The latest protests in Hong Kong have generated calls from the United States urging all sides to refrain from violence while Canada is warning China to be very careful in how it deals with the demonstrators.  The calls came after thousands protestors in Hong Kong grounded flights at the international airport Monday, escalating 10 weeks of protests over a proposal that would subject citizens to extradition by mainland Chinese courts.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.

Hong Kong’s airport reopened on Tuesday but its administrator warned that flight movements would still be affected, after China said protests that have swept the city over the past two months had begun to show the “sprouts of terrorism.”

Some flights resumed but many others were cancelled. Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific said it had cancelled more than 200 flights into and out of the airport on Tuesday, according to its website.

The airport, one of the world’s busiest, blamed demonstrators for halting flights on Monday. The exact trigger for the closure was not clear because protesters occupying the arrivals hall since Friday have been peaceful.

The airport was the latest focus of protests that began two months ago. The sometimes violent protests began as opposition to a now-suspended bill that would have allowed extradition to mainland China but have grown into wider calls for democracy.

The protests have plunged the Chinese-ruled territory into its most serious crisis in decades, presenting Chinese leader Xi Jinping with one of his biggest challenges since he came to power in 2012.

Analysts said the disruptions and protests in Hong Kong were unsettling Asian stock markets, and the Hang Seng index opened 1.1% lower on Tuesday.

Embattled Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday the “lawbreaking activities in the name of freedom” were damaging the rule of law and that it could take a long time for the city to recover from the protests.

The protesters have been switching tactics in recent weeks and more than a dozen sit-ins were planned at hospitals in the city, according to social media posts on Tuesday.

Most of the protesters had left the airport shortly after midnight, with about 50 still there on Tuesday morning.

“Hong Kong International Airport will implement flight rescheduling today with flight movements expected to be affected,” said a notice published on the Hong Kong International Airport’s official mobile app on Tuesday.

Cathay Pacific said it would only operate a limited number of flights for connecting passengers. Airport flight boards showed the likes of Emirates Airline and Virgin Australia had flights scheduled to depart on Tuesday.

Critical Juncture

China said on Monday protests in the Asian financial hub had reached a critical juncture.

“Protesters have been frequently using extremely dangerous tools to attack the police in recent days, constituting serious crimes with sprouts of terrorism emerging,” said Hong Kong and Macau Affairs office spokesman Yang Guang in Beijing.

Some Hong Kong legal experts say the official description of terrorism could lead to the use of anti-terror laws.

Protesters in turn say police have used excessive force, firing tear gas and bean bag pellets at close range, and are calling for an independent inquiry into the crisis.

Demonstrators say they are fighting the erosion of the “one country, two systems” arrangement enshrining some autonomy for Hong Kong when China took it back from Britain in 1997.

Hong Kong’s airport is the 8th busiest by passenger traffic, handling 73 million passengers a year.

Shares in Cathay, which fell to a 10-year-low on Monday, continued their slide on Tuesday and were down more than 4.5% in morning trading.

The company is caught in crosswinds between Beijing and pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong after the Chinese civil aviation regulator demanded it suspend personnel who engaged in or supported the protests from staffing flights into its airspace.

The closure of the Hong Kong airport added to that pressure.

A Reuters reporter saw more than 100 travelers lining up at Cathay’s ticketing counter early on Tuesday.

“The way to handle last night was chaotic,” said Kate Flannery from Australia, who was travelling to Paris. “The airport authority didn’t deal with the situation. I felt like I was walking around and nobody gave us information.”

A Cathay customer officer at the airport, who declined to provide his name, said nearly all the airline’s flights were full.

“It is possible that the airport authority will cancel more flights as they need to control the air traffic movements at the Hong Kong International Airport,” he said.

Arrests and deportations of foreign teachers in China have soared this year, lawyers, schools and teachers say, amid a broad crackdown defined by new police tactics and Beijing’s push for a “cleaner,” more patriotic education system.

Four law firms told Reuters that requests for representation involving foreign teachers had surged in the past six months by between four and tenfold, while teachers and schools confirmed arrests and temporary detentions for minor crimes had become commonplace.

Switzerland-based Education First (EF), which runs 300 schools across 50 Chinese cities, has seen a “significant” increase in detentions in China for alleged offenses including drugs, fighting and cybersecurity violations, according to a June 27 internal notice sent to employees and seen by Reuters.

It said EF staff had been “picked up by police at their home and work as well as in bars and nightclubs and have been questioned and brought in for drug testing”. The notice said the school had also received warnings from embassies about the rise in arrests.

A spokeswoman for EF declined to comment on the content of the notices but said the company “values our close collaboration with the Chinese authorities,” adding that it “regularly reminds staff of important regulatory and compliance policies.”

An international school in Beijing and a teaching agency in Shanghai separately confirmed arrests had risen sharply.

“There’s tremendous pressure for them to keep things clean. It’s all part of (President) Xi Jinping’s idea to make sure that China can show a good face for the rest of the world,” said Peter Pang, principal attorney at the IPO Pang Xingpu Law Firm in Shanghai, which represents foreign teachers in disputes.

China’s Public Security Bureau and Ministry of Education did not respond to requests for comment.

The detentions come amid growing tensions between China and western countries, including the United States and Australia.

China had roughly 400,000 foreign citizens working in its education industry in 2017, the last year for which official figures are available, working in schools, colleges and language institutes.

The industry has long been plagued by abuses on both sides, with many foreign teachers in China working without proper visas and some schools taking advantage of that vulnerability.

Lawyers said a rising backlash against foreign influence in China’s fiercely nationalistic education system means even qualified teachers are increasingly vulnerable to exploitation.

Love education, love the motherland

Many of the legal cases involving foreign teachers are linked to new and enhanced drug-testing measures, including testing methods that can track drug use over a longer time, such as surprise inspections at teacher’s homes and workplaces, lawyers said.

Three former teachers from two schools in Beijing and Shanghai who were detained for between 10 and 30 days before being deported this year say authorities drug-tested teachers multiple times within weeks of arrival and conducted extensive interrogations.

One of the three, a 25-year-old Florida man who was deported in May after a 10-day detention in a Beijing jail, said he and a colleague underwent a urine screening on their first day in China, which came back clean, but were detained after a surprise workplace test two weeks later showed traces of cannabis in his hair.

“I didn’t touch a single drug in China,” said the man, declining to share his full name because he is currently looking for a job in the United States.

