Jie Xi from Mandarin service contributed to this report

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he wants a complete trade deal with China and that the country’s purchase of American agricultural goods is not enough. He made the comments ahead of the next round of senior level U.S.-China trade talks in Washington.

“We’re looking for a complete deal. I’m not looking for a partial deal. China has been starting to buy our agricultural product, if you noticed over the last week, and actually some very big purchases. But that’s not what I’m looking for. We’re looking for the big deal,” said Trump during a joint press conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the White House.

Washington and Beijing last held major talks in July, but there was no major breakthrough in the trade disputes between the world’s top two economies.

The two countries have been engaged in a series of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs for more than a year, sparked by the U.S.’s initial demand for changes in China’s trade, subsidy and intellectual property practices.

Beijing says Washington’s trade policies are aimed at trying to stifle its ability to compete.

As the U.S. continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump said Friday China is experiencing “the worst” economy in years.

“Two weeks ago it’s the worst in 22 years, now it’s 57 years and it’s only going to get worse,” said Trump.

While government economists in Beijing are slightly more optimistic, as they expect a stimulus plan to help stave off a sharper slowdown, some American analysts said China’s economic growth risks slipping below the lower-end of Beijing’s 2019 target of 6% in the third quarter or over the next year.

Brad Setser from Council on Foreign Relations says the economic stimulus measures provided by the Chinese government have “been too modest to push China’s growth back up.”

“The hits to confidence and uncertainty have been important in dampening the outlook in China. Even firms that are not planning to leave in the short term are exploring alternatives more seriously than in the past, rather than relying on one country for their production or supplies,” said Martin Chorzempa from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Hundreds of Haitians braved rainy weather and joined an opposition protest Friday to demand an end to rampant government corruption and to call for President Jovenel Moise to resign.

Opposition Senator Saurel Jacinthe, who drew attention to a bribery scheme in parliament, joined protesters in the capital, Port-au-Prince. One of Jacinthe’s main targets was Prime Minister-designate Fritz William Michel, who has come under fire for allegedly bribing members of parliament to approve his nomination and for a questionable contract one of his businesses signed with the government.

Michel has been criticized for selling to the government 20,000 American goats at a cost of $325 a head. Critics say Michel has no experience with livestock and does not own a goat farm. The market price for goats in Haiti is $100.

“You can’t put a goat thief in the prime minister’s seat. I think it’s obvious,” Jacinthe told VOA Creole, referring to the contract that Michel landed with the government.

“Michel has to withdraw [his nomination] and I think it’s clear that after that we can move forward with a … new alternative to lead the country. That’s why we are here today,” Jacinthe said.

The senator said the mobilization would continue until Tuesday.

Friday’s protests were meant to coincide with the birthday of national hero and former slave Jean Jacques Dessalines.

Dessalines, a revered revolutionary war general, announced the country’s independence from France in 1804. For many Haitians, he symbolizes the pinnacle of good leadership.

The opposition also called for the establishment of a transitional government, trials for all those implicated in a corruption scandal surrounding Caribbean oil alliance PetroCaribe, prosecution of public officials accused of corruption, and organization of a National Sovereignty Conference to discuss the framework for a new government. The PetroCaribe scandal concerns the misuse of oil revenue that was supposed to be used for social programs in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. The oil came from Venezuela under specially negotiated terms.

PetroCaribe was launched in June 2005 as an alliance with Venezuela, giving members preferential treatment for energy purchase, at a discounted price with low-interest deferred terms and an option to pay in kind instead of currency.

Several audits have shown that much of Haiti’s PetroCaribe revenue disappeared, having been disbursed for government construction contracts on projects that were never finished.

“[No matter] where you live in the country, you are facing the same problems,” a protester in the Canape Vert neighborhood of the capital told VOA Creole. “We blame Jovenel for our misery; he has to leave the country.”

“It’s not the government that is the problem,” another protester said. “It is a problem of the legislative chamber which includes the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. They are the problem, not the president, or the ministers.”

Demonstrations are expected nationwide as Haiti faces a severe fuel shortage, along with an economic and political crisis.

President Moise has not commented on the protests.

