YCLOAK

For one intense week, 40 boys and 20 girls from 29 African countries were chosen for a highly selective program to train with current and former players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). 

The NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program has been scouting and training girls and boys across the continent for 17 years. Teenage girls who took part say working with women from the continent who played for WNBA teams has motivated them to stay in the game. 

“This experience has been so enriching for us,” Iris, a 16-year-old from Gabon, told VOA. “It’s helped me a lot, I’ve learned new things and it’s renewed my enthusiasm, my desire to keep going and to become someone in the world of basketball.”

Iris says she was scouted for the program by organizers who watched her local team play in Gabon. Iris was then asked to produce a video of her playing and was later informed that she’d been accepted to the program.

The coaches and mentors are helping these young players through drills and matches, but also serve as role models of what the youngsters can become. One such role model is Astou Ndiaye, originally from Senegal. She played for the Detroit Shock, which won the 2003 WNBA championship.

“We have walked the path that they want to walk,” Ndiaye told VOA. “So just being here being able to talk to them, answer their questions and really give them hopefully, the confidence they need to know that if we can do it, they can because there’s a path for them.”

Ndiaye has been coaching young women in the Basketball Without Borders program for years, but is particularly encouraged this year because it is only the second time that Senegal has hosted the program in its 17-year history.

Ndiaye’s presence and enthusiasm for the program have been particularly inspirational for many young women who hope to follow in her footsteps.

“It’s because of them — they’ve inspired us to play basketball, really,” Vanessa, a 16-old player from Cameroon, told VOA. “And it’s because of them that we really apply ourselves here and say that maybe one day we can replace them, or play with them.”

Although only half as many girls as boys are accepted to the program, organizers say that promoting young female players on the continent is just as important to them as working with the boys.

“Our primary mission and goal at NBA Africa, when we launched, was to really increase participation in our sport. So you cannot do that by ignoring more than half the population,” Amadou Gallo Fall, NBA Africa’s managing director, told VOA. “So I think over the years, we’ve seen tremendous progress in the women’s game.”

Ndiaye agrees that in recent years, the women she coaches will have better opportunities than her generation did.

“It’s getting better. If we remember, we were pioneers then,” Ndiaye said.

“And the salaries, all the benefits and advantages that the kids are getting now — it’s unbelievable — so it can only get better.”
 

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White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed to this report.

Police officials in El Paso, Texas, say they are investigating as a possible hate crime the mass shooting Saturday at a Walmart that ended with at least 20 people killed and 26 wounded.

Police chief Greg Allen said the police have an online posting reportedly written by the 21-year-old white male suspect now in custody, that indicates the shooting spree was intended to target Hispanics.

The post appeared online about an hour before the shooting and included language that complained about the “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. The author of the manifesto wrote that he expected to be killed during the attack.

“This vile act of terrorism against Hispanic Americans was inspired by divisive racial and ethnic rhetoric and enabled by weapons of war,” Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said in a statement.

“The language in the shooter’s manifesto is consistent with President Donald Trump’s description of Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders,’” said Castro, who is also the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “Today’s shooting is a stark reminder of the dangers of such rhetoric.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado said three Mexicans were killed in the shooting and six Mexicans were wounded.

Trump posted Saturday on Twitter: “Melania and I send our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the great people of Texas.”

Today’s shooting in El Paso, Texas, was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice. I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2019

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who traveled to El Paso, told reporters, “We as a state unite in support of these victims and their family members. … We pray that God can be with those who have been harmed in any way and bind up their wounds.”

First calls come in 

Police began receiving calls at 10:39 a.m. local time with multiple reports of a shooting at Walmart and the nearby Cielo Vista Mall complex on the east side of the city.

Sgt. Robert Gomez, a spokesman with the El Paso Police Department, said most of the shootings occurred at the Walmart, where there were more than 1,000 shoppers and 100 employees. Many families were taking advantage of a sales-tax holiday to shop for back-to-school supplies, officials said.

“This is unprecedented in El Paso,” Gomez said of the mass shooting.

El Paso Mayor Dee Margo told CNN, “This is just a tragedy that I’m having a hard time getting my arms around.”

Originally, Margo, as well as several witnesses, said there were several shooters involved. But police said they believe there was just one shooter.

“I can confirm that it is a white male in his 20s,” El Paso police spokesman Gomez said. “We believe he’s the sole shooter.”

Gomez said an assault-style rifle was used in the shooting.

249th mass shooting so far this year

The El Paso shooting is the nation’s 249th mass shooting incident this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot or killed, excluding the gunman, at one location.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who formerly represented the El Paso district in the U.S. House, was at an event in Las Vegas when he heard of the shooting. 

“I just ask for everyone’s strength for El Paso right now. Everyone’s resolve to make sure that this does not continue to happen in this country,” he said, adding he was immediately returning home to El Paso, where his family lives.

Saturday’s shooting comes less than a week after a mass shooting at a festival in Gilroy, California, where three people, including two children, were killed and 13 others were injured. It was also the second fatal shooting in less than a week at a Walmart store. A gunman shot and killed two people and injured two others Tuesday in Mississippi, before he was shot and arrested by police.

El Paso, a city of about 680,000 people in western Texas, shares the border with Juarez, Mexico.
 

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper says he wants to see American ground-based intermediate-range conventional missiles deployed to Asia.

Speaking to reporters on his first international trip as head of the Defense Department, Esper said the weapons were important due to the “the great distances” covered in the Indo-Pacific region.

The United States previously was unable to pursue ground-based missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers because of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a decades-old arms control pact with Russia. Washington withdrew from that pact on Friday, citing years of Russian violations.

“It’s about time that we were unburdened by the treaty and kind of allowed to pursue our own interests, and our NATO allies share that view as well,” Esper said.

He declined to discuss when or where in Asia they could be deployed until the weapons were ready, but said he hoped the deployments come within months.