Hair tests can detect cannabis for up to 90 days, meaning teachers that come from countries where the drug is legal, including parts of the United States, are especially vulnerable.

“The problem with hair testing is that it can detect cannabis from months prior,” said Dan Harris, Seattle-based managing partner of law firm Harris Bricken, whose firm saw a steep rise in case requests involving foreign teachers beginning earlier this year.

The behavior of foreign teachers in China was thrust into the spotlight last month when 19 foreign citizens, including seven who worked for EF, were arrested in the eastern city of Xuzhou on drug charges.

The case drew fierce criticism in state media, which echoed earlier calls by Beijing to push for the eradicating of foreign influences from the country’s schools.

Last September, China launched a wide-reaching campaign to remove foreign influences from education, including efforts to ban foreign history courses, outlaw self-taught material and revise textbooks to focus on core Communist Party ideology.

The ongoing effort, which includes follow-up checks and random inspections at schools, is designed to promote “patriotism” and “core socialist values”, reflecting a “love for the motherland”, China’s education ministry said at the time.

Risks outweigh rewards

Lawyers said rising anti-foreigner sentiment in Chinese education and a glut of teachers mean expats are also more likely to be exposed to non-criminal legal issues, including schools docking pay, refusing to provide documentation for visas and changing contracts without warning.

“When (schools) get a lot of applications they feel they are in a commanding position,” said Pang, whose firm has handled dozens of labor arbitrations between teachers and schools in recent months.

Emily, a 25-year old English teacher from the U.S. state of Utah, said a school in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu held her passport for 10 weeks in late 2018, refusing to hand it back until she threatened to call police.

“There was always an excuse, like registering my dorm with police or some administration to transfer my visa … at one point they just said they were keeping it safe,” she said, asking not to publish her full name or the name of the school because of an ongoing arbitration.

The Chengdu school did not respond to phone calls by Reuters. The HR employee who Emily said had held her passport confirmed she had worked at the school, but declined to comment on the case via a messaging app.

The school docked her 16,000 yuan ($2,269) monthly salary by 1,200 yuan for an unexpected “agency” fee, according to documents provided to her by the school before and after her arrival.

Lawyers say the practice is not unusual, and arbitration typically costs more than the withheld wages.

“What has changed is that many government officials think that kicking out Western influences like English teachers is doing the Party’s work, and the schools are taking advantage of it” said Harris, the Seattle lawyer, who now advises against foreigners teaching in China. “The risks of going to China to teach far outweigh the rewards.”

Venezuela’s pro-government legislature on Monday agreed to create a commission to evaluate holding 2020 legislative elections early, which would create an opportunity for the government to reclaim control of the opposition-dominated congress.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido warned on Sunday that the Constituent Assembly would decide on Monday to disband the congress he leads and move up elections after President Nicolas Maduro called for a new “offensive.”

Instead, the Constituent Assembly’s head, Diosdado Cabello, downplayed Guaido’s comments and said there was no need to disband congress as it “didn’t work” and “had eliminated itself on its own.”

Any move to disband congress would fuel criticism of Maduro in the international community and almost certainly halt Norway-brokered talks between the government and Guaido allies meant to reach a negotiated solution to Venezuela’s political stalemate.

Cabello said the commission would evaluate “in accordance with the law, the constitution and the political situation” when would be the best moment for the legislative elections.

In a warning directed at opposition lawmakers, Cabello said: “Don’t go on vacation because we are going to make life impossible for you over the next month.”

Guaido invoked the constitution in January to assume a rival presidency, saying Maduro’s 2018 re-election was fraudulent. He has been recognized by more than 50 countries, including the United States, as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

Maduro said on Saturday that Guaido will face justice for supporting the most recent round of U.S. sanctions, which block all commercial transactions with Venezuela’s government and freeze its assets in the United States.

U.S. authorities said Monday that a friend of the Dayton, Ohio, gunman who killed nine people in a 30-second burst of mayhem bought him body armor, a gun accessory and a 100-round magazine earlier this year.

Prosecutors in the Midwest city said that Ethan Kollie told authorities that he bought the items for the shooter, Connor Betts, and kept them at his apartment so the shooter’s parents would not find the gear.

The details behind the items used by Betts surfaced as the authorities charged Kollie with lying about not using marijuana on a federal firearms form he filled out to buy a pistol that was not used in the mass shooting.

Betts, 24, carried out the attack in the nightlife district of Dayton early on Aug. 4, killing his 22-year-old sister, Megan Betts, and eight others and wounding 27 more before police spotted him and killed him just as he was about to run into a bar. Police have yet to disclose a motive behind the assault.

The Dayton carnage occurred 13 hours after authorities allege that a Texas man targeted and shot Hispanics at a Walmart store in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, killing 22 and injuring another two dozen. The accused shooter, Patrick Crusius, 21, had complained about an “invasion” of Texas by Hispanics. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

The Italian Senate will return Tuesday from its summer vacation to set a crucial date for a no-confidence vote on Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s populist government.

That development followed a meeting Monday of party whips in the Senate who failed to unanimously agree on the date of the no-confidence vote.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini declared last week that his right-wing League party no longer supports Conte and is pressing for a no-confidence vote in the next few days. He’s calculating that Conte will lose and resign, triggering what Salvini hopes will be a new election as early as this fall.

Eager to become premier himself, Salvini wants to go to the polls as soon as possible to capitalize both on the League’s rising popularity and the waning support for his senior coalition partner, the populist 5-Star Movement.

Italy’s main opposition party, the center-left Democratic Party (PD), is already divided over its future strategy. Party secretary Nicola Zingaretti issued a call for unity Monday, reiterating that the key decision on whether and when to call an early election is in the hands of President Sergio Mattarella. He added that the Democrats are not afraid of facing an early ballot.

But former premier Matteo Renzi, who still has a strong influence among the Democrats’ senators, suggested Sunday the party should seek a possible alliance with the 5-Stars and other moderate forces to stop Salvini and derail his plan for a new election in October.

Sales tax, migrant issues

Italy has to draft a painful budget law by the end of October and have it approved by parliament by the end of the year. The government in place will have to find about 23 billion euro ($25.8 billion) in financial resources to avoid a planned sales tax hike, which would prove highly unpopular with voters and weigh on the electoral campaign.