Registered nurses staged a one-day strike Friday against Tenet Health hospitals in Florida, California and Arizona, demanding higher wages and better working conditions.
 
About 6,500 National Nurses United members walked out at 12 Tenet facilities after working without a contract for two years in Arizona and under expired contracts for months in California and Florida, the union said. They plan to resume working Saturday.
 
Members are also passing out leaflets in Texas, where contracts at two Tenet hospitals in El Paso expire later this year.
 
Yajaira Roman, a union leader and neurological intensive care nurse at Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah, Florida, said that although the Tenet nurses want higher wages, they also want a lower patient-to-nurse ratio as a way to avoid burnout and improve care. For example, the union says Tenet assigns eight patients per nurse in Palmetto’s surgical unit, double the level the union says research recommends.
 
“We are nurses — we are really proud of what we do and we’re happy that we’re serving the community, but we want to do it in a way where when patients leave the hospital they are extremely satisfied,” said Roman, a nurse for 18 years.
 
Tenet, which has 65 hospitals and 115,000 employees nationwide, issued a statement saying it has negotiated in “good faith” and it is disappointed the union chose to strike.
 
“While we respect the nurses’ right to strike, patients and their loved ones can be assured that our patients will continue to be cared for by qualified replacement registered nurses and other caregivers,” the Dallas-based company’s statement said.

U.S. numbers
 
According to the U.S. Labor Department, almost 3 million registered nurses are employed nationally, with an average annual salary of $75,510. Florida’s average RN salary is $66,210, Arizona’s is $77,000 and California’s is $106,950, tops in the nation. RNs typically have either an associate degree or bachelor’s degree in nursing or graduated from a three-year program at a teaching hospital. They then must pass a state licensing exam.
 
The Tenet walkout is one of several strikes and organizing efforts nationwide as unions work to rebuild from a steep membership decline that began 50 years ago. Many are focusing on white-collar, female-dominated and service-sector industries such as health care, teaching, the media and hospitality instead of just blue-collar, male-dominated industries like manufacturing, where the United Auto Workers is striking against General Motors.
 
A recent Gallup poll showed Americans support unions by a 2-to-1 margin, up from a near even split 10 years ago and nearly the highest level since the 1960s.

As the world waited for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to decide what to do next in response to last weekend’s drone and missile attack on two major Saudi oil fields, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the most bellicose statement yet on the attacks, unambiguously accusing Iran of launching them and declaring the attacks an “act of war.”

Almost as soon as the attacks were reported, Pompeo, a former member of Congress and director of the CIA, asserted himself as the person driving the U.S. response. “Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” he wrote on Twitter. “There is no evidence the attacks on Saturday came from Yemen.”

Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo)

The Zimbabwean doctor whose disappearance sparked off a wave of doctors’ protests across the country, has reappeared, alive.

Speaking Thursday on VOA Zimbabwe Service’s Livetalk program, a disoriented-sounding Dr. Peter Magombeyi, the president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association, confirmed he was the one on the other end of the phone.

“I honestly don’t know how to truly identify myself, but I am Dr. Peter Magombeyi, I work at Harare Hospital,” he said.

The doctor, who had been spearheading calls for an increase of doctors’ salaries when he disappeared on September 15, said he could not remember exactly what happened to him or how he ended up where he was — an area called Nyabira, about 33 kilometers from Harare.

“That part I’m just so vague about, I need time to recall,” he said.

Dr. Magombeyi said his last recollection before being taken by unnamed people was the memory of being electrocuted.

“I remember being in a basement of some sort, being electrocuted at some point, that is what I vividly remember. I, I just don’t remember,” Dr. Magombeyi said, struggling to speak.

Zimbabwe’s government and police have denied involvement in Magombeyi’s disappearance, but said they were doing all they could to find the doctor.  

Officials also suggested a third party could be involved in the disappearance to taint the government’s image.

Responding to the police allegation, and also Twitter posts alluding to the same accusations, Magombeyi said he had no answers.  

“I need time to think about it, I don’t know,” he said.

Amnesty International on Friday accused Hong Kong police of using excessive force against pro-democracy protesters, in some cases amounting to torture, criticizing a “disturbing pattern of reckless and unlawful tactics.”

