YCLOAK

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday challenged her rivals for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination to commit to transition the United States fully to clean energy over the next decade for electricity, vehicles and buildings.

Warren, one of 20 Democrats vying to take on President Donald Trump in November 2020, issued the challenge in a comprehensive clean energy plan released ahead of a 7-hour CNN Town Hall on Wednesday at which 10 candidates will discuss how they would tackle climate change.

Her climate strategy weaves together several policies she has sprinkled into other proposals she has rolled out, from agriculture to tribal lands to manufacturing. It also incorporates a clean energy plan she adopted from Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who made climate change the centerpiece of his White House bid before dropping out of the race late last month.

Inslee’s clean energy strategy — which had been billed as the gold standard by environmental advocates — set a 10-year plan to achieve 100% clean energy by slashing carbon emissions from U.S. electricity generation, vehicles and buildings.

“While his presidential campaign may be over, his ideas should remain at the center of the agenda,” Warren wrote in a post for the website Medium.

“Today I’m embracing that goal by committing to adopt and build on Governor Inslee’s 10-year action plan to achieve 100% clean energy …  and I’m challenging every other candidate for President to do the same,” she wrote.

All of Warren’s Democratic rivals who will participate in the climate change town hall have at least committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But each advocates different steps to get there.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, calls for the electricity and transportation sectors to be fueled by 100% percent renewable energy by 2030. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s climate plan calls for 500,000 more electric vehicle charging stations nationwide by the end of 2030.

Warren’s proposal would commit $3 trillion over 10 years, in part paid for by reversing Republican tax cuts passed in 2017 that largely benefit businesses and the wealthy. It aims to bolster efforts to reach 100% zero-carbon pollution for all new buildings by 2028, 100% zero emissions for most new vehicles by 2030 and 100% zero emissions in electricity generation by 2035.

Jamal Reed, a spokesman for Inslee, said the governor’s staff had advised Warren’s campaign and others on climate issues and Inslee is “particularly impressed that Senator Warren is adopting his aggressive targets.”

Warren, a Massachusetts senator, noted that her push to transition to clean energy would require retrofitting buildings, re-engineering the electrical grid and adapting manufacturing.

“For too long, there has been a tension between transitioning to a green economy and creating good, middle class, union jobs,” she wrote.

Warren said her administration would not ask coal and other workers to make the “impossible choice” between jobs with good wages and benefits and “green economy” jobs that pay less, with fewer benefits. The jobs created by her climate plan would be unionized, and training, early retirement benefits and other protections would be provided to current coal workers.

She would also overhaul the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the U.S. electrical grid, replacing it with a Federal Renewable Energy Commission charged with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Also on Tuesday, presidential candidate Julian Castro, a former housing chief for President Barack Obama, released a $10 trillion climate plan to transition to clean energy and create 10 million jobs. Castro, among the candidates participating in Wednesday’s town hall, also seeks to guarantee health care and pensions for coal miners.

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“Harry Potter” actor David Thewlis plays a father desperate to understand his adult daughter’s choices in “Guest of Honour,” an exploration of a family relationship with hidden secrets.

The movie, directed by Atom Egoyan, begins with Veronica, a former high school music teacher recently released from jail, meeting a priest to discuss her father’s funeral.

Over the course of the meeting, the priest (Luke Wilson), asks Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira) to describe her father Jim and she looks back on his life.

A widowed restaurant inspector with particular attention to detail, Thewlis’s Jim is frustrated by Veronica’s decision to go to jail after a failed hoax sees her falsely convicted of abusing her position towards a student.

The young teacher, however, feels the need to be punished for an earlier crime from her past. Her determination to stay in jail soon begins to impact Jim’s work.

The drama, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, sees both father and daughter conduct their own investigations about each other at different times.

“There is the investigation that his daughter is conducting in the present day but there are several investigations that are happening at different points that he’s conducting while he was alive, that she’s conducting as she remembered it and that he’s positioning it as it actually happened,” Egoyan said.

“It sounds complicated … even though there is five different periods I think it’s very clear at all times where you are in the film,” he added, speaking at a news conference.

“Guest of Honour,” which Egoyan also wrote, addresses suspicion and guilt as both father and daughter try to understand each other better.

“She’s very influenced by the experiences she’s had growing up,” De Oliveira said of her character, Veronica.

“There’s loss there, and so she carries that guilt … or that darkness with her for most of her life and so which leads her to do something that she ultimately feels is right for herself.”

The movie is one of 21 competing for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, which runs until Sept. 7.

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People in the Bahamas experienced another hellish night as the center of powerful Hurricane Dorian sat stationary on the northern edge of Grand Bahama Island and pounded the area with fierce winds and the flooding effects of heavy rains and storm surge.

Dorian made landfall on the island late Sunday night and barely moved throughout the day Monday. Forecasters expect the storm to finally move away during the day Tuesday and threaten the U.S. state of Florida.

