Anjana Pasricha contributed to this report.

India eased restrictions Friday in Kashmir to allow the Muslim-majority population to attend Friday prayers, but protests still broke out in the disputed region. 
 
Kashmir has been in an unprecedented five-day lockdown, depriving the region of any communications access, since India’s government announced it was revoking Kashmir’s special constitutional status. 
 
Officials in Kashmir said residents in Srinagar were allowed to pray Friday at area-specific mosques.  

Witnesses in the city’s Soura area said a large group of people tried to start a protest but were pushed back by security forces who used tear gas and pellets.  
 
A police officer, who requested anonymity since he was not authorized to speak to reporters, told the Reuters news agency that 12 people were taken to a hospital with pellet injuries. He put the number of people trying to protest at 10,000. 

Mosque off limits
 
Authorities in Kashmir did not allow residents to congregate at Srinagar’s historic Jama Masjid mosque, which usually draws thousands of people each week and is a longtime focus for separatist protests. 
 

In Islamabad, Pakistan, thousands of protesters marched against India’s move to scrap Kashmir’s special status and bring it under tighter control by New Delhi. 
 
Also Friday, China said it was “seriously concerned” about India’s decision as Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi met in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, over the issue.  
 
“China will continue to firmly support the Pakistan side in safeguarding its legitimate rights,” said a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement issued after the meeting. 

‘New era’
 
On Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised Kashmiris the beginning of a “new era.” In an address on television and radio, Modi defended revoking the constitutional provision under which Kashmir could make its own laws, saying it had impeded its progress, given rise to terrorism and was used as a weapon by rival Pakistan to “instigate some people.” India would now rid the region of “terrorism and terrorists,” he said. 
 
Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir, has protested the move, downgrading its diplomatic ties with India and suspending trade. 
 
Rebels in Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule in the region for decades, and most Kashmiri residents want either independence or a merger with Pakistan. 
 
New Delhi blames Islamabad for fomenting a violent three-decade separatist insurgency in the Himalayan region. 

Updated: Aug. 9, 2019, 6:05 p.m.

SEOUL — North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles into the sea off its eastern coast on Saturday, South Korea’s military said.

The latest launch comes shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had received a “very beautiful letter” from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump said Kim had said he was “not happy” about the missile tests, which the North Korean leader has said were a response to U.S.-South Korean military drills being held this month.

The projectiles were fired at dawn Saturday from the area around the northeastern city of Hamhung, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. Hamhung is known to have a solid-fuel rocket engine production site.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff could not be immediately reached for comment.

Updates to this story will be posted as they develop.

For many teens, the last year of high school is a time of excitement filled with studies, athletics and dances. But young Eritreans spend the year at a military camp preparing for mandatory conscription and indefinite national service, where they face physical and mental abuse. 
 
A new report by Human Rights Watch offers the most detailed look to date at Eritrea’s conscription system, which forces young people to complete their final year of high school in the desert town of Sawa at a facility that’s part school, part boot camp. 
 
The report, They Are Making Us Into Slaves, Not Educating Us, draws on interviews with 73 former secondary school students and national service teachers to provide details on what happens in the camp. 
 
HRW found that authorities at Sawa keep students under military command throughout the year, beat them for minor infractions and force them to perform labor. Teachers at the camp are not much older than the students. Since they are compelled to serve at the camp, they are often indifferent or absent. 

Impossible ‘to be a student’
 
In an interview with VOA, Laetitia Bader, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the system makes young people feel helpless.  
 
“There was this sense that not only were young people not given really any control over their destiny,” Bader said, “but it was also the sense that, in the year at Sawa in particular, it was impossible, really, to be a student, to think like a student in such a militarized environment.” 
 
Officials have required young people to complete 12th grade in Sawa since 2003. Each year, between 11,000 and 15,000 students arrive at the camp, according to HRW, a facility the group compares to “a large prison” surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. 
 
HRW also discovered that young people are dropping out of school in 11th grade to avoid being sent to the camp.  
 
