What makes food organic and what does the “USDA organic” label really mean? VOA’s Mariia Prus visited a certified organic farm in southern Maryland to find out more and spoke to some consumers about why they prefer organically grown products. Joy Wagner narrates for VOA reporter Mariia Prus in Saint Mary’s County.
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Month: September 2018
Northern California’s ‘Little Kabul’ a Cultural Hub to One of America’s Largest Afghan Communities
Alameda County in California, known as a retreat for hippies four decades ago, has become home to one of the largest Afghan American communities in America. VOA’s Saba Shah Khan takes us to one area known as “Little Kabul,” now a cultural hub for the Bay Area’s rapidly growing Afghan American population.
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Volcano Quiets, National Park Reopens After Months
A national park in Hawaii has reopened after being closed for more than four months because of Kilauea volcano’s latest eruption, which caused widespread damage to park infrastructure and dramatically changed its landscape.
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park officials said there were no lines or waiting for visitors to catch a glimpse of the volcano that made headlines across the world when it began erupting in May. Admission is free Saturday.
The eruption destroyed hundreds of homes outside the park while changing the popular summit crater inside the park.
The national park, normally the state’s most-visited tourist attraction, had been closed for 135 days as volcanic activity caused explosive eruptions, earthquakes and the collapse of the famed Halemaumau crater. Ash clouds shot skyward from the summit crater and blanketed the region in volcanic debris.
Park, surroundings transformed
Kilauea has been active for decades. But the eruption that began in May has transformed both the park and the rural Big Island coastline that surrounds it.
Outside the park, lava flows consumed entire neighborhoods, filled an ocean bay and created miles of new shoreline with fresh black sand beaches and jagged rocky outcrops. Inside the park, molten rock drained from the summit lava lake and vanished from view as the landscape underwent a monumental change.
The summit crater floor sank 1,500 feet (460 meters), and the overall Kilauea caldera widened — expanding more than 1 square mile, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It quadrupled in size as lava drained out of the active vent.
“This eruption was really unprecedented in the historic record,” Ingrid Johanson, a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “The changes we’ve seen at the summit are much more dramatic than anything that’s happened in the last 200 years.”
The crater looks “completely different,” Johanson said. “I think people are going to be really awestruck when they see it.”
Glow is gone
However, one of the park’s biggest draws, the radiant red light from the lava lake that has been a Kilauea hallmark for over a decade, is completely gone.
“There is no glow at all,” said Shanelle Saunders, the park’s acting spokeswoman. “You can’t even see your hand in front your face it’s so dark in a lot of these areas. I mean, the stars right now are incredible, but there’s actually no flowing lava.”
The park will be open 24 hours a day, but visitors should be careful at night because of new cracks in trails and walkways.
“Even if people are really familiar with those trails, they may have changed since they’ve been here,” Saunders said.
Limited public access
Public access to the volcano remains limited because of damage to its infrastructure. But visitors can once again hike around some parts of the summit area and see the aftermath of the historic eruption.
“The crater rim trail is open to a certain point,” Saunders said. “And from there, they can see down into the crater itself.”
The theme of this year’s National Public Lands Day is “resilience and restoration,” said Hawaii Volcanoes National Park spokeswoman Jessica Ferracane, who noted that park repair work had been pointing toward a late-September reopening.
“We really wanted to invite visitors back without them having to pay on that first day,” Ferracane said. “The theme was so uncanny that we thought it would be a real good fit.”
While volcanic activity has slowed significantly in the past month and no lava is reaching the surface at Kilauea, scientists aren’t ready to declare the latest eruption over.
“There is still material that could feed into an eruption,” Johanson said. “I definitely expect that lava will return one day.”
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US Won’t Hesitate to Impose Sanctions Over Fuel to N. Korea
The U.S. State Department said Saturday that Washington would not wait to impose sanctions on any shippers helping to get fuel to North Korea, in
an apparent warning to Russia days after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations accused Moscow of cheating on the measures.
North Korea continues to employ tactics to evade U.N. sanctions, Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement, adding that U.N. member states are required to prohibit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum fuel to the country.
“The United States will not hesitate to impose sanctions on any individual, entity or vessel supporting North Korea’s illicit activities, regardless of nationality,” Nauert said.
The 15-member U.N. Security Council has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
But the United States and Russia have recently shown cracks in the unity of the council over the sanctions.
Washington has “evidence of consistent and wide-ranging Russian violations” of the sanctions, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Monday.
Russia was helping North Korea illegally obtain fuel through transfers at sea, had refused to expel a North Korean whom the Security Council blacklisted last year, and had pushed for changes to an independent U.N. report on sanctions violations to cover up breaches by Russians, she said.
Russia blames Haley
Russia said after Haley’s comments that Moscow had not pressured the authors of the U.N. report, and it blamed Haley for heightening tensions.
With the warning on fuel shipments, the Trump administration signaled it was keeping pressure on Pyongyang even after saying there has been progress.
President Donald Trump this week hailed a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and said there had been “tremendous progress” with North Korea on several fronts,
including Pyongyang’s denuclearization.
Washington has tracked 148 cases this year of tankers delivering fuel to North Korea in breach of a U.N. cap of 500,000 barrels a year. Haley has not said how many of those transfers may have involved Russia.
Both Russia and China have suggested the Security Council discuss easing sanctions after Trump and Kim met in June and Kim pledged to work toward denuclearization.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the United States was working to set up another summit between Trump and Kim after their unprecedented meeting in Singapore, but that there was still work to do.