In a report based on interviews with nearly two dozen activists, most of whom were hospitalized after their arrests, the global rights watchdog said the city’s police officers routinely went beyond the level of force allowed by local law and international standards.

“In an apparent thirst for retaliation, Hong Kong’s security forces have engaged in a disturbing pattern of reckless and unlawful tactics against people during the protests,” Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia director at Amnesty International, said. “This has included arbitrary arrests and retaliatory violence against arrested persons in custody, some of which has amounted to torture.”

The rights group backed calls for an independent inquiry into police brutality, a key demand of protesters but one that has been rejected by government officials and police top brass.

Hong Kong’s police force dismissed Amnesty’s findings and rejected allegations it had used excessive force.

In a statement issued Friday, police said their officers “exercise a high level of restraint at all times in the use of force.”

In response to specific allegations contained within the report, police said they “do not comment on individual cases” and said those alleging abuse should make a complaint with the police watchdog instead.

Frequently violent demonstrations featuring hundreds of thousands of protesters have raged in Hong Kong for more than three months.

Anti-government protesters have hurled rocks, bottles and petrol bombs as well as used slingshots in their battles with police who have responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon.

Videos of police baton charging and beating protesters have frequently gone viral online.

‘Batons and fists’

Amnesty interviewed 21 people who had been arrested, 18 of whom were later hospitalized for injuries.

“Almost every arrested person interviewed described being beaten with batons and fists during the arrest, even when they were not resisting and often already restrained,” the report’s authors wrote.

Most interviewees reported the violence stopped once in custody.

But one detainee said he was assaulted for being uncooperative and another described seeing police shine a laser into the eye of a young detainee, a tactic protesters have employed against police.

Two defense lawyers also claimed their clients were beaten.

Multiple suspects described lengthy delays in receiving medical attention or access to defense lawyers.

Hong Kong’s police denied those allegations, saying officers “respect the privacy, dignity and rights” of those arrested.

Beyond extradition

Hong Kong’s protests were sparked by a now-abandoned plan to allow extraditions to the authoritarian Chinese mainland.

But after Beijing and local leaders took a hard line, the protests snowballed into a wider movement calling for police accountability and universal suffrage.

Amnesty’s Bequelin said he believed the city’s police “is no longer in a position to investigate itself and remedy the widespread unlawful suppression of protesters” and called for an independent inquiry.
 

As Guinea’s president visits the U.S. preaching economic development, a debate rages back home about term limits.

President Alpha Condé spent the week visiting U.S. diplomats, granting interviews and meeting with business leaders. He said his goal is to attract investment and transform his country’s economy, which historically has been heavily dependent on mineral extraction.

“Guinea has potential. We don’t want to be providers of primary materials. We want businesses to come here, work here and create value,” he told VOA’s French to Africa service. “My dream is that Africa [becomes] not only a factory for Africa but a factory for the world.”

Voices of concern

But observers are voicing concern about the state of Guinea’s young democracy. Condé was elected in 2010 in the country’s first free and fair election in nearly 50 years. According to Guinea’s Constitution, he must leave office next year after his second term expires. But a campaign has emerged, believed to be supported by Condé and his allies, to strike down the term limits restriction. Condé instructed Prime Minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana to travel the country and gather opinions about the amendment.

“Changing those term limits requires writing a completely new constitution and submitting it to parliament for approval and then submitting it for a popular referendum for approval,” said Alix Boucher, an assistant research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. “So the current situation is that the administration seems to be wanting to work towards taking those steps.”

The move has provoked a backlash. According to a 2018 poll by Afrobarometer, 82 percent of Guineans support a two-term limit. Additionally, more than 70 percent prefer democracy to single-party rule.

“Guineans really don’t seem to like that idea. They think democracy is preferable. They don’t want single-party rule. They don’t want one man rule,” Boucher said.

For his part, Condé is keeping an arm’s length from the question of the constitutional amendment. He told VOA, “I did not come to discuss politics, I came here for business.”

But when asked directly how long he intends to stay in power Condé said: “Only God knows and the people of Guinea. It is normal. The people are sovereign. I want to remind you that the United States has changed [its] constitution 27 times, so it is normal that we ask the people. The world evolves.”

