Global trade rules are “no longer fit for purpose” and must be changed to accommodate China’s new status as a developed economy, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a major foreign policy speech in the United States.

The global community had engaged with China to help it grow but now must demand the world’s second-largest economy bring more transparency to its trade relationships and take a greater share of the responsibilty for addressing climate change, Morrison said.

“The world’s global institutions must adjust their settings for China, in recognition of this new status,” said Morrison in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, referring to China as a “newly developed economy.”

“That means more will be expected of course, as has always been the case for nations like the United States who’ve always had this standing,” Morrison said in the speech, according to transcript provided to Reuters.

Global trade rules were “no longer fit for purpose” and in some cases were “designed for a completely different economy in another era, one that simply doesn’t exist any more,” he added.

Referring to China as a newly developed economy marks a change from Beijing’s self-declared status as a developing economy, which affords it concessions such as longer times to implement agreed commitments, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

It also puts Australia into line with a campaign led by U.S. President Donald Trump to remove China’s developing nation status. In an April 7, 2018 tweet, Trump wrote that China was a “great economic power” but received “tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the U.S.”

Morrison has previously urged China to reform its economy and end a trade war with the United States but has until now stopped short of taking a public position on its WTO status.

While two-way trade between Australia and China has grown since the countries signed a trade pact in 2015, increasing to a record A$183 billion ($127 billion) last year, the bilateral relationship has at times been strained.

In December 2017, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull accused China of meddling in its domestic affairs. The relationship was further soured by Canberra’s decision last year to effectively ban Chinese telecoms firm Huawei Technologies from its 5G broadband network rollout.

Morrison said Australia and the United States had different relationships with China, given Australia had a trade surplus with China while the United States had a trade deficit.

“The engagement with China has been enormously beneficial to our country,” he said. “We want to see that continue.”

 

French researchers are developing what they say is the most powerful Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner in the world which will use a supermagnet the weight of a blue whale and should allow earlier diagnosis of diseases such as Parkinson’s.

“We can potentially detect the disease in its earlier stages and, consequently, monitor it more precisely” Nicolas Boulant the project’s scientific director, told Reuters.

MRI, which has been in use for decades, allows physicians to see which parts of the brain have been damaged while a patient is still alive. The technology uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed images.

The scanner being developed by the French researchers, as part of what is called Project Iseult, involves a new supermagnet in a cylinder shape which is much heavier than those in use already.

The supermagnet measures 5 meters (16 feet) in length and 5 meters in diameter, about as long as a sedan, and weighs 130 metric tons, the weight of a blue whale.

It will obtain brain images a hundred times more detailed than current imaging machines, the researchers say. It is still in development and is expected to produce its first image by the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021.

Project Iseult will also allow scientists “to better understand our brain and how it works, and to study characteristics of what is special to the human species, things like music, mathematics and language,” added Boulant.

 

Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, called on world leaders meeting in New York this week to back an international fund to help female victims of sexual violence during armed conflict.

Mukwege has devoted the past 20 years to helping women raped by armed rebels, treating more than 55,000 women at the Panzi Hospital he set up in Bukavu in the east of war-torn Congo.

But despite winning a list of global accolades for his work, surviving an assassination attempt in 2012, and receiving daily threats, Mukwege said he had struggled for 10 years to generate enough interest to start a fund to recompense victims.

That changed, however, after he was named joint winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize with Yazidi activist Nadia Murad for their work to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war – and his ambition was finally coming to fruition, he said.

Mukwege said France, Germany and the European Union had pledged money for the fund, which will be officially launched on Oct. 30, and he urged government and business leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week to join them.

“Giving women reparations can help them resume their lives and are a way to rebuild the fabric of societies, families and communities,” Mukwege, 64, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview on a sidewalk cafe in New York on Monday.

“Without justice, you can’t build peace, and the example of Congo makes that very clear.”

Mukwege said talking to women raped during conflict he realized victims wanted different forms of recompense, just as they needed different sorts of treatment, ranging from medical and psychological to economic, social and legal.

Some wanted financial help to rebuild their lives or requested education for their children to secure them a better future, while others wanted an apology from the authorities who had failed to protect them or punish those responsible.

“In remote areas particularly, women said they were suffering from a loss of dignity and what they wanted most was an apology so they could then move on,” he said.

It was important to also ensure action was taken against those responsible for sexual violence, he added, and this had yet to happen, particularly in Congo where some of the offenders were in positions of power.

Democratic Republic of Congo was engulfed in war from 1996 to 2003, and several smaller conflicts still simmer.

“I believe you can’t build peace without justice,” said Mukwege, who lives with his wife in the Panzi Hospital which has round-the-clock security.

He said the fund would be administered by a board – yet to be appointed – which would listen to requests from victims and decide how best to allocate resources.

