Scary folk tales and urban legends have always captivated people’s imaginations, especially those of the young. Now, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” a collection of short stories for children by author Alvin Schwartz and illustrator Stephen Gammell has been adapted by Oscar-winning producer Guillermo Del Toro and director André Øvredal. During its opening weekend, the movie grossed more than $20 million, proving again that teen horror flicks are a lucrative genre. Penelope Poulou has more.
Women were an integral part of protests that led to the ouster of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and in demonstrations after his downfall. But many leaders now say they feel they have been locked out of political agreements and do not expect to be named to any positions in the regional council. In Khartoum, Esha Sarai and Naba Mohiedeen speak with female politicians and feminists who are pushing for more representation.
America’s top representative in Taiwan said Thursday that Washington expects the island to continue increasing its defense spending as Chinese security threats to the U.S. ally continue to grow.
W. Brent Christensen said the U.S. had “not only observed Taiwan’s enthusiasm to pursue necessary platforms to ensure its self-defense, but also its evolving tenacity to develop its own indigenous defense industry.”
That was a nod to President Tsai Ing-wen’s drive to develop domestic training jets, submarines and other weapons technology, supplementing arms bought from the U.S.
“These investments by Taiwan are commendable, as is Taiwan’s ongoing commitment to increase the defense budget annually to ensure that Taiwan’s spending is sufficient to provide for its own self-defense needs,” Christensen said in a speech. “And we anticipate that these figures will continue to grow commensurate with the threats Taiwan faces.”
Christensen is the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, which has served as the de facto U.S. Embassy in Taiwan since formal diplomatic relations were cut in 1979.
While China and Taiwan split during a civil war in 1949, Beijing still considers Taiwan Chinese territory and has increased its threats to annex the self-governing democracy by force if necessary.
Despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, U.S. law requires Washington to ensure Taiwan has the means to defend itself.
Since 2008, U.S. administrations have notified Congress of more than $24 billion in foreign military sales to Taiwan, including in the past two months the sale of 108 M1A2 Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles, valued at $2.2 billion dollars, Christensen said.
The Trump administration alone has notified Congress of $4.4 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, he said.
China has responded furiously to all such sales and recently announced it would impose sanctions on any U.S. enterprises involved in such deals, saying they undermine China’s sovereignty and national security.
Tsai has adamantly rejected Chinese pressure to reunite Taiwan and China under the “one-country, two-systems” framework that governs Hong Kong. She and many Taiwanese have said that the people of the island stand with the young people of Hong Kong who are fighting for democratic freedoms in ongoing protests.
Tsai, who says she will seek a second four-year term next year, has said Taiwan was also stepping-up training as it prepared to transition to an all-volunteer force and has raised the defense budget for three consecutive years.
China’s spending on the People’s Liberation Army rose to 1.2 trillion yuan ($178 billion) this year, making it the second-largest defense budget behind the United States.
Beijing has cut contacts with Tsai’s government over Tsai’s refusal to endorse its claim that Taiwan is a part of China and sought to increase its international isolation by reducing its number of diplomatic allies to just 17.
It has also stepped up efforts at military intimidation, holding military exercises across the Taiwan Strait and circling the island with bombers and fighters in what are officially termed training missions.
VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren interviews US National Security Advisor John Bolton.
French President Emmanuel Macron is celebrating U.S. and African veterans as well as French resistance fighters who took part in crucial but often-overlooked World War II landings on the Riviera.
At a ceremony Thursday in the southern town of Saint-Raphael marking 75 years since the operation to wrest southern France from Nazi control, Macron said, “your commitment is our heritage against darkness and ignorance.”
He urged French mayors to name streets after African soldiers from then-French colonies brought in to fight. Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara and Guinea President Alpha Conde also took part in the ceremony.
Starting Aug. 15, 1944, some 350,000 U.S. and French troops landed on the Mediterranean coast for Operation Dragoon, which was intended to coincide with the D-Day invasion in Normandy in June but was delayed due to a lack of resources.
Jim Warlick is the master of presidential memorabilia, trinkets and novelties. Owner of the souvenir store White House Gifts in Washington, D.C. Warlick’s company describes its mission as offering a “nonpartisan tribute to Presidential history.”
Facebook has paid contractors to transcribe audio clips from users of its Messenger service, raising privacy concerns for a company with a history of privacy lapses.
The practice was, until recently, common in the tech industry. Companies say the practice helps improve their services. But users aren’t typically aware that humans and not just computers are reviewing audio.
Transcriptions done by humans raise bigger concerns because of the potential of rogue employees or contractors leaking details. The practice at Google emerged after some of its Dutch language audio snippets were leaked. More than 1,000 recordings were obtained by Belgian broadcaster VRT NWS, which noted that some contained sensitive personal conversations — as well as information that identified the person speaking.
People react differently when they know other humans have heard them rather than machines because it’s a different type of connection, said Jamie Winterton, director of strategy at Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative.
“We feel we have some control over machines,” she said. “You have no control over humans that way. There’s no way once a human knows something to drag that piece of data to the recycling bin.”
Facebook said audio snippets reviewed by contractors were masked so as not to reveal anyone’s identity. It said it stopped the practice a week ago. The development was reported earlier by Bloomberg.
