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Baik Sung-won and Kim dong-hyun contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Muted U.S. criticism of North Korea’s missile tests is encouraging Pyongyang to escalate its weapons program, undermining Washington’s own diplomatic efforts aimed at denuclearization, experts have told VOA in recent days.

“Trump’s casual dismissal of seven rounds of [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un’s ballistic missile tests [since late July] is an inexcusable act that, in effect, is viewed by Kim as license to continue to pursue his weapons of mass destruction programs,” Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told VOA by email Thursday.

North Korea has conducted

A worsening drought is pushing parts of eastern Australia towards a “Fish Armageddon,” according to senior politicians.

With not much rain on the horizon, as well as record low river levels, there are fears eastern Australia will witness more fish dying at a higher rate than last summer.

A million fish died in January at Menindee, 1,000 kilometers west of Sydney, when a sudden drop in temperature caused algae to die. As the algae decomposed, oxygen was sucked out of the river, suffocating marine life.

Farmers and conservationists accused the state government of allowing cotton growers to drain too much water from the Murray-Darling River Basin, one of Australia’s key waterways. Officials, though, blamed a worsening drought. They have announced a multimillion dollar fish rescue plan to help avert an “ecological disaster.”

Modern Noah’s Ark

The New South Wales Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall says vulnerable native fish will be relocated from the river to hatcheries for safety.

“I cannot sugar-coat it, it will be the equivalent of a ‘Fish Armageddon’ in New South Wales this summer, and I say that based on all the evidence. We will use hatcheries like this to create a modern-day Noah’s Ark for native fish species in New South Wales,” Marshall said.

The fish will be kept in captivity until river conditions improve.

Environmental groups, however, say changes are needed to water policy and management to improve flows to ensure “living, functioning” rivers.

Playing God?

Paul Humphries, an ecologist at Charles Sturt University, believes the Noah’s Ark plan probably will not work.

“It is a terrible choice because it was actually floods that caused the problem that Noah was trying to solve and here we are talking about droughts. It is also, I think, a problem because Noah was essentially being instructed by God and in some ways we are playing God with this sort of stuff,” Humphries said.

Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent. Scientists are warning that climate change not only threatens national treasures such as the Great Barrier Reef, but also critical river systems that sustain the nation’s agriculture.

Activists and protesters prepared for a tense and long Saturday, a day after Hong Kong police rounded up more than two dozen democracy activists and banned a proposed march, as officials sought to crush an increasingly agitated anti-government movement.

Lawmakers, activists and prominent student leaders Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow were charged Friday with violating various public disorder laws, a move that critics called a clear attempt to discourage supporters and end the nearly three-month-long campaign. Both were charged in connection with the June 21 siege of police headquarters, when protesters surrounded and vandalized the building for hours.

Police also charged three lawmakers who favor democracy, Au Nok-hin, Cheng Chung-tai and Jeremy Tam Man-ho.

In addition, Andy Chan Ho-tin, an outspoken leader of the city’s small independence movement, announced through Facebook that he had been detained at the Hong Kong Airport Thursday. Reports said he was stopped before boarding a flight and charged with rioting and assaulting a police officer.

Elsewhere, other activists were charged in connection with the July 1 decision to break into the legislature.

Campaign for rights

An effort to stop a contentious bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China exploded this spring into a massive campaign for democratic rights. 

Pro-democracy supporters said the government’s decision to round up activists will inflame residents who are demanding democratic elections and a stop to sometimes brutal policing. 

“The mass arrests will only anger the public as many people are sympathetic towards the young activists and have found their efforts over the past few months a demonstration of their love of Hong Kong,” pro-democracy lawmaker James To told the South China Morning Post. The arrests “have made reconciliation difficult.”

12 weeks of protests

Residents have marched for 12 straight weekends, initially to demand that the government withdraw the detested extradition bill, and more recently, to seek democratic voting rights, a goal that has been repeatedly thwarted in the Chinese territory.

Frustration over the government’s decision to ignore the mass marches prodded younger participants to stage increasingly violent clashes with police. Their refusal to disperse, and to use Molotov cocktails, bricks and poles to fight officers, led officials to deny permission to marches and rallies, saying organizers could not guarantee that the events would be peaceful.

With Saturday’s scheduled protest banned, residents began to throng a busy shopping district and a playground. By midafternoon, police ordered participants to leave, saying they were engaged in an unauthorized assembly. Protesters discussed marching without permission to the Chinese government’s liaison office on Hong Kong Island, the home of Beijing’s representatives in Hong Kong and the site of violent showdowns with police during the past weeks.