So far France has committed to give about 6 million euros ($6.6 million) to the fund over three years, Germany 400,000 euros over two years, and the European Union a one-off donation of 2 million euros.

Mukwege said it was heartening to see women were starting to speak out and the issue of sexual violence in war was getting the international spotlight.

In 2015, the United Nations proclaimed June 19 of each year to be International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict to raise awareness of the need to end such violence and to honor the victims and survivors globally.

“The number of women who are breaking their silence and coming to hospital is increasing every year,” Mukwege said.

A U.S. Army soldier has been arrested for sharing bomb-making instructions on social media.

Jarrett William Smith, a 24-year-old private first class, also discussed bombing a news network, killing far-left activists known as “antifa” and naming presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke as a possible target, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday.

Smith was charged with one count of distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction in federal court in Topeka, Kansas.

If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

Smith also posted on Facebook his desire to go to Ukraine and join in the fighting with a paramilitary group known as Azov Batallion.

Last month, Smith began chatting online with an undercover investigator about how he was looking for more “radicals” like himself to carry out an attack within the United States.

As recently as last week, he offered to teach the undercover investigator how to make weapons and explosives with common household items.

“Making AK-47s out of expensive parts is cool,” he said. But imagine, “going to Walmart instead of a gun store to buy weapons.”

Smith told undercover FBI investigators that his ultimate aim was to cause “chaos.”

The World Health Organization is “rationing” Ebola vaccines in Democratic Republic of Congo, with access controls meaning too few people at risk are being protected in an outbreak of the deadly disease, the aid group MSF said Monday.

The medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) accused the WHO of using a rigid system of eligibility for vaccination, and said the restrictions are allowing the viral disease to resurge in communities previously thought to be protected.

“The WHO is rationing Ebola vaccines and hampering efforts to make them quickly available to all who are at risk of infection,” MSF said in a statement. “As a result, the outbreak keeps coming back to areas that have supposedly been covered by vaccination.”

The WHO denied it was rationing the vaccine and said it was working as hard as any organization to end Congo’s deadly Ebola outbreak.

“We partner closely with the DRC government to reach as many communities and individuals in the outbreak area as possible and are not limiting access to vaccine,” it said in a statement.

The Congo Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,100 people since the middle of last year, second only to the 2013-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa that killed more than 11,300.

MSF called for more transparency around access to the vaccine, which is manufactured by the U.S. drugmaker Merck and is being deployed in the WHO-led emergency response.

“Time is of essence in an outbreak: medical teams should be able to rapidly provide treatments or vaccines based on what they see on the ground,” MSF’s emergency coordinator, Natalie Roberts, said. “But our capacity … is severely undermined by a rigid system which is hard to comprehend.”

The WHO and the Congolese health ministry say that since August 2018, more than 223,000 people have been vaccinated with rVSV-ZEBOV, the Merck vaccine that has been shown in clinical trials to be highly protective against Ebola infection.

MSF said it estimates that based on the number of Ebola cases in the outbreak so far, the vaccine should have been given to twice as many — between 450,000 and 600,000 people.

Congo health authorities gave the go-ahead on Saturday for plans to introduce a second Ebola vaccine, made by Johnson & Johnson, to help fight the outbreak.

‘Ring vaccination’

The Merck shot is being deployed in a strategy known as “ring vaccination,” which aims to control Ebola by identifying and offering the vaccine to contacts of those likely to be infected.

The WHO said that because Ebola spreads via person-to-person contact, this is “the most effective means of stopping” its spread. It said the Merck vaccine eligibility and strategy were recommended by independent specialists in agreement with Congo.

The plan with the addition of the J&J vaccine, it said, is to extend protection by providing it to “targeted at-risk populations” in areas where the disease is not yet being actively transmitted.

Rising tensions over Syria is expected to top the agenda of talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The meeting, expected to take place Wednesday evening on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, comes as Ankara is threatening to move further into Syria to attack Kurdish militia forces. The YPG is a critical American ally and Ankara designates the group a terrorist organization linked to an insurgency inside Turkey.

Turkish forces are massing on the Syrian frontier, facing off against the YPG.

“All of our preparations have been completed along the border,” Erdogan said Saturday before leaving for New York. “We have no wish to come face-to-face with the U.S. However, we cannot afford to overlook the support that the U.S. is giving to a terrorist organization.”

On Sunday, Trump and Erdogan spoke by telephone on what was described as security matters. Neither side gave further details on what was discussed.

The YPG is a crucial ally in Washington’s war against the Islamic State. In the face of strong opposition by Ankara, U.S. military officials last week confirmed the ongoing arming of the militia in its fight against the Islamic State.

In August, a military agreement was hammered out between American and Turkish generals to secure Turkey’s border from the Kurdish militia.