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1 Dead, 1 Hurt After Car Bombs Explode in Mogadishu
One person died and another was injured when two car bombs exploded Saturday in the heart of the Somali capital. The Islamist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The bombs detonated in two different cars near a main road in the center of the city. Al-Shabab frequently carries out bombings in Mogadishu and other parts of the Horn of Africa country.
“Two people were injured in the two car bombs. One of them died of the wounds,” said Major Mohamed Hussein, a police officer.
Al-Shabab told Reuters that its members had planted the car bombs and that they were targeting a police official but that he had escaped.
Another police officer, Ahmed Nur, said one of the cars was parked and had nobody in it, while the second was moving and the two people inside it were the two victims.
On Friday, at least three people were killed in separate attacks in Mogadishu, including a female university student shot dead in her class by two men armed with pistols.
Al-Shabab is fighting to topple Somalia’s Western-backed central government and establish its own rule based on its own strict interpretation of Islamic law.
The group also wants to drive African Union-mandated AMISOM peacekeepers out of the country.
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Pirates Kidnap 12 From Swiss Vessel Off Nigeria, Shipper Says
Pirates kidnapped 12 crew members from a Swiss merchant vessel on Saturday in Nigerian waters, the ship’s operator said in a statement.
Massoel Shipping, operator of MV Glarus, said the vessel, with 19 crew members aboard and carrying wheat, was traveling between the southwestern commercial capital, Lagos, and the southern Niger Delta oil hub of Port Harcourt when it was boarded by pirates.
It said the attack happened around 45 nautical miles south west of Bonny Island.
“The company is working with the authorities and specialists to secure the speedy and safe release of those being held,” Massoel Shipping said in its statement. The statement did not give the nationalities of the crew members.
Switzerland’s foreign ministry said it had learned from the company that none of the crew members was from Switzerland itself.
Nigeria’s navy and maritime police said they were unaware of the kidnapping and would investigate.
Kidnapping for ransom is a common problem in parts of Nigeria. A number of foreigners have been kidnapped in the last few years in the southern Niger Delta region, source of most of the crude oil that is the mainstay of West Africa’s biggest economy.
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US Airstrike Kills 18 Al-Shabab After US Forces Attacked in Somalia
The U.S. military says it has carried out an airstrike that killed 18 al-Shabab extremists after U.S. and local forces came under attack in southern Somalia.
The U.S. Africa Command says in a statement the airstrike was carried out in self-defense on Friday about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of the port city of Kismayo.
The statement says two other al-Shabab extremists were killed by Somali forces “with small arms fire during the engagement.”
An AFRICOM spokesman says no U.S. or partner forces were injured. The spokesman says the airstrike was carried out after extremists were “observed maneuvering on a combined patrol” of U.S. and Somali forces.
The U.S. has carried out more than 20 such airstrikes this year against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in sub-Saharan Africa.
your ad hereTanzania Ferry Accident Toll Climbs to 167
The death toll rose to 167 and one survivor was reportedly rescued Saturday from the ferry boat that capsized in Tanzania’s Lake Victoria Thursday.
Tanzanian officials continued their search inside the overturned vessel for a third day Saturday as an investigation into the disaster got underway.
Search teams spent the day pulling bodies from the MV Nyerere, which sank amid speculation it was overcrowded, as four days of mourning began for victims.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that one man was pulled alive from the wreckage. The wire service said the vessel’s engineer was rescued near the engine. There was no report on his condition.
Tanzania’s chief secretary, John Kijazi, had told reporters the ferry had a passenger capacity of 101. Kijazi said he ordered an investigation into the accident and that charges would be filed against those found responsible.
Regional commissioner John Mongella said Friday he would not “speculate” on how many people were aboard the MV Nyerere, but it is not uncommon for watercraft to carry hundreds of passengers at a time. Local media say the ferry might have been carrying 200 passengers when it capsized. He said at least 40 people were rescued shortly after the Thursday accident and that some of those individuals were in “very bad condition.”
Tanzania’s state radio reported passengers boarded the ferry at Bugolora, a town on Ukerewe Island, and were en route to the island of Ukara when the vessel overturned.
According to Tanzanian government records, about 800 people were killed when the MV Bukoba capsized on Lake Victoria in May 1996.
More recently, hundreds of people were confirmed dead when the MV Spice Islander I sank off the coast of the archipelago of Zanzibar in 2011.
Mbaki Farki, a diver in Tanzania who participated in the 2011 rescue operation, told VOA’s Swahili Service that the ferry fleet on Lake Victoria lacks safety precautions.
Ferries are supposed to have life jackets and life rings, but the fleet has insufficient equipment, Farki said. He added that the vessels also lack services for people with disabilities, among the most vulnerable in such incidents.
“I am asking the government to prepare rescue teams in Tanzania because we have the marines, police and navy,” Farki said. “We need to have rescue teams everywhere so that we can deal with these kinds of tragedies. In Tanzania, we look for help and rescue teams only when tragedy strikes.”
The Tanzanian Red Cross Society has been working on rescue and recovery. Godfrida Jola, a spokeswoman, told VOA that the organization had helped rescue 35 people but also was trying to deliver body bags for the dead. VOA Swahili reports one man, Charles Misango, lost 11 members of his family in the accident and is urging President John Magufuli’s government to accept responsibility for the disaster.
Separately, many drowning victims did not how to swim, a point the Red Cross would address to prevent further tragedy — especially in waterfront communities, Jola said.
“At Red Cross, we have taken it as a lesson learned — and on our program we are going to work together with those communities to prepare them … so that they can be able to swim,” Jola said.