“We are in the midst of a historic tragedy in parts of northern Bahamas,” said Prime Minister Hubert Minnis. “Our mission and focus now is search, rescue, and recovery. I ask for your prayers in those in affected areas and for our first responders.”

He told reporters at a Monday news conference there were five confirmed deaths on Abaco Island, where Dorian struck before moving to Grand Bahama. Minnis said initial reports from Abaco were of devastation that is “unprecedented and extensive.”

What the storm did to Grand Bahama will become more clear as it moves away and authorities are able to survey the island.

“We know that there are a number of people in Grand Bahama who are in serious distress and we will provide relief and assistance as soon as possible after the Met (Meteorology) Department has given the all clear. I strongly urge the residents of Grand Bahama to remain indoors and be as safe as possible until the all clear is given by the appropriate authorities,” Minnis said.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Dorian had weakened from its peak strength, but remained a extremely powerful storm with maximum sustained winds of 205 kilometers per hour early Tuesday.

Forecasters expect Dorian to drift “dangerously close” to the east coast of Florida by late Tuesday and the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina on Wednesday and Thursday.

Hurricane warnings are posted from just north of Miami to the Florida-Georgia border. Millions from Florida to South Carolina have been ordered to evacuate.

A National Guard spokesman says there has been almost no resistance from people being told they have to get out.

“People do understand that Dorian is nothing to mess around with,” he said.

Even if Dorian does not make landfall on the Atlantic Coast, the storm’s hurricane-force winds extend 56 kilometers to the west. Towns and cities can still expect up to 25 centimeters of rain, life-threatening flash floods, and some tornadoes.

Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management Jared Moskowitz says “Hurricane Dorian is the strongest storm to ever threaten the state of Florida on the East Coast. No matter what path this storm takes, our state will be impacted.”

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East Timor is marking the 20th anniversary of a referendum that ended 24 years of Indonesian occupation and delivered independence, but that also sparked a bloody rampage by pro-Jakarta militias who killed 1,500 people and pushed another half-a-million out of their homes.

The capital has been sprucing up with freshly painted structures, newly paved streets and manicured gardens for the arrival of foreign dignitaries for celebrations that will last until the end of the month.

But beneath the cheery facade is a lingering anger.

Joao Borras, now 37, was forced to flee as militias rampaged through the capital, Dili, shot dead his two best friends, and razed his home.

He said the killings were not just in the open but also behind closed doors by a government apparatus backed by militias that watched every move.

“It’s a horrible life actually,” Borras said. “There’s a lot of people killed, but you didn’t see because they took you in the night time. They said ‘let’s go for interviews’ – and you will not come back the next morning.”

The struggle since independence

United Nations peacekeepers landed three weeks after the August 30, 1999 referendum and restored order. Independence followed on May 20, 2002, with the election of resistance leader Xanana Gusmao as president.

But East Timor has struggled to develop its democracy and rebuild an economy shattered by conflict and ongoing internal fighting, which hampered its ability to attract much needed investment dollars.

In 2006, the United Nations sent in security forces to restore order after 155,000 people fled their homes to escape factional fighting. Then, in early 2008, President Jose Ramos-Horta was critically wounded in an assassination attempt.

The presence of peacekeeping forces helped buoy the economy but since that ended in 2012, East Timor’s Gross Domestic Product has crashed by half to less than $3 billion. Other financial figures are sketchy. An official unemployment rate of 3.5% is scoffed at even by the country’s leaders.

“Unemployment is a constant concern,” President Francisco Guterres said during a speech to commemorate the independence vote. “Our economy has been in recession since 2017, which has had an impact on the job market.”

He said 60% of East Timorese are of working age but only 19% of them are in the job market.

Of that, just 8% work in the private or public sectors while the rest work in the informal market, which Guterres said, “offers workers no security because it’s based on low wages, no contracts, irregular employment and poor working conditions.”

The bright side

Compounding these challenges is East Timor’s fickle foreign relations with much larger regional powers like Australia, China and Indonesia. Anticipated foreign aid, revenues from the sale of oil and gas and the construction of infrastructure projects have fallen far short of expectations.

However, East Timor is pushing for membership to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its long running feud with Australia over sea boundaries and revenue from offshore oil and gas claims appears to be over.

A settlement over its shared maritime border with Australia will entitle East Timor to a bigger share of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields, which has reserves estimated at $50 billion.

Australia will also refurbish a naval base and bolster high-speed Internet traffic, widely seen as an effort by Canberra to further its influence in the region.

“This is a new chapter for Australia and Timor-Leste that is based on our shared respect, interests and values,” Morrison said in Dili.

Filmmaker Lyndal Barry, producer of Viva Timor Lorosae, has covered this country since the early 1990s and said Dili deserves recognition for rebuilding its security sector with an effective police force and military.