Joint U.S.-Turkish military patrols have been initiated into Syria, as part of what Washington calls a “security mechanism,” to address Ankara’s concerns.

In what is seen as another confidence-building measure by Washington, Turkish jets Monday participated in an anti-IS operation in Syrian airspace, controlled by U.S. forces.

Erdogan threat

However, analysts say Erdogan threatens to launch a unilateral military strike against the YPG by month’s end unless his demands are met.

“There are many important matters that are needed to be resolved,” said international relations lecturer Soli Ozel of Kadir Has University. “But what we are hearing from the Turkish side and also from the American side is solely about Syria.”

“What the Americans want and what the Turks want seem to be very different from one another,” added Ozel. “This will have to be resolved; whether it will be resolved when they meet, I have no idea. If Turkey does unilaterally enter [Syria], basically erasing the [August military] agreement, then I guess we’ll have another robust crisis in our hands.”

S-400 missile system

Another point of bilateral tension that is expected to be on the agenda of two presidents’ talks is Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system.

Washington claims the purchase violates U.S. law under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which prohibits major purchases of Russian military hardware.

U.S. officials have warned that the S-400 missiles which were delivered in July threaten NATO defense systems.

Trump suspended Turkey’s purchase of the U.S. F-35 fighter because of concerns the S-400 system could comprise the jets’ stealth technology. Turkish companies have also been excluded from the production of the F-35.

Erdogan is lobbying Trump for the reinstatement of Turkey to the F-35 program.

Ankara sees the presidents’ meeting as offering an opportunity for a reset.

“President Trump and Erdogan will be bringing new solution methodologies,” said Mesut Casin, an adviser to the Turkish presidency.

In an apparent gesture to Trump earlier this month, Erdogan said he could purchase America’s Patriot missile system.

U.S. visit

Earlier this month, U.S. Trade Secretary Wilbur Ross made an unprecedented 8-day visit to Turkey to discuss improving bilateral trade.  

Despite bilateral tensions, Erdogan and Trump claim to have a good working relationship, chemistry Ankara will be banking on.

“Ankara has put all its eggs in Trump’s basket undoubtedly. And Trump so far has delivered. Yes, there is a chemistry and so far as I said Erdogan’s trust in Trump has not been betrayed,” said Ozel.

“But I am sure Trump can give what Erdogan wants this time over Syria, and a free hand against the YPG,” he added. “If Erdogan acts unilaterally [in Syria] then Trump, I don’t think, will be able to stop Congress from imposing sanctions on Turkey.”

With Turkish forces massing on Syria’s border, facing off against Washington’s critical Syrian ally, the stakes ahead of the Trump-Erdogan meeting are considerable.

Uganda’s longtime leader is disputing United States sanctions targeting a former protege accused of rights violations during his role as police boss between 2005 and 2018.

President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday said Gen. Kale Kayihura’s alleged offenses “will be handled in Uganda.”

The sanctions are widely seen in Uganda as sending a strong message to Museveni about alleged corruption and rights violations.

Museveni says his government will never hand any Ugandan to global justice mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court, even though his country is a state party to the statute creating the ICC.

The U.S. this month blocked Kayihura’s assets and imposed a travel ban on him and family members, saying units under his command committed “serious human rights abuses.” He also is accused of corruption and bribery.

 

At least two people were wounded when shots were fired in the yard of the Haitian Senate Monday.  Eyewitnesses say a senator wielded the gun that shot the victims, as the Senate was readying a vote to confirm the prime minister designate, Fritz William Michel.

Witnesses said that shooter was Senator Ralph Fethiere.

Among those wounded is an AP photojournalist who spoke to VOA Creole.

“I was shot in the jaw,” Chery Denalio said, holding a cloth to stop the bleeding as he walked toward the exit. “I’m going to the hospital now.”  

The journalist told VOA that he saw another person shot in the stomach. That victim is the inspector of police for the parliament, VOA Creole reporters were told.

Senate leader Carl Murat Cantave left the parliament after the shooting surrounded by security detail.

This is a developing story. Check back later for more details

In 2014, then-Vice President Joe Biden was at the forefront of American diplomatic efforts to support Ukraine’s fragile democratic government as it sought to fend off Russian aggression and root out corruption. So it raised eyebrows when Biden’s son Hunter was hired by a Ukrainian gas company.

The Obama White House said at the time that there was no conflict because the younger Biden was a private citizen. And there’s been no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.

Yet the matter is back in the spotlight following revelations that President Donald Trump prodded Ukraine’s president to help him investigate any corruption related to Joe Biden, now one of the top Democrats seeking to defeat Trump in 2020. Trump’s private lawyer Rudy Giuliani has also publicly urged Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens.

Hunter Biden was named a paid board member of Burisma Holdings in April 2014. The company’s founder was a political ally of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president, who was driven out in February 2014 by mass protests.