President Magufuli’s spokesman said Magufuli was “deeply saddened” by the tragedy and urged citizens to “stay calm during these difficult times.”
John Mnyika of the main opposition party, Chadema, accused the government of being derelict, saying, “We have often raised concerns about the poor condition of this ferry, but the government turned a deaf ear. We have repeatedly denounced this negligence.”
VOA’s Swahili Service contributed to this report.
your ad hereCampaigns Start in Cameroon’s Presidential Poll
Campaigning for Cameroon’s October 7 presidential election officially begun Saturday. Opposition parties have failed to agree on a single candidate to face incumbent President Paul Biya and are suspicious of each other as they maneuver to unseat the man who has ruled Cameroon since for more than three and a half decades.
Thousands of people march through the streets of the northern Cameroon town of Garoua, singing and pledging their support for Paul Biya as campaigns for the October 7 presidential election begin. The people are from the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), and 20 other political parties whose leaders, last July, announced that they had endorsed the candidacy of Biya and had asked their supporters to vote for him.
The National Salvation Front party of Cameroon’s communication minister, Issa Tchiroma, is one of the parties that stands strong in support of Biya. Tchiroma says Biya is the only one seen as protecting Cameroon’s interest.
He says people are against Paul Biya and criticize him daily or attack his policies simply because he has been protecting the country’s riches from foreign predators. He says people are offering their unconditional support to Biya because he has pledged that as long as he lives and as long as he has the support of the Cameroonian people, he will protect all natural resources and riches for future generations.
Tchiroma spent 6 years in prison after he was arrested on 16 April 1984 for involvement in a coup attempt against Biya. When he regained freedom in 1990, he campaigned against Biya, but surprisingly Biya appointed him minister of transport in 1992 in what was viewed as a way of dividing and weakening the opposition.
Since then, the country’s opposition has remained fractured, with eight candidates running against Biya in the presidential poll.
Serge Espoire Matomba, candidate of the P.U.R.S. party, says even though campaigning has started, he still hopes, in talking with other contenders, the opposition will agree on a single candidate.
“I speak with Professor Maurice Kamto, I speak with Akere Muna, I speak with Osih Joshua, I speak with Cabral Libi. That means we are still working on it.”
Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement party says he will not agree to surrender his candidacy to someone else.
“Why should I abandon my candidacy and line up behind another one, no. I am a leader of a political party, I am not standing on my own.”
Twenty-eight candidates filed to compete in the presidential election. Cameroon’s elections management body ELECAM accepted nine, including Biya’s candidacy.
Party leaders have traded blame for their failure to unite.
The main opposition candidate Joshua Osih says he suspects some of the candidates are sponsored by Biya to keep the opposition fractured.
The 85-year-old Biya, who has led the central African country since 1982, is favored to win another seven-year term. That would take his rule 2025.
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UNICEF: DRC Ebola Orphans Stigmatized
The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports a growing number of children in eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo orphaned by the Ebola outbreak in the region are at risk of stigmatization and abandonment.
UNICEF reports a number of children have died from the disease. Others, it says, have lost one or both parents to Ebola or have been left to fend for themselves while their parents are confined in Ebola treatment centers.
UNICEF spokesman, Christophe Boulierac, says his and other aid agencies so far have identified 155 children who have been orphaned or separated from their parents with no one to care for them. He says these children are extremely vulnerable.
“Children who lose a parent due to Ebola are at risk of being stigmatized, isolated or abandoned, in addition to the experience of losing a loved one or primary caregiver.”
Boulierac says UNICEF worries about the physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing of these orphaned and separated children. He says his agency is tailoring its assistance programs to meet the specific needs of each individual child.
“For instance, a new-born who has lost his mother has different needs than a school-aged child. Our support to an orphaned or unaccompanied child typically includes psycho-social care, food and material assistance, and support to reintegrate into school,” Boulierac said.
Ebola was declared on August 1 in the DRC’s conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces. This is the 10th outbreak in the DRC since Ebola was first identified in 1976. Latest estimates by the World Health Organization find 147 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola in the eastern part of the country, including 97 deaths.
WHO reports progress is being made in limiting the spread of the deadly virus in some areas. But, it warns the epidemic is far from over and much work to combat the disease lies ahead.
your ad herePayPal Dumps Alex Jones, Infowars
PayPal, the digital payments company, says it has cut business ties with far-right media personality Alex Jones and his Infowars website.
A PayPal spokesman said Friday, “We undertook an extensive review of the Infowars sites, and found instances that promoted hate or discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions, which run counter to our core value of inclusion.”
Infowars said the move is a ploy aimed at sabotaging Jones’ online influence just weeks ahead of the midterm elections.
In recent months, several other companies, including Apple, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have either dumped or limited their connection with Jones.
Jones is one of the country’s most controversial media figures, known for saying the President George W. Bush White House was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He also called the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting a fake. Some of the parents of the murdered children are suing Jones.
your ad herePope Begins Baltics Pilgrimage With Plea for Tolerance
Pope Francis on Saturday urged Lithuanians to use their experience enduring decades of Soviet and Nazi occupation to be a model of tolerance in an intolerant world as he began a three-nation tour of the Baltic region amid renewed alarm over Russia’s intentions there.
Francis was greeted by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite at the airport and immediately launched into a hectic schedule of political meetings, encounters with Lutheran and Russian Orthodox leaders, and the ordinary Catholic faithful who are a majority in Lithuania but minorities in Latvia and Estonia.