Depending on the outcome of the no-confidence votes in the Senate and the House, the president could still try to guide the creation of a transition government, headed by Conte or someone else, to handle the budget law and lead Italy to a new election that could be as late as next year.

Still, it’s not clear that such a government would win the needed majority in parliament.

Salvini’s strong anti-migrant stance is credited with the League’s surge in popularity. After claiming just 17% of the vote in Italy’s 2018 national election, the League won 34% in European elections this spring.

The 5-Stars, meanwhile, have seen their support shrink from nearly 33% in the 2018 election to 17% in the European elections in May.

Two of four experimental Ebola drugs being tested in Congo seem to be saving lives, international health authorities announced Monday.

The preliminary findings prompted an early halt to a major study on the drugs and a decision to prioritize their use in the African country, where a yearlong outbreak has killed more than 1,800 people. 
 
The early results mark “some very good news,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the study. With these drugs, “we may be able to improve the survival of people with Ebola.”

The two drugs — one developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and the other by NIH researchers — are antibodies that work by blocking the virus.

While research shows there is an effective albeit experimental vaccine against Ebola — one now being used in Congo — no studies have signaled which of several potential treatments were best to try once people became sick. During the West Africa Ebola epidemic several years ago, studies showed a hint that another antibody mixture named ZMapp worked, but not clear proof. 
 
So with the current outbreak in Congo, researchers compared ZMapp to three other drugs — Regeneron’s compound, the NIH’s called mAb114 and an antiviral drug named remdesivir. 
 
On Friday, independent study monitors reviewed how the first several hundred patients in the Congo study were faring — and found enough difference to call an early halt to the trial. The panel determined that the Regeneron compound clearly was working better than the rest, and the NIH antibody wasn’t far behind, Fauci explained. Next, researchers will do further study to nail down how well those two compounds work.

The data is preliminary, Fauci stressed. But in the study, significantly fewer people died among those given the Regeneron drug or the NIH’s — about 30% compared to half who received ZMapp. More striking, when patients sought care early — before too much virus was in their bloodstream — mortality was just 6% with the Regeneron drug and 11% with the NIH compound, compared to about 24% for ZMapp, he said. 
 
Among people who receive no care in the current outbreak, about three-fourths die, said Dr. Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization. All of Congo’s Ebola treatment units have access to the two drugs, he added, saying he was hopeful that the news would persuade more patients to seek care — as soon as symptoms appear.

Quick care ‘vital’

Tackling Congo’s outbreak has been complicated both by conflict in the region and because many people don’t believe Ebola is real and choose to stay at home when they’re sick, which spurs spread of the virus.

“Getting people into care more quickly is absolutely vital,” Ryan said. “The fact that we have very clear evidence now on the effectiveness of the drugs, we need to get that message out to communities.”

Fauci said Regeneron and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, which has licensed the NIH compound, told authorities enough doses are readily available.

One issue researchers will have to analyze: Occasionally people who receive the Ebola vaccine still become sick, including some in the treatment study, which raises the question of whether their earlier protection inflated the drugs’ survival numbers.

The articles on the website of the leading Taiwan newspaper were gushing about a new Chinese government program to lure Taiwanese entrepreneurs to the mainland.

China “treated Taiwanese businessmen like its own people,” one of the articles said, citing “multiple perks”. Far from being a threat to Taiwan, the program to give economic incentives to Taiwanese to start businesses in the mainland was an “unprecedented” opportunity, it said.

While the articles were presented as straight news, they were actually paid for by the Chinese government, according to a person with direct knowledge of the arrangement and internal documents from the Taipei-based newspaper.

The placement of the articles was part of a broader campaign by China to burnish its image in the Taiwanese media as part of efforts to win hearts and minds in Taiwan for China’s “reunification” agenda.

Reuters has found evidence that mainland authorities have paid at least five Taiwan media groups for coverage in various publications and on a television channel, according to interviews with 10 reporters and newsroom managers as well as internal documents reviewed by Reuters, including contracts signed by the Taiwan Affairs Office, which is responsible for overseeing China’s policies towards Taiwan.

These efforts have been going on since China and Taiwan deepened their economic collaboration nearly a decade ago, but details like the financial arrangements of such partnerships had not previously been reported.

Reuters is withholding the name of the media groups at the request of the former and current employees who provided the documents.

The Taiwan Affairs Office paid 30,000 yuan ($4,300) for the two feature stories about the mainland’s efforts to attract Taiwan business people, according to a person familiar with the arrangements and internal documents from the newspaper.

“It felt like I was running propaganda and working for the Chinese government,” the person said.

The placement of news stories by companies and special interests is common in Taiwan. However, the commissioning of such stories by China is potentially explosive on the island, which has been increasingly sensitive about mainland efforts to sway popular sentiment amid rising tensions across the strait.

While the Taiwan Affairs Office paid for most of the stories in the documents reviewed by Reuters, other Chinese government bodies also commissioned stories, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter. One of the contracts was signed by a municipal government in southern China.

China has viewed self-ruled Taiwan as a wayward province to be brought under its control, by force if necessary, since a civil war divided the two in 1949.

One senior news manager said he handled stories paid for by the Chinese government at a major newspaper for several years.

He left the publication in 2016 and now works for a news organization affiliated with the Taiwan government.

“The money was mostly paid via the Taiwan Affairs Office,” said the person, adding that provincial or municipal governments across China also sponsored coverage.

The Taiwanese government said it was aware of the Chinese efforts and that such partnerships were subject to a fine of up to T$500,000 ($16,000) for violating regulations on Chinese advertisements.

Undermining press freedom

“It is using our press freedom to harm press freedom,” Chiu Chui-cheng, the deputy minister for Taiwan’s Ministry of Mainland Affairs, told Reuters. “This is part of the mainland’s media war against Taiwan,” he said, vowing to strengthen laws to close what he called “loopholes” in Taiwan’s national security.

“It’s spreading messages of Chinese ideology, harming our free speech and democracy.”

The Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement late on Friday that the related authorities would look into the issues raised in the Reuters article.

“The Mainland Affairs Council seriously urges the Beijing authorities to immediately stop such clumsy and inferior actions and to stop the wishful thinking that it could replicate the way it controls media domestically in Taiwan,” it wrote.

The Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to requests for comment.

Employees from the media companies said Beijing’s efforts to sway the public’s perception of China was undermining Taiwan’s media.