Opposition

Guineans in the diaspora are expressing their opposition. On Sept. 11, Guineans living in the U.S. held a protest outside the State Department. Opposition members urged U.S. leaders to question Condé on his aspirations to extend his time in office. 

“Alpha Condé is not here just for the United Nations. He is here to campaign for getting a third term, in direct violation of Guinea’s Constitution,” Talibe Bah, vice president for foreign relations and communications of the opposition Liberal Bloc Party told VOA’s Daybreak Africa.

Bah also said Guinea was scheduled to hold legislative elections earlier this year, but none have taken place. This, he said, is further evidence of Condé’s tightening control over the country’s political process. The national election commission recently announced that the delayed elections will take place on Dec. 28.

“The legislative election was supposed to be held back in the beginning of this year — the first trimester of the year 2019. That has already passed. At this time, the legislative officers are there illegally,” Bah said.

But Condé said he is not concerned by the criticism, particularly that coming from people living outside the country. “Guinea is independent and sovereign, therefore Guinean affairs are discussed in Guinea, not outside,” he told VOA.
 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SYDNEY/BANGKOK — Thousands of students took to the streets of Australia and other Asia-Pacific countries Friday to kick off a global strike demanding world leaders gathering for a U.N. climate summit adopt urgent measures to stop an environmental catastrophe.

“We didn’t light it, but we’re trying to fight it,” read one sign carried by a student in Sydney, as social media posts showed huge demonstrations around the country, including outback towns like Alice Springs.

“The oceans are rising and so are we,” read another sign held by a protester wearing school uniform in Melbourne.

Protests inspired by the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg are planned in about 150 countries Friday as people rally to demand governments take immediate action to limit the harmful effects of manmade climate change.

Incredible pictures as Australia’s gathering for the

If the skies above North America seem quieter, it’s because of the massive drop in the bird population in the past 50 years.

A report in the journal Science says there are 3 billion fewer birds in the United States, Canada and Mexico than 1970 — a 29% drop.

Conservationists call it a widespread ecological crisis.

“One of the scary things about the results is that it is happening right under our eyes. We might not even notice it until it is too late,” lead author of the study Kenneth Rosenberg of Cornell University says.

More than 90% of the losses were among 12 species with the common house sparrow at the top of the list.

The experts blame the disappearance of natural meadows and grasslands in favor of farmland for the drop.

They also say pesticides are killing the insects that many birds use for food.

“We see fields of corn and other crops right up to the horizon. Everything is sanitized and mechanized. There’s no room left for birds, fauna, and nature,” Rosenberg said.

The study also cites free-roaming domestic cats and birds slamming into windows that reflect the sky.

But the study says the duck and goose population has actually grown since 1970 because of less hunting and more protective measures.

Ornithologists say the drop in bird populations can be reversed by simple measures including keeping pet cats inside, window treatments that can prevent birds flying into them, and avoiding pesticides and insecticides.
 

Federal regulators have opened a criminal probe into e-cigarette-related lung illnesses in the United States.

There were seven deaths and 530 confirmed or suspected cases of serious illness related to vaping by late Thursday.

The Food and Drug Administration says it has no intention of prosecuting e-cigarette users, but says its criminal investigations division can help federal authorities figure out why people are getting sick.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging people to stop vaping. But it says no one should go back to smoking tobacco cigarettes, urging smokers to get counseling or use FDA-approved products to stop smoking.

Health experts have been unable to pinpoint an exact cause of vaping-related lung illnesses, including a specific brand or ingredient in e-cigarettes. But some suspect the use of the marijuana component THC in vaping devices.

E-cigarette devices have been marketed as a safer alternative to tobacco. Federal regulators have warned the largest e-cigarette maker, JUUL, against making such claims, saying they have not been proven.

New York this week became the first state to immediately ban flavored e-cigarettes, saying the fruit and candy flavors used in vaping devices are meant to appeal to young people.

Only tobacco and menthol flavors can be sold in New York. Michigan has also approved a ban on flavors, but it has not taken effect yet. Other states are also considering a ban.
 