While analysts have primarily focused on what the INF treaty withdrawal means for signatory nations Russia and the United States, the change also allows the United States to strengthen its position against China. Esper said China has more than 80% of its missile inventory with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers.

“So it should not surprise them [China] that we would want to have a like capability,” he added.

China is the top priority of the Pentagon under the Defense Department’s National Defense Strategy. Beijing and Washington also have been embroiled for months in a trade dispute, with U.S. President Donald Trump announcing Thursday on Twitter that he would impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods starting September 1.

“China is certainly the center of the dialogue right now. It’s a competition, they’re not an enemy, but certainly they are pressing their power in every corner,” Rudy deLeon, a defense policy expert with the Center for American Progress, and a former deputy secretary of defense, told VOA.

In the event of a conflict with China, the United States needs to have various capabilities in place ahead of time in order to prevent sabotage during transport from China’s advanced sensors and artificial intelligence, according to Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“We need to distribute our assets, and we need to have them in the region when the conflict starts. The idea that we’re going to spend like we did in the first Gulf War, weeks or months, sending large cargo aircraft and cargo vessels across the ocean to get into conflict, they’ll never arrive,” Bowman told VOA.

Esper began his trip Friday with a stop at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii to visit the head of the command, Admiral Philip Davidson. Esper arrived Saturday in Australia for a two-plus-two meeting on Sunday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and their Australian counterparts.

Esper also will visit New Zealand, Japan, Mongolia and South Korea before returning to Washington.

Defense officials have for years referred to the Asia-Pacific as the “priority” theater.

Former secretary of defense Jim Mattis, Esper’s predecessor in the Trump administration, also started his time in office with a trip to Asia, visiting Japan and South Korea in February 2017.

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Pakistan has accused rival India of breaching international humanitarian laws by using “cluster munitions” in the latest cross-border skirmishes in Kashmir, saying the weapons killed at least two civilians and injured 11 others on the Pakistani side of the divided region.

The allegations come a day after India again rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate a resolution of the Kashmir dispute between the two nuclear-armed countries.

A statement by Pakistan’s military said Saturday the civilian casualties occurred on July 31 in the scenic Neelum Valley near the Line of Control (LoC), the defacto border separating Pakistani and Indian portions of the disputed Himalayan territory.

It alleged the Indian army used cluster ammunitions delivered by artillery on July 31 in the valley, deliberately targeting the civilian population.

Cluster munitions are weapons consisting of a container that opens in the air and scatters a large number of explosive submunitions over a wide area. The related global convention adopted in 2008 prohibits the use of cluster munitions.

There was no immediate reaction from India to the allegation. Indian authorities for their part also accuse Pakistani forces of indulging in unprovoked cross-border shelling, causing civilian and military casualties on their side

The Pakistani military statement urged the international community “to take notice of this Indian blatant violation of international laws on use of cluster ammunition targeting innocent citizens.”

It also released pictures of victims and the purported weapons it said were used by Indian forces. Independent verification was difficult to ascertain.

Trump Reiterates Kashmir Mediation Offer

Speaking together with visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House two weeks ago, Trump said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently asked him whether he would like to be a mediator or arbitrator on Kashmir, assertions New Delhi swiftly denied.

Trump, however, reiterated his mediation offer on Thursday, saying he is willing to mediate but a decision would be up to Modi and Khan.

“If I can — if they wanted me to, I would certainly intervene,” Trump told reporters.

Indian Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar said he told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the sidelines of an Asian security forum in Bangkok that any discussion of the disputed Kashmir region would be strictly between India and Pakistan.

New Delhi has long opposed outside attempts to mediate its dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir. Islamabad insists international help is required because of persistent Indian refusals to engage in bilateral talks.

India Accuses Pakistan-Backed Militants of Targeting Hindu Pilgrims in Kashmir

Indian security officials on Friday said they had found evidence of attacks planned by Pakistani military-backed militants on a major Hindu pilgrimage in the disputed Muslim-dominated region of Kashmir

Security Alert in Indian Kashmir

Saturday’s Pakistani allegations come as thousands of people, mostly, visitors, reportedly have started leaving the India-ruled portion of Kashmir since the local government warned of possible militant attacks.

Indian authorities announced Friday they had found evidence of attacks by militants allegedly backed by Pakistan on a major Hindu pilgrimage in Kashmir. The revelation prompted the regional government to order the pilgrims and tourists to return home.  

Regional military tensions have remained high since February 14, when a vehicle-born bomb rammed into an Indian paramilitary convoy in Kashmir, killing 40 security personnel and triggering an aerial dogfight between Indian and Pakistani air force planes. New Delhi blamed Pakistan-based militants for plotting the attack. The subsequent escalation in tensions brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a fourth war before international diplomatic intervention helped defuse the situation.

New Delhi has suspended official talks with Islamabad since Modi came to power in 2014, demanding Pakistan first stop militants plotting cross-border attacks in India.

Separatist violence and the ensuing Indian crackdown are estimated to have killed more than 70,000 people in Indian Kashmir.

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The U.N. refugee agency welcomes the closure of three detention centers in Libya but voices concern about the whereabouts and fate of the refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who were held in the facilities.

The U.N. refugee agency has been advocating for the release of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants from Libya’s detention centers for a long time.  And, so it says it is pleased that three of the country’s largest facilities–Mistrata, Tajoura and Khoms–have been shut.

Five EU Countries Agree to Take in Migrants, Ending Standoff in Sicilian Port

Five EU countries agree to take in migrants, ending standoff in Sicilian port

However, UNHCR spokesman, Andrej Mahecic tells VOA he has no idea what has happened to the inmates.

“To our knowledge, there are 19 official detention centers run by the authorities that are currently active in Libya with nearly 5,000 refugees and migrants that are arbitrarily detained there,” Mahecic said.

Mahecic says UNHCR is closely following developments. He says refugees should not be put in detention.   In Libya, he says people held in facilities near battle zones are at particular risk, as was seen in the tragic events that unfolded in Tajoura last month.