“There needs to be more done maybe in tourism, there needs to be more done in the countryside and to help people to rebuild there and be able to stand on their own two feet,” Barry said.

China is also investing heavily, financing a deep water port, an electricity grid, and a four lane highway. The China Railway Construction Corporation has signed a $943 million contract with state-owned Timor Gap to help run a liquid natural gas (LNG) plant.

Michael Maley worked for the Australian Electoral Commission as part of an international team that prepared the logistics for the referendum on self-determination. He said two big changes were taking place in East Timor.

“One is the effect of independence and they’re being a self-governing country, meeting their long term aspirations. But the other thing that has happened at the same time is they’ve been hit by globalization,” he said. “The young people from the time when they were almost totally isolated from the world are now incredibly connected. Everyone has a mobile phone, everybody is using Facebook and social media to communicate.”

His sentiments were backed by Borras who said life in East Timor 20 years after the slaughter had improved dramatically, despite the poverty, particularly in the countryside.

“Right now is clearly safe and secure, economic things are up and down but our life is great, better and I feel free and I’m enjoying my life, and my family and my friends – we are working and it’s nice.”

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Peru plans to beef up security at its border with Ecuador to prevent illegal immigration, after stricter entry requirements for Venezuelans led to a 90% drop in legal crossings, a government official said on Monday.

More than 850,000 Venezuelans have fled their homeland for Peru in recent years, part of a mass exodus from the Caribbean nation as it faces a crippling economic crisis.

But in June, Peru started requiring Venezuelans who arrive to already have visas, part of stricter policies for Venezuelans in some South American nations.

“The entry of Venezuelan migrants to our country has dropped dramatically and today it’s 90% less than what we saw in June,” Foreign Minister Nestor Popolizio told journalists.

Popolizio said his ministry was working with the interior ministry and police to make sure Venezuelan migrants were not evading the new requirements by crossing illegally.

“We’re engaged in a very direct coordination … to ensure more protection all along our border and to avoid illegal entries,” Popolizio said.

Popolizio said Peru was one of 11 countries in the region trying to coordinate their policies on handling immigration from Venezuela.

After Peru started requiring visas of Venezuelans, Chile and Ecuador implemented similar measures. All three countries also now require Venezuelans to have passports, a document that is hard to obtain for the growing ranks of poor Venezuelans.

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Iran is for the first time acknowledging that a rocket explosion took place at its Imam Khomeini Space Center, with an official saying a technical malfunction caused the blast.
 
Government spokesman Ali Rabiei made the statement on Monday in comments broadcast by Iranian state television.
 
He said the explosion caused no fatalities and also that officials had found no sign that sabotage was involved in the explosion.
 
Satellite photos showed a rocket on a launch pad at the space center had exploded Thursday. The space center is located about 240 kilometers, or 150 miles, southeast of the capital, Tehran.
 
President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted a surveillance photo likely taken of the site by an American spy satellite. He wrote that the U.S. had nothing to do with the blast.

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A senior U.S. naval officer has underlined Washington’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific as the United States launched its first joint naval exercise with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
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The U.S. and Poland signed an agreement on Monday to cooperate on new 5G technology amid growing concerns about Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.

Vice President Mike Pence and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki signed the deal in Warsaw, where Pence is filling in for President Donald Trump, who scrapped his trip at the last minute because of Hurricane Dorian.
 
The signing comes amid a global battle between the U.S. and Huawei, the world’s biggest maker of network infrastructure equipment, over network security.
 
The agreement endorses the principles developed by cybersecurity officials from dozens of countries at a summit in Prague earlier this year to counter threats and ensure the safety of next generation mobile networks.
 
 “Protecting these next generation communications networks from disruption or manipulation and ensuring the privacy and individual liberties of the citizens of the United States, Poland, and other countries is of vital importance,” the agreement says.
 
Pence said the agreement would “set a vital example for the rest of Europe.”
 
The U.S. has been lobbying allies to ban Huawei from 5G networks over concerns China’s government could force the company to give it access to data for cyberespionage. Huawei has denied the allegation.
 
The U.S. has called for an outright ban on Huawei, but European allies have balked.
 
A senior Trump administration official told reporters during a briefing ahead of the trip that the agreement would help ensure secure supply chains and networks and protect against unauthorized access or interference by telecommunications suppliers, some of which are controlled by “adversarial governments.”

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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said the United States will continue to support Ukraine in the country’s conflict with Russia and its right to full territorial integrity.

Washington “stands with the people of Ukraine and most especially since 2014, we have stood strongly for the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Pence said after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Warsaw on Sunday.

“And I can assure you that we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine on your security, on territorial integrity, including Ukraine’s rightful claim to Crimea,” Pence said.

The United States is an important ally for Kyiv, having imposed sanctions on Russia for annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backing pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine’s east.

Pence and Zelenskiy were in Warsaw for commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II.