Despite the months of mass strikes, officials in Hong Kong and Beijing have refused to concede to any of the protesters’ demands, which include an investigation into tactics used by the police.

Reuters and The New York Times reported that Beijing officials ordered Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, to rebuff the protesters’ demands and make no concessions. Instead, Lam has hinted that the government could unleash emergency powers that could include imposing curfews and shutting down the internet.

Such a move would likely draw fire from the city’s foreign business sector.

Organizers of Saturday’s banned march, Civil Human Rights Front, canceled the event after the group’s bid to overturn the ban failed. The group has staged three of the biggest mass gatherings in the city’s history, all since June, to stop the extradition law. 

That has made a target of the group’s convener, Jimmy Shan. He was attacked Thursday by two men using bats and knives, but was not seriously injured, according to a member of the democracy camp. The organizer of another banned march in Yuen Long last month also was attacked.

“We will continue to stand with Hong Kongers and provide legal support for arrested persons,” the Front posted on its Facebook page. “We hereby apologize again to all who are hoping to take to the streets tomorrow without risking legal consequences.”

High school students plan to strike Monday. But a coalition of groups, including a major trade union, was denied rally permits for that same day. Police officials said organizers could not guarantee the public’s safety.

VOA’s Ramon Taylor contributed to this report.

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — It took Julia and her two daughters five years to get from Kassai, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to a cot on the floor of a migrant shelter in Laredo, Texas, on a Sunday night in August 2019.

First, it was four years in Angola. She saved money, she says, by working as a hairdresser.

They flew to Ecuador. Took a bus and boat to Colombia. They spent 14 days crossing through Panama’s Darien Gap, lost part of the time in the dense jungle. Three weeks in Panama, then three more in Costa Rica while Julia recuperated from an illness. Then Nicaragua. Honduras. Guatemala.

Finally, after a month of waiting in Acuña, on the U.S.-Mexico border, they stuck their feet in the sandy dirt along the southern bank of the Rio Grande. They were alone, and didn’t know how to swim.

“We prayed first, then we got into the water,” Julia recalled. “My daughter was crying.” 

“‘Mom, I can’t…’” Julia remembers her pleading in chest-high water.

Halfway across, she says, U.S. soldiers — possibly border agents — shouted to them: “‘Come, give us your hands.’“

“I did,” Julia recalls, “and they took us out.”

More families from afar

Historically, the majority of people caught crossing into the southwest U.S. without authorization were single Mexican adults. In fiscal 2009, Mexicans accounted for 91.63% of border apprehensions, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

But demographics of migrants and asylum-seekers crossing into the U.S. from Mexico are shifting in two significant ways: In the last decade, nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras began migrating in greater numbers. In the same period, the number of Mexicans dropped.

Then, in the last year, families became the top source of Southwest border migration. The Border Patrol apprehended 432,838 adults and children traveling in family units from October 2018 through July 2019, a 456% increase over the same period the previous fiscal year.

To the surprise of longtime border agents, while the overwhelming majority of these families continue to be from Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, a small but growing proportion are from countries outside the Americas, nearly twice as much as two years ago.

By the end of July this year,

Read more at https://www.voanews.com/shoura/

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Friday that Hurricane Dorian has strengthened into a Category 4 storm and called it “extremely dangerous.’’

The storm is moving toward the Bahamas and the U.S. state of Florida.

The Bahamian government has issued a hurricane warning for the northwestern Bahamas, while U.S. President Donald Trump has declared a state of emergency for the state of Florida.

The National Hurricane Center said that because Dorian is moving slowly, it could produce prolonged rains, winds and storm surges, leading to life-threatening flash floods.

Dorian is moving with maximum sustained winds of 215 kilometers per hour.

Forecasters predict that Dorian could slam into southeastern Florida on Monday, however the latest models also predict a chance that the storm could turn northward and hug the eastern coast of the United States. They say Dorian’s track is still highly uncertain.

Category 4 storms are capable of what experts describe as catastrophic damage, destroying homes and buildings, ripping up roads, and knocking down trees and power lines.

The emergency declaration for Florida paves the way for the deployment of National Guard troops and the provision of more fuel.

Florida National Guard Major General James Eifert said 2,000 troops mobilized in the state Friday, with another 2,000 joining them Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump canceled a planned trip to Poland to “ensure that all resources of the federal government are focused on the arriving storm … it’s something very important for me to be here,” he said Thursday. The president owns several properties in Florida, including the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and the Trump National Doral in Miami, which Trump has suggested as a possible venue for next year’s Group of Seven summit.