Google said it suspended doing this worldwide while it investigates the Dutch leaks. Amazon said it still uses humans, but users can decline, or opt out, of the human transcriptions. Published reports say Apple also has used humans, but has stopped.
A report last week said Microsoft also uses human transcribers with some Skype conversations and commands spoken to Microsoft’s digital assistant, Cortana. Microsoft told tech news site Motherboard that it has safeguards such as stripping identifying data and requiring non-disclosure agreements with contractors and their employees. Yet details leaked to Motherboard.
It makes sense to use human transcribers to train artificial intelligence systems, Winterton said. But the issue is that companies are leading people to believe that only machines are listening to audio, causing miscommunication and distrust, she said.
“Communicating to users through your privacy policy is legal but not ethical,” she said.
The companies’ privacy policies — usually long, dense documents — often permit the use of customer data to improve products and services, but the language can be opaque.
“We collect the content, communications and other information you provide when you use our Products, including when you sign up for an account, create or share content, and message or communicate with others,” Facebook’s data-use policy reads. It does not mention audio or voice specifically or using transcribers.
Irish data-protection regulators say they’re seeking more details from Facebook to assess compliance with European data regulations. The agency’s statement says it’s also had “ongoing engagement with Google, Apple and Microsoft” over the issue, though Amazon wasn’t mentioned.
Facebook is already under scrutiny for a variety of other ways it has misused user data. It agreed to a $5 billion fine to settle a U.S. Federal Trade Commission probe of its privacy practices.
Puerto Rico’s new governor finally appeared to be overcoming some of the challenges to her authority on Wednesday following weeks of political turmoil on the U.S. territory, with key members of the majority New Progressive Party expressing support.
That may allow Gov. Wanda Vazquez, who has never held elected office, to turn her attention to the territory’s lagging efforts to recover from 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria as well as grinding economic slump and debt crisis that has led to demands for austerity from a federal board overseeing its finances.
Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz, who had been seen as her chief challenger, issued a statement on Facebook Wednesday backing her and saying he’d only been looking for a replacement because he thought Wanda Vazquez didn’t want the governor’s job — though his efforts had continued well after she said she did.
“It’s up to all of us to work for Puerto Rico,” he said. “The governor will have our collaboration, and I have expressed that personally.”
Rivera Schatz had suggested the post go to the island’s congressional representative, Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez. But Gonzalez too issued a statement of support for Vazquez on Tuesday.
Under the territory’s constitution, the governorship fell to Justice Secretary Vazquez on Aug. 7 because Gov. Ricardo Rossello resigned after intensive public protests and his attempt to name a last-minute successor were knocked down by the territory’s Supreme Court.
The topsy-turvy events at least briefly divided the party, with several legislators saying last week they wanted Gonzalez to become governor.
Members of her party from across the island have since been falling in line to declare support and Vazquez so far has been spared the massive protests that drove Rossello from power due to outrage over government corruption, economic malaise and the leak of embarrassing conversations involving the governor and top aides.
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross warned Tuesday that 70 years after countries adopted the Geneva Conventions to limit the barbarity of war, the terrible suffering in conflicts today shows they are not being respected.
Peter Maurer told a U.N. Security Council meeting marking the anniversary that continued violations of the rules in the conventions doesn’t mean they are inadequate, “but rather that efforts to ensure respect are inadequate.”
“We can — and must — do more. You can do more,” he told the 15 council members.
The four Geneva Conventions were adopted on Aug. 11, 1949, and have been universally ratified by the world’s countries.
The first three were revised from earlier treaties to update rules on protecting the wounded and sick in the armed forces on land and sea and prisoners of war. The fourth was the first-ever treaty specifically dedicated to protecting civilians in times of war. A new provision is now included in all four conventions to provide protections in conflicts that aren’t between countries, such as civil wars and those involving armed groups not affiliated with governments.
Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, told the council the Geneva Conventions are “the cornerstone of international humanitarian law, and their spirit is upheld by the brave men and women in humanitarian operations worldwide who dedicate their lives to saving the lives of others.”
But Maas said respect for humanitarian law “is declining” and the complexity of modern warfare is adding deadly challenges. He pointed to extremist groups, conflicts without borders, and daily attacks on civilians, medical facilities and schools.
“We are failing the most vulnerable,” Maas said. “We are not living up to our legal and ethical obligations. … It is a threat to peace and security when thousands of people die, when tens of thousands fear for their lives.”
Polish Foreign Minster Jacek Czaputowicz, who presided as this month’s council president, said the greatest challenge to protecting lives in modern conflict is ensuring that armed forces and armed groups respect the rules of warfare.
“These violations of humanitarian law occur for a number of circumstances: brutal conduct of warfare, willingness to intimidate opponents, feeling of impunity of perpetrators,” Czaputowicz said. “If existing rules were followed, much of the human suffering in contemporary armed conflicts would not occur.”
Maurer said the challenge is to ensure not only that the conventions are part of military doctrine and rules but that they become an ethical standard of behavior and “that fighters facing a choice to act in violation of the law know and say, ‘This is wrong; this is not who I am.'”