U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton said on a recent visit to Kyiv that President Donald Trump could meet Zelenskiy in Warsaw this weekend.

However, Trump cancelled his plans to attend the event in Poland, citing Hurricane Dorian, which is set to make landfall in Florida this weekend.

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Hurricane Dorian, a dangerous Category 5 storm, made landfall in the northwestern Bahamas Sunday, slamming the island with 295 kilometer an hour winds.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Dorian is the strongest hurricane in modern history to hit the area and warned “catastrophic conditions” are occurring in the Abaco Islands.

The hurricane agency had said the storm’s advance is expected to slow over the next day or two, followed by a gradual turn to the northwest as it edges closer to southeastern U.S. state of Florida

Hurricane Dorian Lashes Northern Bahamas

US forecasters call storm’s 260-kilometer-an-hour winds ‘catastrophic’

“It’s going to stall out…and it hasn’t even touched Florida or the southeast (U.S.) coast,” Peter Gaynor, acting chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told Fox News Sunday. “You’ve got to take this storm seriously.”

He said emergency officials have been briefing President Donald Trump or his aides on an hourly basis on the storm’s advance. “He has his finger on the pulse,” Gaynor said.

Trump visited FEMA headquarters Sunday, where he urged everyone in “Hurricane Dorian’s path to heed all warnings and evacuation orders from local authorities.”

Dorian is expected to move near or over Grand Bahama Island on Sunday night and into Monday and “should move closer to the Florida east coast late Monday through Tuesday night.” The hurricane agency said the storm could dump as much as 76 centimeters of rain on the northwestern Bahamas, with life-threatening storm surges pushing tides as much as seven meters above normal.

The storm’s path toward the northwestern islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco puts 73,000 people and 21,000 homes at risk.

The hurricane agency, which has tracked the intensity of the storm with an Air Force Hurricane Hunter plane penetrating into the eye of the hurricane, said some fluctuations in the strength of the storm are expected, but that it will “remain a powerful hurricane during the next few days.”

Hurricane force winds are expected to extend outward up to 75 kilometers from Dorian’s center, with tropical-storm-force winds extending outward up to 220 kilometers.

But forecasters now say Florida could avoid a direct hit from Dorian, projecting its track could skirt much of the curving, southeastern U.S. coastline, possibly coming ashore further north in the states of Georgia, South Carolina or North Carolina.  

The storm’s high winds were felt in the northern Bahamas Saturday, forcing some evacuations and closing some hotels and airports, authorities said.

“Hurricane Dorian is a devastating, dangerous storm approaching our islands,” Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said in a nationally televised news conference.

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Marvelous Nyahuye contributed to this report from New York.

WASHINGTON –  Tererai Trent appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2009 and inspired the world with her story of overcoming enormous odds to pursue her dreams of education. This week, she finds herself immortalized alongside Winfrey with a bronze statue in New York City. She is the only African woman to have received this honor.

The Zimbabwean educator and humanitarian is one of 10 “Statues For Equality” created by sculptors Gillie and Marc Schattner. Trent’s statue depicts her with her arms aloft, surrounded by the flame lily, the country’s national flower.

“It comes without saying that, by projecting these women into larger-than-life-size sculptures, it will help change our society — a change that will elevate the lives of women all around the world. A change that can trigger gender equality in careers, industries and the home,” Gillie Schattner said at the ceremony.

“I come from a very poor place, and I grew up very poor. I had four babies before I was even 18 years of age, and to think that because of the power of believing in a dream and today I am being celebrated,” Trent said. “And to think I have a statue in New York, the most celebrated city in the world? It’s just unbelievable. Even my own grandmother and my mother never dreamt of that.”

Trent grew up in a village and was denied an education because she was a girl, like her mother and grandmother before her. She secretly learned to read by using her brother’s books but was married to an abusive husband when she was 11.

But Trent did not let her dreams die. She moved to the U.S. and pursued a graduate degree, ultimately earning a Ph.D., after 20 years of effort. She taught global health at Drexel University and currently runs the Tererai Trent International Foundation, which focuses on providing education to children in rural Zimbabwe. She is a sought-after public speaker and author.

“When one woman is silenced, there is a part within all of us women that get silenced,” Trent said. “But when women are awakened and recognized in public places, all of us, we get the true joy of knowing that we are all equal with men.”

Anesu Munengwa, the program manager of the Tererai Trent Foundation in Zimbabwe, said Trent isn’t distracted by fame. “She does whatever she does quietly … we have to remind people of the work she is doing and how it is impacting the community she comes from.”

Trent’s story has inspired people around the world. Winfrey announced she would donate $1.5 million to assist Trent in building schools. To date, they have built 12 schools in rural Zimbabwe and helped 38,000 children get an education. Some of them are now going to universities.