Speaking outside the presidential palace in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Francis recalled that until the arrival of “totalitarian ideologies” in the 20th century, Lithuania had been a peaceful home to a variety of ethnic and religious groups, including Christians, Jews and Muslims.
He said the world today is marked by political forces that exploit fear and conflict to justify violence and expulsions of others.
“More and more voices are sowing division and confrontation – often by exploiting insecurity or situations of conflict – and proclaiming that the only way possible to guarantee security and the continued existence of a culture is to try to eliminate, cancel or expel others,” Francis said.
He said Lithuania could be a model of openness, understanding, tolerance and solidarity.
“You have suffered `in the flesh’ those efforts to impose a single model that would annul differences under the pretense of believing that the privileges of a few are more important than the dignity of others or the common good,” he said.
Francis was traveling to the region to mark the 100th anniversaries of their independence and to encourage the faith in the Baltics, which saw five decades of Soviet-imposed religious repression and state-sponsored atheism. During the 1940s Nazi occupation, Lithuania’s centuries-old Jewish community was nearly exterminated.
Scars of occupation
“Fifty years of occupation left their mark both on the church and on the people,” said Monsignor Gintaras Grusas, archbishop of Vilnius. “People have deep wounds from that period that take time to heal.”
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which each have ethnic Russian minorities, are also in lockstep in sounding alarms about Moscow’s military maneuvers in the Baltic Sea area following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support of separatists fighting the Ukrainian government in eastern Ukraine.
The Vatican, however, has been loath to openly criticize Moscow or its powerful Orthodox Church.
The Baltic countries declared their independence in 1918 but were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 and remained part of it until the early 1990s, except for the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation during World War II. All three joined the European Union and NATO in 2004 and are strong backers of the military alliance, which sees them as a bulwark against Russian incursions in Eastern Europe.
The trip, featuring Francis’ fondness for countries on the periphery, will be a welcome break for the Argentine pope. His credibility has taken a blow recently following missteps on the church’s priestly sex abuse scandal and recent allegations that he covered up for an American cardinal.
His visit to Vilnius coincides with the 75th anniversary of the final destruction of the Vilnius Ghetto, on Sept. 23, 1943, when its remaining residents were executed or sent off to concentration camps by the Nazis.
Until Francis’ schedule was changed three weeks ago, there were no specific events for him to acknowledge the slaughter of some 90 percent of Lithuania’s 250,000 Jews at the hands of Nazi occupiers and complicit Lithuanian partisans — a significant oversight for the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
At the last minute, the Vatican added in a visit to the Ghetto, where Francis will pray quietly on the day when the names of Holocaust victims are read out at commemorations across the country.
Francis will also visit the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, located in a former gymnasium that served as the headquarters of the Gestapo during the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation and later as the headquarters of the feared KGB spy agency when the Soviets recaptured the country.
The issue of Lithuanian complicity in Nazi war crimes is sensitive here, with the Jewish community campaigning to have street signs named for heroes who fought the Soviets removed because of their roles in the executions of Jews.
“I think the presence of the pope is showing attention to the Holocaust and to the Holocaust victims,” said Simonas Gurevichius, chairman of the Vilnius Jewish Community. “However, it is not the pope who has to do the work, it is Lithuania as a country and as a society who needs to do the work.”
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Studies: More Green Space, Less Crime, Depression in Poor Areas
Keith Green has an unusual fascination with vacant lots. Even on vacation.
Out for dinner in Shanghai one recent night, he came across a sight that stopped him short.
“Everyone else is taking pictures of the skyline,” he said. “I’m taking a picture of a vacant lot.”
Scourge of abandoned property
Abandoned properties don’t attract many tourists. In Green’s hometown of Philadelphia, vacant lots attract crime, from dumping trash, tires and broken appliances to stashing weapons and drugs.
Green is leading an effort to rid Philadelphia of these blights in low-income communities.
It’s a massive job. The city has an estimated 40,000 vacant lots.
But Green is witnessing how a little green space can make a big difference in urban areas plagued with poverty and crime.
Recent studies published in major scientific journals have documented how the program Green heads is helping drive substantial reductions in gun violence and depression in some of the poorest parts of Philadelphia.
Before the shooting starts
Gina South co-wrote those studies. She’s an emergency department physician at the University of Pennsylvania. Since her residency on the trauma unit, she has wanted to do more to help the people from these neighborhoods before they came to her on stretchers.
“We took care of a lot of shooting victims and did a great job of treating their physical injuries,” she said, “but did little to nothing to think about what was causing them to come in as shooting victims to us in the first place.”
Several years ago, South became interested in the program Green directs at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, called Philadelphia LandCare.
The program hires local landscapers to clear the trash and weeds from vacant lots, replace them with trees and grass, mow them twice a month, and surround them with fences with openings that invite people in.
Physical, emotional benefits
South said at first she was skeptical that it would do much for residents.
But the more she and her colleagues looked into it, the more positive results they found.
In one study, they found people’s heart rates declined as they walked past cleaned-up lots. That shows their stress levels are coming down, “a physiologic reaction happening in people’s bodies in response to what’s in their neighborhood environment,” she said.
Fighting crime with lawnmowers
The most significant results come from the group’s study of 541 vacant lots scattered across the city. They were divided into three groups. One got the full cleaning and greening treatment. One just got periodic trash pickups. One got nothing.
Around the cleaned and greened lots, crime declined by nearly 10 percent overall. In the poorest neighborhoods, gun crimes fell by 17 percent.
“Those are big effects,” said Northwestern University criminologist Wesley Skogan, who was not involved with the study.
Cleaning and greening vacant lots is “wiping out signs that nobody’s watching, nobody cares, nobody’s in charge,” he added.