Students and teachers alike are risking their lives in large numbers to flee the country, the advocacy group said. 
 

In the report, former Sawa students describe training that began before daybreak, harsh drills, survivalist exercises requiring them to sleep outdoors in extreme heat, and food and water deprivation. 
 
“Sawa is hell; they do everything to make you want to leave,” a 19-year-old told HRW. “From the first month, the alarm rings at 5 a.m., they make you run to the toilet, you had five minutes to wash — if we had water, which wasn’t always the case. Five minutes to put your uniform on. You get punished if you don’t manage.” 
 
The minister of information, Yemane Gebremeskel, defended his government’s tactics on Twitter, suggesting the national defense strategy contributed to stability within the country and peace across the region.
 
Earlier this month, the government held a three-day-long celebration in Sawa commemorating national service with parades, songs and speeches. In an interview at the celebration with journalists dressed in military attire who belong to state media, President Isaias Afwerki emphasized that national service is a continuation of Eritrea’s 30-year struggle for independence. 
 
“Maybe when you’re comparing it with the struggle for independence, the sacrifice might be different, but to develop a country is more difficult,” he said. 

Teachers feel trapped
 
HRW found that teachers felt as trapped as students and take great risks to escape. One teacher interviewed in the report said, “If you are sent with the national service to teach physics, you will be a physics teacher for life.” 
 
Bader said the interviewees were desperate: “We also spoke to people who had been teachers for decades and who had, on multiple occasions, tried to be discharged from the national service jobs. But it came across very clearly in the research that being discharged is very arbitrary.” 
 
A recent peace agreement with Ethiopia removes the justification for the current system to continue, HRW said. The group urged the Eritrean government to set a timetable for demobilizing national service conscripts and allowing students to complete their education at non-military institutions. 

The death of the Khmer Rouge’s top ideologue may end criminal proceedings against him even though his appeal against convictions for genocide and other crimes is still pending, a spokesman for Cambodia’s U.N.-assisted tribunal trying leaders of the defunct communist group said Friday.

Nuon Chea, the second-highest official after Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot when the group held power in the late 1970s, died Sunday at age 93. He was cremated Friday at a Buddhist temple in Pailin in northwestern Cambodia, which was a Khmer Rouge stronghold as it fought a guerrilla war after being ousted from power in 1979. Their movement collapsed entirely in 1998.

Spokesman Neth Pheaktra said under Cambodian law, judicial action is terminated on the death of the accused, and the tribunal’s Supreme Court chamber would rule on its application.

It will not be clear until the court rules whether the convictions under appeal will stand or be vacated, leaving them legally undecided.

The death leaves a single former top Khmer Rouge leader to proceed with an appeal against his convictions for genocide and other crimes: Khieu Samphan, 88, who was the regime’s head of state.

Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were also convicted in an earlier trial of crimes against humanity and other offenses, and their life sentences in that case were upheld after appeal.

The tribunal, which has cost hundreds of millions of dollars, has convicted only one other defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, who as head of the Khmer Rouge prison system ran the infamous Tuol Sleng torture center in Phnom Penh.

The tribunal, formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC, was set up as a hybrid court, meaning every international prosecutor and judge was paired with a Cambodian counterpart. While the international prosecutors have worked to indict more suspects, the rules of the tribunal have allowed their Cambodian counterparts to block further action.

Australian Doreen Chen, who was the internationally appointed lawyer for Nuon Chea, said her team believes that according to law, their late client “is presumed innocent until a final appeal judgment is delivered.”

“Since the Supreme Court Chamber hasn’t issued the appeal judgment, he is now considered innocent and that trial judgment against him is effectively vacated. We have asked the Supreme Court Chamber to confirm this view and let us know what should happen next,” she said in an interview over the internet.

She also said they are seeking to have his appeal continue despite his death “so that there can be a final judgment and confirmation of the truth, not only for Nuon Chea but for the Cambodian people.”