As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met Thursday with President Donald Trump and other critics of the tech industry, the Senate’s most vocal detractor offered a challenge: Sell your WhatsApp and Instagram properties to prove you’re serious about protecting data privacy.

It may have been more than Zuckerberg expected from his private meeting with Sen. Josh Hawley, a conservative Republican from Missouri, in his Capitol Hill office. Zuckerberg left the hourlong meeting — one of several with lawmakers on Capitol Hill — without answering questions from a throng of reporters and photographers pursuing him down a hallway.

Hawley, though, had plenty to say. “The company talks a lot. I’d like to see some action,” he told reporters. “I will believe Facebook when I see some real action out of Facebook.”

Rather than moving users’ personal data from properties such as WhatsApp and Instagram to the core Facebook platform, the company should put a wall around the services or, better yet, sell them off, Hawley said he told Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg, who requested the meeting, “did not think that was a great idea,” he said.

Zuckerberg “had a good, constructive meeting with President Trump at the White House today,” a Facebook spokesman said. On Facebook and Twitter, Trump posted a photo with the caption, “Nice meeting with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook in the Oval Office today.”

Nice meeting with Mark Zuckerberg of @Facebook in the Oval Office today. https://t.co/k5ofQREfOcpic.twitter.com/jNt93F2BsG

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 20, 2019

No details were given on the meeting, first reported by the Axios website.
 
Trump has persistently criticized social media companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and his platform of choice, Twitter, embracing conservative critics’ accusations that they censor religious, anti-abortion and politically conservative views. Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the companies are “against me” and even suggested U.S. regulators should sue them on grounds of anti-conservative bias.  
 
A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on Hawley’s remarks concerning his meeting with Zuckerberg.

The popular services WhatsApp and Instagram are among some 70 companies that Facebook has acquired over the past 15 years or so, giving it what critics say is massive market power that has allowed it to snuff out competition.

Zuckerberg’s discussion with Hawley touched on industry competition, data privacy legislation, election security and accusations by conservatives that Facebook and other social media giants are biased against right-leaning content.

During his visit, Zuckerberg also met with other senators including Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; Mike Lee, R-Utah, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee; and John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Tom Cotton, R-Ark. He also declined to answer reporters’ questions when he left Lee’s office earlier in the afternoon.

Lee’s office said the two discussed bias against conservatives on Facebook’s platform, regulation of online services, enforcement of antitrust laws in the tech industry and data privacy issues.

Congress has been debating a privacy law that could sharply rein in the ability of companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple to collect and make money off users’ personal data. A national law, which would be the first of its kind in the U.S., could allow people to see or prohibit use of their data.

‘New rules’ needed

Acting preemptively, Zuckerberg last spring called for tighter regulations to protect consumers’ data, control harmful online content, and ensure election integrity and data portability. The internet “needs new rules,” he said.

It was Zuckerberg’s first public visit to Washington since he testified before Congress last spring about privacy, election interference and other issues.

Facebook, a social media giant based in Menlo Park, California, with nearly 2.5 billion users, is under heavy scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators following a series of privacy scandals and amid accusations of abuse of its market power to squash competition.

The Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee are all conducting antitrust investigations of the big tech companies, and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general has opened a competition probe specifically of Facebook.

At Facebook’s request, Warner helped organize a dinner meeting in Washington on Wednesday night for Zuckerberg and a group of senators.

Warner told The Associated Press he wanted Zuckerberg to hear his Senate colleagues’ “enormous concerns about privacy and about protecting the integrity of our political system.”

Their message for the Facebook chief was “self-regulation is not going to be the answer,” Warner said. “I think Zuckerberg understood that.”

Warner and Hawley have proposed legislation that would force the tech giants to tell users what data they’re collecting and how much it’s worth. The proposal goes to the heart of Big Tech’s hugely profitable business model of commerce in users’ personal data. The companies gather vast data on what users read and like, and leverage it to help advertisers target their messages to individuals they want to reach.

The tech companies view with particular alarm a separate legislative proposal from Hawley that would require them to prove to regulators that they’re not using political bias to filter content. Failing to secure a bias-free audit from the government would mean a social media platform loses its long-held immunity from legal action.

