Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, began their first official tour as a family Monday with their infant son, Archie, in South Africa, with Meghan declaring to cheers that “I am here with you as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of color and as your sister.”The first day of their 10-day, multi-country tour started in Cape Town with visits to girls’ empowerment projects that teach rights and self-defense. Harry danced a bit as a musical welcome greeted them in the township of Nyanga, whose location was not made public in advance because of security concerns.
Violent crime is so deadly in parts of Cape Town that South Africa’s military has been deployed in the city, and its stay was extended last week.
The royal couple also was meeting with former residents of District Six, a vibrant mixed-race community that was relocated from the inner city during South Africa’s harsh period of apartheid, or white minority rule, that ended in 1994.
FILE – Diana, Princess of Wales is seen in this Jan. 15 1997 file picture walking in one of the safety corridors of the land mine fields of Huambo, Angola during her visit to help a Red Cross campaign to outlaw landmines worldwide.Their visit also will focus on wildlife protection, entrepreneurship, mental health and mine clearance — a topic given global attention by Harry’s late mother, Princess Diana, when she walked through an active mine field during an Africa visit years ago.
Harry later this week will break away for visits to Botswana, Angola and Malawi.
The couple arrived in a South Africa still shaken by the rape and murder of a university student, carried out in a post office, that sparked protests by thousands of women tired of abuse and impunity in a country where more than 100 rapes are reported every day.
This is “one of the most unsafe places in the world to be a woman,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said last week, announcing new emergency measures and vowing to be tougher on perpetrators.
While the royal visit wasn’t causing the kind of excitement seen at times in other parts of the Commonwealth, some in South Africa said they were happy to see the arrival of Meghan, who has been vocal about women’s rights.
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Month: September 2019
US Universities See Decline in Students From China
After a decade of booming enrollment by students from China, American universities are starting to see steep declines as political tensions between the two countries cut into a major source of tuition revenue.Several universities have reported drops of one-fifth or more this fall in the number of new students from China. To adapt, some schools are stepping up recruiting in other parts of the world and working to hold on to their share of students from China.University administrators and observers say trade conflicts and U.S. concerns about the security risks posed by visiting Chinese students appear to be accelerating a trend driven also by growing international competition, visa complications and the development of China’s own higher education system.At Bentley University in Massachusetts, the number of new Chinese graduate students arriving on campus dropped from 110 last fall to 70 this time. As a result, the school is reviewing the viability of some graduate programs that have been most affected by the decline.“I wouldn’t describe it as catastrophically bad,” President Alison Davis-Blake said. “We’ve been very intentional about knowing that a drop-off was coming and really broadening our international and domestic footprint.”Significant drops also have been reported this fall at such schools as the University of Vermont, which saw a 23% decline in Chinese student enrollment, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which had a 20% decrease.China sends more students to study in the U.S. than any other country. Its 363,000 students represent one-third of all international students. But the numbers have leveled off in recent years, reflecting a trend among international students overall.Prospective students and parents in China share concerns with those in other countries about American gun violence and tougher immigration enforcement. A report in May by the Association of International Educators found that the top two factors behind declining numbers of foreign students were the vagaries of the visa process and the social and political environment in the United States.But there are also unique pressures on Chinese students. The Trump administration has sounded the alarm about Chinese students stealing U.S. intellectual property, and it is more closely scrutinizing Chinese applications for visas to study in fields like robotics, aviation and high-tech manufacturing. In June, China warned students and other visitors to the U.S. about potential difficulties in getting visas.Xiong Xiong, an electrical engineering student at Beijing Jiaotong University, said he hopes to pursue graduate-level studies in the U.S. But he is concerned about complications with the visa process and plans to apply also to schools in Britain.“My major is a bit sensitive. I’m concerned my visa will be affected,” he said.Brad Farnsworth, vice president for global engagement at the American Council on Education, said his recent travels in China suggest that the accusations of economic espionage are taking a toll.“The concern is a Chinese student just will not feel welcome in the United States and will be met with animosity and skepticism about why they are in the United States,” he said.Foreign students contribute an estimated $39 billion to the U.S. economy. They are often sought after by universities, in part because many of them have the means to pay full sticker price for their education. Many Americans rely on financial aid.So deep is concern about the financial effects of a decline in Chinese students that the colleges of engineering and business at the University of Illinois, which enrolls over 5,000 Chinese students, took out an insurance policy two years ago that will pay $60 million if revenue from Chinese students drops 20% or more.Elsewhere, Lehigh University in Pennsylvania hired a recruiter this month to help bring in more students from India, and it also has been taking more interest in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Cheryl Matherly, vice president and vice provost for international affairs. Applications from China fell 6 percent this fall at the university, which counts about 650 Chinese among its 7,100 students.“We’re trying to get out ahead of this because at the end of the day, I think what we’re seeing is that recruiting and how students are making decisions about where to go, it’s a volatile space,” Matherly said. “As institutions, you need to diversify.”Like many other American universities, Lehigh has begun sending staff to Beijing and Shanghai over the summer to conduct orientation sessions for Chinese students and their parents, address concerns about studying in the U.S., and demonstrate their interest in attracting students from China.Pengfei Liu, who is pursuing a graduate degree in pharmacology at the University of Vermont, said his parents in China were worried about mass shootings in the U.S. But two years into his coursework, he said his time on the leafy campus in Burlington has only been positive.“It’s really peaceful,” he said.
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Climate Activists Plan to ‘Shut Down’ US Capital
Climate activists plan to carry out a protest Monday in Washington by blocking key intersections and “bringing the whole city to a gridlocked standstill.”Organizers called on people to skip work and school to participate in the protest, which follows mass rallies Friday of young people in cities around the world, that drew hundreds of thousands of people demanding urgent action to combat climate change.It is not clear how many people will take part in the Washington protests, how authorities will deal with those blocking intersections, or the ultimate effects on those commuting in the U.S. capital.
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Rouhani: US ‘Maximum Pressure’ Campaign a Failure
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign has failed, and that sanctions it imposed after abandoning the 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear program show the United States is desperate.Speaking before traveling to New York to participate the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings, Rouhani also said the United States and Saudi Arabia have exaggerated the damage done by an attack on Saudi oil facilities earlier this month.Rouhani accused the Trump administration of wanting to take control of the region. He said earlier his plans for the U.N. meetings include presenting a regional cooperation plan for peace. U.S. and Saudi officials have blamed Iran for the attacks, which shut down half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday his government believes there is a “high probability” Iran was responsible.Iranian officials, including Rouhani, have denied Iran was involved.While many world leaders will hold talks on the sidelines of the U.N. meetings this week, a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Rouhani seems unlikely. Trump said Sunday he had no intention of talking with Rouhani, and the Iranian president has said he would not meet with Trump until the United States lifts economic sanctions.Trump announced new sanctions against Iran’s national bank Friday, further escalating economic pressure on the Islamic Republic, but pulling back from any direct military action.”I think the sanctions work,” Trump said. “The military would work, but that is a very severe form of winning.”