Chen said she understood that the Supreme Court Chamber is currently considering the issue, but that on Friday, the tribunal administration informed her and her colleagues that their team have all been fired, even while awaiting a court ruling.

“Unfortunately, it appears that the budget may be more important than the law and the ECCC’s ultimate legacy,” she said.

Liv Sovanna, a Cambodian lawyer for Nuon Chea’s defense, said by telephone from the cremation site that about 200 people attended the ceremony, with 50 monks chanting as family members and friends paid their last respects.  

Nuon Chea is survived by his 85-year-old wife and three daughters, he said. He and his wife lived in a small wooden house very close to the border with Thailand from his 1998 surrender until his 2007 arrest by the tribunal.

Many former Khmer Rouge also live in the area. By one estimate, almost 70% of the area’s older men were fighters for the communist group.

The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has repeatedly insisted that the tribunal’s work would cease with the convictions of its last two surviving leaders.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote to all government employees on Friday to tell them that preparing for a no-deal exit from the European Union is his and their top priority, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters.

Johnson has promised voters Britain will leave the EU on Oct. 31 with or without an exit deal, demanding that Brussels drop parts of the existing proposed deal relating to the Irish border and negotiate a fresh exit arrangement.

But the EU is adamant that the legal terms of the deal cannot be rewritten, raising expectations among politicians and financial markets that Britain is headed for an unmanaged divorce from the bloc in less than three months’ time.

“I would very much prefer to leave with a deal — one that must abolish the anti-democratic Irish backstop, which has unacceptable consequences for our country,” Johnson said in the email.

“But I recognize this may not happen. That is why preparing urgently and rapidly for the possibility of an exit without a deal will be my top priority, and it will be the top priority for the Civil Service too.”

Previously, pro-Brexit campaigners have criticized the ranks of Britain’s civil service, which adopts a politically neutral stance while working to enact government policy, saying they were biased towards remaining in the EU and trying to obstruct the exit process.

Many investors say a no-deal Brexit would send shock waves through the world economy, tip Britain into a recession, roil financial markets and weaken London’s position as the pre-eminent international financial center.

“I know many of you have already done a great deal of hard work in mobilizing to prepare for a No Deal scenario, so that we can leave on 31 October come what may,” Johnson wrote in the email, first reported by Sky News.

“Between now and then, we must engage and communicate clearly with the British people about what our plans for taking back control mean, what people and businesses need to do, and the support we will provide.”

Although advocates of a no-deal exit say that Britain would swiftly recover from any disruption and benefit over the long term from improved economic flexibility, sterling and other economic indicators reflect a broadly pessimistic outlook.

Data on Friday showed the British economy shrank unexpectedly for the first time since 2012 in the second quarter, dragged down by a slump in manufacturing.

Johnson, however praised the work of government employees in the 650-word bulletin issued on Friday afternoon, and promised a reforming agenda beyond Brexit, highlighting plans for improved public services.

“The Government I lead is fully committed to leaving the European Union by 31 October 2019 and getting a grip of the vital issues that affect people’s lives: the NHS, education and crime,” he wrote.

“While there are no grounds for complacency, there is every reason for optimism.”

At least 37 people have been killed in fresh fighting this week between rival ethnic groups in Chad, President Idriss Deby said on Friday.

The violence broke out over three days in the eastern province of Ouaddie, a strategic area on the border with Sudan, he said.

“The intercommunal conflict has become a national concern,” Deby told a press conference to mark the country’s independence day. “We are witnessing a terrible phenomenon.”

Eastern Chad is in the grip of a cycle of violence between nomadic camel herders — many from the Zaghawa ethnic group from which Deby hails — and sedentary farmers from the Ouaddian community.

The latest fighting erupted on Monday in the village of Hamra after a rancher was killed, according to a local charity.

The violence continued on Tuesday in the Chakoya locality, a local tribal official told AFP.

One hospital source told AFP the death toll was as high as 44.

Describing the clashes, Deby said that police sent to the scene came under fire.

“Gun owners do not hesitate to shoot the police. It is a total war… we must engage against those who carry weapons and killing people,” he said.