No evacuation orders yet

Officials in Florida have not yet ordered any mass evacuations because the track of the storm is still unclear. Residents in Florida have been filling their gas tanks in case they need to leave their homes.

The auto and travel group AAA said Friday that there is plenty of gas for Floridians, but said the difficulty is in getting it to retailers quickly enough to keep up with the demand from drivers. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has ordered state troopers to escort tanker trucks carrying fuel to gas stations to help ensure it reaches retailers quickly and safely.

DeSantis has urged residents to stock up on at least a week’s worth of food, water and medicine and be prepared to lose power for days after Hurricane Dorian makes landfall.

“I think there’s a pretty high degree of certainty that this is going to be a major hurricane,” DeSantis said.

Orlando International Airport said it plans to shutdown Monday because of the storm.

At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, NASA began moving its launch platform for rockets to a giant hangar built to withstand strong winds.

Bahamas urges evacuations

The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism and Aviation said the Grand Bahama International Airport in Freeport will close Friday night and will not open again until Tuesday.

Officials in the Bahamas urged people to evacuate and seek shelter.

“Do not be foolish and try to brave out this hurricane,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said at a news conference.

Dorian largely spared Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, causing some floods and power outages but no major damage.

U.S. health officials are warning users of e-cigarettes to reconsider their habit of vaping, noting a rise in the number of respiratory illnesses linked to the practice.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday that they were investigating 215 cases of a serious lung disease possibly related to the use of e-cigarettes.

Officials said the cause of the illnesses was not yet known, but noted that in some of the cases, patients used e-cigarette products that contained THC, the mind-altering substance in marijuana.

Most of the patients have recovered from the mysterious illness, but last week, the first death from the disease was reported.

CDC advice

The CDC warned the public not to buy vaping products off the street and to avoid adding substances like THC.

“CDC recommends that, while the investigation is ongoing, Americans who use e-cigarettes and are concerned about these specific, potential risks of illness should consider refraining from their use, and should not buy them off the street or modify them or add substances in ways not intended by the manufacturer,” the agency said.

E-cigarettes have been available in the United States for more than a decade. They work, in general, by using a battery to heat a liquid nicotine solution and turn it into an inhalable vapor.

While e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is addictive, they are considered safer than traditional cigarettes because they do not contain tar or many of the other substances in traditional cigarettes, which make them deadly.

Advocates and critics

Advocates of e-cigarettes say they are a powerful tool to help adult smokers quit smoking traditional cigarettes.

However, critics say that e-cigarettes are addicting a new generation to nicotine. They also point out that the long-term health consequences of vaping are not known, and say that e-cigarettes could contain other potentially harmful substances, including chemicals used for flavoring and traces of metals.

VOA’s Yuni Salim contributed to this report. 

Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology said Friday that it would continue to block telecommunication services in Papua and West Papua, in an effort, it said, to restore security in the wake of civil unrest that flared in several cities over allegedly racist attacks on Papuan students. 

Acting ministry spokesman Ferdinandus Setu said in a news release that the restrictions on telecommunication services were implemented Aug. 22 to speed the process of restoring order in Papua and other areas. The ministry said the block would remain until calm returned to Papua. 

Henri Subiakto, senior adviser to the communication and information technology minister, told VOA separately that there was no timeline for restoring service. 

“The other day what triggered the unrest was videos and photos. We slowed it [internet service] down so that photo and video sharing was not possible but people could still communicate,” Subiakto said. 

He added that the decision to slow down the internet and other policies was based on Article 40 of the Information and Electronic Transaction Law. 

According to Article 40, “It is mandatory for the government to prevent the spread and the use of Electronic Information and/or Electronic Documents which have contents prohibited as stated by law.” 

Protest origins 

Protests began in mid-August after it was reported that Indonesian police in the region had been saying and committing “racist acts” against Papuan college students. Protesters occupied several student dormitories, and street demonstrations spread across the region. 

VOA has reported that demonstrations continued into this week. However, because of the telecommunications blackout, VOA was unable to verify whether there had been casualties. 

The government’s decision to shut down the internet has not only caused an information blackout but also has drawn attention to the potential for human rights abuses in Indonesia’s restive easternmost provinces. 

“Embarrassing things are going on, and the instinct is to keep the outside out from mucking in and learning of them, rather than to remedy the situation,” John Miller of the East Timor Action Network told VOA. “So Indonesia can be seen as it likes to portray itself — as a reformed nation that now acknowledges and defends human rights.” 

Other critics

Other human rights groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Indonesian LBH Pers Foundation, have also criticized the measure.  