“When funding from the Chinese government becomes a big part of your revenue, it’s impossible not to exercise self-censorship,” said a reporter, who said she was involved in several stories commissioned by the Chinese government in 2017-2018 for a newspaper based in southern Taiwan.

“It gives China space to manipulate politics and influence public opinion in Taiwan.”

Several reporters and newsroom managers said that some media organizations were engaging in self-censorship, as stories placed by China had become increasingly important sources of income.

Issues seen as “sensitive” by China, such as the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, were no longer being covered by their news outlets, they said.

Beijing’s campaign comes at a time of growing concern over Chinese infiltration in Taiwan. In June, tens of thousands of people rallied to call for the regulation of “red media” outlets that they claimed ran favorable coverage of a China-friendly presidential candidate ahead of key elections in January.

China’s ultimate goal

Two officials working at a Taiwanese state security agency, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, said Chinese infiltration of Taiwan’s media posed “threats” to the island’s security.

“Their ultimate goal is unification,” said one of the sources, who oversees Chinese activities on the island. “They think it is better to win the heart of the people than to start a war.”

The Taiwan Affairs Office has set up companies that carry out the story placement campaign. The companies liaise with news organizations’ sales representatives, ordering up topics and lengths for stories, five people with direct knowledge of the arrangements said.

Such firms include Beijing-based Jiuzhou Culture Communication Center, as well as Publishing Exchange Center.

Across the Taiwan Strait in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, according to a contract signed by the Taiwan Affairs Office unit and the Taipei newspaper, as well as the person familiar with the arrangement.

Liu Tan, a representative from the Beijing company, ended a phone call with Reuters after a reporter identified himself. The Guangzhou company did not respond to requests for comment.

In one deal, signed in early 2017, the Beijing company paid the publication 120,300 yuan in exchange for 10 full-page, color-print stories to promote investments and tourism for an eastern Chinese province.

The two features about the business incentives in the leading Taiwan newspaper were even edited by the Taiwan Affairs Office before they were sent to the paper’s newsroom in Taipei for publication, the person said.

The person added that the people interviewed in the reports had been picked by an official from the Communist Party’s Publicity Department.

“Readers were unable to tell the stories were paid for,” the person said. “All they could see was positive coverage of the mainland.”

 

Trump administration rules that could deny green cards to immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other forms of public assistance are going into effect, potentially making it more difficult for some to get legal status in the United States.
 
Federal law already requires those seeking green cards and legal status to prove they will not be a burden to the U.S., or what’s called a “public charge,” but the new rules, made public on Monday, detail a broader range of programs that could disqualify them.
 
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers will now weigh public assistance along with other factors such as education, household income and health to determine whether to grant legal status.
 
Much of President Donald Trump’s effort to crack down on illegal immigration has been in the spotlight, but the rule change is one of the most aggressive efforts to restrict legal immigration. It’s part of a push to move the U.S. to a system that focuses on immigrants’ skills instead of emphasizing the reunification of families, as it has done.
 
The rules will take effect in mid-October. They don’t apply to U.S. citizens, even if the U.S. citizen is related to an immigrant who is subject to them.
 
The acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, said the rule change fits with the Republican president’s message.
 

“We want to see people coming to this country who are self-sufficient,” Cuccinelli said. “That’s a core principle of the American Dream. It’s deeply embedded in our history, and particularly our history related to legal immigration.”
 
Immigrants make up a small percentage of those who get public benefits. In fact, many are ineligible for public benefits because of their immigration status.
 
But advocates worry the rules will scare immigrants into not asking for help. And they are concerned the rules give too broad an authority to decide whether someone is likely to need public assistance at any time, giving immigration officials the ability to deny legal status to more people.
 
On average, 544,000 people apply annually for green cards, with about 382,000 falling into categories that would be subject to this review, according to the government.
 
Guidelines in use since 1999 referred to a public charge as someone primarily dependent on cash assistance, income maintenance or government support for long-term institutionalization.
 
Under the new rules, the Department of Homeland Security has redefined a public charge as someone who is “more likely than not” to receive public benefits for more than 12 months within a 36-month period. If someone has two benefits, that is counted as two months. And the definition has been broadened to include Medicaid, housing assistance and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
 
Following publication of the proposed rules last fall, Homeland Security received 266,000 public comments, more than triple the average number for a rule change at the agency, and it made a series of amendments to the final rules as a result.
 
For example, women who are pregnant and on Medicaid or who need public assistance will not be subject to the new rules during the pregnancy and for 60 days after the birth of the baby.
 
The Medicare Part D low-income subsidy won’t be considered a public benefit. And public benefits received by children up until age 21 won’t be considered. Nor will emergency medical assistance, school lunch programs, foster care or adoption, student loans and mortgages, food pantries, homeless shelters or disaster relief.
 
Cuccinelli said the comments resulted in changes that “we think it made a better, stronger rule.”
 
Green card hopefuls will be required to submit three years of federal tax returns in addition to a history of employment. And if immigrants have private health insurance that will weigh heavily in their favor.
 
Active U.S. military members are exempt. So are refugees or asylum seekers, and the rules would not be applied retroactively, officials said. But the Trump administration also has moved to drastically reduce asylum in the U.S.
 
The administration recently tried to effectively end the protections at the U.S.-Mexico border before the effort was blocked by a court. It has sent more than 30,000 asylum seekers mostly from Central America back to Mexico wait out their immigration cases.
 
According to an Associated Press analysis of census data, low-income immigrants who are not citizens use Medicaid, food aid, cash assistance and Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, at a lower rate than comparable low-income native-born adults.
 
In general, immigrants are a small portion of those receiving public benefits. For example, non-citizen immigrants make up only 6.5 percent of all those participating in Medicaid. More than 87 percent of participants are native-born. The same goes for food assistance: Immigrants make up only 8.8 percent of recipients, and more than 85 percent of participants are native-born.
 
The new public assistance threshold, taken together with higher requirements for education, work skills and health, will make it more difficult for immigrants to qualify for green cards, advocates say.
 
“Without a single change in the law by Congress, the Trump public charge rules mean many more U.S. citizens are being and will be denied the opportunity to live together in the U.S. with their spouses, children and parents,” said Ur Jaddou, a former Citizenship and Immigration Services chief counsel who’s now director of the DHS Watch run by an immigrant advocacy group. “These are not just small changes. They are big changes with enormous consequences for U.S. citizens.”
 