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World Leaders Gather For Climate Summit
World leaders are gathering Monday in New York for a United Nations summit on climate change as scientists warn much more ambitious action must be taken to meet targets to mitigate the effects.Some 60 presidents and prime ministers are due to address the day-long event on topics including shifting away from coal toward renewable energy sources, preventing and responding to disasters, and climate finance.U.S. President Donald Trump will not be among those attending the summit. He is spending Monday attending a meeting about the persecution of religious minorities, particularly Christians, before holding separate talks with leaders from Pakistan, Poland, New Zealand, Singapore, Egypt and South Korea.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has sought to highlight the importance of the climate summit and challenged leaders to “come with concrete plans” and not just “beautiful speeches.”Ahead of Monday’s event, the U.N. released a report compiled by the World Meteorological Organization showing there has been an acceleration in carbon pollution, sea-level rise, warming global temperatures, and shrinking ice sheets.The report says the average global temperature for the period of 2015 through the end of 2019 is on pace to be the “warmest of any equivalent period on record” at 1.1 degrees above pre-industrial levels.The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which has been ratified by 186 nations, calls for actions to prevent global temperatures from surpassing 2 degrees, and ideally remain within 1.5 degrees by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. One of the world’s biggest emitters – the United States – announced under President Trump that it would leave the pact. The U.S. decision has not stopped climate action at the state, local and private sector levels. The report warns that in order to achieve the 2 degree target, “the level of ambition needs to be tripled.”Other global issues such as tensions between the United States and Iran; conflicts in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Kashmir; rising in equality and intolerance all figure to be themes as the U.N. General Assembly session begins Tuesday.
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First Asia, Now South Pacific: China Expands Economic Footprint in Traditional Western Stronghold
China’s likely acquisition of two new diplomatic allies in the South Pacific advances its growing global economic effort – warily watched by the West – to offer infrastructure aid to other countries in return for natural resources.Kiribati and the Solomon Islands both broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan last week on their way to recognizing instead Taiwan’s political rival China. China will probably pump development aid into the two tiny archipelagic nations to help their infrastructure and expect in return access to fisheries and possible undersea fossil fuels, analysts and government officials say.China is doing the same in much of Asia already, a program it calls the Belt and Road Initiative.The South Pacific, a series of archipelagos far from the world’s major population centers, needs an outside source of infrastructure for economic development. Western ally Australia has traditionally helped but due to its small size can’t offer what China can, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate politics and international studies professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.“There’s a Pacific Belt and Road initiative and the idea is you provide some infrastructure and connectivity projects to different countries, and that’s a way to bring them into your economic sphere of influence,” Nagy said.China in turn gets more access to some of the world’s best fisheries and possible reserves of oil or gas, he said. The western and central Pacific produce more than half the world’s tuna.Global Belt and RoadChina started its primary Belt and Road initiative in 2013 around Eurasia. It helps often less developed countries with loans and labor to build ports, airports and roads. In return for the roughly $1 trillion invested there to date, China expects to open new trade routes and give its companies, constrained at home, new markets.Beijing officials hope to “brand” the Belt and Road as a global initiative by extending it to the South Pacific, business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates says.The Pacific faces “some of the most difficult development conditions in the world and has huge financing needs, especially due to the effects of climate change,” the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Australia said in an article published last year. Australia kicked off in July an infrastructure financing mechanism that will give Pacific nations about $1 billion in loans and $340 million in grants.Australia, New Zealand and Japan – which is also seeking stronger world influence –hope to resist China’s political influence and natural resource access, Nagy said. Australia and the United States should “seek enhanced coordination” and “commit robust aid packages” as countermeasures, said Fabrizio Bozzato, a Taiwan Strategy Research Association fellow who specializes in the Pacific.Cases of Kiribati, Solomon IslandsIn Kiribati, a nation of just 116,000 people and at risk of losing land mass to rising sea levels, China had been talking to President Taneti Mamau and members of his party since at least 2016 about development aid, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said.“Recently, the Chinese government has taken advantage of fisheries and other commercial investments to establish a presence in Kiribati, penetrating political circles and extending its influence,” Wu told a news conference Friday in Taipei.The prime minister of the Solomon Islands said his country dropped Taiwan for China earlier in the week to “engage at the international level with development partners capable of advancing our national interests.”About one in eight of Solomon citizens lives below the national poverty line, the Asian Development Bank says. The group of 300 islands with a 611,000 population faced with a shortage of jobs aims to build a food processing industrial plant among other upgrades.China’s larger budget and lack of a democratic approval process usually make it easier to give more development aid than Taiwan can offer.Political mileage China may see increased influence over the South Pacific as a way not only to squelch Taiwan but also to resist the U.S.-led Indo Pacific strategy – part of which means bringing Western allies together to contain China’s maritime expansion in Asia.China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and asks that other countries avoid diplomatic relations with it. Beijing has not dropped the threat of force, if needed, to bring Taiwan under its flag.“You could of course explain this as something that’s good for China’s interests but you definitely can’t rule out that it’s a so-called counter strategy to the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy,” said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
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YouTube ‘Milestone’ Highlights Vietnam Growth and Growing Pains
The Vietnamese comedy channel FAP TV has become the first YouTube account to hit the 10 million subscribers mark in the Southeast Asian country of nearly 100 million people, according to an announcement on Thursday from the Asia Pacific office of Google, which owns YouTube.Vietnam has been one of the fastest growing markets for the video site, especially after Google invested in computer servers in the country, which have sped up streaming and download times. YouTube has also invested heavily in Vietnamese language content and advertising. But the process has come with growing pains, too, most notably in the realms of taxes and censorship. The site has blocked videos with content critical of the government. While these actions are taken following requests from the state, YouTube says it follows the same protocol around the world when it gets requests from governments to take down clips. Videos have been blocked in countries from Algeria to Germany, with reasons cited ranging from hate speech to terrorism.In its transparency report for Vietnam Google notes that it received a request from the Vietnamese government to remove 28 YouTube videos inciting violent protests during the Vietnamese Independence Day period (Vietnam’s Independence Day is September 2). Google says it removed 12 videos for violating YouTube Community Guidelines that prohibit publishing instructions to commit violent acts. It restricted access to 4 other videos in Vietnam. The company did not remove the remaining 12 videos.YouTube promoted its brand in Ho Chi Minh City with a panel with Vietnamese users.Google also appears to be complying with a new cyber security law in Vietnam, which requires foreign companies to set up representative offices inside the country. Some have speculated that one of the factors motivating the law is to ensure that multinational companies do not evade taxes.Vietnam has been trying to collect taxes from both Google and YouTube, as well as other foreign tech companies that make profits from Vietnamese customers while declaring their profits to tax authorities in other countries with lower tax rates like Singapore. In contrast to a bricks and mortar store that sells bicycles, which are simple to tax, foreign tech companies tend to sell intangible services, like advertising attached to YouTube videos, which are harder to tax. “Aside from the matter of studying amendments to laws and regulations of tax administration, cooperation is needed between state agencies and industry,” Luu Duc Huy, head of the policy department at the Vietnamese General Department of Tax, told the government TV station, V News. “Second, cooperation is needed between the Vietnamese tax agency and other countries’ tax agencies.”Google has said repeatedly that it follows all laws in the countries where it operates. It is not just Vietnam. Most countries from Thailand to France are trying to figure out how to collect taxes on YouTube and other businesses that physically operate beyond their borders but make money from citizens within the borders. As Huy noted, the solution is likely to derive from these multiple tax authorities coming together, as is now being proposed by the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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Tour Company Thomas Cook Collapses, Global Bookings Canceled