Director of LBH Pers Ade Wahyudin said the policy could cut off access for human rights activists and journalists to monitor conditions in Papua. 

Further, Wahyudin said, the legal basis used for enforcing the internet block was inaccurate. 

Earlier in the week, the Communication Ministry contended that Veronica Koman, a human rights lawyer, was behind a phony news story regarding Surabaya police. Wahyudin said Koman could potentially sue the ministry for defaming her and spreading fake news by making false claims about her. 

Koman told VOA she was demanding a public apology. 

“I have checked on the ministry’s web page and it hasn’t been corrected,” she said. “This is disinformation on the ministry’s part. It has defamed and damaged my credibility, including the information that I have published.” 

Koman said she was open to the possibility of taking legal action if the ministry did not publicly apologize soon. 

The free-speech advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranks Indonesia 124th out of 180 nations surveyed in terms of press freedom. The group specifically cites growing violence against reporters in West Papua, among other abuses.  

Britain’s politicians are gearing up for what is being dubbed the mother of all battles in the mother of parliaments — a clash that could reshape Britain’s democracy for decades to come by deciding whether the House of Commons or the government has the upper political hand.   
 
The outcome of the high-stakes parliamentary tussle next week over how, when and even whether Britain leaves the European Union is redefining the relationship among the country’s main governing bodies, the House of Commons, Downing Street and the monarchy, constitutional experts say. The country’s traditional constitutional practices are already fraying, they warn. 
 
Opposition party leaders and pro-EU Conservative rebels, who have been at loggerheads for weeks on what strategy to pursue to stop Prime Minister Boris Johnson from leading Britain out of the EU, are planning to try to seize control of parliamentary business from the government in order to draft legislation forbidding him from leaving the bloc. 

Johnson’s opponents hope to pass legislation binding the Conservative government from departing the EU without a deal on Oct. 31, something the prime minister has pledged to do, if he is unable to secure a new exit agreement replacing one his predecessor, Theresa May, negotiated with Brussels. Her deal incurred the wrath of both pro-EU lawmakers and Brexiters and was rejected three times by Parliament.  

Both sides of the Brexit dispute are playing fast and loose with the constitution, legal experts say. “It seems to be getting very close to a constitutional crisis,” Anthony Seldon, a political writer and vice chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said in an interview with Sky News television. “We are in this very, very uncertain stage.” 

Thanks to Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament — normally a routine break to allow the government to draw up plans for a new legislative agenda — pro-EU lawmakers have just three days to pass emergency legislation, an almost unheard of brief time to steer legislation through the Commons and House of Lords. 

Length, timing of suspension

Johnson midweek gained Queen Elizabeth’s assent for a monthlong parliamentary suspension, known as a prorogation. He and his ministers said it wasn’t done to limit the time his opponents have to thwart his promise to leave the EU by the end of October, “do or die.” 
 
But the unusual length of suspension — normally prorogation is just for two weeks — as well as its timing have provoked a political firestorm with critics, including the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow. He accuses Johnson of devising a cynical ploy aimed at subverting the Commons, and of even mounting “a very British coup.” 
 
Downing Street dismissed the accusation, saying lawmakers were hyperventilating. Johnson said he must lead Britain out of the EU to restore trust in democracy and to put into effect the wishes of the British majority that voted for Brexit in a referendum three years ago. 
 
The leader of Britain’s main Labor opposition party, Jeremy Corbyn, has urged party members to protest Saturday in 10 British cities and to “shut down the streets” and “occupy bridges.” In an email to Labor lawmakers, Corbyn said, “I am encouraging MPs to join public protests opposing this shutdown of Parliament.” 
 
Midweek, in the hours after the prorogation was announced, there were ugly scenes in Westminster outside Parliament, with several thousand pro- and anti-Brexit campaigners brawling. 
 
Johnson said Friday that despite his decision to suspend Parliament for nearly five weeks beginning Sept. 9, lawmakers would have “a lot of time” to debate between Oct. 14 and Oct. 31. He said, “We’re coming up to the last period before we leave on 31 October and, in that period, Parliament is going to have a lot of time, still — they’ve spent three years debating Brexit without actually getting it over the line — they’re going to have a lot of time for further consideration.”  

Defense minister’s remarks

But hours after the queen assented to Parliament’s being shuttered at Johnson’s request, the country’s defense minister, Ben Wallace, was caught on camera in conversation with his French counterpart admitting the suspension was motivated by Brexit and aimed at constricting the time for parliamentary debate. He was unaware, apparently, that the microphones were switched on.  
 