It fits in with a concept called the “broken windows” theory. The idea is, disorder in the environment sends a signal that more disorder will be tolerated, including criminal behavior.
The theory became controversial as it evolved into “stop and frisk” policing, in which officers confront anyone they suspect may be up to no good.
Cleaning and greening “is much closer just to fixing the … window,” Skogan said.
South’s group also found that in the lowest-income neighborhoods, nearly 70 percent fewer people said they felt depressed.
It’s good for neighborhood morale, Skogan said. “It’s a sign that someone’s looking out for them. Someone’s paying attention.”
‘I didn’t think it would work’
The program is working better than even Green expected.
He had been doing community gardening with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society as the LandCare program was getting started in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“I was curious about the program. I didn’t think it would work,” he said.
At the time, he was planting flowers and shrubs and surrounding them with cyclone fences “to keep people out,” he said.
“This project was inviting people in. I was like, ‘That’s not going to work. People aren’t going to respect it.’”
“Then I started seeing people put picnic tables on it, putting garden areas in certain spots. They’re not destroying it,” he added. “Then I was like, ‘This can actually work.’ When I had the opportunity, I was all in.”
Green said each lot costs about $1,600 to treat and about $200 per year to maintain.
“It is a bargain,” South said.
However, Skogan would like to see research showing how it compares to other approaches.
“Probably nobody thought it was a bad idea to clean things up and put up fences,” he said. “It’s always a question of whether you do this versus something else. What this (research) says is, it’s not foolish.”
Green said he gets calls from officials across the country and the world asking how a little green space can help revive their neighborhoods.
He said he sees people’s mindsets changing in neighborhoods where he’s working. Kids don’t throw trash in the cleaned-up lots, he said. They pick it up.
That’s been satisfying enough, he said. “But when you start throwing (in) these numbers, like, gun violence is going down, and people’s heart rates are being reduced, people are exercising more in certain sections of Philadelphia, you’re just like, wow.”
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Brazil Arrests Lebanese Man Linked to Hezbollah
Brazilian police have arrested a Lebanese man whom the United States suspects is one of the major financial backers of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.
Assad Ahmad Barakat was arrested Friday in the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu. The town is situated in the so-called Tri-Border Area where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay converge. The area has long been known as a haven for smugglers, traffickers and counterfeiters.
Barakat is wanted in Paraguay on identity theft accusations, and a warrant was issued for his arrest last month. He spent six years in prison in Paraguay for tax evasion, but was released in 2008.
“Members of the Barakat clan made purchases worth $10 million, without declaring their value, at a casino in the Argentine city of Iguazu with the view to laundering the organization’s money,” Brazilian police said.
Argentina has also accused Barakat of money-laundering on behalf of Hezbollah and has frozen Barakat’s funds and other assets, according to officials.
It was not immediately clear whether Barakat will face charges in Brazil or be extradited to Paraguay.
Shimon Samuels, the director of international relations at The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which researches and advocates against anti-Semitism, hate and terrorism, said in a statement that he hoped Barakat’s arrest in the Tri-Border area was “a sign that the three countries will begin to drive Hezbollah out of Latin America.”
The U.S. has described Barakat as “a global terrorist.”
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Green Space Cuts Urban Crime, Depression
A little green space can make a big difference in blighted city neighborhoods, according to recent research from Philadelphia. It found that turning vacant lots into mini-parks reduced crime and cut rates of depression, especially in low-income areas. VOA’s Steve Baragona went to have a look.
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Army Misses 2018 Recruiting Goal
For the first time since 2005, the U.S. Army missed its recruiting goal this year, falling short by about 6,500 soldiers, despite pouring an extra $200 million into bonuses and approving some additional waivers for bad conduct or health issues.
Army leaders said they signed up about 70,000 new active duty recruits in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, well below the 76,500 they needed. The Army National Guard and Army Reserves also fell far short of their goals, by more than 12,000 and 5,000 respectively. The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, meanwhile, all met their recruiting goals for 2018.
The Army’s shortfall, said Maj. Gen. Joe Calloway, was fueled by the strong American economy and increased competition from private sector employers who can pay more. But the failure has triggered an overhaul in Army recruiting, including an increase in recruiters, expanded marketing and a new effort to reach out to young, potential recruits through popular online gaming.
Strong US economy
“We obviously thought we would do better than that,” said Calloway, director of military personnel management for the Army, when asked about the recruiting gap in an Associated Press interview. He said there were several thousand permanent legal residents seeking to enlist, but they did not get through the screening process in time. And, he said that in the last three years Army recruiters have brought in 3,000-5,000 more enlistees than planned during the last three months of the fiscal year.
“There was hope that they would be able to do the same thing this year,” he said. “That did not pan out.”
Not lowering standards
The recruiting struggles come at the end of a tumultuous year for the Army, which faced questions from Congress over its expanded use of waivers for recruits with previous marijuana use, bad conduct and some health problems. The debate prompted the Army to cut back on some waivers and require higher level officers to approve ones involving drug use and some health and conduct issues.
Top Army leaders have repeatedly said they are not lowering standards to meet higher recruiting goals. But they have faced skepticism from Congress, amid concerns the service would repeat mistakes made during the peak of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars more than a decade ago when it rushed to add soldiers to the ranks to meet deployment needs. At that time, the Army brought in more recruits with misconduct waivers, triggering discipline and other problems.
The Army is planning to grow to 500,000 by 2024, triggering increased recruiting goals. Initially the Army was supposed to recruit 80,000 this year, but that was cut to 76,500 in April, as more serving soldiers re-enlisted.