The United Nations refugee agency urgently appealed to European governments Tuesday to let two migrant rescue ships disembark more than 500 passengers who remain stranded at sea as countries bicker over who should take responsibility for them.
The people rescued while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa are on ships chartered by humanitarian aid groups that the Italian government has banned from its territory. The archipelago nation of Malta also has refused to let the ships into that country’s ports.
It’s unclear where they might find safe harbor, even though the Italian island of Lampedusa appears closest. About 150 of the rescued passengers have been on the Spanish-flagged charity ship the Open Arms since they were plucked from the Mediterranean 13 days ago.
“This is a race against time,” Vincent Cochetel, the International Red Cross special envoy for the central Mediterranean, said in a statement. “Storms are coming, and conditions are only going to get worse.”
While the number of migrants reaching Europe by sea has dropped substantially so far this year, the Red Cross says nearly 600 people have died or gone missing in waters between Libya, Italy and Malta in 2019.
The agency said many of the people on the ships “are reportedly survivors of appalling abuses in Libya.” Cochetel said the ships “must be immediately allowed to dock” and their passengers “allowed to receive much-needed humanitarian aid.”
“To leave people who have fled war and violence in Libya on the high seas in this weather would be to inflict suffering upon suffering,” the envoy said.
The captain of the Open Arms, Marc Reig, sent a letter Monday to the Spanish Embassy in Malta asking Madrid to grant asylum to 31 minors on his ship. A senior Spanish official said Tuesday that Reig’s request carries no legal weight because the captain doesn’t have authority to seek protection for the minors.
Two charity groups that are operating the Ocean Viking rescue ship — Doctors Without Borders and sea rescue group SOS Mediterranee — also formally asked Italy and Malta to allow the 356 migrants aboard that vessel to be allowed to disembark.
The limbo of the Open Arms and Norwegian-flagged Ocean Viking is the latest in a string of standoffs that kept Europe-bound migrants at sea in miserable conditions.
Southern nations that have been the main arrival points since 2015 — notably Italy, but also Malta and Greece — have complained of feeling abandoned by their European Union partners to cope with the influx.
Italy’s hard-line interior minister, Matteo Salvini, reiterated Tuesday his intent to ensure that the ships don’t enter Italian ports.
Differences among EU member nations over how to manage mass migration have sparked a political crisis in Europe, while attempts to reform the bloc’s asylum system have failed. The issue has been a vote-winner for far-right and populist parties.
The EU’s executive commission said it has urged member countries to take action to resolve the status of the recently rescued passengers and stands ready to offer national governments support but cannot act alone.
“There’s nothing more we can do,” a European Commission spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Opera said on Tuesday it will investigate accusations of sexual misconduct against Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, who described the claims as inaccurate.
The Los Angeles Opera, where Domingo is general director, was responding to accusations made by eight singers, a dancer and others in the classical music world in a report by the Associated Press.
The news agency reported allegations by the women of inappropriate behavior. The Associated Press said it also had spoken to almost three dozen other musicians, voice teachers and backstage staff who said they had witnessed what the report described as “sexually tinged” behavior by Domingo dating back three decades in various cities.
“LA Opera will engage outside counsel to investigate the concerning allegations about Placido Domingo,” the opera house said in a statement. The LA Opera is “committed to doing everything we can to foster a professional and collaborative environment where all our employees and artists feel equally comfortable, valued and respected.”
Domingo, in a statement distributed by his publicist Nancy Seltzer, called the accusations “deeply troubling, and as presented, inaccurate.”
“Still, it is painful to hear that I may have upset anyone or made them feel uncomfortable — no matter how long ago and despite my best intentions,” Domingo’s statement said. “I believed that all of my interactions and relationships were always welcomed and consensual.”
Future performances
The Philadelphia Orchestra Association said on Tuesday it had withdrawn an invitation to Domingo to appear as part of its opening night on Sept. 18.
The Metropolitan Opera in New York, where Domingo is due to perform in “Macbeth” next month and “Madama Butterfly” in November, said in a statement that it took accusations of sexual harassment and abuse of power seriously but would await the results of the LA Opera investigation “before making any final decisions about Mr Domingo’s future at the Met.”
Domingo, 78, is one of the most famous opera singers and directors in the world and the LA Opera described him on Tuesday as a “dynamic force” there for more than 30 years. He was one of the “Three Tenors,” along with Jose Carreras and the late Luciano Pavarotti, who brought opera to a wider audience with concerts around the world in the 1990s.
Changing standards
In the statement released by his publicist, Domingo added that while he would not intentionally harm, offend or embarrass anyone, “I recognize that the rules and standards by which we are — and should be — measured against today are very different than they were in the past.”
Hundreds of women have publicly accused powerful men in business, politics, the news media, sports and entertainment of sexual harassment and abuse since October 2017, fueled by the #MeToo social movement.
Rarely has a candidate gone far in a US presidential race highlighting a singular issue, but Democrat Jay Inslee is aiming to buck that trend with his commitment to tackling climate change.
Unless he does something to dramatically change his trajectory — he has less than one percent support in polls — Inslee, currently the governor of Washington state, likely will be an also-ran in the crowded race to decide who challenges President Donald Trump in 2020.