British tour operator Thomas Cook collapsed after failing to secure rescue funding, and travel bookings for its more than 600,000 global vacationers were canceled early Monday.The British government said the return of the firm’s 150,000 British customers now abroad would be its largest repatriation in peacetime history. The Civil Aviation Authority said Thomas Cook has ceased trading, its four airlines will be grounded, and its 21,000 employees in 16 countries, including 9,000 in the UK, will be left unemployed.The debt-laden company had said Friday it was seeking 200 million pounds ($250 million) to avoid going bust, was in talks with shareholders and creditors to stave off failure. The 178-year-old firm also operated around 600 UK stores.CAA said it had arranged an aircraft fleet for the British repatriation effort lasting two weeks beginning Monday.”Due to the significant scale of the situation, some disruption is inevitable, but the Civil Aviation Authority will endeavor to get people home as close as possible to their planned dates,” it said in a statement.Most of Thomas Cook’s British customers are protected by the government-run travel insurance program, which makes sure vacationers can get home if a British-based tour operator goes under while they are abroad. Thomas Cook, which began in 1841 with a one-day train excursion in England and now operates in 16 countries, has been struggling over the past few years. It only recently raised 900 million pounds ($1.12 billion), including from leading Chinese shareholder Fosun.In May, the company reported a debt burden of 1.25 billion pounds and cautioned that political uncertainty related to Britain’s departure from the European Union had hurt demand for summer holiday travel. Heat waves over the past couple of summers in Europe have also led many people to stay at home, while higher fuel and hotel costs have weighed on the travel business.The company’s troubles were already affecting those traveling under the Thomas Cook banner.A British vacationer told BBC radio on Sunday that the Les Orangers beach resort in the Tunisian town of Hammamet, near Tunis, demanded that guests who were about to leave pay extra money for fear it wouldn’t be paid what it is owed by Thomas Cook.Ryan Farmer, of Leicestershire, said many tourists refused the demand, since they had already paid Thomas Cook, so security guards shut the hotel’s gates and “were not allowing anyone to leave.”It was like “being held hostage,” said Farmer, who is due to leave Tuesday. He said he would also refuse to pay if the hotel asked him.The Associated Press called the hotel, as well as the British Embassy in Tunis, but no officials or managers were available for comment.
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Report: Iran to Release Seized British Tanker
The British oil tanker seized by Iran in July will soon be released, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday.The Stena Impero and its crew were seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the Strait of Hormuz for alleged maritime violations just weeks after British forces seized an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Gibraltar.Britain accused Iran of trying to sell oil in violation of international sanctions against Tehran. Gibraltar released that tanker last month.The head of the Swedish company that owns the Stena Impero told Swedish public broadcaster SVT that the tanker may be released within hours.“We have received information now this morning that it seems like they will release the ship Stena Impero within a few hours. So we understand that the political decision to release the ship has been taken.” Erik Hanell said.The head of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran in Hormozgan Province, Allahmorad Afifipour, told Fars that the the process of allowing the tanker to move into international waters has begun but that a legal case against the ship is still pending.He did not release any other information about the tanker.
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Trump Insists He Did Nothing Wrong in Call with Ukrainian Leader
U.S. President Donald Trump admitted talking about corruption with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but stopped short of saying they talked about investigating 2020 leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.A Wall Street Journal report says Trump urged Zelenskiy eight times to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, and whether a Ukrainian gas company tried to win favors by hiring Hunter while Joe Biden was U.S. vice president.The reports say Trump was looking to get Zelenskiy to collaborate with Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, to investigate the Bidens.Trump telephoned Zelenskiy in July, two months after he took power in Ukraine.Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden puts on a Beau Biden Foundation hat while speaking at the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry, in Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 21, 2019.”The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption…and largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Trump said Sunday.He said the White House will “make a determination” whether to release a transcript or details of the telephone call.Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko denies Trump pressured Zelenskiy, saying Ukraine would not take sides in U.S. politics.Joe Biden is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, hoping to derail Trump’s re-election bid.Trump critics, including a number of Democratic lawmakers, say if Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate Biden to discredit the former vice president, that would be a direct appeal to a foreign government to interfere in a presidential election — a potentially impeachable offense. Democrats also want to know if Trump promised Zelenskiy anything in return for an investigation.Trump had frozen $250 million in military aid to Ukraine. Congress voted to release those funds last month.An angry Biden said “there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.” Referring to next year’s election, Trump knows “I’ll beat him like a drum” Biden said.”I’m not looking to hurt him with respect to his son. Joe’s got enough problems,” Trump said Sunday without specifying what those problems are.The newest controversy surrounding Trump began last week when reports emerged that an unidentified whistleblower in the national intelligence community became alarmed about a series of actions inside the Trump administration. They include what is now known to be Trump’s telephone call with Zelenskiy.FILE – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, left, gestures next to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, during a bilateral meeting in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019.This person contacted the intelligence inspector general, who called the complaint “serious” and “urgent.”But acting National Intelligence director Joseph Maguire has refused to turn over the inspector’s report to Congress, which the law requires him to do.Trump says he does not know who the whistleblower is, but called that person “partisan” and committing “just another political hack job.”But congressional Democrats want to know why the inspector general’s report is being kept from them if Trump did not do anything wrong and want to know who Maguire and the Justice Department may be trying to protect.Trump is also accusing Democrats and the media of avoiding the reports about Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian ties.”The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat (sic) Party, want to stay as far away as possible from the Joe Biden demand that the Ukrainian Government fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son, or they won’t get a very large amount of U.S. money, so they fabricate…a story about me.”As vice president under Barack Obama, Joe Biden went to Ukraine in 2016 and threatened to withhold billions of dollars in U.S. loan guarantees unless the government cracked down on corruption. Biden also demanded that Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin be fired.Shokin had previously investigated the gas company on which Hunter Biden served on the board. But the probe had been inactive for a year before Joe Biden’s visit. Hunter Biden has said he was not the target of any investigation and no evidence of any wrongdoing by the Bidens has surfaced.Wayne Lee contributed to this report.