Beatrice Nyamweda, Trent’s friend of more than 35 years, traveled from Zimbabwe to attend the unveiling of the statue. She said Trent’s impact is felt back home in communities where there is an opportunity gap.

“There are 10 children who went to her school and started studying at the university currently. She has changed the lives of these children who are bright but lack resources. I am proud of her for that,” Nyamweda said, speaking in her native Shona.  

During the unveiling of the statue, Trent said her greatest joy is passing along opportunities she received to others. She said she made a conscious decision to end a cycle of poverty and oppression that had stifled the women in her family for generations.

“My grandmother used to say that when you think about your great grandmother when she was born she was born holding this baton. I’m calling it the baton of poverty, the baton of early marriage,” Trent said. “So as women and as individuals, we have the choice to say do I want to carry on and pass on this ugly baton or do I want to pose in my own life to reflect and say what baton do I want to pass on? I’m deciding to pass on the baton of education.”

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A list of some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in the last two years: 
 
— Aug. 31, 2019: Five people were killed in West Texas in shootings in the area of Midland and Odessa. 
 
— Aug. 4, 2019: A gunman wearing body armor shot and killed nine people at a popular nightlife area in Dayton, Ohio. Police were patrolling the area and killed the suspect.  
 
— Aug. 3, 2019: A gunman opened fire at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring more than two dozen. A suspect was taken into custody. 
 
— May 31, 2019: Longtime city worker DeWayne Craddock opened fire in a building that houses Virginia Beach government offices. He killed 12 people and wounded several others before police shot him. 
 
— Feb. 15, 2019: Gary Martin killed five co-workers at a manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, during a disciplinary meeting where he was fired. He wounded one other employee and five of the first police officers to arrive at the suburban Chicago plant before he was killed during a shootout with police. 
 
— Nov. 7, 2018: Ian David Long killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, California, before taking his own life. Long was a Marine combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan.  

— Oct. 27, 2018: Robert Bowers is accused of opening fire at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during Shabbat morning services, killing 11 and injuring others. It’s the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. 
 
— June 28, 2018: Jarrod Ramos shot through the windows of the Capital Gazette offices in Annapolis, Maryland, before turning the weapon on employees there, killing five at The Capital newspaper. Authorities say Ramos had sent threatening letters to the newspaper prior to the attack. 
 
— May 18, 2018: Dimitrios Pagourtzis began shooting during an art class at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. The 17-year-old killed eight students and two teachers and 13 others were wounded. Explosives were found at the school and off campus. 
 
— Feb. 14, 2018: Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The incident surpassed Columbine High School as the deadliest shooting at a high school in U.S. history. 
 
— Nov. 5, 2017: Devin Patrick Kelley, who had been discharged from the Air Force after a conviction for domestic violence, used an AR-style firearm to shoot up a congregation at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing more than two dozen. 
 
— Oct. 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock opened fire on an outdoor music festival on the Las Vegas Strip from the 32nd floor of a hotel-casino, killing 58 people and wounding more than 500. SWAT teams with explosives then stormed his room and found he had killed himself. 

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Read more at https://projects.voanews.com/election-2020/english/candidates/background.html

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s next round of tariffs on Chinese imports is scheduled to take effect Sunday, escalating the trade war between the world’s two largest economies with a big hit to consumer goods.

Trump has targeted about $300 billion in annual goods imports from China for 15% tariffs in two parts, on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. If fully imposed, virtually all Chinese imports, worth about $550 billion, would be subject to punitive U.S. tariffs imposed since July 2018. Here is a look at U.S. tariffs and expected Chinese retaliation scheduled over the next several months.

Sept. 1 tariffs

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency will begin collecting tariffs for Chinese goods at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) Sunday. Guidance issued Friday indicated there will not be a grace period for cargoes that left China before that time, unlike that granted for goods in transit when the United States imposed a tariff increase in May.

The Sept. 1 list covers about $125 billion worth of mostly consumer products, based on a Reuters analysis of 2018 U.S. Census Bureau data. The target list includes flat panel television sets, flash memory devices, power tools, cotton sweaters, bed linens, multifunction printers and many types of footwear.

The largest category of targeted products covers smart watches, smart speakers, Bluetooth headphones and other internet-connected devices that were spared from an earlier round of tariffs, with Chinese imports estimated at $17.9 billion annually by the Consumer Technology Association.

Oct. 1 tariff increase

The Trump administration is accepting public comments through Sept. 20 on a proposed Oct. 1 tariff rate increase to 30% from the 25% duty in place on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports.

These products include $50 billion worth of largely nonconsumer goods, including machinery, electronic components including semiconductors and printed circuit boards, and chemicals. But a later $200 billion list of goods included many consumer goods and building products, including furniture, vacuum cleaners, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, handbags, luggage and vinyl flooring.