But what he has already achieved makes his candidacy worthy: launching a Democratic policy debate on climate change and how to prevent environmental disaster over the coming decades.
Since entering the race in March, Inslee has repeatedly hit the panic button on climate, demanding the United States reverse course and take global warming and environmental protections far more seriously.
For Inslee and several other Democratic candidates, the science is clear: dramatic action over the next decade is needed to reduce carbon pollution, or irreparable harm will result.
“Unless we defeat the climate crisis, everything else we’ve worked on will be moot,” the square-jawed Inslee, 68, told voters at the Iowa State Fair.
Inslee is quick to highlight his economic accomplishments as governor. He has also savaged Trump as a “white supremacist” who is dividing Americans and is hurting farmers with his trade war with China.
But “climate change is the big banana, and we’ve got to make sure we take care of it,” he told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of a recent Iowa Democratic dinner featuring 20 of the party’s presidential hopefuls.
Trump, Inslee has stressed, has denied the climate crisis, ending important Obama-era regulations and pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord.
And on Monday, Trump rolled back key provisions of the Endangered Species Act, the popular law that helped save the bald eagle and grizzly bear.
“I’ll stand up against him on his weakest point, which is his environmental degradation,” Inslee said.
US voters have rarely considered climate change a top-priority presidential election issue, but that is changing. An April CNN poll labeled it as the single most important issue to Democratic primary voters, topping health care.
As a candidate, Inslee has introduced a sweeping and sophisticated climate mission, which popular liberal congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised as the “gold standard.”
It calls for zero carbon emissions across the economy within the next quarter century, including 100 percent carbon-neutral electricity and zero-emission new cars and buses by 2030.
The plan would require a staggering $9 trillion in investment and create eight million jobs. It would also likely encounter fierce resistance from the fossil fuel industry, and from many Republicans in Congress who oppose such drastic steps.
Clean energy economy
Inslee, who himself drives an electric car and wants to end the use of coal, has hammered away on the issue — most of his speaking time at the Democratic debates has addressed climate change.
And that likely has inspired leading Democratic candidates to release their own ambitious climate plans.
Inslee insists he is a multi-faceted candidate who can beat Trump “like a $2 mule” in the election.
He stood up to the president when he instituted a ban on arrivals from Muslim-majority countries, and blasted the administration’s family separations at the US-Mexico border as “the darkest moment” of Trump’s presidency.
He points to securing the largest teacher pay raise in the nation, expanding paid family leave and instituting what he says is the first public health option in the United States.
“If you do things to bring diversity to your community, to bring people together instead of intolerance, if you build a middle class instead of trickle down, just giving everything to the top one percent, if you take care of clean air and clean water, you have the biggest economic growth in America,” Inslee added.
“That’s what we’ve done in the state of Washington.”
And he explained climate change is not a singular issue, but one that affects health, national security, and the economy.
“We know the biggest job creator right now is in clean energy,” he said.
Guatemala’s incoming president Alejandro Giammattei has vowed to seek better terms for his country from an unpopular migration deal agreed with Washington last month, but any room for maneuver is seen as likely to be hampered by weakness in the national Congress.
Preliminary results from Sunday’s election gave Giammattei, a conservative, a runoff victory with 58% of the vote, well ahead of his center-left opponent, former first lady Sandra Torres, on 42%.
Still, his Vamos Party won just 8% of the vote in June’s congressional election, giving it around a tenth of the seats in a legislature bristling with nearly 20 parties. The biggest bloc of seats will be controlled by his rival Torres.
Speaking a few hours before he was declared the winner, the 63-year-old Giammattei said he wanted to see what could be done to improve the accord that outgoing President Jimmy Morales made under pressure from his American counterpart Donald Trump that seeks to stem U.S.-bound migration from Central America.
Giammattei will not take office until January, by which time Guatemala may be under severe pressure from the deal, which effectively turns the country into a buffer zone by forcing migrants to apply for asylum there rather than in the United States.
“I hope that during this transition the doors will open to get more information so we can see what, from a diplomatic point of view, we can do to remove from this deal the things that are not right for us, or how we can come to an agreement with the United States,” Giammattei told Reuters in an interview.
Threatened with economic sanctions if he said no, Morales agreed in late July to make Guatemala a so-called safe third country for migrants, despite endemic poverty and violence that have led to a constant flow of people northward.
“It’s not right for the country,” Giammattei said of the deal. “If we don’t have the capacity to look after our own people, imagine what it will be like for foreigners.”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Giammattei on Monday, saying in a statement the United States looked forward to working with Guatemala on “the underlying conditions driving irregular migration,” without giving more details.
Asked about Giammattei’s comments, U.S. border patrol chief Carla Provost said in an interview with Fox News: “It certainly is a concern. We need both Mexico and Guatemala to continue doing what they’re doing,” referring to Mexico’s campaign to block migrants from crossing its border with the United States.
Concerns Growing
The safe third country agreement is deeply unpopular in Guatemala.
A poll published this month by Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre showed more than eight out of 10 rejected the idea of the country accepting foreign migrants seeking asylum.