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‘Deficit of Trust’: At UN, Leaders of a Warming World Gather
The planet is getting hotter, and tackling that climate peril will grab the spotlight as world leaders gather for their annual meeting at the United Nations this week facing an undeniable backdrop: rising tensions from the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan and increasing nationalism, inequality and intolerance.Growing fear of military action, especially in response to recent attacks on Saudi oil installations that are key to world energy supplies, hangs over this year’s General Assembly gathering. That unease is exacerbated by global conflicts and crises from Syria and Yemen to Venezuela, from disputes between Israel and the Palestinians to the Pakistan-India standoff over Kashmir.All eyes will be watching presidents Donald Trump of the United States and Hassan Rouhani of Iran, whose countries are at the forefront of escalating tensions, to see if they can reduce fears of a confrontation that could impact the Mideast and far beyond. Whether the two will even meet remains in serious doubt.“Our fraying world needs international cooperation more than ever, but simply saying it will not make it happen,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Let’s face it: We have no time to lose.”This year’s General Assembly session, which starts Tuesday and ends Sept. 30, has attracted world leaders from 136 of the 193 U.N. member nations. That large turnout reflects a growing global focus on addressing climate change and the perilous state of peace and security.Other countries will be represented by ministers and vice presidents — except Afghanistan, whose leaders are in a hotly contested presidential campaign ahead of Sept. 28 elections, and North Korea, which downgraded its representation from a minister to, likely, its U.N. ambassador. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled plans to attend and are sending ministers.Last week, Guterres repeated warnings that “tensions are boiling over.” The world, he said, “is at a critical moment on several fronts — the climate emergency, rising inequality, an increase in hatred and intolerance as well as an alarming number of peace and security challenges.”With so many monarchs, presidents and prime ministers at the U.N. this year, “we have a chance to advance diplomacy for peace,” Guterres said. “This is the moment to cool tensions.”Whether that happens remains to be seen. Many diplomats aren’t optimistic.“It’s a challenging time for the United Nations,” said China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, whose nation is embroiled in a protracted dispute with the United States over tariffs. “We are faced with rising of unilateralism, protectionism, and we are faced with global challenges like climate change, like terrorism, like cybersecurity.”“More importantly,” he said, “we are faced with a deficit of trust.”As the world’s second-largest economy and a member of the U.N. Security Council, “China firmly defends multilateralism, and China firmly supports the United Nations,” Zhang said Friday.But divisions among the five council members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — have paralyzed action on the eight-year conflict in Syria and other global crises. On global warming, the Trump administration remains at odds with many countries.This year, the U.N. has stocked the agenda with a “Youth Climate Summit” ahead of a full-on climate summit for world leaders on Monday. That’s all happening before the leaders hold their annual meeting in the horseshoe-shaped General Assembly hall starting Tuesday morning.Guterres will give his state-of-the-world address at the opening, immediately followed by speeches from Trump and other leaders including the presidents of Brazil, Egypt and Turkey. Iran’s Rouhani is scheduled to address the assembly Wednesday morning.The United Nations is also holding four other summit meetings — on universal health coverage, progress on the 17 U.N. goals to combat poverty and preserve the environment, new ways to finance economic development, and the situation of developing island nations on the front line of what the U.N. calls a climate emergency.Guterres has long stressed the links among climate change, conflict and poverty.U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said data shows “how much we have to do on poverty and the other goals.” The U.N. message, she said, is simple: “It’s time to ratchet up the action that we need to have at the country level.”Though the summit meetings are public, much of the business of the high-level week takes place behind closed doors. According to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric, there were 630 requests for meetings in the United Nations. Hundreds of other one-on-one and small-group meetings will take place at hotels, at U.N. missions and at lunches and dinners.Indian U.N. Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said, for example, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will spend at least half an hour with presidents, prime ministers or foreign ministers of about 75 countries as part of the country’s “much more intensive” engagement.On the key issue of a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to discuss the Aug. 5 decision by Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government to strip disputed Jammu and Kashmir of semi-autonomy and statehood, Akbaruddi said: “There has to be an enabling environment before leaders meet.”“Today the talk that is emanating from Pakistan in certainly not conducive to that enabling environment,” he said.Khan, for his part, said last week that his government will not hold talks until India lifts a curfew in Kashmir and reinstates the disputed region’s special autonomous status.On most pressing global issues, Akbaruddin — like many others — did not paint an appealing picture.“We meet in the context of greater competition rather than cooperation, less collaboration, more rivalry,” he told reporters Friday. “The climate — other than on climate change — doesn’t seem to be conducive for collaborative and cooperative effort. And that’s the harsh reality.”
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Sigmund Jaehn, 1st German in Space as 1970s Cosmonaut, Dies
Sigmund Jaehn, who became the first German in space at the height of the Cold War during the 1970s and was promoted as a hero by communist authorities in East Germany, has died. He was 82.The German Aerospace Center said Sunday on its website that Jaehn died Saturday. The center did not give the cause of death. German news agency dpa said he died at his home in Strausberg, outside of Berlin.Astrophysicist Pascale Ehrenfreund, who chairs the German Aerospace Center’s executive board, said the center was deeply saddened by Jaehn’s death and that German aerospace had lost a “globally respected cosmonaut, scientist and engineer.”“The first German in space always saw himself as a bridge builder between East and West and for a peaceful use of space” Ehrenfreund said.Jaehn flew to the Soviet space station Salyut 6 on Aug. 26, 1978 and spent almost eight days in space. Upon his return, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. The East German government showcased his achievement as evidence of the communist state’s superiority over capitalist West Germany.While Jaehn was a household name for a generation of East Germans, he remained largely unknown in West Germany. German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz described Jaehn last year on the 40th anniversary of his space flight as “an impressive man and a rather quiet hero.”“It is high time for his courage and his work to be recognized not just in the east but in all of Germany,” Scholz said.Jaehn was born Feb. 13, 1937, in Morgenroethe-Rautenkranz, a village near the Czech border. After he finished school, he trained as a printer before joining the East German air force in 1955. He became an officer and a fighter pilot with the National People’s Army in the late 1950s.Between 1966 and 1970, he studied at the Gagarin Military Air Academy in Monino, near Moscow. After returning to East Germany, he worked in the air force administration, where he was in charge of pilot education and flight safety.After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and Germany’s reunification a year later, Jaehn became an adviser to the German Aerospace Center and the European Space Agency. He helped prepare future astronauts for space missions until his retirement in 2002.Recalling his seven days, 20 hours and 49 minutes in space, during which he orbited the Earth 124 times, Jaehn said last year that he vividly remembered the many sunrises he saw during his mission.“It’s not only one; every 1½ hours you can see the sun rise. It’s very fast. One can see exactly how the sun goes up and down and shows its many colors,” Jaehn told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.Jaehn said that unlike many people, he had no problems getting used to zero gravity. “I didn’t even get sick. I thought it was very pleasant,” he said.He said if he had grown up in West Germany, he probably would never have made it into space.“I didn’t go to university right away. … I was the best student, but my father wanted me to become a printer. When you’re 14, you listen to your parents,” he remembered.“I caught up on everything later, got my university entrance degree, went to university,” he added. “But in the West, they still sometimes like to say: This Jaehn, he only was a simple worker.”Jaehn was married and had two daughters.