U.S. gun manufacturer Colt has announced it will stop making rifles for the civilian market, including the popular AR-15.

In a statement released Thursday, the company’s chief executive officer, Dennis Veilleux, said, “over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity,” forcing the company to withdraw from the market. He said Colt will continue producing rifles for its military and law enforcement clients.

Veilleux said Colt will also continue “to expand our network of dealers across the country and to supply them with expanding lines of the finest quality 1911s and revolvers.”

The National Rifle Associate calls Colt’s AR-15 the “most popular rifle in America.” It estimates there are some 8 million rifles in America.

The AR-15 rifle has come under scrutiny by gun-restriction proponents because it has been the gun of choice for recent mass murderers in the U.S.

It was used in some of the deadliest shootings in recent history, including Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 26; the Las Vegas strip that killed 58; San Bernardino, California, that killed 16; and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17.

A federal judge on Thursday handed President Donald Trump a victory in his effort to keep his financial information secret, siding with his campaign’s effort to block a California law aimed at forcing him to release his tax returns.
 
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. comes as the president faces multiple Democratic-led efforts to force him to reveal his returns. Also Thursday, Trump sued to block New York prosecutors from their push obtain the returns as part of a criminal investigation.
 
Trump has bucked decades of precedent by refusing to release them, arguing they are under audit.
 
England, an appointee of former Republican President George W. Bush, plans to issue a written ruling by Oct. 1, and California is expected to appeal.
 
The law signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in July says candidates for president must release five years of tax returns by November to run in the California primary, which is scheduled for March 2020.
 
Attorneys for Trump and the Republican Party argued the law violates the U.S. Constitution by adding an additional requirement to run for president. England also seemed open to their argument that a federal law requiring presidents to disclose financial information supersedes state law.
 
“I don’t care how you skin the cat, it’s an unconstitutional law,” said Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer for the state and national Republican parties.
 
Democratic state lawmakers have argued that tax returns provide critical information for voters because they show a candidate’s financial dealings, business interests and charitable giving.

Trump, California feud

The law is a part of a feud between California and the Trump administration. They have clashed over issues like immigration and environmental regulations, including the state’s auto mileage standards that Trump said he’s revoking because they are stricter than those issued by federal regulators.
 
Former Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed similar tax return legislation in 2017, arguing it would create a slippery slope of putting extra requirements on presidential candidates.

All the major Democratic presidential contenders have released their tax returns.

California’s law also applies to candidates for governor.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir held a prayer meeting Thursday at the presidential palace, where he insisted a unity government will be formed by November despite several unresolved issues.

“In November it is a must that the government shall be formed. If SPLM-IO does not want the formation of the government, the other parties that signed the peace agreement have to go ahead with SPLM and form the government,” said Kiir.

Kiir also used the event to order soldiers and national security agents to stop carrying out armed robberies on Juba citizens.

“In recent days the situation in Juba is reverting to a situation that we don’t want, because at night you sleep in your room, but you hear gunshots. Why are there shots at night? There are some people who want to eat what is not theirs. And people who go and shoot at night are the soldiers! These things must stop,” he said.

Kiir told guests he deliberately leaves the bullet-ridden walls of the palace as is, saying the holes are symbolic of the untreated wounds of the South Sudanese people.

The holes were caused by gunfire during the July 2016 fighting between government troops and rebel leader Riek Machar’s bodyguards.

About 1,000 people including government officials, judges, civil society activists and religious leaders took part in Thursday’s prayer service.

Religious leader: We need more than prayers

Paulino Lokudu Loro, Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Juba, welcomed the prayer service at the presidential palace but said the country’s political leaders have held many prayers before. What the country needs, he said, is lasting peace.

“All of us have been praying for peace, the peace of South Sudan, the peace of our people. We have been praying from this country and we [those] involved all over the world pray for South Sudan,” said Loro.

Loro said he’s tired of hearing foreigners say South Sudanese know what is happening in their country is bad, but do nothing to end it. He said many people continue to suffer while leaders just talk politics and cheat one another.

Severia Achan, who took part in the reconciliation prayer, said prayers will help heal South Sudan.