It is unclear how much Giammattei will be able to do to change the deal, which would require Hondurans and Salvadorans to apply for asylum in Guatemala rather than the United States.
It also foresees granting U.S. visas to some Guatemalan workers.
The veteran bureaucrat has promised to erect an “investment wall” on the border with Mexico to curb migration. He has also proposed bringing back the death penalty.
Giammattei, who took Monday off after his landslide victory, inherits a country also struggling with a 60% poverty rate and one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere.
Adding to his challenges, Fitch Ratings said the divided political landscape will make it harder for the president to reverse declining tax collection that the agency cited in April when it revised Guatemala’s sovereign outlook to negative.
“The incoming administration will have limited support in an atomized Congress, raising the risks for continued political gridlock,” Fitch Director Carlos Morales said in a statement.
Weak governance and economic development are ongoing risks to the country’s rating, Fitch said.
Many Guatemalans are fed up with the political class after investigations by the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a U.N. anti-corruption body, led to the arrest of then-President Otto Perez in 2015, and then threatened to unseat his successor Morales, a former television comedian.
Morales terminated the CICIG’s mandate from next month, and Giammattei’s failure to reverse that decision has stirred concerns about his commitment to fight corruption.
Adriana Beltran, director of citizen security at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a think tank, said the CICIG might just have a future “if Guatemalans take to the streets and there is enough pressure from within.”
But the Trump administration was unlikely to do much to complement such efforts, Beltran added.
“Their focus is how to pressure Giammattei to agree to the third country agreement,” she said. “Anti-corruption is not a priority for this (U.S.) administration.”
Australia on Tuesday announced a Aus$500 million ($340 million) climate change package for Pacific island countries, which have been increasingly vocal in demanding their powerful neighbor curb its carbon emissions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the funding, drawn from Australia’s existing international aid budget, would help Pacific island nations invest in renewable energy and climate change resilience.
The climate-sceptic leader made the announcement before traveling to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu, where island nations threatened by rising seas have vowed to put global warming at the top of the agenda.
Smaller members of the 18-nation grouping have been sharply critical of Australia’s climate policies ahead of this year’s summit amid a diplomatic push from Canberra to counter China’s growing power in the region.
High-level representatives from the likes of Tuvalu, Palau and Vanuatu have criticized Australia for not doing enough, with Fiji’s Frank Bainimarama saying Canberra’s reliance on coal poses an “existential threat” to low-lying islands.
There has also been disquiet in the Pacific that Australia recently approved the giant Adani coal mine in Queensland state.
Morrison has staunchly defended Australia’s climate record, insisting the country will meet its 2030 emissions reduction target set under the Paris Agreement.
“The $500 million we’re investing for the Pacific’s renewable energy and its climate change and disaster resilience builds on the $300 million for 2016-2020,” he said in a statement.
“This highlights our commitment to not just meeting our emissions reduction obligations at home but supporting our neighbors and friends.”
Greenpeace said the package was nothing more than a diversion of funds from Australia’s Pacific aid program and “a slap in the face to regional leaders”.
“This $Aus500 million accounting trick will do nothing to address the cause of the climate crisis that threatens the viability of the entire Pacific,” Greenpeace’s Pacific head Joseph Moeono-Kolio said in a statement.
The tussle over climate action comes as Australia attempts to reassert its influence in the Pacific through its “step-up” strategy, which some regional leaders have warned is likely to fail without meaningful climate action.
The PIF summit officially opens late Tuesday and continues until Thursday.
A Vietnamese military official advocates developing a more modern, better skilled navy that can hold off complex threats, mainly what experts believe to be increasing pressure from China.
A rear admiral and political commissar in Hanoi told the official Viet Nam News August 6 that the navy could not be “taken by surprise at any development.
“In this complicated situation that poses many threats to the country’s defense and security, given the Navy’s role as the key defender of the country’s sovereignty, the Viet Nam People’s Navy must do more to build a strong, developed, skilled and modern naval force that can fulfill all assigned missions,” said the commissar, Phạm Văn Vững.
The commissar’s words follow the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel in March — Vietnam says at the hands of China.
More recently, Chinese coast guard boats have approached a Vietnamese undersea energy exploration site near Vanguard Bank in the South China Sea. China and Vietnam vie for sovereignty over tracts of the sea where these two incidents have occurred. These two upsets are just the latest between the territorial rivals dating back centuries.
Naval improvements would help Vietnam deter China, analysts believe, though Vietnamese naval firepower is unlikely to come near equaling that of China.
“I think all they can think of doing is being a bit of a deterrent,” said Murray Hiebert, deputy director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Neither Vietnam nor China wants somebody to fire the first shot. That would be pretty serious. So, Vietnam sends in vessels to sort of block China.”
Navy, present and future
Today’s Vietnamese navy has 65 vessels including six submarines and six frigates, according to research database GlobalFirePower.com. It needs a “mastery of modern weapons” and “careful planning” of logistics issues, the commissar said earlier this month via Viet Nam News.
China today has one of the world’s most powerful navies at 714 vessels including 76 submarines, 33 destroyer and an aircraft carrier, GlobalFirePower.com says.