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4 Chinese Tourists Killed in Utah Bus Accident Identified
Authorities on Saturday identified the four Chinese tourists killed in a bus crash in southern Utah, and the tour group is dispatching employees from China to help those injured.Three women and one man perished in the crash on a highway running through the red-rock landscape of southern Utah on Friday. The victims have been identified as Ling Geng, 68, Xiuyun Chen, 67, Zhang Caiyu, 62, and Zhongliang Qiu, 65. They were all from Shanghai, China.They were part of a tour group made up of 29 tourists and one leader. They come from Shanghai and the nearby provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Heilongjiang, according to a news report on the media website huanqiu.com. The tour leader came from Hebei Province, near Beijing, according to the Zhejiang Online news site.Five passengers remained in critical condition Friday night, and the death toll could rise, Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Nick Street said.All 31 people on board were hurt. Twelve to 15 on board were considered to be in critical condition shortly after the crash, but several of them have since improved, Street said. Not everyone was wearing a seatbelt, as is common in tour buses, he said.The Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism urged the travel agency, Shanghai Zhuyuan International Travel Agency, to spare no effort in rescuing the injured and properly handle the follow-up matters.Phone calls to the travel agency rang unanswered Sunday morning. Lu Yong, the travel agency’s general manager, told a Chinese TV program that the agency’s American partners sent 10 staff members to hospitals to help the victims communicate with doctors and police.The News Perspective program, part of the Shanghai Media Group, said in an article on its official social media account that seven relatives of the victims were expected to leave for the United States on Monday or Tuesday with travel agency staff and officials from the culture and tourism bureau.The news program’s social media post included photos of parts of the itinerary, indicating the accident occurred on the seventh day of a 16-day trip and also included visits to Yellowstone National Park, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. They were to fly to the East Coast after the western U.S. stops.The crash happened near a highway rest stop a few miles from southern Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park, an otherworldly landscape of narrow red-rock spires.Authorities believe the driver swerved on the way to the park on Friday morning. But when he yanked the steering wheel to put the bus back onto the road, the momentum sent the bus into a rollover crash, authorities said.The driver, an American citizen, survived and was talking with investigators, Street said. He didn’t appear to be intoxicated, but authorities were still investigating his condition as well as any possible mechanical problems, he said.There was some wind, but it was not strong enough to cause problems, Street said.The crash left the top of a white bus smashed in and one side peeling away as the vehicle came to rest mostly off the side of the road against a sign for restrooms.The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to investigate. The agency was scheduled to speak about the investigation Sunday afternoon.The company listed on the bus was America Shengjia Inc. Utah business records indicate it is based in Monterey Park, California. A woman answering the phone there did not have immediate comment.Intermountain Garfield Memorial Hospital said it received 17 patients, including three in critical condition and 11 in serious condition. Patients also were taken to Cedar City and St. George hospitals.Millions of people visit Utah’s five national parks every year. Last year, about 87,000 people from China visited the state, making them the fastest-growing group of Utah tourists, according to state data.More than half of visitors from China travel on tour buses, said Vicki Varela, managing director of Utah Office of Tourism.The Chinese Embassy tweeted that it was saddened to hear about the crash and that it was sending staff to help the victims.Bryce Canyon, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City, draws more than 2 million visitors a year.“You have a group from China who have worked hard to come to the states, got the visa and everything they needed, excited about it, and for a tragedy like this to happen it just makes it all the more tragic,” Street said.
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Travel Firm Thomas Cook Teeters on Edge as Talks Continue
More than 600,000 vacationers who booked through tour operator Thomas Cook were on edge Sunday, wondering if they will be able to get home, as one of the world’s oldest and biggest travel companies teetered on the edge of collapse.
The debt-laden company, which confirmed Friday it was seeking 200 million pounds ($250 million) in funding to avoid going bust, was in talks with shareholders and creditors to stave off failure.
A collapse could leave around 150,000 travelers from Britain stranded, along with hundreds of thousands from other countries. The company has sought to reassure customers that flights were continuing to operate as normal.
Most of Thomas Cook’s British customers are protected by the government-run travel insurance program, which makes sure vacationers can get home if a British-based tour operator goes under while they are abroad.
Thomas Cook’s financial difficulties also raised questions about the jobs of the 22,000 people employed by the company around the world, including 9,000 in Britain.
Unions and Britain’s opposition Labour Party urged the government to intervene financially to save jobs if the company fails to raise the necessary financing from the private sector.
If the company collapsed, Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority would probably be ordered by the government to launch a major operation to fly stranded vacationers home, much as it did when Monarch Airlines went bust nearly two years ago.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab gave assurances that British vacationers will not be left stranded.
“I don’t want to give all the details of it because it depends on the nature of how people are out there,” he told the BBC. “But I can reassure people that, in the worst-case scenario, the contingency planning is there to avoid people being stranded.”
Rebecca Long Bailey, Labour’s business spokesperson, said the government “faces a simple choice between a 200 million-pound government cash injection to save the company now versus a 600 million-pound bill to repatriate U.K. holidaymakers.”
Thomas Cook, which began in 1841 with a one-day train excursion in England and now operates in 16 countries, has been struggling over the past few years. It only recently raised 900 million pounds ($1.12 billion), including from leading Chinese shareholder Fosun.
In May, the company reported a debt burden of 1.25 billion pounds and cautioned that political uncertainty related to Britain’s departure from the European Union had hurt demand for summer holiday travel. Heat waves over the past couple of summers in Europe have also led many people to stay at home, while higher fuel and hotel costs have weighed on the travel business.
The company’s troubles appear to be already affecting those traveling under the Thomas Cook banner.