“Without prayer, evil cannot go from here and then our children who are now on the street, no school for them, this prayer can help, God can hear our prayer. This prayer is important even for our president, it can help him, it can give him the strength to rule this country. Without payers, he cannot do this,” he said.

In March 2017, the government organized a national day of prayer and fasting for peace under the theme, “Repentance and Forgiveness.”

Last April, Kiir and Machar traveled to the Vatican at the invitation of Pope Francis to pray for peace in South Sudan and to commit to working together peacefully for the good of the country.

‘Tangible results’ needed

On Wednesday, David Shearer, special representative for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, told the United Nations Security Council in New York that while progress is being made in South Sudan, more must be done.

“The recent visit of Dr. Riek Machar to Juba at the invitation of President Salva Kiir was an important development. They recommitted to forming the transitional government, a positive step because it maintains the momentum of peace and bolsters confidence among South Sudanese,” Shearer said.

But the UNMISS chief said the challenge is to show “tangible results.”

The opposition and government have yet to agree on the number of states or unify their armed forces, as called for in the 2018 peace agreement to end South Sudan’s civil war.

In Africa, hundreds of indigenous languages are on the verge of extinction, according to the U.N. culture organization UNESCO.  That includes at least thirteen languages in Kenya.  This week, Kenyan civic society groups met in Nairobi to discuss a proposed bill that if passed into law would help preserve and safeguard these disappearing dialects.  Rael Ombuor reports.

A Japanese court ruled Thursday that three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company were not guilty of professional negligence in the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant because ensuring absolute safety at nuclear plants was not a government requirement at that time.

The ruling by the Tokyo District Court ended the only criminal trial related to the nuclear accident that has kept tens of thousands of residents away from their homes because of lingering radiation contamination.

Lawyers representing the 5,700 Fukushima residents who filed the criminal complaint said they will push prosecutors to appeal the decision. A group of supporters stood outside the court Thursday with placards reading “Unjust ruling.”

The court said ex-TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 79, and two other former executives were also not guilty of causing the deaths of 44 elderly patients whose health deteriorated during or after forced evacuations from a local hospital and a nursing home.

The executives were accused of failing to anticipate the massive tsunami that struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant on March 11, 2011, following a magnitude 9 earthquake, and of failing to take measures that might have protected the plant.

Katsumata and co-defendants Sakae Muto, 69, and Ichiro Takekuro, 73, pleaded not guilty at the trial’s opening session in June 2017. They said predicting the tsunami was impossible.

Three of the plant’s reactors had meltdowns, spreading radiation into surrounding communities and into the sea.

Prosecutors in December requested five-year prison sentences for each executive, accusing them of not doing enough to guard against the threat of a large tsunami despite knowing the risk.

In its ruling, the court said the defendants held responsible positions at TEPCO, but that did not necessarily mean they were responsible for taking measures beyond those in the legal regulatory framework.

It said there is no proof they could have foreseen that a tsunami could flood the plant the way it did in 2011.

TEPCO officials were aware of a need to improve tsunami prevention measures and were considering taking steps by 2008 and 2009, but those steps were in line with government safety standards at the time.

The prosecutors argued that TEPCO could have prevented the disaster had it halted the plant to install safety measures before the tsunami. But the court said the company’s responsibility to supply electricity to the public meant that idling the plant would have had a “social impact,” and that possible measures were likely not ready in time.

The acquittal disappointed dozens of Fukushima residents and their supporters who attended the ruling.

“Who is going to take responsibility then? It was TEPCO that caused the accident, there is no mistake about it,” said Masakatsu Kanno, a Fukushima resident whose father died after being evacuated from a hospital.

Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the decision must be appealed.

“The ruling showed that the judge did not understand the dangers of nuclear plants at all, and it was sympathetic to the company executives and their management decisions,” Kawai said. “The ruling sounded as if it was written by supporters of nuclear energy.”

Prosecutors had told the court that the three defendants had access to data and scientific studies that anticipated the possibility of a tsunami exceeding 10 meters (33 feet) which could trigger a loss of power and a severe accident.

Defense attorneys told the court that the tsunami prediction was not well established. They said the actual damage was larger than projected, and that if TEPCO had taken steps based on the projection, it would not have prevented the disaster.