Deby said he would visit the area in the future, without giving any timeframe.

Last month Deby, who has been in power for almost three decades, hinted that military courts may be reintroduced in a bid to curb the unrest, a suggestion denounced by the country’s opposition.

More than 2 million Muslims are in Saudi Arabia at Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, for the yearly Hajj pilgrimage.

The Hajj is one of the world’s largest religious gatherings.

The faithful began the annual five-day ritual Friday by walking counterclockwise seven times around the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure at the center of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, which Muslims believe is the spot where the Prophet Abraham built his first temple.

Observant Muslims around the world face toward the Kaaba during their five daily prayers.

During the Hajj, devoted Muslims perform a series of religious rituals. In addition to walking around the Kaaba, they also drink the alkaline water from the Well of Zamzam, believed to have healing qualities. They also perform a symbolic stoning of the devil.

The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all able-bodied Muslims who can afford to do so are expected to take part in the Hajj at least once in their lifetimes.

This year 200 survivors and relatives of the victims of the March mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people are attending as guests of the king of Saudi Arabia.

King Salman bin Abdulaziz is paying for the group’s airfare and accommodations. The total bill is expected to be more than $1 million.

Abfulrahman Al Suhaibani, the Saudi ambassador to New Zealand, told the Associated Press that the king was shocked by the shootings carried out by an Australian white supremacist.

Other white supremacists have been inspired by the New Zealand shootings, most recently in an attack at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were shot dead.
 

Updated Aug. 9, 6:09 a.m.

HONG KONG — Thousands of protesters returned to Hong Kong International Airport for the second time in as many weeks Friday to raise global attention to their fight against the local government and a controversial extradition bill.

The airport’s vast arrivals hall was filled with drumbeats and chants of “Free Hong Kong” and “Add Oil,” a Cantonese slogan of encouragement, as protesters sat on the floor of the arrival hall, careful to create channels for passengers to exit the airport.

Dozens handed out pamphlets, stickers, and tote bags in English and simplified Mandarin to inform tourists about the protest movement, which is entering its 10th week Sunday. Others wore photos of violent clashes with police and a number of people held signs condemning police brutality.

Protesters say they plan to occupy the airport for three consecutive days this weekend in an attempt to reach tens of thousands of international travelers. More than 74 million people transited through Hong Kong International Airport in 2018, according to government figures, which has connections to 220 destinations.

“I think [visitors] are not aware when they come to Hong Kong, this is why we are handing out materials so they can understand what is happening,” said protester Lucinda Leung as she handed out an eight-page pamphlet on the protest movement. “We just want to let international arrivals to know what is happening in Hong Kong.”

Protest gear absent

The usual protest gear of helmets and gas masks were noticeably absent, however, as the last airport demonstration July 26 ended peacefully without police clearances. Security was also minimal although airport staff appeared to be monitoring the protests.

Protest demands remain much the same since the protest movement began June 9. They have asked for the local government to permanently withdraw a controversial legislative bill that would allow for criminal extradition to China, an independent commission into police brutality, and universal suffrage in the direct election of Hong Kong’s leader.

Save your energy

While many visitors were reluctant to speak to VOA, tourist Crystal Ling, a Chinese citizen who lives in Japan and has read about the protests on Facebook, said the airport demonstrations were “impressive,” but remained skeptical.

“To be honest the politics around the world in every country is almost the same, so I don’t stand for any government, I don’t stand for any side,” she said. “I think if I were them, I would prefer to save my energy to make more money and make my life better, and not just sit here and waste my time.”

Both the United States and Australia have issued travel warnings for nationals visiting Hong Kong because of the dozens of protests staged since June 9, many of which have expanded into popular tourist districts.

The Hong Kong government said Friday that Hong Kong “remains a welcoming city for tourists and investors, a safe place for travelers from around the world” despite the unrest.

Authorities plan to relax curbs in India’s Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir to allow people to offer Friday prayers, media said, as a five-day lockdown damped protests over the withdrawal of the Himalayan region’s special status.

