hours ago,” he said. “We face walls of water at our coast, along our rivers, across farmland, in our cities and in our towns.”

Cooper said floodwaters were continuing to rise, and he urged evacuees to “stay put” until they received “the official all-clear.”

Police in Wilmington, North Carolina, said a mother and baby were killed when a tree fell on their house. Another woman died from a heart attack after calling emergency services, as paramedics could not reach her because of fallen trees.  A 78-year-old man was electrocuted while trying to connect extension cords in the rain.  Another man died when he was knocked down by high winds while checking on his dogs.

The White House announced Saturday that President Donald Trump had declared a “major disaster” existed in North Carolina, freeing up federal funds and resources for recovery efforts.

The hurricane center said Florence was moving slowly inland with maximum sustained winds of 75 kph and higher gusts. By Saturday afternoon, the storm was over eastern South Carolina, 85 kilometers (53 miles) west of the coastal resort city of Myrtle Beach. 

Florence was expected to weaken to a tropical depression by Saturday night as it moved inland.

Hundreds of people in North Carolina have been rescued from rising water. Authorities said they had received more than 150 telephone calls to rescue people in the historic town of New Bern alone because water had entered their homes.

Shaken after seeing waves crashing on the Neuse River just outside his house in New Bern, restaurant owner and hurricane veteran Tom Ballance wished he had evacuated.

“I feel like the dumbest human being who ever walked the face of the Earth,” he said.

New Bern resident Latasha Jones was one of the more fortunate ones.

“The evacuation was countywide, but since we’re not in a flood zone, we weren’t really worried about that,” she told VOA.

“The way our house sits, it’s elevated. We have steps on the sides of the house, so it’s a few feet off the ground anyway. And since we’re already on high ground, those two things together kind of help insulate us a little more than, I would say, others,” she said.

WATCH: Hurricane Florence Comes Ashore
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The newly appointed United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Brian Nichols, says that Zimbabwe must follow through on promised reforms if it wants U.S. sanctions on the country to be lifted.

In an interview Friday at the Voice of America’s Washington headquarters, Ambassador Nichols told Marvelous Mhlanga-Nyahuye of VOA’s Zimbabwe Service that the newly elected government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa will get the full support of the U.S. government if it implements legal changes it promised during the election campaign.

He said those reforms include observing the rule of law and allowing citizens such freedoms as access to information and free speech.

​Sanctions renewed

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump renewed sanctions against Zimbabwe and set out steps the country needed to take to have them removed. The presidential act, called the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Amendment Act of 2018, also known as Zidera, set one such condition as ensuring that July’s national elections were free and fair.

Following those elections, the ruling ZANU-PF was declared the winner, but the opposition challenged the results claiming fraud. The Constitutional Court held a hearing on the matter in August, ruling against the opposition’s claims of election rigging.

The election, which many said was peaceful compared to previous elections, was not free from all violence. The army reportedly used live ammunition and killed at least six people during opposition protests of the vote.

Ambassador Nichols said he has met both President Mnangagwa and opposition leader Nelson Chamisa and looks forward to working with both of them.

“I think they are both people who love their country, and are committed to improving Zimbabwe and changing many of the problems of the past,” he said.

Targeted sanctions, remedies

Mnangagwa has called for the lifting of U.S. sanctions against officials from the ZANU-PF ruling party, top military figures and some government-owned firms, which were imposed during former President Robert Mugabe’s rule for election rigging and human rights abuses.

Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo has said Mnangagwa’s government was shocked by the renewal of U.S. sanctions.

Nicholas emphasized that the United States has targeted sanctions on only some individuals and entities in Zimbabwe, but not the entire country, and that U.S. businesses are not restricted from investing or doing business in Zimbabwe.

He said businesses want to invest in Zimbabwe, but said investors want to see reforms implemented that have been talked about by government officials.

“Decisions on investment in Zimbabwe are driven by the economic conditions in Zimbabwe, the rule of law, the assurances that people’s investments will be protected, that they have the right to have majority ownership in their businesses,” he said.

Economic potential

Nichols says he believes Zimbabwe has so much economic potential, especially in the areas of tourism, agriculture and mining.