A British vacationer told BBC radio on Sunday that the Les Orangers beach resort in the Tunisian town of Hammamet, near Tunis, demanded that guests who were about to leave pay extra money for fear it wouldn’t be paid what it is owed by Thomas Cook.
Ryan Farmer, of Leicestershire, said many tourists refused the demand, since they had already paid Thomas Cook, so security guards shut the hotel’s gates and “were not allowing anyone to leave.”
It was like “being held hostage,” said Farmer, who is due to leave Tuesday. He said he would also refuse to pay if the hotel asked him.
The Associated Press called the hotel, as well as the British Embassy in Tunis, but no officials or managers were available for comment.
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Trump Says He Did Nothing Wrong in Call with Ukrainian Leader
U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he did nothing wrong in a telephone conversation with the new president of Ukraine amid news report that Trump allegedly urged him to investigate the son of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.Speaking to reporters, Trump described his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky as “absolutely perfect.””The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place. It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Trump said.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks to newly elected Ukrainian parliament deputies during parliament session in Kyiv, Aug. 29, 2019.According to news reports, Trump urged Zelensky about eight times during their conversation to investigate Biden’s son. Sources were quoted saying Trump’s intent was to get Zelensky to collaborate with Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani on an investigation that could undermine Biden.Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko on Saturday denied Trump had pressured Zelensky during the call, telling the media outlet Hromadski that Ukraine would not take sides in U.S. politics even if the country was in a position to do so.Trump and Guiliani have pushed for an investigation of the Bidens for weeks, following news reports this year that explored whether a Ukrainian energy company tried to secure influence in the U.S. by employing Biden’s younger son, Hunter.Democrats are condemning what they perceive as a concerted effort to damage Biden, who has been thrust into the middle of an unidentified whistleblower’s complaint against Trump. Biden is currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.The Trump administration has blocked procedures under which the whistleblower complaint would have normally been forwarded by the U.S. intelligence community to members of the Democrat-controlled Congress, keeping its contents secret.Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden puts on a Beau Biden Foundation hat while speaking at the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry, in Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 21, 2019.Biden said late Friday that if the reports are accurate, “then there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.” Biden also called on Trump to disclose the transcript of his conversation with Zelensky so “the American people can judge for themselves.”When asked about releasing the transcript, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC News that “those are private conversations between world leaders and it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so except in the most extreme circumstances.”The intelligence community inspector general has described the whistleblower’s August 12 complaint as “serious” and “urgent,” conditions that would normally require him to forward the complaint to Congress. Trump has characterized the complaint as “just another political hack job.”
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Al-Shabab Attack Kills 20 Somali Soldiers
At least 20 Somali government soldiers were killed and 18 others were wounded when al-Shabab raided a military base south of Mogadishu, security sources told VOA Somali.The sources said militants detonated a suicide car bomb at the El-Salin military base followed by an infantry attack in the early hours of Sunday.The militants briefly took over the base, a regional official told VOA Somali.A spokesman for Somali special forces said the militants attacked the base “in large numbers.” Mowlid Ahmed Hassan said the fighting lasted about 40 minutes, insisting the troops ‘defended” the base. He said reinforcements have been sent to the base.Hassan said the troops killed 13 militants, but declined to comment on the number of government soldiers killed in the attack.Somali troops seized the El-Salin base from al-Shabab on August 6. It was one of four bases in Lower Shabelle region recaptured following an offensive by the Somali military.
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Pompeo: Trump’s Iran Strategy is Working
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the U.S. is working to find a diplomatic outcome to tensions with Iran, which has been blamed for an attack on Saudi oil facilities, but he warned if diplomacy fails President Donald Trump “will make necessary decisions to achieve our objectives.”Pompeo told the ABC News that the recent Trump administration decision to send additional U.S. military forces and air defense equipment to Saudi Arabia will “improve the capabilities” and “will make it more difficult” for Iran. President Hassan Rouhani speaks at a military parade marking 39th anniversary of outset of Iran-Iraq war, in front of the shrine of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Sept. 22, 2019.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday the presence of foreign forces in the Persian Gulf area would create “insecurity in the region.””Foreign forces can cause problems and insecurity for our people and for our region,” Rouhani said in a live broadcast on state television. The Iranian leader said he plans to present at the United Nations a regional cooperation plan for peace.U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the American forces in the region would be “defensive in nature.” He added that the U.S. was responding to requests from Saudi and United Arab Emirates officials to improve their air and missile defenses after last weekend’s attacks on Saudi Arabian oil installations. U.S. officials have said Iran was responsible, an allegation that Tehran denies.This image provided on Sept. 15, 2019, by the U.S. government and DigitalGlobe and annotated by the source, shows damage to the infrastructure at Saudi Aramco’s Kuirais oil field in Buqyaq, Saudi Arabia.The September 14 assault exposed the vulnerability of the region’s oil facilities to drone and cruise missile attacks.President Trump announced new sanctions against Iran’s national bank Friday, further escalating economic pressure on the Islamic Republic, but pulling back from any direct military action.”I think the sanctions work,” Trump said Trump also said “the military would work, but that is a very severe form of winning.”Secretary Pompeo said be believes Trump’s strategy on Iran is working. “We are well on our way to forcing the Iranian regime, to ultimately make the decision to become a normal nation — that’s all we’ve ever asked,” he told ABC News.The United Nations has announced that it has sent a four-member team of international experts to Saudi Arabia to investigate the attacks on the oil installations.
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Hong Kong Protesters Vandalize Subway Station, Deface Chinese Flag
Protesters on Hong Kong vandalized a subway station and defaced a Chinese flag Sunday during another weekend of pro-democracy demonstrations.Thousands also rallied inside a shopping mall in Sha Tin. Protesters later built a barricade across the street and set it on fire.Riot police fired tear gas to disperse some of the protesters.Riot police patrol inside Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong, Sept. 22, 2019.Meanwhile, Hong Kong has cut back rail and bus access to its airport in a move designed to avoid an anti-government protests at one of the busiest airport hubs in the world.”There are calls online for using fake boarding passes, fake air tickets or fake flight booking information to enter the terminal buildings…the Airport Authority reminds that such behavior could amount to forgery or using false instrument,” the authority said in a statement warning demonstrators to stay away.Damaged ticket machines are seen inside Sha Tin MTR station after an anti-government rally at New Town Plaza at Sha Tin, Hong Kong, Sept. 22, 2019On Saturday, police fired tear gas at demonstrators who vandalized a light rail station.A proposed bill that would have allowed some Hong Kong criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial sparked the months-long, anti-government demonstrations. The extradition legislation has been withdrawn, but the demonstrations continue.Dissenters have since broadened their demands for the direct election of their leaders and police accountability.More than 1,300 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began in early June.