Dec. 15 tariffs

The second part of the 15% tariffs on Chinese goods not previously hit by U.S. duties is scheduled to go into effect Dec. 15. This list represents the heart of the consumer technology sector, including $43 billion worth of cell phones imported from China in 2018, $37 billion worth of laptop and tablet computers and $12 billion worth of toys.

Trump delayed tariffs on these products, saying he wanted to avoid hurting Christmas season sales for Apple Inc. and other companies and retailers.

The list covers about $156 billion worth of total 2018 imports from China, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, and includes a wide range of consumer goods, including plastic tableware, socks, light-emitting diode lamps, Christmas decorations and clothing.

Chinese retaliation

After Trump in early August announced that he was moving ahead with tariffs on virtually all remaining Chinese imports, Beijing announced that it would impose additional 5% or 10% tariffs on a total of 5,078 product categories from the United States, representing worth about $75 billion annually.

The Chinese move, which also goes into effect in two steps on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, targets U.S. crude oil for the first time with a 5% tariff. U.S. soybeans, already subject to a 25% Chinese tariff, will be hit with an extra 5% tariff on Sept. 1, while beef and pork from the United States will get an extra 10% tariff.

Beijing also will reinstitute a 25% tariff on U.S.-made vehicles and a 5% tariff on auto parts that it had suspended in December at a time when U.S.-China trade negotiations were gaining momentum.

China already has tariffs in place on about $110 billion worth of U.S. products, ranging from 5% to 25%, including soybeans, beef, pork seafood, vegetables, liquefied natural gas, whiskey and ethanol. Based on 2018 imports, there is only about $10 billion worth of U.S. imports untouched, with the largest category consisting of large commercial aircraft built by Boeing Co.

US tariff exclusions

The Trump administration has excluded some Chinese-made household furniture including cribs and other baby safety products and bibles and other religious texts from the Sept. 1 and Dec. 15 rounds of tariffs.

Some of the products, including internet modems and routers, were removed because they had already been hit with 25% tariffs previously, while others were taken out for safety or religious reasons. Chinese-made rosaries and religious medals, however, will still be hit with 15% tariffs on Sept. 1.

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While most migrants who arrive at America’s southern border are from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the U.S. Border Patrol in Texas’ Del Rio Sector reports apprehending people from more than 50 countries in the last year. VOA’s Ramon Taylor and Victoria Macchi spoke with asylum-seeking families who have journeyed across the Atlantic and through the Americas en route to the US-Mexico border, desperate for a new beginning.
 

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In Russia, countrywide celebrations have been held to mark the 350th anniversary of the national flag. Yet, only 50 percent of respondents polled in a recent survey could correctly name the sequence of the colors on the flag. Russia recently saw a surge of patriotic celebrations orchestrated by local and federal authorities. Yulia Savchenko has more from Moscow on the state-promoted events.
 

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Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg took her Friday school strikes to the gates of the United Nations, surrounded by hundreds of other young activists, calling on adults to take action on climate change. Thunberg will speak at a climate change summit of world leaders next month at the U.N. General Assembly. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington.
 

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The Russian military says Syrian government forces will begin a unilateral cease-fire in the northwestern province of Idlib in the coming hours.

The Russian military reconciliation center says the cease-fire will go into effect Saturday morning at 6 a.m. (0300 GMT).
 
 Friday’s report comes as government forces have intensified their offensive over the past weeks capturing rebel-held areas in Hama province and nearby Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in the country.

 The Russian military called on the opposition to end “provocations” and engage in peaceful settlement.

Russia is a main backer of Syrian government forces.

The announcement came as hundreds of protesters in Idlib marched toward a border crossing with Turkey demanding that Ankara either open the border or demand an end to the government attack.

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Chinese authorities have declined to renew the press credentials of a Beijing-based Wall Street Journal reporter, effectively expelling a journalist who extensively covered President Xi Jinping and Communist Party politics.

The foreign ministry said Friday in response to a faxed question about Singaporean reporter Chun Han Wong’s visa that some foreign journalists with the “evil intention to smear and attack China” are “not welcome.”

The action comes one month after Wong co-wrote a story detailing an Australian investigation into alleged links between Xi’s cousin and money laundering and suspected organized crime.

A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the WSJ’s parent company, said in a statement that authorities declined to renew Wong’s press credentials. The spokesperson said the company is looking into the matter but did not elaborate.

Wong declined to comment.

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A 9-year-old Congolese girl who tested positive for Ebola in neighboring Uganda has died, officials said Friday, as the World Health Organization said that the outbreak has neared 3,000 cases.

The young girl’s body will be repatriated with her mother back to Congo for a funeral, according to Dr. Eddy Kasenda, Ebola representative in the Congolese border town of Kasindi.

“We are finalizing the administrative formalities so that the body is repatriated and buried here in Congo, her native country,” Kasenda said. “We are collaborating with the health services of neighboring Uganda and we will strengthen the sanitary measures here in Kasindi.”