Yanukovych’s ouster prompted the Obama administration to move quickly to deepen ties with Ukraine’s new government. Joe Biden played a leading role, traveling to Ukraine and speaking frequently with its new Western-friendly president.

The younger Biden’s business role raised concerns among anticorruption advocates that Burisma was seeking to gain influence with the Obama administration. At the time, the company ran a natural gas extraction operation in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia after Yanukovych was pushed from power.

Hunter Biden has denied using his influence with his father to aid Burisma. He remained on the board through early 2019, often appearing at energy-related conferences abroad representing Burisma’s interests.

On Saturday, the former vice president said he never speaks to his son about his overseas business dealings.

The matter, however, has continued to be questioned by Trump and his allies. They’ve pointed in particular to Biden’s move in March 2016 to pressure the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who had previously led an investigation into Burisma’s owner.

Biden was representing the official position of the U.S. government, a position that was also supported by other Western governments and many in Ukraine, who accused Shokin of being soft on corruption.

Corruption has continued to fester in Ukraine. In May, the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, came into office with no political experience but with bold promises to put an end to the corrupt practices.

Around this time, Giuliani began reaching out to Zelenskiy and his aides to press for a government investigation into Burisma and Hunter Biden’s role with the company.

In a Fox News interview on May 19, Trump claimed the former Ukrainian prosecutor “was after” Joe Biden’s son and that was why the former vice president demanded he be fired. There is no evidence of this.

Ukraine’s current prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, was quoted by Bloomberg News in May as saying he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden or his son. Bloomberg also reported that the investigation into Burisma was dormant at the time Biden pressed for Shokhin’s ouster.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign has failed, and that sanctions it imposed after abandoning the 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear program show the United States is desperate.

Speaking before traveling to New York to participate the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings, Rouhani also said the United States and Saudi Arabia have exaggerated the damage done by an attack on Saudi oil facilities earlier this month.

Rouhani accused the Trump administration of wanting to take control of the region.  He said earlier his plans for the U.N. meetings include presenting a regional cooperation plan for peace. 

U.S. and Saudi officials have blamed Iran for the attacks, which shut down half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production.  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday his government believes there is a “high probability” Iran was responsible.

Iranian officials, including Rouhani, have denied Iran was involved.

While many world leaders will hold talks on the sidelines of the U.N. meetings this week, a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Rouhani seems unlikely.  

Trump said Sunday he had no intention of talking with Rouhani, and the Iranian president has said he would not meet with Trump until the United States lifts economic sanctions.

Trump announced new sanctions against Iran’s national bank Friday, further escalating economic pressure on the Islamic Republic, but pulling back from any direct military action.

“I think the sanctions work,” Trump said.  “The military would work, but that is a very severe form of winning.”

Young people around the world have been organizing protests to demand action on climate change. Millions walked out of their schools and workplaces last Friday as part of demonstrations leading up to the Youth Climate Summit at United Nations headquarters in New York.  Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg helped inspire the protests, staging weekly demonstrations for the past year calling on world leaders to bolster efforts to combat climate change. Saqib Ul Islam has more in this report from New York.

U.S. President Donald Trump joined India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the “Howdy Modi” event organized by the Indian- American community in Houston, Texas. The president praised bilateral relations with the world’s second-most populous nation, but also seemed to use the occasion to woo Texas voters ahead of the 2020 election. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports an estimated 50,000 people attended the rally addressed by the two leaders. 

A group of prominent opposition Haitian senators sat outside the Senate doors early Sunday morning, a day when parliament is normally not in session. 

“Over the weekend there were rumors that the Senate leader was organizing a special session Sunday. Such a vote would be considered out of the ordinary,” Senator Antonio Cheramy told VOA Creole. “We called around and tried to find out what was going on, but we’ve had absolute silence (from the Senate leader).” 

Senator Cheramy said he and fellow opposition colleagues decided to stake out the Senate because they can’t allow such a vote to be held behind their backs. 

Around midday, Senate leader Carl Murat Cantave took to Twitter to deny the rumors and set the record straight.

“Contrary to the rumors that a ratification vote is planned for this Sunday, the vote to ratify PM designate @fritzwmichel and his government is planned for this Monday 23 September 2019 at 8:00 am,” Cantave said.

Contrairement aux rumeurs faisant croire que la séance de ratification était prévue pour ce dimanche, la séance de ratification du PM nommé

Pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq known as Popular Mobilization Forces are becoming bolder, despite calls by Iraq’s Shiite spiritual leader and prime minister to put their weapons under government control.

The PMF is an umbrella organization of Iraqi Shiite militias formed in 2014 to fight the Sunni militant Islamic State (IS), whose capture of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul triggered a collapse of the nation’s military. PMF militias boast tens of thousands of fighters.