“This is really a dark time for this country,” said Bob Kerslake, a former head of Britain’s civil service. “This is playing fast and loose with our constitution. This is a reckless and divisive act by the prime minister.” He warned that suspending Parliament risked undermining “faith in parliamentary democracy” and believed the manner in which parliament was being suspended might be illegal. “It’s deliberate to frustrate a process of [parliamentary] debate,” he said. 
 
A Scottish court Friday declined to issue an interim order halting the prorogation but will hear a full case next week against the shuttering of Parliament, which is being mounted by opposition politicians. Seventy-five lawmakers have asked the court to lift the prorogation, dubbing it “unlawful” and arguing the queen is not above the law.  
 
Pro-EU campaigners and lawmakers have also filed a blocking action with the High Court in London. Leading lawyers believe, though, the courts will be reluctant to challenge a prorogation, fearing they’ll be undermining the queen’s prerogative powers and risk the judges being drawn into partisan politics. 
 
Bercow, who recently vowed to “fight with every breath in my body” to stop Johnson from suspending Parliament, is expected to grant an emergency debate Tuesday at the request of pro-EU lawmakers, and others who don’t want to exit the bloc without a deal. That would enable them to wrest control of parliamentary business from the government.  

If they succeed, they would have a handful of days to pass legislation forbidding Johnson from quitting the EU without a deal or to pass a motion calling on the queen to reverse her decision to suspend Parliament. 
 
Some legal experts, including the Commons clerks who advise the speaker, say either move would likely be “unconstitutional.” The speaker, though, will overrule their advice, according to sources close to Bercow.  

Small window of opportunity
 
Next week could be the “only opportunity” the Commons has to stop Johnson, according to David Gauke, a former justice minister and a leading member of pro-EU Conservative rebels. He acknowledged the options for his fellow and opposition party leaders had “now narrowed.”  

Among their plans is for Parliament to sit Sept. 7-8. The Commons has rarely sat on a Saturday since 1939, but did so on the outbreak of World War II, during the Suez crisis of 1956 and during the Falklands War in 1982. 
 
How the tussle will play out next week is anyone’s guess, political commentators have said. But one influential research group, the Institute for Government, said in an assessment Friday that it was a “near impossible task for MPs to stop a prime minister who’s determined to leave the EU without a deal.”  
 
The institute said it was more likely that Johnson’s opponents would have to resort to passing a vote of no-confidence in the government, triggering a likely general election or opening up the opportunity for Labor’s Corbyn to head a government of national unity.  
 
A leading pro-EU Conservative rebel, Ken Clarke, a former Cabinet minister during Margaret Thatcher’s administration, said Thursday that he would be prepared to back a Corbyn government, if it were “the only way” to stop a no-deal Brexit.  

Speaking to Sky News, Clarke said, “So long as we were absolutely certain we could keep Jeremy under control and he would not have any chance of implementing any bits of his manifesto, I hate to tell you that I probably would [back him as prime minister].” 

Others reluctant
 
But other Conservative rebels and Liberal Democrats have said they’d be highly reluctant to do so. The speaker is reported to have told lawmakers that if the government did collapse following a no-confidence vote, he would help install a government of national unity and assist in engineering Johnson’s ouster.  
 
Downing Street officials told The Sunday Times that the government had sought legal opinion about whether Johnson would have to resign in the event he lost a vote of no confidence, and whether the appointment by the queen of a new prime minister could be challenged in the courts. “I doubt any modern British government has ever sought such legal opinion before,” a senior government official acknowledged to VOA. 
 
Johnson’s aides are drawing up plans for a possible snap election — one they said he’d couch as an election to decide who rules: the people or Parliament. 

This Monday is Labor Day in the United States — a holiday linked to workers’ rights and wearing white.

That may sound strange, but it is true. Many Americans put away their white clothes on Labor Day and do not wear them again until the following May, after Memorial Day.

One reason for the clothing custom relates to the season. In the United States, the months between June and September are summer.

The weather is usually hot, including in Northeast cities like Boston, Massachusetts and New York, New York. Many people there historically wore light-colored clothing in the summertime to keep cool.

Judith Martin is an expert on manners – in other words, on how to behave politely. She spoke to Time Magazine about the history of wearing white in the summer.

She said that Americans in the 1800s and early 1900s wore formal clothes all year long. Wearing white clothes in the summertime may have felt more comfortable because “white is of a lighter weight,” Martin said.

Then, in about the 1930s, wearing white clothes in the summertime became fashionable, too. That is because some wealthy Americans in Northeast cities went on vacation for weeks or months in the summer. They stayed in costly hotels or summer houses. The white clothes they wore there became linked to ease, beauty and money.