A Ugandan official at the hospital where the girl had been in isolation confirmed her death overnight. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

The girl, who was traveling with her mother, was identified at a border screening Wednesday as a possible Ebola patient and isolated.

Porous borders
 
Although cases of cross-border contamination have been rare, this case highlights the risk of Ebola spreading across the border into neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. Borders in the region are often porous, and many people traveling at night use bush paths to cross over.  

In June, a family of Congolese with some sick family members crossed into Uganda via a bush path. Two of them later died of Ebola, and the others were transferred back to Congo.

Uganda has had multiple outbreaks of Ebola and hemorrhagic fevers since 2000.

Because the 9-year-old Ebola victim passed through an official entry point this week, Ugandan health authorities believe she had no contact with any Ugandan.

Ebola has killed nearly 2,000 people in eastern Congo since August 2018. The disease is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

WHO said Friday that cases have reached 3,000 in Congo, with 1,893 confirmed deaths and some 900 survivors. An average of 80 people per week are sickened by the virus, which has infected most people in Congo’s North Kivu province. 
 
The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo hasn’t shown signs of slowing down despite new treatments and vaccines given to more than 200,000 people in the region and the use of two therapeutic treatments being used as part of a clinical trial. 

Obstacles
 
Insecurity has been one factor in a region where rebel groups have fought for control of mineral-rich lands for decades. Ebola also has spread because of mistrust by communities who have also staged attacks against health workers. Many people in eastern Congo don’t trust doctors and other medics.

“Many people are afraid to seek treatment for illnesses, worried they will be sent to an Ebola Treatment Center where they fear they could contract the disease. As an actor within the response, we must assume our own responsibility,” said Bob Kitchen, Vice President of Emergencies at the International Rescue Committee. “One year into the response, the lack of community acceptance remains the single greatest obstacle to containing the outbreak. Building trust with the community doesn’t just mean dialogue with the affected population. It means working with the community to adapt the response and address the overall needs they are facing inside and outside of the Ebola outbreak.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will travel this weekend to Congo with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and senior officials, including Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.

On Friday, he called on partners to increase their presence in the field. 
 
“Our commitment to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is that we will work alongside them to stop the Ebola outbreak,” Ghebreyesus said. “Our commitment also means strengthening the health systems to give them all the other things they need. Building strong systems is what will protect people, communities and the world.”

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Outgoing prime minister Giuseppe Conte has accepted a fresh mandate from Italy’s head of state to form a new coalition government backed by the populist Five Star Movement and the center-left Democrats party. Markets reacted positively the end to the 3-week political crisis, which could have triggered a snap election. But many in Italy are wondering how long such an alliance will last.

Conte appears determined and convinced he will be capable of establishing a government backed by a new coalition made up of the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Left party. Although the two political groups have been past enemies, they have agreed to unite and work together.

The political crisis was caused by the League leader, Matteo Salvini, who announced three weeks ago he was no longer prepared to work with the Five Star Movement. 

The decision by the Left Democrats to work with the 5SM stems not only from the desire to enter parliament but also from wanting to avoid a snap general election, which at this time would likely be won by Salvini’s League party.

Coming out of his talks with the Italian president, Conte made clear the new government would not be one “against,” but “for the good of citizens.” 

He added that he would create a government that will represent a “novelty.”

Conte also said Italy is undergoing a very delicate phase and must emerge from this political crisis as quickly as possible.

He sais “we must get down to work immediately, to draw up a budget to avert the VAT hike that will protect savers and offer solid prospects for economic growth and social development.”

The prime minister already has began to hold meetings to reach an agreement on policies and about how to divide the ministerial positions between the two parties, which will make up the new coalition government.

Conte said he expects to go back to the Italian president with a full list in approximately a week. Once the new government is sworn in, it has 10 days to win a no-confidence vote in parliament.

The new alliance and Conte’s good intentions in the name of political stability seem to have averted snap elections, for the time being, and markets reacted positively to the news. But Italians in the streets and political observers see it as an unlikely alliance and fear it is unlikely to last.

For the time being, League leader Salvini’s plans for an early poll may have been thwarted and his move certainly backfired as he now will be relegated to the opposition. But it remains to be seen whether the move will, in fact, further increase his already soaring popularity.

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Nigerian trafficking survivors who escape a life as sex workers or slaves are not getting enough support from their government, Human Rights Watch says.

A 90-page report shows that women and girls are being held in slavery-like conditions inside Nigeria, and reveals accounts of unlawful detentions in shelters. However, officials from Nigeria’s anti-human trafficking agency condemn the report. 

Six years ago, a Nigerian woman named Adaura was lured to Libya to work as a domestic servant when she was 18 years old. Once there, she says she was forced into prostitution, then abducted by Islamic State terrorists and held captive for three years. 

“They took us to an underground prison,” Adaura said. 

With the help of Libyan soldiers and the International Organization for Migration, she escaped and returned to Nigeria. 