“When you look at the area of tourism, Zimbabwe is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. … Zimbabwe should be capturing more tourists and providing them with a world-class experience,” he said.

In terms of agriculture, Nichols said he hopes reforms that both candidates talked about during the presidential campaign will be implemented to help build a more “resilient and successful” agricultural sector. Zimbabwe’s agriculture output plummeted under Mugabe, who seized white-owned farmland beginning in 2000 and gave it to blacks with little experience in large-scale farming.

“And then obviously the extractive industry sector, mining, is one where Zimbabwe has tremendous potential — 40 different valuable minerals in Zimbabwe — that I think, if properly managed, could provide tremendous, tremendous opportunities,” Nichols said.

Nichols also announced an initiative in which the United States would help Zimbabwe fight a cholera epidemic. He said the United States was working to provide Zimbabweans with more than 300,000 vaccinations that can help prevent cholera or help people who are infected to recover more quickly.

Read the full transcript of the interview with Ambassador Nichols.
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California Gov. Jerry Brown said Friday that the state plans to launch its “own damn satellite” into orbit to battle climate change.

The man the late Chicago columnist Mike Royko famously dubbed “Gov. Moonbeam” made the announcement at the conclusion of a two-day climate summit he organized in San Francisco.

Brown said state officials will work with the San Francisco-based company Planet Labs to develop a satellite to track climate-change causing pollutants. Brown said the earth-imaging company has launched 150 satellites.

“With science still under attack and the climate threat growing, we’re launching our own damn satellite,” he said.

The Democrat, who is leaving office at the end of the year, didn’t announce a launch date or divulge a cost estimate.

Brown’s office said government scientists and staff will work on the project, but that no state money will be spent directly developing the satellite. Private donations are being made by San Francisco investment banker Richard Lawrence and his wife, Dee Lawrence, along with the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust.

Idea from 2016

Brown foreshadowed the announcement in a December 2016 speech to the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco a month after Trump’s election. The then-president elect had threatened to scrap NASA’s climate change funding.

“If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite,” Brown said at the time to cheers and applause from the geophysicists. “We’re going to collect that data.”

He also reminded them that he had floated a similar proposal during his first term as governor in the 1970s. The Chicago Sun-Times columnist gave Brown the Moonbeam moniker in 1976. Royko said that Brown appeared to be attracting “the moonbeam vote.”

The name stuck for decades, even after Royko, who died in 1997, apologized and tried to retract it. Brown used to dislike the name but more recently has embraced it.

Paris climate accord

Before Brown’s announcement, two prominent Democrats and a Republican mayor criticized Trump for his decision to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate accord.

“While Donald Trump may have pulled out of the climate agreement, the American people have not,” former Secretary of State John Kerry said opening the second day of the Global Climate Action Summit.

Kerry, also a Democrat, called Trump’s decision “the single greatest act of irresponsibility of any president of the United States at any time.”

Trump announced in June 2017 the United States’ intention to pull out of the international agreement, which Kerry signed while serving as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. The 195 countries that signed the treaty agreed to commit resources to combat climate change

Trump said the agreement was unfair to the United States and would hurt the economy.

Former Vice President Al Gore followed Kerry to the stage and got a rousing ovation when he said a new president can rejoin the Paris Agreement.

Gore, a Democrat, also criticized Trump’s recent denial that 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico in 2017 because of Hurricane Maria.

Gore said it’s difficult to deny that climate change is causing more severe weather but that “It’s a little harder to deny the 3,000 deaths from the hurricane in Puerto Rico.”

Republican accomplishments

James Brainard, Republican mayor of Carmel, Indiana, listed a number of Republican presidents and their environmental accomplishments, including President Nixon’s creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. He said he was disappointed Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement.

“The president likes to talk about what a great country we are,” Brainard said. “Great countries honor their international agreements. Great countries show leadership to the rest of the world on critical issues. Great countries listen to their scientists and great countries strive to leave the world better than they found it.”
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After leading a congressional fact-finding trip to Ethiopia, U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith said he’s convinced the Horn of Africa country is making rapid progress toward democracy, thanks to new leadership.

“Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is the right man at the right time and is therefore deserving our support,” said Smith, a Republican from New Jersey who chairs the House subcommittee on Africa, global health, global human rights and international organizations.

Smith shared that observation during a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, at which he and U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat, discussed their late August trip. They were part of a five-person delegation meeting with Ahmed and other Ethiopian officials, lawmakers, political and religious leaders, human rights activists and victims of detention and torture. 

The congressman is the architect of H.R. 128, legislation condemning human rights abuses in Ethiopia and outlining a number of reforms that the country must take to promote peace and democracy. The resolution passed in the House of Representatives earlier this year.

Smith praised Abiy, a former intelligence official who, since assuming office, “has released thousands of political prisoners,” lifted a months-long state of emergency and “initiated an historic peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea this past July.”

Expectations have been raised, he added, “and the reforms that have begun must continue.”

Smith said he and Bass met with a group of former prisoners and torture victims in the capital, Addis Ababa, “and what they described as having been done to them was horrific.” They demand justice, he added.

Smith and Bass also met with young people. Youth-led protests began in late 2015 and forced out Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in February after six years in office. Smith said the economy needs to grow to provide jobs for young people, including those who were active in protests and civil disobedience.

Abiy has begun opening up Ethiopia’s business sector, selling stakes in state-owned businesses such as telecommunications and airlines. Smith said he hopes to see additional economic reforms.

The Ethiopian government faces an array of challenges, including a humanitarian crisis caused by fighting and recent flooding. The U.N. migration agency reports well over 2 million people have been displaced and need immediate attention. 

Bass acknowledged other daunting obstacles: “Regional security issues, the country’s past human rights records [and] ethnic tensions across the country and hard-liners” among the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front party who hope to stall Abiy’s reform agenda. 

But, she said, the hearing gave voice to Ethiopians about ways the U.S. could help its ally move forward. 

Girum Alemayehu, an Ethiopian community representative who testified at the hearing, said he was impressed by changes in his homeland but feared ongoing violence, including in the Oromo and Somalia regions, could hinder full progress. 

“Create an independent commission to investigate the alleged security forces who have committed killings, mass detention and torture and used excessive force,” he said, urging the U.S. government to prod Ethiopia’s leaders on that front.

Another speaker was Jemal Said, an Ethiopian from Oromia, the country’s largest state and home to ethnic Oromo. For years, they had found limited political and economic opportunity, and the state became a hotbed of anti-government protests. The Oromo celebrated when Abiy freed thousands of political prisoners, but, Said said, they still want to see Oromo recognized as a federal language. Currently, only Amharic is recognized as an official federal language.  

This report originated in VOA’s Horn of Africa Service. 
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Investigators worked Friday to pinpoint the cause of a series of fiery natural gas explosions that killed a teen driver in his car just hours after he got his license, injured at least 25 others and left dozens of homes in smoldering ruins.

Authorities said an estimated 8,000 people were displaced at the height of Thursday’s post-explosion chaos in three towns north of Boston rocked by the disaster. Most were still waiting, shaken and exhausted, to be allowed to return to their homes.

Gov. Charlie Baker said Friday that hundreds of gas technicians were being deployed throughout the night and into Saturday to make sure each home is safe to enter.

“This remains a tremendous inconvenience for many people,” Baker said. “It’s essential for the crews to get this right.”

Baker authorized the utility Eversource to take management control over the effort to restore services.

Even after residents return and their electricity is restored, gas service won’t be turned on until technicians can inspect every connection in each home, a process that could take weeks.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to help investigate the blasts in a state where some of the aging gas pipeline system dates to the 1860s.

‘Armageddon’

The rapid-fire series of gas explosions that one official described as “Armageddon” ignited fires in 60 to 80 homes in the working-class towns of Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, forcing entire neighborhoods to evacuate as crews scrambled to fight the flames and shut off the gas and electricity.

Gas and electricity remained shut down Friday in most of the area, and entire neighborhoods were eerily deserted.

Authorities said Leonel Rondon, 18, of Lawrence, died after a chimney toppled by an exploding house crashed into his car. He was rushed to a Boston hospital and pronounced dead Thursday evening.

The state Registry of Motor Vehicles said Rondon had been issued his driver’s license only hours earlier Thursday.