Military recruiters have struggled to compete in a growing U.S. economy, with low unemployment rates and private companies paying more to graduating seniors. Only about 30 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds meet the physical, mental and moral requirements for the military, and only 1 in 8 are interested in serving.
Good recruits hard to find
Calloway and Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, head of Army Recruiting Command, said fewer potential recruits or their families answer the phone in these digital days.
When recruiters call a parent or other adult, “nobody wants to talk to us,” Muth said. “If we do get ahold of a potential recruit, they actually don’t want to talk to you on the phone, what they want to do is meet you online first in some type of digital format and then, if they agree to meet with you, you can get the phone call.”
So, Muth said Army recruiting is moving deeper into the online world.
That will include sending teams of recruiters into CrossFit sports competitions and popular gaming contests such as Ultimate Fighter, Madden Football or the addictive Fortnite: Battle Royale, an online survival game.
Muth said an Army recruiter from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who has a high ranking on Ultimate Fighter, served as an emcee at a recent tournament. He said the soldier was in uniform and was able to talk about his Army job while on air.
“We reached 2.4 million people over one hour, and he was able to get the message out,” Muth said.
In addition, he said the Army’s Golden Knights parachute demonstration team, the Marksmanship Unit and other similar teams that travel the country will now be used mainly as recruiting tools.
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Pentagon: Young, Single Women on Navy Ships Most Likely to be Sexually Assaulted
The 4-year-old results of a survey about sexual abuse on U.S. military installations around the world, including ships, have finally been released.
Several Army and Marine bases in 2014 — Fort Hood, Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis, Fort Campbell, Fort Bliss and Camp Lejeune — had more than 500 reported sexual assaults on men and women.
Young, unmarried women on Navy ships were more likely to be assaulted than any other group in the military, according to the results released Friday. “Of the 15 highest-risk installations for Navy women, 13 are ships or clusters of ships, including 8 of the 10 aircraft carriers,” the study said. The report also said that on one ship, one in 25 men were assaulted.
The Air Force had the lowest assault risk rate.
The Pentagon was reported as one of the safest places to work.
The Pentagon commissioned the nonpartisan Rand Corp. to conduct the study and then contested the group’s findings, delaying the release of the results for years.
Don Christensen, president of Protect Our Defenders and the former top prosecutor for the Air Force, said the delay was “extremely disappointing.”
The delay means that the findings do not likely portray an accurate account of what is currently happening on the bases.
The findings, however, present a harrowing picture of sexual abuse across the military, which has had a long history of ineffective efforts to stem the tide of sexual abuse on its installations.
VOA’s Steve Norman contributed to this report.
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UN General Assembly Pays Tribute to Former UN Chief Annan
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan died Aug. 18 and was buried last week in his home country of Ghana with highest honors. At the United Nations on Friday, the international community and his family remembered Annan as a man of peace who was dedicated to humanity.
Kofi Annan joined the U.N. system in 1962 and spent decades rising through the ranks to become peacekeeping chief and ultimately, in 1997, the organization’s seventh secretary-general.
Current U.N. Chief António Guterres led the tributes to him.
“Throughout his tenure Kofi Annan urged us never to be bystanders in life. He summoned us all to act against bias, brutality and bloodshed. He was a multilateralist through and through,” Guterres said.
The president of Ghana sent Annan Cato as his special representative to the memorial.
“As the first Secretary-General from sub-Saharan Africa, Kofi Annan brought considerable renown to Ghana and to Africa, evidenced by his conduct and comportment in the global arena, especially at difficult periods in the history of the organization,” Cato said.
Achievements and shortfalls
Among Annan’s achievements was his work to mobilize a global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and to institute the Millennium Development Goals, which helped make inroads in the eradication of poverty. In 2001, Annan and the United Nations jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize.
But the Rwandan genocide happened on his watch as peacekeeping chief and his tenure as secretary-general was tarnished by the oil-for-food corruption scandal in Iraq.
After a decade at the helm of the U.N., Annan continued to work for peace through his Annan Foundation and with The Elders.
His immediate successor as secretary-general and a fellow Elder, Ban Ki-moon, praised Annan as a “genuine force for global good.”
“I am confident that history will show, as the years pass, that Kofi Annan was a monumental leader,” he said.
Son’s tribute
Annan’s wife of 35 years, Nane, spoke of his “glowing aura of radiant warmth and joy of life.”
But one of the most moving tributes came from his son, Kojo, who said that it was unimaginable that a man born in Ghana’s second city of Kumasi and who never left his country before he was 18 years old would rise to become the world’s top diplomat.
“And yet that was my father’s story,” he said. “It was a story that became his world view. If it was possible for him, why should stability, peace, security, justice, sustenance, education, opportunity or success be impossible for anyone else?”
He said that although his father’s race had ended, his work continued — to build a world where potential is recognized in everyone and everyone can find a home.
your ad here24 Dead, 53 Hurt in Attack on Iran Military Parade
Iranian state media reported Saturday that at least 24 people were killed and 53 were wounded in an attack on a military parade in the Arab Ahvaz region of the country. President Hassan Rouhani called on the country’s security forces to determine who was behind the attack amid competing claims of responsibility.
Heavily armed gunmen rained automatic weapons fire for over 10 minutes on participants of the parade in Khuzestan province. Most of the victims reportedly belonged to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard.
Iranian TV showed ambulances ferrying dozens of victims to nearby hospitals while survivors could be seen helping those who were injured.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander in charge of Khuzestan province, Hassan Shahvarpour, told Iranian TV that two of the parade attackers were killed on the spot, one died from his wounds at a hospital and a fourth was arrested.