Seeking to tighten its grip on the contested region, the Indian government this week withdrew the state’s right to frame its own laws and allowed non-residents to buy property there.

Since Sunday mobile networks and internet services have been suspended, at least 300 leaders detained and public gatherings banned, effectively confining residents to their homes to stop protests in the revolt-torn region.

There will be “some relaxation” for Friday prayers, K. Vijay Kumar, an adviser to the state’s governor, told the Indian Express newspaper.

The prayers are likely to be held in neighborhood mosques, and not the main mosque in the region’s main city of Srinagar, media said.

“The forces have been given flexibility to impose prohibitory orders with minimum force and maximum compassion,” Kumar said, adding there had been only a few cases of stone pelting in parts of Srinagar.

Television showed footage of paramilitary soldiers patrolling empty streets in the city, a hotbed of the 30-year revolt in which more than 50,000 people have died.

Thousands of additional paramilitary troops flooded into Kashmir, already one of the world’s most militarized regions, ahead of Monday’s announcement of the change in the region’s constitutional status.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government also broke the state into two federal territories, a step regional leaders decried as a further humiliation.

With a near-total telecoms blackout, there is very little news trickling out of Kashmir, regional leaders said.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was concerned over reports of restrictions in the Indian side of Kashmir, and warned that such action could “exacerbate the human rights situation in region,” his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement Thursday.

Hundreds of immigrant workers detained in Mississippi were released Thursday, a day after federal agents arrested 680 undocumented migrants in raids on food-processing plants, the largest such operation in the United States in 10 years.

At a news conference, officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi said more than 300 people, including pregnant women and juveniles, had been released on humanitarian grounds.

Those released on their own recognizance were served with notices and at some point will have to appear before immigration judges. Others were transported to detention facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Nearly all of the 680 migrants picked up were from Latin America.

According to officials, the operation, which had been in the planning stage for about a year, was executed when a judge agreed that law enforcement officers had “sufficient probable cause” to get search warrants and execute them. 

Expedited guidelines

Immigration officials said no one arrested was processed under new expedited removal guidelines that ICE issued in July, because agents are “still in the process of doing the training.”

The new interpretation of the expedited removal guidelines accelerates the deportation of undocumented immigrants anywhere in the United States who are not able to prove they have been in the country continuously for two years. The potential result is deportation before the undocumented immigrant is given a chance to see an immigration judge.

Federal officials said those detained Wednesday were asked if they had children at school or at child care who needed to be picked up. Detainees were offered cellphones so they could make the necessary arrangements for their children.

ICE agents said migrants were initially taken to a military base for processing. Some were given electronic ankle monitors to wear as they wait for court dates.

About 600 ICE agents were involved in the operation. They raided chicken- processing plants owned by five different companies in Bay Springs, Canton, Carthage, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastopol, all in Mississippi.

Companies quiet

None of the food companies involved in Wednesday’s raids have yet commented.

Many migrants, including those found to be in illegal status, are hired by companies of all sizes because they are considered willing to take jobs many U.S. workers do not want. Immigration advocates say such employment is essential for the economy.

U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst told reporters that those who want to come to the United States “have to follow our laws. … They have to come here legally, or they shouldn’t come here at all.”

Hurst also had a strong message for companies that he says knowingly hire undocumented immigrants “for competitive advantage or to make a quick buck.”

“If we find that you have violated federal criminal law, we’re coming after you,” he said.

Immigrant advocates

Also Thursday, immigration advocates were joined by pastors and civil rights attorneys calling for an end to ICE raids like the one in Mississippi.

Luis Espinoza, an organizer with Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, said those affected need legal assistance. An emotional Espinoza, who has been visiting the communities where people have been detained, urged people to help.

“I don’t see illegals. I don’t see bad people. It is only families — fathers, mothers who want something better for their kids. So, they come here and just work. They are not criminals,” he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, the Mississippi Center for Justice and a coalition of groups across the state have come together to help those in detention. Attorneys are monitoring the situation and exploring options to assist those affected by the raids.