Widespread confusion

Massachusetts State Police Thursday night urged all residents with homes serviced by Columbia Gas in the three communities to evacuate, snarling traffic and causing widespread confusion as residents and local officials struggled to understand what was happening. About 400 people spent the night in shelters, and school was canceled Friday as families waited to return to their homes.

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency blamed the fires on gas lines that had become over-pressurized but said investigators were still examining what happened.

Columbia Gas President Steve Bryant wouldn’t comment on the suspected cause of the blasts, deflecting questions about his company’s response but saying it had “substantive, lengthy conversations” with the authorities.

The Massachusetts gas pipeline system is among the oldest in the country, as much as 157 years old in some places, according to the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group.

Columbia Gas had announced earlier Thursday that it would be upgrading gas lines in neighborhoods across the state, including the area where the explosions happened. It was not clear whether work was happening there Thursday, and a spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.

U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey said they are calling on the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to hold a hearing to determine what went wrong and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Police officer’​s heroism

At least one story of heroism emerged from the ashes: that of Lawrence police officer Ivan Soto. His house burned nearly to the ground, but after rushing home to check on his family and warn his neighbors to evacuate, he went back on patrol.

“He actually stayed on duty even though his house was burning down” neighbor Christel Nazario told The Associated Press. “I don’t know how he did it.”

The three communities house more than 146,000 residents about 26 miles (40 kilometers) north of Boston, near the New Hampshire border. Lawrence, the largest, is a majority Latino city with a population of about 80,000.

Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera reassured immigrants who might not be living in his city legally that they had nothing to fear.

“Do not be afraid. Stay in the light. We will support you and your family,” Rivera said at a news conference Friday, speaking in English and Spanish. “Lawrence is one community.”

Authorities said all of the fires had been extinguished overnight and the situation was stabilizing.

Columbia Gas was fined $100,000 by the state for a variety of safety violations since 2010, including $35,000 in 2016 for failing to follow company and pipeline safety regulations when responding to an outage and repairing a leak in Taunton.

The company was sued in 2014 after a strip club was destroyed in a natural gas explosion in Springfield, Massachusetts, after a Columbia employee accidentally punctured a gas line while probing for a leak. The November 2012 blast leveled the Scores Gentleman’s Club, injuring about 20 people and damaging dozens of other buildings. The club owner and the gas company eventually settled the case.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the enforcement of U.N. sanctions on North Korea was critical to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

His remarks came after the U.S. accused Russia of altering an independent U.N. report to cover up Moscow’s alleged violation of U.N. sanctions on North Korea.

“Russia has actively attempted to undermine the U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Pompeo said during a news conference, “by attempting to change the language” of a report that evaluates compliance with sanctions against Pyongyang.

Pompeo spoke with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Friday. A day earlier, Haley said Russia pressured the independent sanctions monitors to amend a report that was eventually submitted to the Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee last month.

“The United States is as committed as ever to continuing to enforce those U.N. Security Council resolutions. We believe they are central to President [Donald] Trump’s efforts to convince [North Korean leader] Chairman Kim Jong Un that full, final denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula is necessary,” Pompeo said.

Both Russia and China are seen as having pushed for the council to ease sanctions on Pyongyang since the U.S.-North Korea summit in June.

Tech companies sanctioned

Thursday, Washington imposed sanctions on two information technology companies based in China and Russia for supporting Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

Washington is accusing the companies, located in Beijing and Moscow but controlled by Pyongyang, of moving illicit funds to North Korea.

“These actions are intended to stop the flow of illicit revenue to North Korea from overseas information technology workers disguising their true identities and hiding behind front companies, aliases and third-party nationals,” said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in an official statement.

The department designated the China-based China Silver Star, its North Korean CEO Jong Song Hwa and its Russia-based sister company Volasys Silver Star as such fronts.

The sanctions come at a time when the U.S. is maintaining pressure on the North Korean government in its negotiations to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
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Hurricane Florence came ashore early Friday on North Carolina’s coast, triggering a life-threatening storm surge far inland and damaging property with strong winds and heavy downpours. VOA’s Jeff Custer reports from Washington.
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