The Tajoura detention center on the outskirts of the capital Tripoli was hit by an airstrike on July 2.  More than 50 people, including children were killed and 130 injured.   The vast majority were sub-Saharan Africans trying to reach Europe.  

EU States to End Arbitrary Detention of Refugees, Migrants in Libya

The move was triggered by the deadly July 5 bombing of the Tajoura detention center on the outskirts of Tripoli

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, says the attack could amount to a war crime.  Mahecic says children should never be locked up and, in all cases, detention should only be a measure of last resort.

“What we are calling on now is for an orderly release of all refugees in detention centers to urban settings and we stand ready to provide these people with assistance through our urban programs that would include some form of financial assistance, medical and psycho-social support,” Mahecic said.

The United Nations describes Libyan detention centers as appalling, overcrowded places.  It says detainees are denied sufficient food and medical care and are subject to abusive treatment, including torture and rape.

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Boeing is working on new software for the 737 Max that will use a second flight control computer to make the system more reliable, solving a problem that surfaced in June with the grounded jet, two people briefed on the matter said Friday. 
 
When finished, the new software will give Boeing a complete package for regulators to evaluate as the company tries to get the Max flying again, according to the people, who didn’t want to be identified because the new software hasn’t been publicly disclosed. 
 
The Max was grounded worldwide after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed a total of 346 people.  
  
Use of the second computer, reported Thursday by The Seattle Times, would resolve a problem discovered in simulations done by the Federal Aviation Administration after the crashes. The simulations found an issue that could result in the plane’s nose pitching down. Pilots in testing either took too long to recover from the problem or could not do so, one of the people said. 
 
In the new configuration, both of the plane’s flight control computers would be monitored by software, and pilots would get a warning if the computers disagreed on altitude, air speed and the angle of the wings relative to the air flow, the person said. Only one computer was used in the past because Boeing was able to prove statistically that its system was reliable, the person said.  
  
The problem revealed in June is like the one implicated in the two crashes. That problem was with flight-control software called MCAS, which pushed the nose down based on faulty readings from one sensor. MCAS was installed on the planes as a measure to prevent aerodynamic stalling, and initially it wasn’t disclosed to pilots. 

‘More robust’ system
 
The new software would make the entire flight-control system, including MCAS, rely on two computers rather than one, said the person. “It would make the whole flight control system more robust,” the person said. 
 
Boeing Co. spokesman Charles Bickers said only that the company is working with the FAA and other regulators on software to fix the problem that surfaced in June. The company has said it expects to present the changes to the FAA and other regulators in September, and it hopes the Max can return to flight as early as October.  
  
The two people briefed on the matter said Boeing has finished updating the MCAS software by scaling back its power to push the nose down. It is also linking the software’s nose-down command to two sensors on each plane instead of relying on just one in the original design. 
 
The FAA has been widely criticized for its process that certified the Max as safe to fly, largely because it uses company employees to do inspections that are then reviewed by the agency.  

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says his pick for national intelligence director has decided to withdraw from the running, citing unfair media coverage. 
 
In a tweet Friday, Trump said Republican Representative John Ratcliffe of Texas had decided to stay in Congress. Questions about Ratcliffe’s experience had dogged him since Trump announced his candidacy Sunday. 
 
Trump didn’t cite any specific media reports but tweeted that “rather than going through months of slander and libel,” Ratcliffe would be returning to Capitol Hill.  
  
Trump accepted the resignation of former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats last week.  
  
Ratcliffe is a frequent Trump defender who fiercely questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week. Intelligence experts had criticized his lack of experience in the field of intelligence.  
  
In a statement, Ratcliffe said, “While I am and will remain very grateful to the president for his intention to nominate me as director of national intelligence, I am withdrawing from consideration.” 
 
“I was humbled and honored that the president put his trust in me to lead our nation’s intelligence operations and remain convinced that when confirmed, I would have done so with the objectivity, fairness and integrity that our intelligence agencies need and deserve,” the statement said. 
 
“However,” he added, “I do not wish for a national security and intelligence debate surrounding my confirmation, however untrue, to become a purely political and partisan issue.” 

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San Francisco International Airport is banning the sale of single-use plastic water bottles.
 
The San Francisco Chronicle reports Friday that the unprecedented move at one of the major airports in the country will take effect Aug. 20.
 
The new rule will apply to airport restaurants, cafes and vending machines.
 
Travelers needing plain water will have to buy refillable aluminum or glass bottles if they don’t bring their own.
 
As a department of San Francisco’s municipal government, the airport is following an ordinance approved in 2014 banning the sale of plastic water bottles on city-owned property.
 
SFO spokesman Doug Yakel says the shift away from plastics is also part of a broader plan to slash net carbon emissions and energy use to zero and eliminate most landfill waste by 2021.

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Despite the reported death of the son and heir apparent of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials warn the global terror group remains a significant threat to the United States.

The officials refused to confirm the death of Hamza bin Laden, said to have been killed in a U.S.-involved operation sometime in the past two years. But they warned Thursday that regardless of his status, al-Qaida should not be underestimated.

“What we see today is an al-Qaida that is as strong as it has ever been,” State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator Ambassador Nathan Sales told reporters during a briefing intended to focus on the terror group’s main rival, Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS.

“Al-Qaida has been strategic and patient over the last several years,” Sales said. “It’s let ISIS absorb the brunt of the world’s counterterrorism efforts while patiently reconstituting itself.”

“They’re very much in this fight and we need to continue to take the fight to them,” he added.

The U.S. assessment of al-Qaida is in line with a recent United Nations report, which described the terror group as “resilient.”

“Groups aligned with al-Qaida are stronger than their ISIL counterparts in Idlib, Syrian Arab Republic, Yemen, Somalia and much of West Africa,” the report said, using another acronym for Islamic State.