China claims about 90 percent of the disputed sea, overlapping Vietnam’s smaller claim as well as tracts that four other governments call their own. The other claimants are Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Chinese maritime activity alarms particularly Vietnam because China controls the full Paracel archipelago, a South China Sea tract vehemently claimed by Hanoi. Much of Vietnam’s population resents China over the maritime dispute.
“Vietnam realized that they had to modernize their navy to cope with the harassment from the Chinese coast guard,” said Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Foreign help
The Vietnamese navy should work with foreign governments, the commissar was quoted saying. It “must effectively coordinate with other military forces and civilian forces to build a whole-nation defense and people-based defense, while at the same time, maintaining diplomatic efforts, especially in terms of exchanges with naval forces from other countries,” he said.
The Southeast Asian country acquired six U.S. patrol boats this year. It normally taps Russia for weaponry, such as missile stealth frigates, Hiebert said.
Washington may eventually push to send its aircraft carriers to Vietnam once a year, Thayer said. The U.S. government has been massing allies in Asia over the past two years to help contain China’s maritime expansion.
More spats ahead?
China and Vietnam are used to conflicts over maritime sovereignty, and new ones come up despite diplomatic moves to solve previous ones.
They had already gotten into “confrontations” over fuel exploration near Vanguard Bank in the 1990s, said Carl Thayer, Southeast Asia-specialized emeritus professor with the University of New South Wales.
Vietnam backed away from the site last year but never agreed to stay away in the long term, Thayer said. This time, he said, Chinese vessels reached Vietnam’s continental shelf.
“So, now we have the arrival of this Chinese ship this year, and it’s operating on the Vietnamese side of the exclusive economic zone,” Thayer said.
The lawyer of the man suspected of opening fire in a mosque in Norway says his client is not cooperating with investigators.
“He is exercising his right not to be interrogated,” the lawyer said Monday. “He is not admitting any guilt.”
The suspected gunman, 21-year-old Philip Manshaus, appeared in court Monday to face charges of attempted murder and murder in connection with last Saturday’s attack outside of the capital, Oslo.
His face and neck were covered with bruises and he had two black eyes.
No one was killed at the mosque, but hours later police found the body of the gunman’s stepsister at another location.
In addition, the mosque shooting is being treated as an attempted terror attack. Rune Skjold, Oslo deputy police inspector, said Sunday, police have discovered evidence of the gunman’s “right-wing extremist views” and alleged hostility against immigrants.
There were only three people at the al-Noor Islamic Center when Manshaus entered the place of worship Saturday.
He began shooting at two men, but another man, a 65-year-old retired Pakistani Air Force officer, was able to tackle the gunman.
Mohammad Rafiq, the retired military officer, told Reuters in a video interview, that when he tackled the gunman “the pistol and the gun fell away.”
Rafiq suffered minor injuries.
Irfan Mushtaq, the head of the mosque, entered the scene shortly after the shooting. He told AFP that he saw “one of our members is sitting on the perpetrator. . . ”
Skjold said the people in the mosque showed “great courage.”
“There is no doubt that the swift and firm response from the persons inside the mosque stopped the aggressor and prevented further consequences,” Skjold said. “Trying to neutralize an armed person is always dangerous.”
Rafiq’s age had mistakenly been reported earlier as 75.
A Belgian company has become the first to announce it is cutting ties with Myanmar’s military after a United Nations fact-finding mission called on businesses to sever all financial links to the country’s generals.
Satellite communications firm Newtec said in a statement it would “follow the recommendations by the UN and stop commercial ties with Mytel,” a local mobile phone operator partially owned by the military.
The call from a panel of three UN experts came a year after they first said Myanmar’s top generals should be prosecuted for genocide for their role in a 2017 crackdown believed to have killed thousands of Rohingya Muslims.
“We will never knowingly sell to any organization or company linked to the Tatmadaw’s campaign of violence… and the atrocities committed against the Rohingya,” Newtec said, using the local name for Myanmar’s military.
A company that handles public relations for Mytel did not respond to a request for comment.
Mixed Reactions
Christopher Sidoti, a human rights lawyer and member of the UN panel, praised Newtec for following the recommendations.
“It’s a very welcome decision. We’re pleased to see such prompt action on their part and certainly hope that it’s the first among many,” he told VOA.
But Mark Farmaner, a human rights campaigner who named Newtec on a “dirty list” of firms doing business with Myanmar’s military early this year, said Newtec should have acted sooner.
“Newtec have known for nine months that they were working for the Burmese military, and didn’t care,” he told VOA, using an alternative word for Myanmar.
“They are only ending their involvement now because of negative publicity after the fact-finding mission report, not because it is morally the right thing to do.”
Threat of Legal Action
In a letter sent last November, the company’s CEO, Thomas Van den Driessche, threatened to sue Farmaner’s pressure group, Burma Campaign UK, if it publicized Newtec’s relationship with the military.
“If you would decide on including Newtec on your ‘Dirty List’, we reserve all rights and will hold you liable for any damages that Newtec might suffer from such actions,” he wrote.
He also incorrectly stated that Mytel was “28% owned by the government” and “in no way involved” with the military. “Your allegations are therefore slanderous,” he added.