But at the end of summer, around Labor Day, they put those white clothes away and returned to their lives in the city – as well as to their darker, heavier clothes. In time, not wearing white after Labor Day became a bit of a fashion rule. Following it showed that you were wealthy — or at least that you knew how to act like you were.

Today’s fashion magazines, however, advise readers to ignore the rule. They point to Coco Chanel, Kim Kardashian and Michelle Obama, who have appeared in white in all seasons.

But you may want to be careful about wearing white to an American-style Labor Day barbecue. 

The trouble is not fashion – it is ketchup. If it spills, the popular red tomato sauce can ruin a nice set of clothes.

Hundreds of people arrived in more than a dozen dinghies to the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos in a single afternoon, Greek authorities and aid groups said Friday, a significant increase in the numbers of refugees and migrants heading to Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast.
 
The coast guard confirmed that 13 boats carrying a total of 546 people arrived on Lesbos in the space of about an hour on Thursday, while another 32 people in another boat were rescued at sea and transported to Lesbos. A further 65 were rescued in two separate incidents off the island of Kos and the northern mainland town of Alexandroupolis.
 
Hundreds of people continue to head to Greece from Turkey each week, despite a European Union-Turkey deal restricting new arrivals to the islands pending deportation or a successful asylum application. But Thursday’s mass arrival was the largest of its kind since 2016, when the EU-Turkey deal came into effect, medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said on Twitter.

The EU-Turkey deal has led to a massive bottleneck on the eastern Aegean islands, where asylum seekers are housed in massively overcrowded camps, with aid groups frequently criticizing conditions. People deemed to be in vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, those with serious health problems or the very young, are the only ones transported to the mainland and housed in camps or apartments.
 
Official figures released Friday showed that more than 10,000 people were being held in Lesbos in a facility with a capacity of 3,000 people, while there was also severe overcrowding on the islands of Chios, Leros, Kos and Samos.

The Pakistani prime minister’s call for the country to show solidarity with Kashmiris by standing outside their homes, shops and offices for 30 minutes Friday seemed to receive a lackluster response. Many questioned its efficacy.

“Whatever they’re doing is without any planning. This kind of agitation is not effective. The public doesn’t think this will help Kashmir,” said trader Malik Tahir Mahmood, standing outside his shop in capital Islamabad.

Another shopkeeper, Shahwez Khattak, said he will follow what others in the market do regarding the protest, but added that he did not understand the actions.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced the measure to protest India’s recent decision to revoke the special status of Indian-controlled Kashmir — depriving the region of hitherto-granted autonomy. To avoid retaliation from the local population, the Indian government deployed thousands of additional security personnel, announced a curfew, suspended all phone service, and shut down television channels, effectively cutting off the region from the rest of the world.

Pakistan, which claims ownership of the disputed territory, responded by ousting the Indian high commissioner and partially cutting trade and transport links with India.

Government push

Khan said Friday’s protests would help generate international media coverage and bring Kashmir’s issue into focus.

Significant government resources were used to try to make the event a success. Employees in many government departments were told to show up to the prime minister’s secretariat to listen to his speech, and students from government schools were led to road sides and given small flags to wave.

Local TV channels, public and private, were ordered to run Kashmir-related programs as well as display a logo on their screens reading “Kashmir will become Pakistan.”

No flights were to take off during the 30 minutes starting at noon local time, and all trains were to stop for a minute at noon. All traffic lights were to turn red for half an hour. At exactly 12 p.m., national anthems of both Pakistan and Kashmir were to be played on most TV and radio channels.

Forced participation

However, the participation from the public seemed mostly forced, rather than voluntary.

In capital Islamabad, where shops normally start closing around noon for Friday prayers, many decided to close early. Traffic flow was normal and other than a few cars here and there, no one stopped at noon until traffic police blocked all intersections and forced people to wait for 30 minutes.

At one such intersection, a VOA team recorded people arguing with the traffic police.  

Still, some people agreed with the PM’s step.

“The whole world will watch us and realize Kashmir’s issue is real,” said real estate broker Chaudhry Azhar.

Another man, Abu Bakr Chawla, said any actions that avoided conflict were good.

“We don’t want war. We want things to be resolved peacefully,” he said.

The nationwide demonstrations are supposed to take place weekly till Sept. 27, when the PM will address the United Nations General Assembly.