Cliff Johnson, director of the MacArthur Justice Center, said what happened Wednesday was not the response of Mississippians.

“This doesn’t come from the people. It doesn’t even come from those people who on the larger scale might chant, ‘Build that wall.’ Because in Mississippi, we know each other. … We’ve got our problems. We’re a hot mess at times, but this is not our choice,” he said.

VOA’s Afghanistan Service contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, the country’s intelligence agency, released a new video showing its special forces attacking Islamic State sleeper cells in rural areas of Kabul Wednesday.

The agency also said it arrested this week a key member of the terror group accused of coordinating suicide attacks and managing suicide bombers in the capital.

The agency said in a statement that it acted on prior intelligence about three locations around the capital, killing two IS suicide bombers and seizing a large amount of explosives and ammunitions.

“We have killed two IS suicide bombers and seized heavy weaponry, suicide vests, explosives and materials used to improvise vehicular bombs,” the statement said.

At least two members of the Afghan security forces also died in the operation.

A U.S. judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot withhold millions of dollars in law enforcement grants from Oregon to force the nation’s first sanctuary state to cooperate with U.S. immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane in Eugene said in his ruling late Wednesday that the Trump administration lacks the authority to impose conditions on the grants that were provided by Congress.

Gov. Kate Brown and Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum had sued President Donald Trump in November to get a total of $4 million in grants from fiscal years 2017 and 2018 restored to the state, saying Oregon was “unlawfully deprived” of the money. 

Funding for public safety purposes

Rosenblum welcomed the judge’s ruling.

“We look forward to having these moneys we have relied upon continue to be available for critical public safety purposes,” Rosenblum said in an email.

A Veterans Treatment Court in Eugene and 40 other specialty courts, including mental health and civilian drug programs, risked losing all or part of their budgets if the money was withheld.

The Trump administration in 2017 threatened to withhold law enforcement grants from 29 cities, counties or states it viewed as having sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration agents. Other courts also have ruled against the administration. By March, all those jurisdictions had received or been cleared to get the money, except Oregon. 

“The U.S. government’s decision to withhold public safety dollars on account of our status as a sanctuary state was just simply wrongheaded,” Rosenblum said. “I remain committed to supporting our law enforcement officers’ ability to protect and serve all residents of Oregon regardless of where they were born or their immigration status.”

McShane indicated the administration’s policy put Oregon into the difficult position of either adopting stricter immigration policies or forgoing “critical law enforcement funds” and facing federal sanctions.

“Plaintiffs would, under any of these circumstances, risk public safety by eroding trust with immigrant communities or abandoning critical law enforcement initiatives funded by the Byrne JAG Program,” the judge wrote.

Byrne grants

The Byrne grants, named for a New York City policeman killed by gang members in 1988, are the leading source of federal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions, supporting law enforcement, prosecution, indigent defense, courts, crime prevention and education. 

The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Oregon’s 1987 sanctuary state law, the nation’s first, prevents law enforcement from detaining people who are in the U.S. illegally but have not broken any other law. Authorities in the state won’t hold in custody those who committed crimes and have finished their sentences to be picked up by federal immigration agents, unless they have a warrant signed by a judge.

10th Amendment

The federal judge in Oregon ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to put conditions on the grants violated the 10th Amendment, which says any power not expressly given to the federal government falls to the states or their people.

Portland also received the grants every year until 2017, using the money to buy bulletproof vests and special-threat plates for officers, acquire tactical medical kits, install GPS systems in its cars and add two victim advocates to the Police Bureau’s sex crimes unit. 

The city had expected to receive $780,000 for the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years.

McShane ordered the federal government to give the grants for fiscal 2017 and 2018 that it withheld, with no conditions or penalties.

The S&P 500 registered its largest one-day percentage gain in about two months Thursday, with technology shares providing the biggest boost as equities continued to rebound along with bond yields.