The new rules come at a time of increased criticism over Trump’s hardline policies and his rhetoric.
 
On Aug. 3, 22 people were killed and dozens were injured in a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, a border city that has become the face of the migration crisis. The shooting suspect told authorities he targeted Mexicans in the attack.
 
Critics contend Trump’s words have contributed to a combustible climat

Abigail Spanberger talked about rural broadband. She held court on health care, solar energy and the border crisis.   
 
But as the freshman Democrat from Virginia fielded a dozen questions during a recent town hall in Culpeper, she never once took on President Donald Trump directly _ not even when the topic turned, fleetingly, to impeachment.

“We are making every decision, whichever way it goes, based on facts and evidence and our duty to uphold the Constitution,” she said.

This is a story about a different kind of squad.

Spanberger is part of a group of first-term female representatives with national security backgrounds who flipped Republican seats last year and matter most on questions of impeachment and Democratic control. The alterna-squad consists of Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Virginians Spanberger and Elaine Luria _ women possessing deep military and intelligence experience, now voices of moderation in a party often portrayed as veering sharply left.

Spanberger, whose district is anchored in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, and extends to the exurbs of Washington, D.C., was a CIA operations officer. Slotkin is a former CIA analyst and acting assistant secretary of defense. Sherrill is a former U.S. Navy pilot, Naval Academy graduate, Russian policy officer and federal prosecutor. Houlahan is an Air Force veteran and engineer. And Luria is a former nuclear engineer in the Navy.

The women are part of a group within the caucus focused on the minutiae of election security, with a name that hints at how they see themselves: Task Force Sentry. They can often be seen shuttling through hallways together, engaged in quiet conversation, or sitting side by side in the House. They are not the first to speak inside private caucus meetings, but when they do, “people listen,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., who chairs the Democrats’ campaign arm.
“You don’t come from a national security background and have any kind of extreme views,” Bustos said. Constituents in these closely split districts, she said, “won’t stand for extremism. They elected these people to get something done.”

The national security veterans eschew cliques and Twitter fights, though they are careful to say that they have no quibble with members of the more famous “squad” made up of progressive Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Yet they are laboring, now, to edge around the fireball of Trump’s battle with those four congresswomen of color over race and who is adequately American.

While Republicans portray the squad as emblematic of a Democratic Party turning toward socialism, the moderates are trying to forge their own brand. And Trump cannot easily cast them as villains, in part because they won’t play along. They simply can’t go down that road if they want to win reelection in their districts, which Trump won in 2016 and may yet win again.

“Don’t even mention his name,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she advises all Democrats.

The advice applies most of all to the national security squad and the other 26 Democrats representing “red-to-blue” House districts, whose reelections are Pelosi’s top priority.

Slotkin puts it this way about her constituents: “They fear that if we go down this path of impeachment, we’re not going to be working on the things that affect their lives, their pocketbooks, their kids. And so if we’re going to do this … we better have our act together.”
 
That approach is worlds away from Tlaib’s “impeach the mother—-er” war cry against Trump on the January day the new Congress was sworn in. For Spanberger and the other four women in the national security group, calling for Trump’s ouster is politically perilous.

“She realizes she can be a one-termer and on impeachment, she can’t be too far out in front,” said Republican activist Kurt Christensen, who attended Spanberger’s town hall in Culpeper.

“It would be political suicide here,” agreed Democrat Ron Artis, who supported Spanberger in her successful bid to defeat Republican Dave Brat to become the first Democrat to represent the district in nearly a half-century.

These members have insisted all year that their constituents ask questions on issues like health care far more often than impeachment. So as Spanberger talks about rural broadband, Sherrill talks about the Gateway rail project. Houlahan says she gets questions about health care and education. Luria gets queries about veterans, and Slotkin had an event recently on the same topic.

Their ideas for legislation include preventing foreign financial support for U.S. campaigns and finding ways to identify threats.

But the expertise that girds that work also has focused members of this group on the first volume of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report about Russian election interference in the 2016 campaign and the willingness of some in Trump’s orbit to receive any information on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Especially chilling, these lawmakers say, is Mueller’s warning that the Russians aren’t finished interfering in U.S. elections.

Slotkin followed up on Mueller’s testimony by co-sponsoring a bill to require campaigns to report attempts by foreigners to influence U.S. elections.

There is a palpable frustration among the congresswomen with constant requests to answer strictly political questions, such as whether there is concern that the president is succeeding in linking red-to-blue Democrats to “socialists.”

“I don’t think we should be talking about our feelings. I think we should be talking about legislation,” Spanberger said while rushing to House votes before the August recess. “I just want to focus on (the price of) drugs and infrastructure and protecting the integrity of elections.”

To this group, impeachment is “a process, not an outcome,” said Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., a member of Democratic leadership.

“What these women have managed to do is come to Congress as veterans with amazing national security expertise that would be valued in anybody,” said Clark, who has called for Trump’s impeachment. “But it is also unique and interesting that they are women. … They are respected.

A Belgian company has become the first to announce it is cutting ties with Myanmar’s military after a United Nations fact-finding mission called on businesses to sever all financial links to the country’s generals. 

Satellite communications firm Newtec said in a statement it would “follow the recommendations by the UN and stop commercial ties with Mytel,” a local mobile phone operator partially owned by the military. 

The call from a panel of three UN experts came a year after they first said Myanmar’s top generals should be prosecuted for genocide for their role in a 2017 crackdown believed to have killed thousands of Rohingya Muslims. 

“We will never knowingly sell to any organization or company linked to the Tatmadaw’s campaign of violence… and the atrocities committed against the Rohingya,” Newtec said, using the local name for Myanmar’s military.

A company that handles public relations for Mytel did not respond to a request for comment. 

Mixed Reactions

Christopher Sidoti, a human rights lawyer and member of the UN panel, praised Newtec for following the recommendations. 

“It’s a very welcome decision. We’re pleased to see such prompt action on their part and certainly hope that it’s the first among many,” he told VOA. 

But Mark Farmaner, a human rights campaigner who named Newtec on a “dirty list” of firms doing business with Myanmar’s military early this year, said Newtec should have acted sooner. 

“Newtec have known for nine months that they were working for the Burmese military, and didn’t care,” he told VOA, using an alternative word for Myanmar.   