Like the U.N. report, Sales focused U.S. concern on a series of  “active and deadly” al-Qaida affiliates, including al-Shabab, which has been operating in Somalia and Kenya, as well as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

AQAP, in particular, has repeatedly been cited as perhaps the most threatening of all al-Qaida affiliates by U.S. officials for its advanced bomb-making capabilities and its desire to strike the U.S.

“No one should mistake the period of relative silence from al-Qaida as an indication that they’ve gotten out of the [terror] business,” Sales said.

Still, some counterterrorism analysts caution that despite al-Qaida’s savvy long-term planning and relative strength, the reported death of up-and-coming leader Hamza bin Laden, if confirmed, would be a severe blow.

“The death of Hamza, particularly as Osama bin Laden’s son, removes what could have been a powerful voice for the global jihad from the scene,” said Katherine Zimmerman, a research manager with the Critical Threats Project. “Hamza had begun to pick up his father’s mantle to carry on the legacy.”

At the same time, Zimmerman and others warn al-Qaida leadership is more than capable of recovering, even with evidence that current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is in poor health.

Hamza bin Laden “was not going to be the successor to Zawahiri,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst and CEO of Valens Global.

“While there’s not a great deal of high-profile leaders in al-Qaida, at least in respect to those who are recognizable in Western press reporting … they have a fairly deep bench,” he said. “I think it would be very foolish to think that Hamza bin Laden is the only one, even though he’s very identifiable.”

Talk about a possibly weakened al-Qaida began gaining momentum Wednesday, after NBC News reported U.S. officials had intelligence that Hamza bin Laden had been killed.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday refused to confirm the death, or possible U.S. involvement, when questioned by reporters on the White House lawn.

“I will say Hamza bin Laden was very threatening to our country. And you can’t do that,” Trump said. “But as far as anything beyond that, I have no comment.”

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President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday removed several members of a commission investigating disappearances and murders during Brazil’s dictatorship, acting days after they confronted him on the role played by the state in the killing of a leftist activist.

A decree co-signed by Bolsonaro’s human rights minister and published in official records announced the replacement of four of the commission’s seven members, including its president, Eugenia Augusta Gonzaga.

Bolsonaro has faced intense criticism, including from allies, this week after he questioned the circumstances in which Fernando Santa Cruz, a leftist activist during the 1964-1985 military regime and father of the current president of the Brazilian Bar Association, was slain.

On July 24, the commission published an official obituary for Santa Cruz. It stipulates that his death in 1974 was “violent, caused by the Brazilian State, in the context of the systematic and generalized persecution” of political activists during the dictatorship.

A few days later, without providing evidence, Bolsonaro said while getting a haircut that Santa Cruz had been killed by a “terrorist group,” Acao Popular. Bolsonaro told journalists that if the president of the Brazilian Bar Association wanted to know how his father died: “I’ll tell him.”

Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain, has often praised the military regime and minimized abuses committed by that regime.

In 2016, when voting to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, who was a victim of torture by the military regime, Bolsonaro dedicated his vote to a colonel who led a torture unit. “In memory of Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the terror of Dilma Rousseff, I vote yes,” said the then-lawmaker.

After being elected president last Oct. 28, Bolsonaro named several ex-generals to his Cabinet. He also called for the commemoration of the anniversary of Brazil’s 1964 military coup, leading federal prosecutors to condemn an “apology for the practice of atrocities.”

In 2014, Brazil’s national truth commission concluded that at least 434 people were killed or disappeared during the dictatorship. It is estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 people were illegally arrested and tortured. Bolsonaro called the report “unfounded.”

Changing times

To justify the changes made Thursday at the commission, Bolsonaro said times are changing in Brazil.

“The motive [is that the] president has changed, now it is Jair Bolsonaro, of the right,” he told reporters. “When they put terrorists there, nobody said anything.”

Bolsonaro and human rights minister Damares Alves appointed Marco Vinicius de Carvalho, one of Alves’ top advisers, as the commission’s new leader. The decree gave seats on the body to a member of the Ministry of Defense, which already had a seat on the commission, and a former army colonel.

At a news conference in Sao Paulo following her dismissal as the body’s president, Gonzaga described Bolsonaro’s mocking of official documents around the death of Santa Cruz “cruel.”

She said members of the commission had been expecting to be replaced since the election for their “prominent role in defending” victims of the dictatorship.

“For us, this destitution was a response to our manifestations, defending the rights of the Santa Cruz family and others,” Gonzaga said.

‘Nonpartisan’ commission

She also insisted that the commission, which began in 1995, is not a government body, like ministries, which change with each new government.

“The commission has always been nonpartisan, always including people who have some connections with this theme, and they are not paid,” she told a crowd of journalists and families of victims of the dictatorship.

Felipe Santa Cruz, son of Fernando Santa Cruz, filed a complaint Wednesday to Brazil’s top court about the president’s comment on the case. Santa Cruz, who was 2 when his father went missing, wrote that Bolsonaro’s comments showed “cruelty and a lack of empathy.”

According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, supreme court Justice Luis Roberto Barroso gave Bolsonaro 15 days to clarify his statements about Santa Cruz. The supreme court was not immediately available to confirm.

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Islamic State (IS) militants killed four security officials late Wednesday near the northern city of Kirkuk, local officials said.

The attack, which was carried out on a checkpoint manned by local Kurdish security forces, also left at least eight people wounded, local sources said.

“At least 15 IS militants, including a couple snipers, were involved in the overnight raid,” a senior Iraqi security official told VOA.

The Iraqi official, who refused to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, added that the militants used mortars in the Wednesday attack.

In the nearby province of Saladin, at least five Iraqi soldiers and government-backed militia members were killed in an IS attack on their positions, Iraqi police reported Thursday.

IS has not yet claimed responsibility for either attack.

In response to Wednesday’s attacks, Iraqi warplanes carried out an airstrike on an IS position, killing at least three militants, an Iraqi security official said.