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Swiss Hold High-Altitude Wake For Lost Glacier
Dozens of people dressed in black went on a “funeral march” up a steep Swiss mountainside on Sunday to mark the disappearance of an Alpine glacier amid growing global alarm over climate change.The Pizol “has lost so much substance that from a scientific perspective it is no longer a glacier,” Alessandra Degiacomi, of the Swiss Association for Climate Protection, told AFP ahead of the event.Sunday’s climb took place as the U.N. gathered youth activists and world leaders in New York to mull the action needed to curb global warming.The solemn two-hour “funeral march” led up the side of Pizol mountain in northeastern Switzerland to the foot of the steep and rapidly melting ice formation, situated at an altitude of around 2,700 meters (8,850 feet) near the Liechtenstein and Austrian borders.Upon arrival, a chaplain and several scientists were to give sombre speeches in remembrance of the glacier, accompanied by the mournful tones of alphorns — a 3.6-metre (12-foot), pipe-shaped wooden instrument.A wreath will be laid for the Pizol glacier, which has been one of the most studied glaciers in the Alps.The move comes after Iceland made global headlines last month with a large ceremony and the laying of a bronze plaque to commemorate Okjokull, the island’s first glacier lost to climate change.500 glaciers goneBut unlike Iceland, Sunday’s ceremony does not mark the first disappearance of a glacier from the Swiss Alps.”Since 1850, we estimate that more than 500 Swiss glaciers have completely disappeared, including 50 that were named,” Swiss glaciologist and march participant Matthias Huss told AFP before the event.Pizol may not be the first glacier to vanish in Switzerland, but “you could say it is the first to disappear that has been very thoroughly studied,” Huss of the ETH technical university in Zurich said.The logs kept since scientists began tracking the glacier in 1893 paint a bleak picture of recent rapid changes to the climate.Pizol has lost 80-90 percent of its volume just since 2006, leaving behind a mere 26,000 square meters (280,000 square feet) of ice, or “less than four football fields,” Huss said.Pizol, which sits at a relatively low altitude, was never very big.According to Glacier Monitoring Switzerland, or GLAMOS, it, like nearly 80 percent of Swiss glaciers, has been considered a so-called glacieret.Greenhouse gas referendumIt has figured among some 4,000 glaciers — vast, ancient reserves of ice — dotted throughout the Alps, providing seasonal water to millions and forming some of Europe’s most stunning landscapes.But Huss and other ETH scientists recently cautioned more than 90 percent of the Alpine glaciers could disappear by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions are not reined in.Regardless of what actions humans take now, the Alps will lose at least half of their ice mass by 2100, according to their study, published in April.And in a subsequent study published earlier this month, the researchers indicated that the Alps’ largest glacier, the mighty Aletsch, could completely disappear over the next eight decades.Sunday’s “funeral” for Pizol provides an occasion to point out that climate change is not only melting glaciers but is endangering “our means of subsistence”, according to the organizing groups, including Greenpeace.It is threatening “human civilisation as we know it in Switzerland and around the world,” they warn on the event webpage.With this in mind, the Swiss Association for Climate Protection recently presented the 100,000 signatures needed to launch a popular initiative, to be put to a referendum, demanding that Switzerland reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.The date for the vote has yet to be set, but the Swiss government in August said it supported the objective.
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Sudan’s New PM Launches Probe Into Protesters’ Deaths
Sudan’s newly appointed prime minister has launched an independent investigation into June’s deadly crackdown on protesters that killed dozens of people and threatened to crush the country’s pro-democracy uprising.Protest leaders had demanded the establishment of an international inquiry as part of a subsequent power-sharing agreement with the military, but the generals insisted on a Sudanese-led probe.
According to the protesters, at least 128 people were killed and hundreds wounded when security forces violently dispersed the protesters’ main sit-in outside the military headquarters in the capital, Khartoum, on June 3. Authorities put the death toll at 87, including 17 inside the sit-in area.
The violence signaled a crackdown across Sudan that led to a breakdown in talks between the protesters and the ruling generals, who ousted autocratic President Omar al-Bashir in April amid nationwide protests against his nearly 30-year rule.
Sudan’s new civilian leader, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, said late Saturday the investigation will be led by a seven-member committee that includes a top judge, an independent figure and two attorneys. The justice, defense and interior ministries will also be represented on the committee.
The probe, which should conclude its work within six months, could seek support from the African Union if needed, said Hamdok, who was headed to New York to attend the U.N. meetings.
An investigation by Sudanese prosecutors in July said the ruling generals did not order the deadly break-up, but blamed the widely condemned dispersal on paramilitary forces who exceeded their orders.
Prosecutor Fathel-Rahman Said said at the time that security forces were told only to clear a lawless area close to the protest camp, not the sit-in itself.
In the days leading up to the dispersal, the military said the lawless area near the camp had become a haven for “drug dealers and other criminals.”
Troops from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces however moved to disperse the protest camp on their own initiative, Said added.
He said eight RSF officers, including a major general, have been accused of crimes against humanity. He did not elaborate on how the investigation would proceed against the accused officers.
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EU’s Juncker: Irish Border Controls Needed in No-Deal Brexit
Jean-Claude Juncker, chief of the European Union’s executive arm, says border controls will be placed on the Irish border if Britain leaves the bloc without a deal.Juncker told Sky News on Sunday the EU has to “make sure that the interests of the European Union and of the internal market will be preserved.”
How to preserve a frictionless border between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, is the thorniest issue in the Brexit discussions.
Juncker noted that without a border after a no-deal Brexit, an animal entering Northern Ireland could then enter the EU via Ireland without any controls. He says “this will not happen. We have to preserve the health and the safety of our citizens.”
Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on Oct. 31.
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Barron Hilton, Hotel Magnate and AFL Founder, Dies at 91
Barron Hilton, a hotel magnate who expanded his father’s chain and became a founding owner in the American Football League, died Thursday at his Los Angeles home. He was 91.Hilton’s family said he died of natural causes. He transformed Hilton into the industry’s top brand during his 30 years as its chief executive. The Blackstone Group bought the international chain’s 2,800 hotels, including its famed Waldorf-Astoria, for $26 billion in 2007.“The Hilton family mourns the loss of a remarkable man,” said Steven M. Hilton, his son and chairman of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, in a statement. “He lived a life of great adventure and exceptional accomplishment.”Self-made manAn avid pilot who served as a Navy photographer during World War II, Hilton didn’t begin working for his father’s company until 1951, after he’d made his own fortune in orange juice products, an oil company and an aircraft-leasing business. Hilton also founded the Los Angeles Chargers in the AFL and oversaw the AFL-NFL merger.William Barron Hilton was born in Dallas in 1927 to Conrad N. Hilton, the founder of Hilton Hotels, and Mary Adelaide Barron.Hilton challenged his father’s will, arguing the foundation’s shares of Conrad Hilton’s fortune that were being used to help Catholic nuns could leave the company open to a hostile takeover, in 10-year legal battle that ended in a settlement.“It was a very painful decade,” Hilton told USA Today in 1995. “Hilton vs. the nuns was not the best public relations move.”Estate goes to foundationHilton’s wife, Marilyn Hawley Hilton, died in 2004. He is survived by eight children, 15 grandchildren, among whom are famed heiresses Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton, and four great-grandchildren.Hilton was the chairman emeritus of Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. He left about 97% of his estate to the foundation, which expects the donation to grow its endowment from $2.9 billion to $6.3 billion.