Earlier this month, Iraqi media circulated a letter purportedly from the PMF’s most dominant commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, ordering the creation of a PMF air force separate from the Iraqi military. His apparent order came after several aerial strikes on PMF bases in Iraq in recent months. The PMF blamed the strikes on Iran’s regional enemy Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shiite cleric in Shiite-majority Iraq, inspired the PMF’s creation through a June 2014 fatwa or religious decree encouraging Iraqis to “volunteer to join the security forces” to save the country from the IS threat. Iraqi Shiites responded by joining pre-existing and new Shiite militias with the approval of then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who granted them semi-official status under the PMF umbrella. The militias also received training and weapons from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force as they battled IS and helped Iraq’s revived military to defeat the Sunni militants in 2017.

Since then, the elderly Sistani has been urging Iraqis, through statements by his representatives, to join security forces specifically under the government’s authority. A week after the September 5 revelation of the PMF’s intention to create its own air force, Sistani’s office director in Lebanon, Hamed Alkhafaf, told Iranian Shiite news agency Shafaqna that the cleric believes weapons “should be, first and foremost, in the hands of the army and no party, group or clan other than government forces should hold arms.”

Iraq’s government also has been calling for PMF weapons to be brought under its control in recent years.

In late 2016, the Iraqi parliament enacted a law granting the PMF formal recognition as an autonomous branch of the Iraqi security forces and entitled it to government aid, with Iraq’s 2019 budget allocating $2.16 billion to the organization.

But the law also required PMF to put its weapons under Iraqi state control and abandon politics. Since the law’s passage, Iraq’s previous Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and incumbent Adil Abdul Mahdi also have issued decrees calling for the PMF to respect it.

In response to a dozen attempted attacks by suspected PMF militiamen on U.S. military, diplomatic and commercial targets in Iraq in the first half of this year, Prime Minister Mahdi in early July called on the PMF to become an “indivisible part of the armed forces and be subject to the same regulations.” He warned that any group failing to comply by July 31 would be treated as an outlaw.

Almost two months after that decree, the PMF has continued to operate outside of Iraqi government control. Some experts say Sistani’s ignored appeals for the PMF to abide by government decisions show the cleric no longer is the main influencer of the organization.

The PMF’s most powerful militias were established before Sistani’s fatwa and owe allegiance only to Tehran, according to Mithal al-Alusi, an Iraqi politician and former parliament member. Consequently, “the strength and weakness of these militias depends on the strength and weakness of the IRGC and the Iranian regime,” Alusi told VOA Persian.

Alusi said the PMF also has benefitted from the political support of some Iraqi Shiite politicians, particularly those affiliated to Islamist parties, who see the organization as a guarantor of continued Shiite rule of the country.  

Ismael Alsodani, a retired Iraqi brigadier general who served as an Iraqi military attaché in Washington, said those Iraqi politicians have manipulated Sistani’s 2014 fatwa, using it to call for government benefits for PMF militias while encouraging those militias to ignore government orders.

Mustafa Habib, an Iraqi political analyst and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that not all PMF militias have defied the Iraqi government. “There are those who respect the government and work under its leadership, and some who refuse to work with it and consider themselves part of an ‘axis of resistance’,” Habib said, referring to an alliance that includes Iran, Syria and non-state actors such as Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Iraq’s pro-Iranian militias, some of whom the U.S. has designated as terrorist organizations, have increased in size by twenty times since 2010, according to a study published last month by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. From having as few as 4,000 operatives at the beginning of that period, the study said such militias now employ 81,000 to 84,000 personnel under the PMF umbrella.

Michael Knights, the author of the study and an Iraq military expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the significant growth of Iran-backed Iraqi militias, coupled with Iraq’s large population and weak government, make the country the fastest-growing arena for Iran’s expansion of perceived malign influence in the Middle East.

Knights told VOA that Iran’s major rivals in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia, have been watching this trend closely and are likely to act against it when necessary.

“Israel will keep striking in Iraq until such time as the Iranians stop using the PMF to move and hide missiles. The Israelis now consider Iraq to be a part of an extended battleground— first it was Syria, and then Iraq was added to it,” Knights said, referring to a series of recent unclaimed attacks that targeted PMF groups across Iraq and Syria.
 
“If you look at the suspected Israeli strikes, they all hit Kataib Hezbollah, which is a primary Iranian proxy in Iraq, but also is the most important player within the PMF,” he added.

The attacks, which killed and wounded several PMF members according to Iraqi media, raised the prospect of a new proxy war in Iraq, with Kataib Hezbollah threatening to strike back at Israel and hit U.S. bases in Iraq with missiles.

Ihsan al-Shamari, the head of the Iraqi Political Thinking Center in Baghdad, told VOA that Iranian influence over the PMF presents a major challenge to Iraq’s democracy and sovereignty.