Increased attacks

IS has increased its attacks in recent weeks against Iraqi and Kurdish forces in parts of northern Iraq that were held by the terror group before they were freed with the help of the U.S.-led coalition.

A VOA reporter in Iraq said one of the targeted areas has largely been safe until recently, with IS increasingly carrying out surprise attacks against civilians and security forces in places like Kirkuk, Diyala and Mosul.

Mosul was considered the de facto capital of IS in Iraq. Supported by U.S. airpower, Iraqi troops liberated the country’s second-largest city from IS in July 2017. The terror group was officially declared defeated in Iraq in December 2017.

Since then, however, remnants of IS have frequently targeted vital parts of the region.

During the harvest season this year, IS also set fire to thousands of acres of wheat fields across northern and western Iraq, inflicting substantial damage on the local economy, reports said.

IS militants have also attempted attacks on oilfields in northern Iraq. Last week, Iraqi forces foiled two major attacks claimed by IS on the strategic Olas and Ajil oilfields in Saladin province, the Iraqi military said.

Cells across northern Iraq

The extremist group has active cells across areas in northern Iraq considered disputed between the central Iraqi government and Kurdistan regional government, according to Iraqi officials.

IS “was territorially defeated, but the context for their [re-emergence] in disputed territories is permissive. Terror is [a] continuous threat,” Hemin Hawrami, deputy speaker of Iraqi Kurdistan’s regional parliament, said in a tweet Thursday.

U.S. officials also have warned that IS’s ongoing activities pose a threat to Iraq’s stability.

“After the defeat of ISIS in Mosul, Iraq didn’t have an ISIS terrain-holding threat,” James Jeffrey, special envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat IS, told reporters at the State Department on Thursday, using another acronym for IS.

“But what we have seen is a persistent, resilient, rural, terrorist level of violence generated by these underground cells of ISIS, particularly in areas from south of Mosul and the Kurdish areas down to Baghdad,” he said.

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A war of words continues between U.S. President Donald Trump and a powerful Democratic lawmaker investigating the Trump White House, Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland. The president has criticized the legislator’s Baltimore district in comments that many have denounced as racist. Today, like many urban centers, Baltimore struggles to deal with racial unrest, crime, economic inequality and high unemployment.  VOA’s Carolyn Presutti visited Baltimore and has this report.
 

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Divers and environmentalists found an unpleasant surprise in Aegean waters near Greece and are working to fix it.  What looked like colorful coral turned out to be a plastic wasteland, just one of many challenges delicate marine ecosystems face. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi dives in for a look.

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The prospect of Britain crashing out of the European Union with no deal at the end of October is creating a tumultuous first few weeks in office for Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The British pound sterling is plunging, and there are warnings of widespread disruption. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Johnson is looking for help across the Atlantic to a like-minded ally in the White House.
 

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Singer-songwriter Ron Bultongez is living the American Dream from growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo to being named the “Hometown Hero” of Plano, TX to becoming a Top 24 Finalist on American Idol 2018, where he left Lionel Richie, Katy Perry, and Luke Bryan in awe of his voice. Ron’s dreams have taken him far. His journey, depth, and spirit are evident in his smooth yet raspy vocals and his bluesy, soulful songwriting.

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Puerto Rico’s governor says he’s chosen former Congress representative Pedro Pierluisi as the U.S. territory’s secretary of state. That post would put Pierluisi in line to be governor when Rossello steps down this week – but he’s unlikely to be approved by legislators.

Ricardo Rossello made the announcement Wednesday via Twitter and said he would hold a special session on Thursday so legislators can vote on his nomination.

Puerto Rico Official: Pierluisi to Be Nominated as State Secretary

Puerto Rico legislator says the US territory’s embattled governor is nominating former congressional representative Pedro Pierluisi as secretary of state

 
Rossello has said he’ll resign on Friday following massive protests in which Puerto Ricans demanded he step down.
 
Top legislators have already said they will reject Pierluisi’s nomination because he works for a law firm that represents the federal control board overseeing Puerto Rico’s finances and say that’s a conflict of interest.
 
Pierluisi represented Puerto Rico in Congress from 2009-2017.

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Security officials in western Afghanistan say at least 34 people were killed and around 17 others injured after a passenger bus was hit by a roadside bomb on a highway between the cities of Herat and Kandahar.

A provincial official says the bomb tore through the bus, which was carrying mostly women and children. The injured were taken to Herat Regional Hospital for treatment.
 
No group has claimed responsibility. Taliban insurgents, however, operate in the region and frequently use roadside bombs to target government officials and security forces, even as peace talks involving U.S. officials and Taliban representatives are scheduled to resume.   

The two sides hope to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces in exchange for security guarantees by the Taliban.  

The deadly violence Wednesday came a day after the United Nations reported that nearly 4,000 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first half of 2019.

The U.N. Afghan mission noted in its report released Tuesday that more civilians were killed by government and NATO-led troops than by the Taliban and other insurgent groups in the first half of 2019.

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Boston police are tracking nearly 5,000 people — almost all of them young black and Latino men — through a secretive gang database, newly released data from the department shows.

A summary provided by the department shows that 66% of those in its database are black, 24% are Latino and 2% are white. Black people comprise about 25% of all Boston residents, Latinos about 20% and white people more than 50%.

The racial disparity is “stark and troublesome,” said Adriana Lafaille, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which, along with other civil rights groups, sued the department in state court in November to shed light into who is listed on the database and how the information is used.

Central American youths are being wrongly listed as active gang members “based on nothing more than the clothing they are seen in and the classmates they are seen with,” and that’s led some to be deported, the organizations say in their lawsuit, citing the cases of three Central American youths facing deportation based largely on their status on the gang database.

”This has consequences,” Lafaille said. “People are being deported back to the countries that they fled, in many cases, to escape gangs.”

Boston police haven’t provided comment after multiple requests, but Commissioner William Gross has previously defended the database as a tool in combating MS-13 and other gangs.