“They are only ending their involvement now because of negative publicity after the fact-finding mission report, not because it is morally the right thing to do.”

Threat of Legal Action

In a letter sent last November, the company’s CEO, Thomas Van den Driessche, threatened to sue Farmaner’s pressure group, Burma Campaign UK, if it publicized Newtec’s relationship with the military. 

“If you would decide on including Newtec on your ‘Dirty List’, we reserve all rights and will hold you liable for any damages that Newtec might suffer from such actions,” he wrote.   

He also incorrectly stated that Mytel was “28% owned by the government” and “in no way involved” with the military. “Your allegations are therefore slanderous,” he added. 

In fact the 28% share is held by a military-owned company named Star High.

In response Farmaner wrote: “You seem a little uninformed about the situation in Burma and your own client in the country.”

He added: “You may think that as a large company you can bully a small campaign group with legal threats but we will not be intimidated.”

Newtec did not respond to a request for comment about its threat of legal action. 

Companies Reviewing Military Ties

Sidoti said Newtec’s decision was “one of several pieces of good news” the UN mission had received since publishing a report last week detailing the generals’ business interests and naming dozens of foreign companies with ties to the military.

“We’ve had a number of reports coming back to us of questions being asked in parliaments and companies that are reviewing their associations with some of the Myanmar military-aligned companies,” he added. 

Myanmar’s military has not responded to last week’s report but it has repeatedly denied the mission’s allegations and says its campaign against the Rohingya was a legitimate counter insurgency operation. 

The country’s foreign ministry said in a statement last week that it “categorically rejects the latest UN report and its conclusions.” It added that the fact-finding mission was established “based on unfounded allegations.” 

Officials at the ministry did not answer several calls seeking comment on Newtec’s decision to cut ties with Mytel. 

Amid China’s deepening crackdown on labor activists, Wei Zhili, the editor of an online labor rights advocacy platform called iLabour, was officially arrested on the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” on Friday – almost five months after he was taken away from his home in China’s southern city of Guangzhou.

Police presented a statement allegedly made by Wei to dismiss the lawyer of his family’s choice – a decision his family said is “clearly against his will.”

“We are afraid that the police may have tortured him and threatened him so that he decided to unhire that lawyer,” one of Wei’s family members told VOA over the weekend anonymously.

Legal Presentation Denied?

Wei’s family said they feel “sad and hopeless,” fearing that Wei has been deprived of his basic rights to seek legal presentation or his next government-appointed lawyer will not look after his best interest. 

Wei’s wife Zheng Churan, a well-known feminist in China, is barred from talking to foreign media about her husband’s case. Three months ago, she began a running campaign with a goal to complete 10,000 kilometers and hopes that her loved one will be set free by the time she meets the goal. 

If convicted, Wei may face up to a 10-year jail term, according to the lawyer of his family’s choice, whose requests to meet with his client were rejected twice by local police. 

Two of Wei’s colleagues – Yang Zhengjun and Ke Chengbing, who were also seized by police from Shenzhen respectively in January and March – may face a similar fate, according to rights groups, which have been demanding the immediate release of the three journalists, dedicated to labor rights.   

The three, known as “iLabour Three,” had used the news outlet to publish information on the cases of migrant workers from Hunan province who had contracted pneumoconiosis – an occupational lung disease, while also counseling them about defending their labor rights and petitioning over their grievances.

Set iLabour Three Free

“These journalists were serving the public interest by exposing life-threatening labor violations, and therefore they should never have been arrested,” said Christophe Deloire, Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a press statement released last week.

He insisted that the Chinese Constitution “enshrines freedom of the press and safe working conditions.”

RSF estimated that “at least 114 journalists and bloggers are currently imprisoned in life-threatening condition in China.” 

In its 2019 World Press Freedom Index, the international group ranks China’s level of press freedom the 177th out of a total of 180 countries, which suggests China’s reporting environment only outperforms that in Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan.    

Sweeping Crackdown

Also, a group of online campaigners, which run a Facebook page titled Global Support for Disappeared Left Activists in China, noted that, since last July’s Jasic Incident, more than 130 labor rights activists have been detained or disappeared in China. Over 50 of them remain missing or in custody. 

The Jasic incident was a month-long labor rights conflict, in which, workers from Jasic Technologies Co in Shenzhen, dissatisfied with what they alleged were low pay and poor working conditions, staged protests and sought to form a labor union. 

Their calls drew support from students and professors at more than 20 universities. The Facebook group says more than 60 workers and supporters ended up being detained.

China’s state-controlled Xinhua news, in August, placed the blame on labor groups and foreign forces, saying a Shenzhen-based labor center that partners with Hong Kong-based Worker Empowerment, fanned the protests.  It failed to mention that the workers were protesting due to labor rights violations and state violence. 

Since then, the group observed that the authorities’ targets of arrests have ranged from worker organizers, leftist students, labor organizations staff and even social workers.  

Analysts noted that the detention of workers and supporters, plus the state media’s efforts to discredit them, showed the lengths Chinese authorities would go to, to crush worker disputes.

And China’s crackdown on labor activists has become so widespread that it’s hard to tell what activities are viewed by the authorities as crossing the red line, said Li Qiang, founder and executive director of China Labor Watch.

Riskier Labor Activism

In other words, anything that is beyond the Communist Party’s control will threaten the party’s rule and risk being suppressed, Li Qiang added.

“The Communist Party is concerned that, once highly-educated students or intellectuals with ideology join hands with the working class and get involved in the workers’ movement, the situation may get out of control and become detrimental [to its rule]. What worries the party the most is workers groups being organized,” said Li, who is currently based in New York.

Caught in the government’s crackdown, labor rights activists in China face an even more unclear and risker fate if they continue their activism, Li said. 

No one knows yet what causes eczema, the collective name for a group of skin conditions that result in  itchy, red patches on the skin. Eczema can appear on any part of the body, and it can be a lifelong affliction. Most often, it affects children, but adults can get it, too.    

Ava Segur developed eczema shortly after she was born. She’s now a teenager. Segur says she used to wear long-sleeved shirts to hide the bumps and rashes. Her mother, Stephanie Segur, says doctors were trying to get the eczema under control when Ava suddenly developed food allergies at about 18 months old. 

This turned out not to be a coincidence, but part of something called “Atopic March,” a genetic tendency to develop allergic diseases. 