All major sectors advanced at least 1%, and the S&P 500 technology index, which was at the heart of the recent sell-off, climbed 2.4%.

The benchmark S&P 500 extended a rebound that began Wednesday and closed near its high of the day. The index gained 4% from Wednesday’s intraday bottom to Thursday’s close.

Strategists said stock market futures strengthened heading into the day, and bargain hunters stepped in to snap up beaten-down shares.

“The overnight action was positive. That, along with the bounce back yesterday, gave us a nice tailwind coming into the market today, both for high-frequency traders who were buying the trend and also for bargain hunters who had seen stocks that were on the watchlist come down to a level that looked attractive,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

“So we’ve seen a lot of the tech names pop after they got hammered.”

Advanced Micro Devices Inc gained 16.2% after the chipmaker launched its second generation of processor chip and said that it had landed Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc as customers.

Symantec Corp jumped 12.3% after sources said chipmaker Broadcom Inc was in advanced talks to buy the cybersecurity company’s enterprise business. After the bell, Symantec confirmed the sale.

Labor market

U.S. economic data pointed to a robust labor market as the number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, allaying some worries about the potential for a recession and helping U.S. Treasury yields rise.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 371.12 points, or 1.43%, to 26,378.19, the S&P 500 gained 54.11 points, or 1.88%, to 2,938.09 and the Nasdaq Composite added 176.33 points, or 2.24%, to 8,039.16.

Better-than-expected export numbers out of China also helped offset recent U.S.-China trade war worries, while there was also some improvement in the country’s yuan currency, whose slide over the weekend led to Wall Street’s worst day so far this year on Monday.
On the down side, Kraft Heinz sank after it pulled its full-year forecast and wrote down the value of several business units by over $1 billion.

Lyft, Uber

Lyft Inc advanced 3.0% after the ride-hailing service raised its annual outlook and hinted at the end of its price war with Uber Technologies Inc.

Uber, which reported earnings after the bell and has been a high-profile loser since its market launch this year, rose 8.2% during the session. The company reported revenue that missed analysts’ estimates, sending its shares down 6.9% after the close.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 4.47-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.69-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 42 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 80 new highs and 96 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 8.08 billion shares, compared with the 7.2 billion-share average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.   

Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country’s intelligence agency, released a video showing its special forces attacking Islamic State sleeper cells in rural areas of Kabul on Wednesday.  The agency also says it arrested a key member of the terror group this week accused of coordinating suicide attacks and managing suicide bombers in the capital. 

The way we use land could be the key to adapting to climate change — or the final nail in the planet’s coffin, according to a landmark climate assessment from the United Nations on Thursday.

Human use directly impacts 70 percent of the ice-free land on Earth, and we’re degrading about a quarter of it, wrote the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the report.

“Land is both a source and a sink of greenhouse gases,” says the 1,000 page document,  which found that land has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the planet since the pre-industrial age. The warming is leading to more frequent and severe droughts in some areas and extreme precipitation in others, as well as more heat waves. 

Those weather events, along with rising sea levels, thawing permafrost and more, are degrading our land and risking the food chains that billions of people rely on, the U.N. warned.

Cereal grain prices, for example, could increase by 7.6 percent by 2050, prompting the report to note, “The most vulnerable people will be more severely affected.” Increased levels of carbon dioxide are also making plants less nutritious.

Plants, animals face changes

And as deserts and arid climate zones expand, coupled with shrinking polar climate zones, plants and animals “have experienced changes in their ranges, abundances and shifts in their seasonal activities,” according to the report.

Scientists at  a Thursday news conference on the report, however, emphasized that Earth isn’t yet a lost cause.

“We don’t want a message of despair,” science panel official and Imperial College London professor Jim Skea told the Associated Press news agency. “We want to get across the message that every action makes a difference.”

Solutions offered

The report offered a range of land-based solutions, including sustainable food production, better forest and soil management, more ecosystem conservation and land restoration, reduced deforestation and degradation, and reduced food loss and waste.