One 24-year-old native of El Salvador nearly deported last year over his alleged gang involvement said he was a victim of harassment and bullying by Bloods members as a youth and was never an MS-13 member, as police claim.

The man spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because he fears retribution from gang members.

He said he never knew he’d made the list while in high school until he was picked up years later in a 2017 immigration sweep.

The gang database listed him as a “verified” member of MS-13 because he was seen associating with known MS-13 members, had feuded with members of the rival Bloods street gang, and was even charged with assault and battery following a fight at school, according to records provided by his lawyer, Alex Mooradian.

Mooradian said he noted in immigration court that the man, who was granted special immigrant juvenile status in 2014, reported at least one altercation with Bloods members to police and cooperated with the investigation. Witnesses also testified about the man’s good character and work ethic as a longtime dishwasher at a restaurant.

”Bottom line, this was a person by all metrics who was doing everything right,” said Mooradian. “He had legal status. He went to school. He worked full time. He called police when he was in trouble. And it still landed him in jail.”

Boston is merely the latest city to run into opposition with a gang database. An advocacy group filed a lawsuit this month in Providence, Rhode Island, arguing the city’s database violates constitutional rights. Portland, Oregon, discontinued its database in 2017 after it was revealed more than 80% of people listed on it were minorities.

In Chicago, police this year proposed changes after an audit found their database’s roughly 134,000 entries were riddled with outdated and unverified information. Mayor Lori Lightfoot also cut off U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement access ahead of planned immigration raids this month.

California’s Department of Justice has been issuing annual reports on the state’s database since a 2017 law began requiring it. And in New York City, records requests and lawsuits have prompted the department to disclose more information about its database.

In Boston, where Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh has proposed strengthening the city’s sanctuary policy, the ACLU suggests specifically banning police from contributing to any database to which ICE has access, or at least requiring police to provide annual reports on the database. Walsh’s office deferred questions about the gang database to police.

Like others, Boston’s gang database follows a points-based system. A person who accrues at least six points is classified as a “gang associate.” Ten or more points means they’re considered a full-fledged gang member.

The points range from having a known gang tattoo (eight points) to wearing gang paraphernalia (four points) or interacting with a known gang member or associate (two points per interaction).

The summary provided by Boston police provides a snapshot of the database as of January.

Of the 4,728 people listed at the time, a little more than half were considered “active” gang associates, meaning they had contact with or participated in some form of gang activity in the past five years. The rest were classified as “inactive,” the summary states.

Men account for more than 90% of the suspected gang members, and people between ages 25 and 40 comprise nearly 75% of the listing.

The department last week provided the summary along with the department’s policy for placing people on the database after the AP filed a records request in June.

The ACLU was also provided the same documents in response to its lawsuit as well as a trove of other related policy memos and heavily redacted reports for each of the 4,728 people listed on the database as of January, according to documents provided by the ACLU and first reported Friday by WBUR.

The ACLU has asked the city for less-redacted reports, Lafaille said. It’s also still waiting for information about how often ICE accesses the database and how police gather gang intelligence in schools.

”After all this time, we still don’t have an understanding about who can access this information and how it’s shared,” she said. “That’s something the public has a right to know.”

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California’s Democratic governor signed a law Tuesday requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns to appear on the state’s primary ballot, a move aimed squarely at Republican President Donald Trump.

But even if the law withstands a likely legal challenge, Trump could avoid the requirements by choosing not to compete in California’s primary. With no credible GOP challenger at this point, he likely won’t need California’s delegates to win the Republican nomination.

”As one of the largest economies in the world and home to one in nine Americans eligible to vote, California has a special responsibility to require this information of presidential and gubernatorial candidates,” Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in his veto message to the state Legislature. “These are extraordinary times and states have a legal and moral duty to do everything in their power to ensure leaders seeking the highest offices meet minimal standards, and to restore public confidence.”

New York has passed a law giving congressional committees access to Trump’s state tax returns. But efforts to pry loose his tax returns have floundered in other states. California’s first attempt to do so failed in 2017 when then-Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed the law, raising questions about its constitutionality and where it would lead next.

”Today we require tax returns, but what would be next?” he wrote in his veto message. “Five years of health records? A certified birth certificate? High school report cards? And will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power?”

While the law is aimed at Trump, it would apply to all presidential contenders and candidates for governor.

The major Democratic 2020 contenders have already released tax returns for roughly the past decade. Trump has bucked decades of precedent by refusing to release his. Tax returns show income, charitable giving and business dealings, all of which Democratic state lawmakers say voters are entitled to know about.

Candidates will be required to submit tax returns for the most recent five years to California’s Secretary of State at least 98 days before the primary. They will then be posed online for the public to view, with certain personal information redacted.

California is holding next year’s primary on March 3, known as Super Tuesday because the high number of state’s with nominating contests that day.

Democratic Sen. Mike McGuire of Healdsburg said it would be “inconsistent” with past practice for Trump to forego the primary ballot and “ignore the most popular and vote-rich state in the nation.”

McGuire said his bill only applies to the primary election because the state Legislature does not control general election ballot access per the state Constitution.

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Government officials in China’s Xinjiang region Tuesday defended re-education camps for Muslim minorities, saying the centers serve as a deterrent against religious extremism and terrorism.

Human rights groups have alleged the camps routinely engage in widespread violations. According to estimates by the United Nations, China has detained some 1 million people at the camps. Rights groups say a number of them are Uighurs. China has come under international scrutiny over its treatment of Uighurs and other members of largely Muslim minority groups. 

22 UN Ambassadors Condemn Chinese Treatment of Uighurs

Concerns were expressed in letter to UN Human Rights Council 

China says the camps are vocational education centers that provide job skills and decrease extremism.

“Most of the graduates from the vocational training centers have been reintegrated into society,” Xinjiang’s governor, Shohrat Zakir, was quoted by Time magazine as saying. 