In fact the 28% share is held by a military-owned company named Star High.
In response Farmaner wrote: “You seem a little uninformed about the situation in Burma and your own client in the country.”
He added: “You may think that as a large company you can bully a small campaign group with legal threats but we will not be intimidated.”
Newtec did not respond to a request for comment about its threat of legal action.
Companies Reviewing Military Ties
Sidoti said Newtec’s decision was “one of several pieces of good news” the UN mission had received since publishing a report last week detailing the generals’ business interests and naming dozens of foreign companies with ties to the military.
“We’ve had a number of reports coming back to us of questions being asked in parliaments and companies that are reviewing their associations with some of the Myanmar military-aligned companies,” he added.
Myanmar’s military has not responded to last week’s report but it has repeatedly denied the mission’s allegations and says its campaign against the Rohingya was a legitimate counter insurgency operation.
The country’s foreign ministry said in a statement last week that it “categorically rejects the latest UN report and its conclusions.” It added that the fact-finding mission was established “based on unfounded allegations.”
Officials at the ministry did not answer several calls seeking comment on Newtec’s decision to cut ties with Mytel.
In 1988 – sensing a need – religious leaders began delivering meals to people with HIV and AIDS who couldn’t leave their homes. From that simple idea, the non-profit Food and Friends has grown into a Washington, D.C., institution, bringing thousands of meals a day to the sick and those in need. VOA’s Unshin Lee reports.
The acting U.S. Homeland Security chief on Sunday defended raids last week on food processing plants in Mississippi searching for hundreds of undocumented migrants, but acknowledged “the timing was unfortunate,” just days after a gunman targeted and killed 22 Hispanics in a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.
Kevin McAleenan told NBC’s Meet the Press that of the 680 migrants detained in the raids on operations at five companies, 200 had criminal records and will be subject to deportation to their native countries.
Television footage showed children weeping when they realized parents had been detained in the raids and would not be picking them up as their school day ended last Wednesday. But McAleenan said the raids were “done with sensitivity” and child care issues taken into consideration.
He said 32 of the migrants arrested were released within an hour of their detention and 270 within a day, often times because of child care concerns.
A policy at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of Homeland Security, calls for prosecution of companies that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants before arresting their migrant workers. But McAleenan deflected a question of why the workers, not the companies, were charged.
He said that “of course” the companies had committed a crime in hiring the workers.
“This case will be pursued,” he said.
Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris told NBC, “I don’t know why they did what they did. Employers have to be responsible.” She accused the administration of President Donald Trump of a “campaign of terror” against immigrants, “making people afraid to go to work, to go to school.”
McAleenan said the raids had been planned for a year and complement stricter immigration enforcement at the southern U.S. border with Mexico to thwart migrants, mostly Central Americans, from entering the U.S. to seek asylum.
“We have to have internal enforcement” against undocumented migrants who are working in the U.S. without official authorization, he said. But the raids, he said, could have been postponed after the massacre at a Walmart store in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, allegedly carried out by a white nationalist who police said targeted “Mexicans.”
Trump has made tough immigration enforcement a hallmark of his White House tenure as he heads to his 2020 re-election campaign. He has called the surge of migrants reaching the border “an invasion.”
On Friday, he said, “If people come into our country illegally, they’re going out.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has protested Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest visit to Ukraine’s Crimea region, calling a it a “gross violation” of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“Attempts by the Russian side and the mass media to describe such ‘visits’ as ‘ordinary’ domestic trips by Russian officials are futile,” the ministry said in a statement on August 11, adding that Crimea was an “integral part” of Ukraine.
On August 10, Putin was shown on state television in a leather jacket at a biker show organized by the Night Wolves motorcycle club in Sevastopol, a city in the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow seized in 2014.
The Night Wolves club is known for its allegiance to the Kremlin.
Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power by the pro-European Maidan protest movement the previous month.
Moscow has also fomented unrest and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where more than 13,000 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict since April 2014.
Putin’s visit to Sevastopol took place as tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Moscow to demand fair municipal elections. More than 250 people were detained by police.
NEW DELHI — India’s main opposition Congress party on Saturday appointed Sonia Gandhi to serve as interim president until it elects a new party chief.
The party accepted the resignation of her son Rahul Gandhi, who quit in July after Congress’ crushing defeat in national elections. He continues to be a member of Parliament.
A party working committee then asked Sonia Gandhi, 72, to take over in a stop-gap arrangement, party spokesman K.C. Venugopal said.
Sonia Gandhi handed the top party post to her son in 2017 after she suffered health problems. The party has long been led by the politically powerful Nehru-Gandhi family.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won 303 out of 542 seats in the lower house of Parliament, while the Congress party won 52 seats in April-May elections.
In January, Rahul Gandhi inducted his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra into politics as a party general secretary months before the national elections.
Several Congress leaders want Vadra, 47, to succeed Rahul Gandhi as party president. She has in the past helped her mother and brother campaign in their constituencies in northern Uttar Pradesh state.
Rahul Gandhi’s father, Rajiv Gandhi, his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, have all served as prime minister since India’s independence from British colonialists in 1947.