Rouhani and other top officials were shown on Iranian TV leaving another military parade in Tehran, immediately after they were told about the attack in Khuzestan.
Parades were held across the country in commemoration of the start of Iran’s 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
There were conflicting reports about who was responsible for the attack, but both the Islamic State group and a group calling itself the “Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz” claimed responsibility.
The ASMLA’s spokesman, Yaqoub Hur al-Tastari, told the BBC Persian service the group “did not target civilians,” although Iranian media claimed that several children and journalists were among the casualties.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif wrote in a tweet that “terrorists recruited, trained, armed and paid by a foreign regime” were responsible for the Ahvaz attack. He also said Tehran would hold “regional terror sponsors” and what he called “their U.S. masters” accountable for the attacks.
Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani Sadr told VOA that “there is no such thing as an independent terrorist group and there never has been.” He argued that “all terrorism is the product of one or another regional powers meddling in the affairs of its neighbors.”
Bani Sadr said that the “Iranian regime is at war with its own people and that it uses its military might, both inside and outside the country, to justify its existence.”
Iranian media reportedly accused both Israel and Saudi Arabia of responsibility for the attack but gave no direct evidence to support the claims.
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Iranian Twin Sisters Win Over the US with Their Emotional Art
The most beautiful art is born where there is pain. This idea became the moving force behind the success of Iranian-born twin sisters Bahareh and Farzaneh Safarani. They moved to Boston from Tehran in order to advance their art and show it to the world, and they never regretted the decision. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
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Path Partially Clears for Russia’s Return to International Sports
Russia cautiously celebrated a move by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to reinstate its own laboratory for testing athletes for performance enhancing drugs, a decision that has divided the sports world by clearing a path for Russian athletes to return to international competition following a three-year suspension over allegations of state-sponsored doping.
The decision by WADA marks the latest chapter in the long-running saga that has divided Russia and the West in recent years, including the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, meddling in the 2016 elections in the U.S., and intervention in Syria’s civil war.
In Russia, the move was heralded as largely overdue recognition of its progress on an issue Russian sports officials say goes beyond Russia.
“The most important thing is that during this time we managed to make big strides forward in the anti-doping culture in the country,” said Pavel Kolobkov, Russia’s Minister of Sport, in reaction to the decision.
Yet, from President Vladimir Putin on down, Russian officials have vehemently denied WADA’s charges of direct state involvement, saying the suspension is a politically-driven campaign to outlaw Russian athletes collectively for the sins of a few.
Roadmap to return
The vote by WADA’s board — in a split 9-2 to ruling with one abstention — amounts to a partial walk back of key demands of Russia’s so-called “roadmap to return” to competition.
The roadmap’s key provision: Russia formally acknowledge two WADA-triggered investigations that found widespread cheating by hundreds of Russian athletes in what the reports alleges was a massive state-sponsored doping program between 2011 and 2015. A related demand requires that RUSADA, the Russian anti-doping agency, offer complete access to its store of past urine samples of Russia’s athletes.
Critics argue Russia has done neither.
Yet a majority of WADA officials said they were satisfied by Russian progress and promises by Kolobkov for future compliance, with the caveat of possible future suspensions, should policies not be implemented.
“Today, the great majority of the WADA Executive Committee (EXCO) decided to reinstate RUSADA as compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code, subject to strict conditions,” said WADA’s President Craig Reedie said in a statement released to the media.
Fair play?
The decision was widely condemned by sporting federations in the U.S. and Europe, who suggested the decision cast WADA’s role as an arbiter for fair competition in doubt.
Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of RUSADA-turned-whistleblower whose testimony provided key details about the doping effort, argued reinstatement amounted to a “catastrophe for Olympic sport ideals, the fight against doping and the protection of clean athletes.”
Richard McClaren, the Canadian lawyer whose initial report prompted the WADA ban, also condemned the move.
“Politics is dictating this decision,” McClaren said. “The Russians didn’t accept the conditions, so why will they accept the new ones?”
Yet independent Russian sports commentators noted that despite suggestions of a Russian diplomatic victory, not much had in fact changed for Russian athletes themselves.
Russia could now certify its own athletes for competition and host international events once again. They could also certify so-called “therapeutic use exemptions” granted — too often, Russian officials argue — to Western athletes.
Yet some observers noted that Russia’s banned track and field association must still be cleared independently by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which signaled it would set its own criteria for reinstatement.
The return of Russia’s Paralympic squad, banned from the last two Olympic Games, faces similar hurdles.
“Unfortunately, the return of RUSADA automatically doesn’t give them the flag to compete,” wrote Natalya Maryanchik in the daily Sport-Express newspaper.
“For top sportsman from Russia almost nothing has changed,” agreed Alexei Advokhin in sports.ru, a popular Russian sports fan website. “Yes, their doping samples will again be tested in Russia.”
“If that’s a case for joy,” he added, “it means for three years we’ve understood nothing.”
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UN: We Are ‘Losing Fight Against Famine’ in Yemen
The U.N.’s humanitarian chief warned Friday that aid workers are “losing the fight against famine” in war-torn Yemen.
“The position has deteriorated in an alarming way in recent weeks,” Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock told the Security Council. “We may now be approaching a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to prevent massive loss of life as a result of widespread famine across the country.”
The U.N. has been raising alarm bells on the food crisis in Yemen for more than a year. Lowcock said Yemen’s deepening economic troubles have escalated the situation.