“More than 90% of the graduates have found satisfactory jobs with good incomes,” he added, using a term for students who finish a course of study.

Another regional official also rejected the characterization of the centers by outsiders.

“Individual countries and news media have ulterior motives, have inverted right and wrong, and slandered and smeared [China],” said Xinjiang vice chairman Alken Tuniaz. He also said a number of people at the camps were being released.

“Currently, most people who have received training have already returned to society, returned home.” 

In early June, 22 U.N. ambassadors signed a letter condemning the camps, urging China to release the Uighurs from detention.

In a related development, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday a delegation will visit Xinjiang to observe the Uighur situation. 

Earlier in July, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the internment of China’s Muslim minority the “stain of the century,” describing their treatment as “one of the worst human rights crises of our time.”

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The unprecedented resignation of Puerto Rico’s governor after days of massive island-wide protests has thrown the U.S. territory into a full-blown political crisis.

Less than four days before Gov. Ricardo Rossello steps down, no one knows who will take his place. Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez, his constitutional successor, said Sunday that she didn’t want the job. The next in line would be Education Secretary Eligio Hernandez, a largely unknown bureaucrat with little political experience.

Rossello’s party says it wants him to nominate a successor before he steps down, but Rossello has said nothing about his plans, time is running out and some on the island are even talking about the need for more federal control over a territory whose finances are already overseen from Washington.

Rossello resigned following nearly two weeks of daily protests in which hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans took to the streets, mounted horses and jet skis, organized a twerkathon and came up with other creative ways to demand his ouster. On Monday, protesters were to gather once again, but this time to demand that Vazquez not assume the governorship. Under normal circumstances, Rossello’s successor would be the territory’s secretary of state, but veteran politician Luis Rivera Marin resigned from that post on July 13 as part of the scandal that toppled the governor.

Next in line

Vazquez, a 59-year-old prosecutor who worked as a district attorney and was later director of the Office for Women’s Rights, does not have widespread support among Puerto Ricans. Many have criticized her for not being aggressive enough in investigating cases involving members of the party that she and Rossello belong to, and of not prioritizing gender violence as justice secretary. She also has been accused of not pursuing the alleged mismanagement of supplies for victims of Hurricane Maria.

Facing a new wave of protests, Vazquez tweeted Sunday that she had no desire to succeed Rossello.

“I have no interest in the governor’s office,” she wrote. “I hope the governor nominates a secretary of state before Aug. 2.”

If a secretary of state is not nominated before Rossello resigns, Vazquez would automatically become the new governor. She would then have the power to nominate a secretary of state, or she could also reject being governor, in which case the constitution states the treasury secretary would be next in line. However, Treasury Secretary Francisco Pares is 31 years old, and the constitution dictates a governor has to be at least 35. In that case, the governorship would go to Hernandez, who replaced the former education secretary, Julia Keleher, who resigned in April and was arrested on July 10 on federal corruption charges. She has pleaded not guilty.

But Hernandez has not been clear on whether he would accept becoming governor.

“At this time, this public servant is focused solely and exclusively on the work of the Department of Education,” he told Radio Isla 1320 AM on Monday. A spokesman for Hernandez did not return a message seeking comment.

‘Uncertainties are dangerous’

Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans are growing anxious about what the lack of leadership could mean for the island’s political and economic future.

“It’s very important that the government have a certain degree of stability,” said Luis Rodriguez, a 36-year-old accountant, adding that all political parties should be paying attention to what’s happening. “We’re tired of the various political parties that always climb to power and have let us down a bit and have taken the island to the point where it finds itself right now.”

Hector Luis Acevedo, a university professor and former secretary of state, said both the governor’s party and the main opposition party that he supports, the Popular Democratic Party, have weakened in recent years. He added that new leadership needs to be found soon.

“These uncertainties are dangerous in a democracy because they tend to strengthen the extremes,” he said. “This vacuum is greatly harming the island.”

Puerto Ricans until recently had celebrated that Rossello and more than a dozen other officials had resigned in the wake of an obscenity-laced chat in which they mocked women and the victims of Hurricane Maria, among others, in 889 pages leaked on July 13. But now, many are concerned that the government is not moving quickly enough to restore order and leadership to an island mired in a 13-year recession as it struggles to recover from the Category 4 storm and tries to restructure a portion of its more than $70 billion public debt load.

Gabriel Rodriguez Aguilo, a member of Rossello’s New Progressive Party, which supports statehood, said in a telephone interview that legislators are waiting on Rossello to nominate a secretary of state, who would then become governor since Vazquez has said she is not interested in the position.

“I hope that whoever is nominated is someone who respects people, who can give the people of Puerto Rico hope and has the capacity to rule,” he said. “We cannot rush into this. There must be sanity and restraint in this process.”

‘Rethink the constitution’

Another option was recently raised by Jenniffer Gonzalez, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress. Last week, she urged U.S. President Donald Trump to appoint a federal coordinator to oversee hurricane reconstruction and ensure the proper use of federal funds in the U.S. territory, a suggestion rejected by many on an island already under the direction of a federal control board overseeing its finances and debt restructuring process.

As legislators wait for Rossello to nominate a secretary of state, they have started debating whether to amend the constitution to allow for a vice president or lieutenant governor, among other things.

The constitution currently does not allow the government to hold early elections, noted Yanira Reyes Gil, a university professor and constitutional attorney.

“We have to rethink the constitution,” she said, adding that there are holes in the current one, including that people are not allowed to participate in choosing a new governor if the previous one resigns.

Reyes also said people are worried that the House and Senate might rush to approve a new secretary of state without sufficient vetting.

“Given the short amount of time, people have doubts that the person will undergo a strict evaluation,” she said. “We’re in a situation where the people have lost faith in the government agencies, they have lost faith in their leaders.”

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The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has tightened the eligibly requirements for seeking asylum in the United States, making it more difficult for those persecuted because of family ties to be granted protection.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr ruled Monday that that those who seek asylum because of a threat against another family member usually do not have enough of a reason to be granted asylum in the United States.