“Probably a third of patients with eczema develop a food allergy,” said Dr. Donald Leung, an allergist and immunologist at National Jewish Health, a research hospital in Denver, Colorado, where Atopic March is studied.

Eczema patients have dry, cracked skin. If children have food particles on their fingers or underneath their nails, food can enter the body through the skin, instead of through the digestive tract. Other environmental allergens such as pollen can penetrate, as well. 

Heather Karazim recalls that when her daughter, Lucie, was a baby, she would scratch until her skin bled. Karazim constantly worried about infections. 

Leung says patients with eczema should see an atopic dermatitis expert to get control of the eczema quickly and to prevent the progression of Atopic March. Research shows that a warm, not-hot, 20-minute bath, followed by a thick moisturizer or ointment, helps rebuild the skin barrier. The ointment keeps a film of water on the skin and prevents it from evaporating. 

Wet wraps can be put on a child’s arms and legs, covered by dry clothing. Mitts prevent babies from scratching; wrapping the head also seals in moisture. 

Eczema is a troublesome skin condition. It’s itchier at night, and can interrupt the child’s and the parents’ sleep. The disease can impact the entire family, especially if it interferes with a parent or caregiver’s ability to work. And there’s the emotional impact of not being able to soothe the baby.   

Kristen Kline, whose infant son has eczema, says she “can’t even explain the relief that we’ve really gotten from (treatment).” She said it’s “huge” that the soak and seal treatment can prevent future allergies. 

Researchers are developing a way to test every element of the skin so they can identify what weakens the skin barrier and repair it before children develop potentially lifelong issues.

Gold medal fencer Race Imboden says he has no regrets about getting down on one knee instead of standing before the U.S. flag at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.

Imboden is one of two U.S. athletes facing sanctions from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee for their acts of protest at the medal ceremonies.

African American hammer thrower Gwen Berry raised a clenched fist while the “Star Spangled Banner” played during her team’s gold medal ceremony on Saturday.

Imboden told CNN television Sunday that the two mass shootings last week in El Paso and Dayton while he was in Peru were the catalyst for his protest during the medal ceremony on Friday.

Imboden said he represents what he calls “white privilege” and that it is time for a different face to be seen objecting to what is going on in the U.S. and the world.

“Racism, gun control, mistreatment of immigrants and a president who spreads hate” are more important to him at this time than a gold medal, he said.

Berry said she raised her clenched fist to protest injustice in the U.S. and what she described as a “president who’s making it worse.”

Trump has not commented on the protests. But U.S. Olympics officials said, “Every athlete competing at the 2019 Pan American Games commits to terms of eligibility, including to refrain from demonstrations that are political in nature. … We respect their (Imboden and Berry) rights to express their viewpoints, but are disappointed that they chose not to honor their commitment. Our leadership are reviewing what consequences may result.”

Imboden’s “taking a knee” came three years after National Football League quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem at his San Francisco 49ers games, setting off a nationwide debate. He said he was protesting police brutality against young black men.

The 49ers released Kaepernick and he has not been able to find another NFL job since.  

Berry’s raised fist hearkened back to the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, when U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists to protest violence and racism. A photo of their gesture has since become a symbol of dissent.

 

Two French charities pulled another 81 migrants from the waters off Libya Sunday, bringing the number of those it rescued at sea since Friday to 211.

Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranean jointly operate the Norwegian-flagged rescue ship Ocean Viking.

Most of those it picked up over the past three days are Sudanese men, including the 81 rescued from a flimsy rubber dinghy Sunday. Witnesses on the Ocean Viking say the men on the raft waved and cheered when they saw the ship approaching.

“We’re the only ones in the area, the Libyan coast guard doesn’t respond,” SOS Mediterranean rescue coordinator Nicholas Romaniuk told an AFP reporter.

He said he expects more migrants leaving Libya over the next few days because of good weather and the Eid al-Adha holiday reducing the number of police patrolling the beaches.

Meanwhile, a Spanish aid group, Open Arms, said it has 160 migrants aboard its rescue ship, including three who need “specialized medical attention.”

Open Arms founder Oscar Camps made another appeal Sunday to European governments for help, especially Italy, which is the closest safe port.

“Tenth day on board on a scorching Sunday in August. We have 160 reasons to carry on, 160 human beings who have the right to disembark at a safe port. Shame on you, Europe,” Camps tweeted.

Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Italy is not “legally bound nor disposed to take in clandestine unidentified migrants.”

Italy has complained it has done more than its share of allowing migrants to dock and wants other EU nations to do more to help.

Thousands of migrants from Africa try to reach EU shores from Libya every year. Those who are not rescued by charities are either left on unsafe boats to or picked up by the Libyan coast guard and returned to Libya, where they are housed in detention facilities.

Some of those facilities have been caught in the fighting between rival governments in Libya. A missile slammed into one detention building outside Tripoli in July, killing 53.

 

Once considered the Islamic State’s de facto capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa is slowly recovering, nearly two years after its liberation from the terror group.

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) liberated Raqqa from IS in October 2017. But during the 3-month-long battle, much of the city’s infrastructure was reduced to rubble.

Local officials complain the international coalition to defeat IS, which helped free the city, lost interest in rebuilding Raqqa as the focus has shifted to other areas recently liberated from IS.

“We used to meet second-tier coalition officials – sometimes from the first tier,” said Abdullah Aryan, head of the planning department at the Raqqa Civil Council, which has been largely responsible for reconstruction.

“But now we only get visits by an employee from the French ministry of defense or British ministry of agriculture or an employee responsible for civil society in the U.S. government,” he told VOA.

Emergency solutions

The lack of funding is forcing local officials to concentrate the limited money on restoring essential services, which will allow more displaced people to return.

For other restoration projects, they rely on low-cost efforts.

“To repair roads and bridges, we had to use primitive methods. We basically brought rubble from elsewhere in the city and used it to backfill destroyed bridges and roads,” Abdullah al-Ali, an engineer with the Raqqa Reconstruction Committee, said.

“We have too little money for anything more than this emergency solution,” al-Ali added.

According to local officials, the battle against IS destroyed nine main bridges over the Euphrates River and nearby irrigation canals. So far only three bridges have been repaired.

City in ruins

Upon returning, Raqqa residents find much of the city still littered with wreckage.

“We found our properties were knocked to the ground,” said Abdulkarim Issa, 41, who returned to Raqqa five months after it was liberated.