“Iraqis don’t have any issue with the PMF as an institution, but their concern lies in Tehran’s dominance over its decision-making. Iran will continue to support a number of armed factions in Iraq as part of its strategy to maintain proxies in the region,” Shamari said.

“Ultimately, it is up to Iraq’s government to decide whether it be for this Iranian vision of the PMF or against it.”

 

The British oil tanker seized by Iran in July will soon be released, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday.

The Stena Impero and its crew were seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the Strait of Hormuz for alleged maritime violations just weeks after British forces seized an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Gibraltar.

Britain accused Iran of trying to sell oil in violation of international sanctions against Tehran. Gibraltar released that tanker last month.

The head of the Swedish company that owns the Stena Impero told Swedish public broadcaster SVT that the tanker may be released within hours.

“We have received information now this morning that it seems like they will release the ship Stena Impero within a few hours. So we understand that the political decision to release the ship has been taken.” Erik Hanell said.

The head of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran in Hormozgan Province, Allahmorad Afifipour, told Fars that the the process of allowing the tanker to move into international waters has begun but that a legal case against the ship is still pending.

He did not release any other information about the tanker.

 

The planet is getting hotter, and tackling that climate peril will grab the spotlight as world leaders gather for their annual meeting at the United Nations this week facing an undeniable backdrop: rising tensions from the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan and increasing nationalism, inequality and intolerance.

Growing fear of military action, especially in response to recent attacks on Saudi oil installations that are key to world energy supplies, hangs over this year’s General Assembly gathering. That unease is exacerbated by global conflicts and crises from Syria and Yemen to Venezuela, from disputes between Israel and the Palestinians to the Pakistan-India standoff over Kashmir.

All eyes will be watching presidents Donald Trump of the United States and Hassan Rouhani of Iran, whose countries are at the forefront of escalating tensions, to see if they can reduce fears of a confrontation that could impact the Mideast and far beyond. Whether the two will even meet remains in serious doubt.

“Our fraying world needs international cooperation more than ever, but simply saying it will not make it happen,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Let’s face it: We have no time to lose.”

This year’s General Assembly session, which starts Tuesday and ends Sept. 30, has attracted world leaders from 136 of the 193 U.N. member nations. That large turnout reflects a growing global focus on addressing climate change and the perilous state of peace and security.

Other countries will be represented by ministers and vice presidents — except Afghanistan, whose leaders are in a hotly contested presidential campaign ahead of Sept. 28 elections, and North Korea, which downgraded its representation from a minister to, likely, its U.N. ambassador. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled plans to attend and are sending ministers.

Last week, Guterres repeated warnings that “tensions are boiling over.” The world, he said, “is at a critical moment on several fronts — the climate emergency, rising inequality, an increase in hatred and intolerance as well as an alarming number of peace and security challenges.”

With so many monarchs, presidents and prime ministers at the U.N. this year, “we have a chance to advance diplomacy for peace,” Guterres said. “This is the moment to cool tensions.”

Whether that happens remains to be seen. Many diplomats aren’t optimistic.

“It’s a challenging time for the United Nations,” said China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, whose nation is embroiled in a protracted dispute with the United States over tariffs. “We are faced with rising of unilateralism, protectionism, and we are faced with global challenges like climate change, like terrorism, like cybersecurity.”

“More importantly,” he said, “we are faced with a deficit of trust.”

As the world’s second-largest economy and a member of the U.N. Security Council, “China firmly defends multilateralism, and China firmly supports the United Nations,” Zhang said Friday.

But divisions among the five council members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — have paralyzed action on the eight-year conflict in Syria and other global crises. On global warming, the Trump administration remains at odds with many countries.

This year, the U.N. has stocked the agenda with a “Youth Climate Summit” ahead of a full-on climate summit for world leaders on Monday. That’s all happening before the leaders hold their annual meeting in the horseshoe-shaped General Assembly hall starting Tuesday morning.

Guterres will give his state-of-the-world address at the opening, immediately followed by speeches from Trump and other leaders including the presidents of Brazil, Egypt and Turkey. Iran’s Rouhani is scheduled to address the assembly Wednesday morning.

The United Nations is also holding four other summit meetings — on universal health coverage, progress on the 17 U.N. goals to combat poverty and preserve the environment, new ways to finance economic development, and the situation of developing island nations on the front line of what the U.N. calls a climate emergency.

Guterres has long stressed the links among climate change, conflict and poverty.

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said data shows “how much we have to do on poverty and the other goals.” The U.N. message, she said, is simple: “It’s time to ratchet up the action that we need to have at the country level.”

Though the summit meetings are public, much of the business of the high-level week takes place behind closed doors. According to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric, there were 630 requests for meetings in the United Nations. Hundreds of other one-on-one and small-group meetings will take place at hotels, at U.N. missions and at lunches and dinners.