Barr, as head of the Department of Justice, has the ability to set standards for all U.S. immigration judges and to overturn immigration court rulings. 

U.S. law states that people can seek asylum in the United States if they can prove a fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a specific social group. Until now the term “social group” was often interpreted by immigration judges to include families.

In his ruling Monday, Barr argued that virtually all asylum-seekers are members of a family and said “there is no evidence that Congress intended the term ‘particular social group’ to cast so wide a net.”

His decision was in regards to a case involving a Mexican man who sought asylum because his family was targeted after his father refused to let a drug cartel use the family store.

The Trump administration has taken a series of measures to restrict asylum claims, including denying asylum requests to victims of gang violence or domestic abuse. The administration has argued that the asylum system is often abused by immigrants who use fraudulent claims to try to enter the United States.

Immigration activists say the administration’s latest decision reverses years of precedent and could affect thousands of people.

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A prominent Chinese human rights activist and journalist has been sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of disclosing state secrets.

Huang Qi, 56, is the founder of the website 64 Tianwang, which documents alleged rights abuses by the government. He has been in custody for more than two years. 

His sentence is one of the harshest given to a dissident since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, according to court records.

Huang was guilty of “leaking national state secrets and providing state secrets to foreign entities,” the statement by the Mianyang intermediate people’s court said.

His website, which reported on local corruption, human rights violations, and other topics rarely seen in ordinary Chinese media, is blocked on the mainland.

The journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) refers to Huang as a “cyberdissident,” and awarded him its Cyberfreedom Prize in 2016. A few weeks later, Huang was detained in his hometown of Chengdu, according to human rights group Amnesty International.

Human rights groups, including the RSF, called on Xi on Monday to pardon Huang. “This decision is equivalent to a death sentence, considering Huang Qi’s health has already deteriorated from a decade spent in harsh confinement,” said RSF chief Christophe Deloire.

Huang’s mother, Pu Wenqing, has asked authorities to move him to a hospital to receive treatment for kidney disease, severe weight loss and other ailments. 

Numerous Chinese dissidents have fallen ill while in state custody. Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo was serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power” when he died of liver cancer two years ago. 
 
According to RSF, China is currently holding more than 114 journalists behind bars and is ranked 177th out of 180 in the RSF 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

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Poverty in the Philippines, a chronic development issue that makes the country an outlier in Asia, is declining because of economic strength followed by job creation.

The archipelago’s official poverty rate dropped to 21% in the first half of last year from 27.6% in the first half of 2015, President Rodrigo Duterte said in his July 22 State of the Nation Address.

Economic growth of 6% plus since 2012 has helped to create jobs, especially in Philippine cities such as the capital Manila, economists who follow the country say.

“Twenty-seven percent is actually pretty high by kind of Asian standards, so I think that progress is attributable to the rapid economic growth that’s happened in the Philippines since 2012,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at the market research firm IHS Markit.

Asian outlier

Poverty around Asia had declined from 47.3% in 1990 to 16.1% in 2013, according to World Bank data. Factory jobs, often driven by domestic export manufacturing industries, have fueled much of the boom, especially in China.

Poverty lingered in the Philippines largely for lack of rural jobs, economists believe. Rudimentary farming and fishing anchor the way of life on many of the country’s 7,100 islands. Foreign manufacturers often bypass the Philippines because of its remote location, compared to continental Asia, and relative lack of infrastructure that factory operators need to ship goods.

But the country hit a fast-growth stride in 2012 with a pickup in manufacturing and services. After growing just 3.7% in 2011, the GDP that now stands at $331 billion has expanded at between 6.1% and 7.1% per year.

More jobs

Urban jobs are getting easier to find as multinationals locate call centers in the Philippines, taking advantage of cheap labor and English-language proficiency.

A $169 billion, 5-year program to renew public infrastructure is creating construction jobs while giving factory investors new reason to consider siting in the country. Most new jobs now are in construction, with some in manufacturing, said Christian de Guzman, vice president and senior credit officer with Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group in Singapore.

Underemployment, he added, has “improved quite a bit,” de Guzman said.

“Jobs are being created (and in) the jobs that do exist, I think there’s more work to do, so to speak,” de Guzman said. “I guess less underemployment if you will, and again this is one of the fastest growing economies in Asia.”

Philippine unemployment edged down just 0.1 percentage point to 5.2% in January 2019 compared to a year earlier, but underemployment fell from 18% to 15.6% over that period, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Tax reform

Duterte is also advancing tax reforms that he expects to lower poverty to 14% of the 105 million population by 2022. 

Tax revenue collected under these reforms will allow the government to spend more on health, education and other social services aimed at making people more prosperous, the Department of Finance said in a statement last year.

The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act (TRAIN), which Duterte signed into law in 2017, spells out changes in the tax code.

“Actually, one of the key elements there is the first tax laws that was passed, we call it the TRAIN one,” said Ramon Casiple, executive director or the advocacy group Institute for Political and Electoral Reform in Metro Manila.

Rural income

Longer-term poverty relief will come down to creation of rural jobs such as “specialized” or “advanced” agriculture, Biswas said. The 21% poverty rate is “still high,” he said. Government agencies and private firms over the past few years have already introduced hybrid seeds and new technology to make farming more self-sufficient, domestic news outlet BusinessWorld reported last year.

Natural disasters such as seasonal typhoons and a 50-year conflict between Muslims and the military in the south further hobble poverty relief, some analysts believe. Local government corruption also stops aid from reaching some of the poor, they suggest.

“Both growth and, in turn, poverty reduction seem to be hindered by several factors, including unequal wealth distribution both in terms of social groups and geographic distribution…corruption as well as natural disasters and ongoing conflicts, with the latter triggering a series of negative collateral effects,” said Enrico Cau, Southeast Asia-specialized associate researcher at the Taiwan Center for International Strategic Studies.

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