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Hong Kong Police Move to Curb Airport Protests After Night of Violence
Hong Kong riot police took up position at the main rail station serving the airport Sunday to prevent a new anti-government protest targeting air travel after a night of violent street clashes in the Chinese-ruled territory.Protesters have targeted the airport before, occupying the arrivals hall, blocking approach roads and setting street fires in the nearby town of Tung Chung, and trashing its subway station. The Airport Express train, which takes passengers under the harbor and across a series of bridges to the airport, built on reclaimed land around an outlying island, will only allow passengers to board in downtown Hong Kong Sunday, not on the Kowloon Peninsula, the Airport Authority said.And only people holding flight tickets were allowed to enter the terminal. Bus services were also affected.Pro-democracy protesters demonstrate in a shopping mall in the district of Yuen Long to mark the two-month anniversary of the triad attack that took place in the Yuen Long train station, in Hong Kong, Sept. 21, 2019.“There are calls online for using fake boarding passes, fake air tickets or fake flight booking information to enter the terminal buildings. … The Airport Authority reminds that such behavior could amount to forgery or using false instrument,” it said in a statement.One man, a 73-year-old retiree from Canada traveling to Hong Kong, said he had no problem with the protests if they were “legal and peaceful.”“They are just trying to voice their demands. As a civilized resident I think these demands are legitimate,” the man, who asked to be identified only as Chow, told Reuters.Australian traveler Jody Paul, 55, who spent a week on holiday in the former British colony, said the protests hadn’t affected her trip.“It was lovely — we didn’t see any of the protesters or any of the action. I was hoping for a glimpse.”Headache for BeijingThe violence has hit pockets of Hong Kong at different times over more than three months, allowing life to go on as normal for the vast majority most of the time.But pictures of petrol bombs and street clashes broadcast worldwide present a huge headache for Beijing just days ahead of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on Oct. 1.Women react after tear gas was fired by the police near Yuen Long station, in Hong Kong, Sept. 21, 2019.The Hong Kong government has called off a big fireworks display to mark the day in case of further clashes. China, which has a People’s Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong, has said it has faith in Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to solve the crisis.Police fired tear gas to disperse pro-democracy protesters who threw petrol bombs in two new towns Saturday after pro-China groups pulled down some of the “Lennon Walls” of anti-government messages. There were violent clashes elsewhere in the city.Police condemned the violence and said there had been many serious injuries in fights between people of “different views.”“They threw petrol bombs at police vehicles and police officers, and even attempted to snatch the revolver of a police officer,” police said in a statement Sunday.Pro-democracy protestsThe protests picked up in June over legislation, now withdrawn, that would have allowed suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial. Demands have since broadened into calls for universal suffrage.The protesters are angry about what they see as creeping Chinese interference in the former British colony, which returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula intended to guarantee freedoms that are not enjoyed on the mainland.China says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” arrangement and denies meddling. It has accused foreign governments including the United States and Britain of inciting the unrest.
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In Cambodia, It’s a Bad Year for Dengue Fever
Amir Khasru of the VOA Bangla Service contributed to this report.KRAYEA COMMUNE, KAMPONG THOM PROVINCE, CAMBODIA — The babies are crying, coughing as they vomit.Each parent holds one of the 8-month-old twins. Their daughters tested positive for the potentially lethal and almost always painful dengue fever.Lang Chanthoeun says she doesn’t have money yet to get treatment for Pheak Sonisa and Pheak Somatha. “I tried to borrow money from relatives but they didn’t have any,” she said.“Last night, I couldn’t sleep,” said the 35-year-old mother of six who lives in a poor rural area of Cambodia’s Kampong Thom province on the central lowlands of the Mekong River. The local rubber plantations in the province’s Santuk district shelter mosquitos, making it a center of this year’s dengue outbreak.The government should consider providing a treatment center in the province so villagers don’t need to travel, said Meas Nee who holds a doctorate in sociology and international social work from Australia’s La Trobe University.According to a 2008 article in the International Journal for Equity in Health, “High rates of hospitalization and mortality from dengue fever among infants and children reflect the difficulties that women continue to face in finding sufficient cash in cases of medical emergency, resulting in delays in diagnosis and treatment.”“Regardless of whether they used a public or private facility, villagers reported spending on average US$34.50 and up to US$150 for a single episode of dengue,” wrote Sokrin Khun and Lenore Manderson in their article, Some villagers look after children who have been diagnosed with dengue fever at a private health clinic in the village, June 2019. (Sun Narin/VOA Khmer)In Kampong Thom province’s Krayea commune, many babies and young children have received dengue treatment in local private clinics and from state-run hospitals in the province. A few of them have been treated at the reputable A villager drives a tractor past a private health clinic in Kampong Thom province’s Krayea commune, where children diagnosed with dengue fever stay for treatment, June 2019. (Sun Narin/VOA Khmer)Since 2006, the Cambodian government has run a program offering free health care at public facilities. Those who are eligible receive Equity Cards, known colloquially, and predictably, as “poverty cards,” which must be presented to tap into benefits.But more than a decade after the program began with help from the German and Australian governments, many people remain frustrated and confused about the criteria used to allocate the cards and the benefits bestowed on their holders.Neither Pin Roeun nor Chun Mom are in the program. That means they don’t have the card for the poorest of the poor.Lang Chanthoeun said she qualified for the program but has yet to receive a card.Srey Sin, who heads the Kampong Thom province department of health, said more than three times as many people have shown up at local hospitals for dengue fever treatment in 2019 compared with last year.“We treat them for free if they have the poverty card,” he said. “Our staffs have tried their best to treat them even though there are a lot of people.”Lang Chanthoeun’s husband took the twins to a state-run hospital in the province after they were diagnosed with dengue at the local clinic.Hak Sopheak, 37, said he spent $25 each for treatment of Pheak Sonisa and Pheak Somatha but wasn’t pleased.“It took my daughters getting worse for the medical staff to get them treatment,” he said. “Before that, they did not receive good care.”
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