Rahul Gandhi entered politics in 2004.
EL PASO, TEXAS — More than 100 people marched through the Texas border city of El Paso on Saturday, denouncing racism and calling for stronger gun laws one week after 22 people were killed in a mass shooting that authorities say was carried out by a man targeting Mexicans.
Chanting “Gun reform now,” ” El Paso strong” and “Aqui estamos y no nos vamos” — Spanish for “Here we are and we are not leaving” — the marchers included Hispanic, white and black people dressed in white to symbolize peace and carrying 22 white wooden crosses to represent the victims of the shooting at an El Paso Walmart.
The man charged in with capital murder in the attack, Patrick Crusius, 21, told investigators he targeted Mexicans at the store with an AK-47 rifle, an El Paso detective said in an arrest affidavit. Federal prosecutors have said they’re weighing hate-crime charges.
Jessica Coca Garcia, who was among those wounded in the shooting, spoke to those gathered at the League of United Latin American Citizens’ “March for a United America.”
“Racism is something I always wanted to think didn’t exist. Obviously, it does,” Coca Garcia said after rising from a wheelchair. Bandages covered gunshot wounds to her leg.
“I love you, El Paso,” she said, her voice cracking. “This is where I’m going to stay.”
Former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also attended and spoke to the crowd.
O’Rourke, who is from El Paso, has blamed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric for spreading fear and hate, leading Trump to tweet that O’Rourke should “be quiet.”
Written by Eugen Tomiuc with reporting by RFE/RL’s Romanian Service, Hotnews.ro, G4media.ro, and Digi24.ro.
Romanians rallied in Bucharest and other cities across the country Saturday to mark the first anniversary of a massive anti-corruption protest that the government violently quelled.
The demonstrations came amid public outrage over the authorities’ response to the kidnapping and killing last month of a 15-year-old girl, a case that revealed deep flaws in the police system of the European Union and NATO member state.
About 20,000 people turned up for a rally outside government headquarters in central Bucharest, filling much of Victoria Square into the evening, according to G4media.ro.
Protests had also been urged over social media for Brasov, Cluj, Constanta, Iasi and other large cities, under slogans such as, “We don’t forget what you did last summer,” “We’re watching you” and “Reset Romania.”
2018 crackdown
Last year, about 100,000 Romanians, many of them expatriates, gathered on Aug. 10 in front of the same government building to protest the leftist government’s moves to reverse anti-graft reforms and weaken the judiciary in one of the EU’s most corrupt countries.
Riot police then used water cannons and tear gas in a display of violence unseen since the early 1990s.
Television footage of protesters and bystanders with hands up being chased and beaten with batons sparked fury across the country and prompted condemnation from the EU and the United States. More than 450 people needed medical assistance and one person reportedly died after the crackdown.
Some observers cited the Aug. 10, 2018, violence, as well as the “failure of so-called judicial reforms,” as the reason for the Social Democratic Party (PSD)-led coalition’s losses in European Parliament elections May 26.
A day after the August 2018 crackdown, PSD leader and lower-house speaker Liviu Dragnea was imprisoned following the rejection of his appeal of a conviction in an abuse-of-office case.
Teen’s death
However, public anger has recently grown over what many see as an increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional public administration after the gruesome slaying of a 15-year-old girl from Caracal, in southern Romania, whose calls for help were mishandled by police in July.
Alexandra Macesanu phoned the European emergency number three times to say she had been kidnapped, beaten and raped. It took the authorities 19 hours to locate and enter the premises where she had been taken, as they initially made light of her calls and then struggled to trace them.
Authorities later found burned bone fragments on site, which they identified with DNA tests earlier this month as being Macesanu’s. A 65-year-old car mechanic has confessed to killing Alexandra and Luiza Melencu, 18, in April 2019.
The authorities’ handling of the case has triggered street protests across the country and stark condemnation from opposition-backed center-right President Klaus Iohannis.
Iohannis, who is up for re-election in November, said the PSD-led coalition was “the moral author of the tragedy” because of its measures against the judiciary.
The interior minister resigned, while the chief of Romanian police, the education minister and several other officials were fired.
Allegations of crime, trafficking
However, media allegations of organized crime and human-trafficking networks’ ties to senior politicians and local police continue to surface, adding to what many Romanians already see as growing social insecurity.
According to U.N. estimates, at least 3.4 million people have left Romania since 2007, when it joined the EU — a number second only to the refugee total from war-torn Syria. The World Bank said roughly 3 million to 5 million Romanians are working and living abroad, in jobs ranging from day laborers to doctors.
Furthermore, the latest Romanian statistics show that almost 220,000 people emigrated in 2017 after the PSD-led coalition took over in December 2016 and initiated a series of measures to weaken the judiciary and the rule of law.
Many Romanian expatriates had planned to attend Saturday’s protests.
“We were defeated last year,” a woman from the northeastern city of Iasi told reporters on her way to Bucharest. ‘We failed to push for change after August 10. We did not continue the fight to reform the system. As a result of our complacency, two girls are now dead.”
Amanda Browder works with fabrics of all kinds. But, instead of creating clothing for people, she “dresses up” buildings with her unique style of installation art. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.