Issa pointed to a nearby building, destroyed in fighting, but that recently had been rebuilt. “But the owners of another building were asked to pay 1 billion Syrian pounds (roughly US $2 million) to rebuild it. But they didn’t have that money, so they went to regime-controlled areas,” he told VOA.

The deteriorating local economy makes some returnees question their decision.  

“The economic situation is bad,” said Um Hassan, whose children chose not to return to Raqqa, citing a lack of job opportunities.

“The market movement is slow and prices are too high. And there is no electricity,” she added.

Return of extremism?

If some progress isn’t made soon in Raqqa, local officials warn, they worry extremism could rise again, here and in other areas liberated from IS.

“War on terror isn’t only military. If we don’t pay attention to agriculture, education and health care in the next 10 years, a new generation of terrorists will rise here,” Aryan, of the Raqqa Civil Council, said.

He said that during four years of IS rule, children, in particular, were educated with the most extremist curriculum.

“We need to act fast and amend the situation before it’s too late,” Aryan said.

US contribution

The United States last year cut about $230 million in funding for northeast Syria. Washington said other members of the anti-IS coalition, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, should increase financial contributions to the Syrian rebuilding effort.

Despite the cuts, the U.S. remains the largest single national humanitarian donor for the Syrian response, providing nearly $8.1 billion in humanitarian assistance since the start of the crisis for displaced people inside Syria and in the region.

The U.S. has also been a major contributor of mine-clearance efforts in Raqqa and other parts of Syria, where IS and other militant groups have left behind thousands of landmines and other improvised explosives.

From 2013 to 2018, the U.S. contributed more than $81 million to humanitarian mine action efforts in northeast Syria, according to a State Department annual report on U.S. mine removal efforts worldwide.

 

The issue of gun violence has been dominating U.S. political debate in the wake of mass shootings last weekend in Texas and Ohio.  While members of Congress are on their August recess, Democratic presidential candidates are calling for action and Republican President Donald Trump is promising more rigorous screening of gun buyers.  VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports.

Once considered Islamic State’s de facto capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa is slowly recovering, nearly two years after its liberation from the Islamic State terror group. Local officials and residents complain there is too little money to rebuild their city. VOA’s Sirwan Kajjo reports from Raqqa.

Former defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse formally launched his bid for Sri Lanka’s presidency Sunday, vowing to battle “extremist terrorism” in the wake of the deadly Easter Sunday suicide attacks.

The 70-year-old — and his ex-president brother, Mahinda — have been critical of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s handling of the bombings, which were blamed on a local Islamist jihadi group in the Buddhist-majority nation.

The attacks targeting three churches and three hotels claimed the lives of at least 258 people and left nearly 500 wounded. Since then, the country has been under a state of emergency.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse will stand for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or People’s Front) party, which was formed recently by his older brother, who ruled for a decade from 2005.

The SLPP is a breakaway faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which is nominally led by current President Maithripala Sirisena.

Highlighting frequent schisms in the country’s politics, the SLFP in turn broke away from a coalition with premier Wickremesinghe’s right-wing United National Party (UNP) earlier this year.

“I will not allow extremist terrorism under my presidency,” Gotabhaya Rajapakse said at the launch of his campaign for presidential elections, which are due later this year.

He was in charge of the defense ministry as its top bureaucrat when security forces crushed Tamil rebels and ended a 37-year separatist war in May 2009.

The no-holds-barred military campaign also triggered allegations of grave human rights abuses, including the killing of up to 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final months of fighting.

Gothabhaya Rajapakse is currently on bail facing prosecution for allegedly siphoning off millions of rupees of state cash to build a monument for his parents when his brother was president.

He also faces a civil suit in the United States for allegedly causing the death of a prominent anti-establishment newspaper editor in Sri Lanka in January 2009.

Wickremesinghe has indicated he too wants to run for president, but his party is yet to nominate an official candidate amid major internal clashes over his leadership.

Incumbent Sirisena also plans to run again.

 

Myanmar troops and emergency responders scrambled to provide aid in flood-hit parts of the country Sunday after rising waters forced residents to flee by boat and a landslide killed at least 52 people.

Every year monsoon rains hammer Myanmar and other countries across Southeast Asia, submerging homes, displacing residents and triggering landslides.

But this season’s deluge has tested disaster response after a fatal landslide on Friday in southeastern Mon state was followed by heavy flooding that reached the roofs of houses and treetops in nearby towns.

Hundreds of soldiers, firefighters and local rescue workers were still pulling bodies and vehicles out of the muddy wreckage of Paung township on Sunday.

“The latest death toll we have from the landslide in Mon state was 52,” Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told AFP.

As the rainy season reaches its peak, the country’s armed forces are pitching in and have readied helicopters to deliver supplies.

“Access to affected regions is still good. Our ground forces can reach the areas so far,” Zaw Min Tun said.

Heavy rains pounded other parts of Mon, Karen and Kachin states, flooding roads and destroying bridges that crumbled under the weight of the downpour.

But the bulk of the relief effort is focused on hard-hit Mon, which sits on the coast of the Andaman sea.

About two-thirds of the state’s Ye township remained flooded, an administrator said, as drone footage showed only the tops of houses, tree branches and satellite dishes poking above the waters.

‘We thought we were dead’

Families realized they had to leave in the early hours Sunday, packing possessions into boats, rowing towards higher ground or swimming away.

Than Htay, a 40-year-old from Ye town, told AFP that water rose to their waists around 02:00 am and she and her family members started shouting for help.

The heavy rains muffled their pleas but a boat happened to pass by and gave them a ride.

“That’s why we survived. We thought we were dead,” she said.

Another resident said this year’s flooding was the worst they had experienced.

Floodwaters have submerged more than 4,000 houses in the state and displaced more than 25,000 residents who have sought shelter in monasteries and pagodas, according to state-owned Global New Light of Myanmar.

Vice President Henry Van Thio visited landslide survivors in a Paung township village on Saturday and “spoke of his sorrow” while promising relief, the paper reported.

The search for victims continued later Sunday though the rain has made the process more difficult.

“We are still working. We will continue searching in the coming days as well,” Paung township administrator Zaw Moe Aung said.

Climate scientists in 2015 ranked Myanmar at the top of a global list of nations hardest hit by extreme weather.

That year more than 100 people died in floods that also displaced hundreds of thousands.