Indian U.N. Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said, for example, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will spend at least half an hour with presidents, prime ministers or foreign ministers of about 75 countries as part of the country’s “much more intensive” engagement.

On the key issue of a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to discuss the Aug. 5 decision by Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government to strip disputed Jammu and Kashmir of semi-autonomy and statehood, Akbaruddi said: “There has to be an enabling environment before leaders meet.”

“Today the talk that is emanating from Pakistan in certainly not conducive to that enabling environment,” he said.

Khan, for his part, said last week that his government will not hold talks until India lifts a curfew in Kashmir and reinstates the disputed region’s special autonomous status.

On most pressing global issues, Akbaruddin — like many others — did not paint an appealing picture.

“We meet in the context of greater competition rather than cooperation, less collaboration, more rivalry,” he told reporters Friday. “The climate — other than on climate change — doesn’t seem to be conducive for collaborative and cooperative effort. And that’s the harsh reality.”

Sigmund Jaehn, who became the first German in space at the height of the Cold War during the 1970s and was promoted as a hero by communist authorities in East Germany, has died. He was 82.

The German Aerospace Center said Sunday on its website that Jaehn died Saturday. The center did not give the cause of death. German news agency dpa said he died at his home in Strausberg, outside of Berlin.

Astrophysicist Pascale Ehrenfreund, who chairs the German Aerospace Center’s executive board, said the center was deeply saddened by Jaehn’s death and that German aerospace had lost a “globally respected cosmonaut, scientist and engineer.”

“The first German in space always saw himself as a bridge builder between East and West and for a peaceful use of space” Ehrenfreund said.

Jaehn flew to the Soviet space station Salyut 6 on Aug. 26, 1978 and spent almost eight days in space. Upon his return, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. The East German government showcased his achievement as evidence of the communist state’s superiority over capitalist West Germany.

While Jaehn was a household name for a generation of East Germans, he remained largely unknown in West Germany. German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz described Jaehn last year on the 40th anniversary of his space flight as “an impressive man and a rather quiet hero.”

“It is high time for his courage and his work to be recognized not just in the east but in all of Germany,” Scholz said.

Jaehn was born Feb. 13, 1937, in Morgenroethe-Rautenkranz, a village near the Czech border. After he finished school, he trained as a printer before joining the East German air force in 1955. He became an officer and a fighter pilot with the National People’s Army in the late 1950s.

Between 1966 and 1970, he studied at the Gagarin Military Air Academy in Monino, near Moscow. After returning to East Germany, he worked in the air force administration, where he was in charge of pilot education and flight safety.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and Germany’s reunification a year later, Jaehn became an adviser to the German Aerospace Center and the European Space Agency. He helped prepare future astronauts for space missions until his retirement in 2002.

Recalling his seven days, 20 hours and 49 minutes in space, during which he orbited the Earth 124 times, Jaehn said last year that he vividly remembered the many sunrises he saw during his mission.

“It’s not only one; every 1½ hours you can see the sun rise. It’s very fast. One can see exactly how the sun goes up and down and shows its many colors,” Jaehn told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

Jaehn said that unlike many people, he had no problems getting used to zero gravity. “I didn’t even get sick. I thought it was very pleasant,” he said.

He said if he had grown up in West Germany, he probably would never have made it into space.

“I didn’t go to university right away. … I was the best student, but my father wanted me to become a printer. When you’re 14, you listen to your parents,” he remembered.

“I caught up on everything later, got my university entrance degree, went to university,” he added. “But in the West, they still sometimes like to say: This Jaehn, he only was a simple worker.”

Jaehn was married and had two daughters.

Authorities on Saturday identified the four Chinese tourists killed in a bus crash in southern Utah, and the tour group is dispatching employees from China to help those injured.

Three women and one man perished in the crash on a highway running through the red-rock landscape of southern Utah on Friday. The victims have been identified as Ling Geng, 68, Xiuyun Chen, 67, Zhang Caiyu, 62, and Zhongliang Qiu, 65. They were all from Shanghai, China.

They were part of a tour group made up of 29 tourists and one leader. They come from Shanghai and the nearby provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Heilongjiang, according to a news report on the media website huanqiu.com. The tour leader came from Hebei Province, near Beijing, according to the Zhejiang Online news site.

Five passengers remained in critical condition Friday night, and the death toll could rise, Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Nick Street said.

All 31 people on board were hurt. Twelve to 15 on board were considered to be in critical condition shortly after the crash, but several of them have since improved, Street said. Not everyone was wearing a seatbelt, as is common in tour buses, he said.

The Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism urged the travel agency, Shanghai Zhuyuan International Travel Agency, to spare no effort in rescuing the injured and properly handle the follow-up matters.