This week, on #VOAOurVoices: from afro beats and South Africa’s hypnotic gqom music, to the Ivorian sounds of Coupé-Decalé, African artists continue to reinvent the rhythms of Africa – and the world is taking note. This week, our hosts are joined by David Vandy, from VOA’s The African Beat. Together, they explore the global influence and reach of African music, and how that expansion benefits artists from the continent. In our #WomentoWatch segment, we highlight the women who are pushing the sounds of Africa to a new level, and feature a live performance from singer-songwriter ToluMiDe.

Among protesters on the streets of Kong Kong are many who are prompted by their religious faith.  Christians, like others in Hong Kong, are divided in their politics, but as Mike O’Sullivan reports, Christians in the pro-democracy movement say they hope to be a voice for peaceful change.
 

Scientists warn that Greenland’s melting ice sheet is a real doomsday scenario.  Rising temperatures and record heat this summer accelerated what has already been a much faster thaw than seen in previous years. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
 

An unusual regatta took place in Northern Virginia as thousands gathered in Reston to watch a cardboard boat race! More than 150 participants used duct tape, cardboard, their imagination and engineering skills to stay afloat as long as possible. Maxim Moskalkov went to Reston to watch the extraordinary regatta.
 

Villagers in Chakothi in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir are frustrated with living in constant fear of fighting along the heavily militarized frontier in the disputed Himalayan region.

Their situation has been exacerbated since India’s government, led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, imposed a security lockdown and communications blackout just over the Line of Control from Chakothi in Indian-controlled Kashmir, which is majority Muslim.

The move followed the Indian government’s Aug. 5 decision to downgrade the region’s autonomy, raising tensions with Pakistan and touching off anger in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

“India has been killing our brothers and sisters in Indian-occupied Kashmir and the world is silent,” 65-year-old Mohammad Nazir Minhas told reporters Thursday. “It compels us to say that freedom will come only through war. We are ready.”

Journalists were escorted to the village in Pakistan-held Kashmir by the military to show them the plight of villagers living along the frontier. From where Minhas stood, an Indian post could be seen without using binoculars.

Kashmir is split between Pakistan and India and claimed by both in its entirety. Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over the disputed region since gaining independence from British rule in 1947.

India on Thursday said it has information that Pakistan is trying to infiltrate “terrorists” into the country to carry out attacks amid rising tensions between the two countries. 

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Ghafoor rejected the Indian claims, saying Pakistan was a responsible state and “we would be insane to allow infiltration” across the Line of Control.

Minhas, who said he lost his daughter in 1971 when she was shot in the chest by a soldier firing from the Indian side, is among local Kashmir residents who say they often spend sleepless nights because of nearby skirmishes between Pakistani and Indian forces.

The nuclear-armed rivals were close to going to war again in February, when a suicide bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 40 paramilitary soldiers. India responded by bombing an alleged terrorist training camp in Pakistan. Pakistan then claimed it shot down two Indian air force planes and captured an Indian pilot who was later released amid signs of easing tensions.

The restrictions on Indian Kashmir have been easing slowly, with some businesses reopening, some landline phone service restored and some grade schools holding classes again, though student and teacher attendance has been sparse.

But tensions between India and Pakistan are high. 

“Even last night, there was an intense exchange of fire here,” said Mohammad Salman, 75, a Chakothi resident as he stood in the middle of a deserted market. The market stands about 200 meters (220 yards) from the region’s “Friendship Bridge,” which was opened for a much-awaited bus service in 2005.

Pakistan suspended the bus service and trade with India in response to the Aug. 5 changes to Kashmir’s status by New Delhi. Pakistan has also expelled the Indian ambassador and closed train service to and from India. 

Pakistan has indicated it may soon also close its airspace for Indian overflights, forcing them to take longer routes.

Residents of Pakistani Kashmir hail these measures, but they complain the government never constructed community bunkers to protect them from gunfire from the Indian side. 

“When our children go out to play, we don’t know whether they will come back alive as India opens fire ruthlessly,” said Mohammad Sajid, 45, as he stood at a nearby mosque. 

Authorities say mortar fired across the Line of Control divides Indian and Pakistani Kashmir struck a home in the village of Kail a day before, killing three civilians.

Pakistan’s army says it only returns fire when there is a cease-fire violation by India.

“Our response is always measured and we only target those Indian posts from where fire hits our civilian population,” Ghafoor, the army spokesman, told reporters. He said their troops cannot “ruthlessly return fire like the Indians do” because it could cause civilian casualties on the other side of Kashmir where divided families live.

India accuses Pakistan of training and arming insurgent groups that have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies. Pakistan says it only provides moral and diplomatic support to these groups.