TEPCO declined to comment directly on the ruling but pledged to devote itself to the compensation of disaster-hit people and the cleanup of the plant and its surroundings while enhancing the safety of nuclear plants “with unwavering determination.”

Katsumata apologized “to the people for causing tremendous trouble” in a statement released by his lawyer.

More than eight years since the disaster, the Fukushima plant has been stabilized and being decommissioned — a decades-long process that is still at an early stage. TEPCO is struggling with massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water that is stored in 1,000 tanks on the compound, hampering the cleanup work.

Prosecutors said TEPCO was conducting a tsunami safety review following a 2007 earthquake in Niigata in northern Japan that damaged another TEPCO plant, and the three former executives routinely participated in that process. In March 2008, a TEPCO subsidiary projected that a tsunami as high as 15.7 meters (47 feet) could hit Fukushima, prompting the company to consider building seawalls, but the executives allegedly delayed the idea to avoid additional spending.

Prosecutors presented hundreds of pieces of evidence including emails between safety officials and the two vice presidents that suggested increasing concern and a need for more tsunami defenses at the plant. More than 20 TEPCO officials and scientists testified in court.

Government and parliamentary investigations said TEPCO’s lack of a safety culture and weak risk management, including an underestimation of tsunami risks, led to the disaster. They said TEPCO colluded with regulators to disregard tsunami protection measures.

The company has said it could have been more proactive with safety measures, but that it could not anticipate the massive tsunami that crippled the plant.

TEPCO has spent 9 trillion yen ($83 billion) on compensation related to the disaster. It needs to spend an estimated 8 trillion yen ($74 billion) to decommission the plant and 6 trillion yen ($55 billion) for decontamination.

Commuters in India’s capital faced difficulties Thursday as much of the city’s public transportation, including private buses, auto-rickshaws and some ride-hailing services, remained off the roads to protest a sharp increase in traffic fines under a new law.

The government hopes the new Motor Vehicles Act will bring order to India’s chaotic roads with an almost tenfold increase in fines for traffic offenses.

The United Front of Transport Associations called for the strike in New Delhi to protest the higher fines, which took effect Sept. 1 as economic growth in India has slumped to a six-year low.

People who arrived by train at the New Delhi railway station had trouble finding transportation to their destinations in the city.

Deepak Kanojia, president of a local labor union, said public transport drivers are facing the brunt of the heightened fines.

“While policemen might give private vehicles a miss, they stop yellow taxi plates without fail and start finding problems with that vehicle,” he said.

The minister for road transport and highways, Nitin Gadkari, says the increase in fines is needed to improve the appalling safety record of India’s roads, where more than 100,000 people are killed and nearly 500,000 injured in accidents every year.

Under the new law, the minimum penalty has been increased from $1.40 to $7. The penalty for driving without a license has risen from $14 to $70.

Traffic police across the country have taken to social media to educate citizens about the new rules. But many Indians are critical of the new law. Some posted pictures on Twitter of huge potholes on roads and asked what the government was doing to fix them.

More than 150 world leaders are preparing to attend the U.N. Sustainable Development Summit in New York beginning Sept. 25, with the aim of agreeing on a new agenda to tackle global poverty. But a new report warns that African children are being left further and further behind and will make up more than half of the world’s poor by 2030. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the report authors are critical of both African governments and the international community for failing to adequately tackle the problem.
 

In India’s tourist city of Jaipur, state authorities and civil society groups have launched a major campaign to end the use of child labor as growing numbers of young boys are trafficked into the city from poorer states. They are put to work to make handcrafted products that have made the city a magnet for shoppers from all over the country.  Anjana Pasricha has a report.

A quiet strip of land in northern Syria contains a volatile mix of troops from various nations and militias allied with some of those countries, but viewed as enemies by others.  In an attempt to keep this powder-keg from blowing up, the U.S. and Turkey brokered a deal last month to create a “safe zone” between Turkey and Kurdish areas. But Turkey now says the original deal still leaves it in danger, and analysts warn there is no long-term strategy to peaceful coexistence.  VOA’s Heather Murdock has this story from Manbij and al-Bab in Syria.