Phone calls to the travel agency rang unanswered Sunday morning. Lu Yong, the travel agency’s general manager, told a Chinese TV program that the agency’s American partners sent 10 staff members to hospitals to help the victims communicate with doctors and police.

The News Perspective program, part of the Shanghai Media Group, said in an article on its official social media account that seven relatives of the victims were expected to leave for the United States on Monday or Tuesday with travel agency staff and officials from the culture and tourism bureau.

The news program’s social media post included photos of parts of the itinerary, indicating the accident occurred on the seventh day of a 16-day trip and also included visits to Yellowstone National Park, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. They were to fly to the East Coast after the western U.S. stops.

The crash happened near a highway rest stop a few miles from southern Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park, an otherworldly landscape of narrow red-rock spires.

Authorities believe the driver swerved on the way to the park on Friday morning. But when he yanked the steering wheel to put the bus back onto the road, the momentum sent the bus into a rollover crash, authorities said.

The driver, an American citizen, survived and was talking with investigators, Street said. He didn’t appear to be intoxicated, but authorities were still investigating his condition as well as any possible mechanical problems, he said.

There was some wind, but it was not strong enough to cause problems, Street said.

The crash left the top of a white bus smashed in and one side peeling away as the vehicle came to rest mostly off the side of the road against a sign for restrooms.

The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to investigate. The agency was scheduled to speak about the investigation Sunday afternoon.

The company listed on the bus was America Shengjia Inc. Utah business records indicate it is based in Monterey Park, California. A woman answering the phone there did not have immediate comment.

Intermountain Garfield Memorial Hospital said it received 17 patients, including three in critical condition and 11 in serious condition. Patients also were taken to Cedar City and St. George hospitals.

Millions of people visit Utah’s five national parks every year. Last year, about 87,000 people from China visited the state, making them the fastest-growing group of Utah tourists, according to state data.

More than half of visitors from China travel on tour buses, said Vicki Varela, managing director of Utah Office of Tourism.

The Chinese Embassy tweeted that it was saddened to hear about the crash and that it was sending staff to help the victims.

Bryce Canyon, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City, draws more than 2 million visitors a year.

“You have a group from China who have worked hard to come to the states, got the visa and everything they needed, excited about it, and for a tragedy like this to happen it just makes it all the more tragic,” Street said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he did nothing wrong in a telephone conversation with the new president of Ukraine amid news report that Trump allegedly urged him to investigate the son of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.

Speaking to reporters, Trump described his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky as “absolutely perfect.”

“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place. It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Trump said.

According to news reports, Trump urged Zelensky about eight times during their conversation to investigate Biden’s son. Sources were quoted saying Trump’s intent was to get Zelensky to collaborate with Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani on an investigation that could undermine Biden.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko on Saturday denied Trump had pressured Zelensky during the call, telling the media outlet Hromadski that Ukraine would not take sides in U.S. politics even if the country was in a position to do so.

Trump and Guiliani have pushed for an investigation of the Bidens for weeks, following news reports this year that explored whether a Ukrainian energy company tried to secure influence in the U.S. by employing Biden’s younger son, Hunter.

Democrats are condemning what they perceive as a concerted effort to damage Biden, who has been thrust into the middle of an unidentified whistleblower’s complaint against Trump. Biden is currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Trump administration has blocked procedures under which the whistleblower complaint would have normally been forwarded by the U.S. intelligence community to members of the Democrat-controlled Congress, keeping its contents secret.

Biden said late Friday that if the reports are accurate, “then there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.” Biden also called on Trump to disclose the transcript of his conversation with Zelensky so “the American people can judge for themselves.”

When asked about releasing the transcript,  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC News that  “those are private conversations between world leaders and it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so except in the most extreme circumstances.”

The intelligence community inspector general has described the whistleblower’s August 12 complaint as “serious” and “urgent,” conditions that would normally require him to forward the complaint to Congress. Trump has characterized the complaint as “just another political hack job.”

 

At least 20 Somali government soldiers were killed and 18 others were wounded when al-Shabab raided a military base south of Mogadishu, security sources told VOA Somali.

The sources said militants detonated a suicide car bomb at the El-Salin military base followed by an infantry attack in the early hours of Sunday.

The militants briefly took over the base, a regional official told VOA Somali.

A spokesman for Somali special forces said the militants attacked the base “in large numbers.” 

Mowlid Ahmed Hassan said the fighting lasted about 40 minutes, insisting the troops ‘defended” the base. He said reinforcements have been sent to the base.

Hassan said the troops killed 13 militants, but declined to comment on the number of government soldiers killed in the attack.

Somali troops seized the El-Salin base from al-Shabab on August 6. It was one of four bases in Lower Shabelle region recaptured following an offensive by the Somali military.