Most Kashmiris support the rebels’ demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country, while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control. 

Villagers at Chakothi say they are waiting for the time when they will “ruin the Line of Control” to hoist Pakistan’s flag in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Ukrainian prisoners, including sailors and filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, are flying back to Ukraine after a prisoner swap was completed with Russia, according to comments that were reposted on Facebook by Ukraine’s general prosecutor.

The general prosecutor’s spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Russia had transferred Sentsov from a remote Arctic prison to custody in Moscow amid talks with Kyiv on a possible prisoner swap, news agencies TASS and Interfax reported Thursday.
 

Anger remained high Thursday as relatives began the slow, tearful task of mourning and burying the 28 people who died horrendously when gang members set a bar on fire after blocking its exits. 

The families complained that criminals are out of control and making life impossible in this southern Mexico oil town.

At least seven of the victims were buried Thursday, with the 3-year-old daughter of one woman, Xochitl Irineo Gomez, waving goodbye to her mother after her coffin was placed into the ground.

Vanessa Galindo Blas, 32, leaned over the brown metal coffin of her common-law husband, Erick Hernandez Enriquez, 29, who had dreamed of becoming a famous deejay. He was working at the club to support his three children.

“He wanted to be famous,” she sighed. “Look what they did to him.”

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the Coatzacoalcos attack “degrades us as a society, as a government, as a nation,” adding that crime and violence is the problem that worries him most.

Veracruz state, where Coatzacoalcos is located, has been one of many hot spots for that violence. Thousands have been kidnapped and disappeared in the state and in April gunmen broke into a family party and opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding at least four others.

Businessmen say gangs in Coatzacoalcos demand protection money from business owners, and at least two other bars were burned down in Coatzacoalcos in July to enforce such demands.

Authorities are searching for the men who burst into the White Horse nightclub late Tuesday, taking over the entrance at gunpoint and dousing it with gasoline and setting the bar afire.  The attack was apparently carried out by the Jalisco drug cartel in retaliation for the bar owner’s refusal to pay extortion demands.

But the state governor has acknowledged that authorities had several of the suspects in custody earlier on other crimes – but allowed them to be released.

Relatives of those killed at the White Horse bar said they have lost trust in authorities.

“We don’t want a war, but we do want more firm action,” Miguel Angel Ortiz said Wednesday as he waited for official confirmation that his mother, cleaning woman Rocio Gonzalez Ramos, 53, was among the dead.

“The justice system is upside down in Mexico,” Ortiz said. “Those who carry illegal weapons go free.”

Alicia Sierra, whose nephew Habib Ojeda Sierra, a 23-year-old grocery store worker and father of two, was among those killed, said she doesn’t want his death “to go unpunished, as have so many other crimes,” referring to the April killings.

“They should turn these suspects over to the people” so justice can be done, Sierra said, “because they (authorities) are just going to set them free.”

Lopez Obrador has said “violence cannot be fought with more violence,” and has praised soldiers who have held fire even as they were disarmed by mobs. He says his programs of scholarships and apprenticeships will eventually attack the root causes of crime.

He has spoken of addressing Mexico’s crime problems with “hugs, not bullets,” and has insisted that Mexicans are “happy, happy, happy.”

Officials of his administration have even begun talks with vigilante groups, many of which are linked to drug cartels, though Lopez Obrador says he disapproved of those talks.

But patience in Coatzacoalcos was thin among the families preparing for funeral services for those who died of burns and smoke inhalation at the bar.

Lenit Enriquez Orozco, who has led a group of relatives of the disappeared in Coatzacoalcos, after her own brother vanished in 2015, said drug cartels “are feeling very empowered.”

“Lopez Obrador says the people are happy, but this is not what you would call being happy,” she said, motioning toward the grieving families of the nightclub victims.

Anti-crime activist and businessman Raul Ojeda said the attack had all the hallmarks of an unmet demand for extortion payments. He said the Zetas and the Jalisco New Generation cartels and local gangs are currently fighting over control of the city

“They have been threatening all the businesses like that,” Ojeda said. “The ones that don’t pay close down or pay the consequences, as in this case.”

Lopez Obrador said local prosecutors should be investigated because “the alleged perpetrators had been arrested, but they were freed.” Veracruz Gov. Cuitlahuac Garcia identified the chief suspect as a man known as “La Loca” and gave his name as Ricardo “N” because officials no longer give the full names of suspects.

Garcia said the man had been detained by marines in July, but was released after being turned over to the state prosecutor’s office.

The state prosecutor’s office disputed that version, saying it had turned the man over to federal officials.