But in Nigeria, she faced another set of problems. 

Human Rights Watch says Adaura was detained by Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, or NAPTIP. The federal government agency is tasked with helping trafficked victims, but Adaura says she was not allowed to leave one of its shelters, and she struggled to fend off thoughts of killing herself.

Report’s findings

Like Adaura, thousands of Nigerian women and girls have been trafficked within Nigeria and to other countries in the past three decades.

Nigeria is routinely listed as one of the countries with large numbers of trafficking victims overseas, particularly in Europe, with victims identified in more than 34 countries in 2018, according to the U.S. State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Adaura is one of the 76 trafficking survivors in Nigeria whom Human Rights Watch interviewed in a report released this week, called “‘You Pray for Death’: Trafficking of Women and Girls in Nigeria.” 

Girls as young as 8 years old are included. The report accuses Nigerian authorities of not doing enough to take care of repatriated women and girls, and claims they are kept in slavery-like conditions after they’ve escaped exploitation as sex workers or slaves. 

Human Rights Watch says the survivors struggle with issues like anxiety and depression, insomnia and flashbacks. 

Agnes Odhiambo, a senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, spoke at a press conference this week in Abuja.

“The national anti-trafficking agency is locking, detaining many of these survivors in its shelters,” she said, adding that the detained women were not allowed to communicate with their families for months on end.

Survivors’ interviews

A 24-year-old woman named Gladness, who is featured in the report, said she was kept in a NAPTIP shelter for about three weeks.

Gladness was quoted as saying she was not told when she would be going home.

Another woman, 18-year-old Ebunoluwa, said there were too many rules at the NAPTIP shelter and that her phone was confiscated.

“We are forced to wake up with a bell to pray. I have not been told when I will go home,” she said in the report.

Abdulganiyu Abubakar, director of the Save the Child Initiative in Nigeria, says NAPTIP should make sure that the shelters are comfortable and that people are not being held against their will. 

NAPTIP response

The director general of NAPTIP, Julie Okah-Donli, denied the accusations when speaking to journalists this week. 

“The entire report is a mere figment of the imagination of the writers, as the narratives fall below the standards of the operations of our shelters,” she said.

The shelters are supposed to be temporary spaces to help trafficking survivors with their basic and immediate needs like medical care, skills acquisition and financial assistance, all part of the NAPTIP’s victims’ support assistance program.

However, Human Rights Watch says NAPTIP relies too heavily on the shelters which, with their high walls and manned gates, trigger painful memories for some trafficking survivors. 

Today, Adaura is learning how to be a hairdresser, with NAPTIP paying for her training. The agency also helped her go to a hospital, where she was diagnosed with an ulcer. 

NAPTIP was set up in 2003 to address the scourge of human trafficking and help repatriated victims settle back in Nigeria.

Human Rights Watch is calling on Nigerian authorities to do more, like make it easier for survivors of trafficking to access community leaders, social workers, educators, health workers and religious leaders. It also encourages community-based rehabilitation and reintegration programs, as opposed to sub-standard shelters. 

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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro says his representatives could return to negotiations with the opposition in talks he abruptly halted earlier this month.

Maduro said in an interview released Thursday that “good news” could come in the next few days about settlement talks hosted by Norway. He’s under pressure to leave power from opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has backing from the United States and more than 50 other nations.

“Contacts with Venezuelan opposition delegates have resumed,” Maduro said in an interview with the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency. “The next few days will bring good news about the dialogue.”

Maduro ended the talks this month when the Trump administration hit his government with a new round of punishing economic sanctions. The measures froze all Venezuela’s U.S. assets and blocks companies and individuals from doing business with Maduro’s government.

The socialist Maduro said in the interview that his representatives are in contact with the opposition as well as Norwegian officials who have overseen the talks held on the Caribbean island of Barbados.

Maduro, who often calls Guaidó a puppet of the U.S. capitalist empire, remains in power with backing from the Venezuelan military and international allies including Cuba, Russia, China and Turkey.

Venezuela’s opposition hasn’t commented, but Guaidó has said that he expected Maduro’s representatives to return to the talks because they have no other options.

The possibility of resumed dialogue comes amid a historic economic and political crisis in Venezuela that has driven more than 4 million people to flee the country in recent years.

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CNN has apologized for a misleading headline that appeared on its website during its coverage Sunday of the Hong Kong riots.

At one point, a headline reading “Police Use Petrol Bombs and Water Cannons Against Hong Kong Protesters” flashed on the screen.

According to Hong Kong police, officers shot water cannons at barricades, not people, and it was the demonstrators who threw the gasoline bombs.

CNN’s Hong Kong bureau chief Roger Clark admitted in a letter to police that the headline was “erroneous.”

Clark said CNN is “working hard to ensure that reporting of the Hong Kong protests is fair and balanced at all times.”

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