Millions of Yemenis no longer have regular salaries, including public servants who have not been paid in two years. In the past month, the local currency has plunged 30 percent in value, throwing one of the world’s poorest countries into further economic despair.
“Because almost all the food consumed in Yemen is imported, that translates directly into a sharp increase in the price of food for some 10 million Yemenis who are food insecure but are not reached by the relief operation,” Lowcock said.
He said humanitarians are starting to see pockets of famine-like conditions, including where people are eating leaves because they have no other food sources.
Aid workers currently assist some 3 million people each month, but Lowcock said they hope to massively expand to reach 8 million this month. But that is a fraction of those in need. The U.N. says 18 million Yemenis are food insecure, and 8 million of them are severely insecure and do not know where their next meal will come from.
Food insecurity is also being exacerbated by an intensification of fighting around the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeida.
Hodeida is a lifeline for Yemen. The country imports 90 percent of its food, fuel and medicines, and 70 percent of those goods come through the city’s port. The Houthis have controlled Hodeida for the last two years and the Saudi-led coalition has stepped up military efforts to break their hold.
Despite an international arms embargo against the rebels, the coalition accuses them of using the port to smuggle weapons into the country, a charge the Houthis deny.
“We have to keep all the ports open, we have to keep all the main roads open, we have to keep them functional, we have to keep them safe,” Lowcock told council members. “The lifeline through which the aid operation runs now hangs by a thread.”
The aid effort is well-funded, with $2.6 billion committed this year, including large contributions from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are conducting the airstrikes.
The Saudi-led coalition began bombing Houthi rebels in support of the Yemeni government in March 2015. Since then, the U.N. estimates more than 10,000 people have been killed, mostly due to airstrikes.
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UK Envoy Calls for Transparency in S. Sudan
Chris Trott, the U.K. special representative for Sudan and South Sudan, says the parties involved in the conflict in South Sudan have a chance to show their commitment to peace by implementing the revitalized agreement signed a week ago.
In an interview Friday with VOA’s South Sudan in Focus, the British diplomat said his government hoped all parties would live up to their commitments.
“There have been ample opportunities for the parties to adhere to the cessation of hostilities agreement [signed in December 2017] and we have continually called on the parties stop the fighting, to allow humanitarian access, to give the space to civil society and to the media,” he said.
The U.S., Britain and Norway released a joint statement last week expressing concerns about the latest South Sudan peace deal.
Support for implementation
The special envoy said South Sudan civil society and other parties to the agreement needed the support of the international community to implement the revitalized peace deal.
Trott said he was in Washington to try to drum up support for the agreement. “I am here with my Norwegian counterpart and we are talking about how the international community can work together to ensure that this time the agreement is implemented,” he said.
Collapsed deal
A previous peace deal signed in 2015 fell apart after deadly clashes broke out between government forces and rebels in July 2016.
Riek Machar, leader of the main rebel group, the SPLM-IO, and other insurgent factions signed the new agreement this month with the Juba government after assurances that a power-sharing accord would be honored. The deal, mediated by Sudan, reinstates Machar to his former role as vice president.
Trott said the latest agreement would succeed if the focus was on good governance.
“The way that we make this agreement sustainable is by ensuring that there is transparency around the way the Transitional [Government of National Unity] operates [and] transparency around the spending of the revenue of the government of South Sudan, which needs to be in support of the ordinary people of South Sudan,” he said.
Government needs money
South Sudan Minister of Information Michael Makuei told VOA that his government was committed to implementing the revitalized peace deal and urged the international community to provide financial support.
“If they want the agreement implemented, they are supposed to join us in the implementation so that we all work together,” Makuei said, adding that “implementation means money. It means funding.”
The United Nations estimates that South Sudan’s civil war, which started in December 2013, has killed at least 50,000 people, displaced 2 million and hindered the country’s progress since it gained independence seven years ago.
Targeted sanctions
The special envoy said his government was interested in seeing an end to violence and unhindered access to humanitarian agencies operating in South Sudan. He said that if the parties failed to honor their commitments as stipulated in the peace agreement, sanctions would remain an option.
“Yes, we will continue to look at the issue of the sanctions,” Trott said. “Yes, we will continue to say to the region that if you really want this peace agreement to stick, you need to demonstrate. Our concern has been, all the way through the negotiations process, the sincerity with which the parties are addressing the conflict.”
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Macedonian PM Seeks US Support in Quest to Join NATO, EU
Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev says he expects his countrymen will vote for a deal that will rename the country to “North Macedonia” in exchange for Greece’s ending its objections to Macedonia’s eventual membership in NATO and the European Union.
In a VOA interview, he said, “There is no other alternative. I am an optimist primarily because I know my people. They have a history of making smart decisions and this one will be no different.”
Zaev said he wants Macedonia to soon become the 30th member of NATO in order to secure peace, economic prosperity and security for his country, and that Washington strongly supports Macedonia’s NATO aspirations.
“The message was sent yet again that America stands firmly beside Macedonia as an unwavering strategic partner,” Zaev told VOA Macedonian in an exclusive interview following his meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday.
Zaev was invited to the White House after working to secure the Prespa Agreement with Greece on the long-standing name issue between the two countries, according to a statement issued by the vice president’s office.
“I am convinced that the United States will stay focused on a Southeast Europe benefiting all the citizens in the region, including the citizens of Macedonia,” said Zaev.
Renaming Macedonia is a key element of a deal with neighboring Greece to end a decades-old dispute. Greece says Macedonia’s current name implies claims on its own northern province of Macedonia, and on its ancient heritage.
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