But humans need to be careful. Though a third of the food produced on Earth is wasted or lost, according to the report, solutions that compete with farming for land could worsen desertification and land degradation and risk people’s food security. Irrigation can put salt in soil or deplete groundwater. When peatlands and other natural carbon reservoirs are disturbed by humans or extreme weather events, carbon dioxide accumulated over centuries can escape.

“There is a lack of knowledge” of the limits and side effects of adapting to climate change, the report acknowledged.

Action a must

But worse than taking action is doing nothing, scientists at the report’s release Thursday said. Forests and other forms of natural carbon storage won’t always be around, as business-friendly governments like those in Brazil capitalize on natural resources like timber from the Amazon Rainforest.

“This additional gift from nature is limited. It’s not going to continue forever,” said study co-author Louis Verchot, a scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia to the AP. “If we continue to degrade ecosystems, if we continue to convert natural ecosystems, we continue to deforest and we continued to destroy our soils, we’re going to lose this natural subsidy.”

China on Thursday denounced rules unveiled by the U.S. that ban technology giant Huawei and other Chinese firms from government contracts as “abuse of state power” in the latest move in the escalating China-U.S. trade war.

The interim rule, which will preclude any U.S. federal agency from purchasing telecom or technology equipment from the firms, is part of a sweeping effort by Washington to restrict Huawei, which officials claim is linked to Chinese intelligence.

“The abuse of state power by the United States to unscrupulously and deliberately throw mud at and suppress specific Chinese enterprises seriously undermines the image of the United States and its own interests,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

“We firmly support the relevant Chinese companies in taking up legal weapons to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests,” she said in an online statement.

The ban on Chinese tech firms comes amid a heated dispute between the two economic powers over international trade rules.

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on another $300 billion in Chinese imports and formally branded Beijing as a currency manipulator on Monday, in response to a drop in value of the yuan.

Huawei also faces moves from Washington to blacklist the Chinese tech firm citing national security concerns, cutting it off from American-made components it needs for products — though it was issued a 90-day reprieve in May.

That ban could prevent Huawei from getting key hardware and software including smartphone chips and elements of the Google Android operating system.

The latest restrictions unveiled on Wednesday also bar contracts to Chinese firms ZTE, Hytera Communications Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company and Dahua Technology Company.

The rules, which require a 60-day comment period, implement a ban included in the defense authorization act Congress approved earlier this year.

Huawei said it would challenge the move in federal court.

Hundreds of Beatles fans came together outside London’s Abbey Road Studios on Thursday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band making one of the most iconic album covers of all time.

Fans mobbed the pedestrian crossing exactly five decades on from the moment when Britain’s legendary Fab Four walked across for the photo that was used on the sleeve of their final studio album, “Abbey Road”.

The shot of John Lennon leading band mates Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison over the zebra crossing is instantly recognised all over the world.

Beatles tribute band Fab Gear pulled up in a psychedelic Rolls-Royce and recreated the moment, as fans halted the traffic.

Mary Anne Laffin, 66, flew in from New York to be at what she called a “holy shrine”.

As a youngster, she ran on the pitch when The Beatles played at New York’s Shea Stadium in 1966.

“I was 12 years old, saved up $5.50 to get a ticket and it was like being in heaven for 38 minutes,” the midwife said.

“I was overcome, climbed over all the seats and ran, trying to get to the stage. I got carted off by the police.”

She added: “It’s exciting to see all these people that also love them, and how much they’ve meant to the world.”

The idea stemmed from a sketch by McCartney of stickmen on the zebra crossing.

The picture was taken at around 11:35 am on August 8, 1969 by Scottish photographer Iain Macmillan.

The time of day was chosen to avoid fans, who knew that the band typically turned up at the studios in the mid-afternoon.

Macmillan stood on a stepladder in the street, while a policeman stopped the traffic.

Macmillan took six frames, of which the fifth one was used — the only one with the band stepping in unison over the six zebra stripes.

The photo shoot was over in about 10 minutes.

– Conspiracy theories –

The album’s final recordings were done 12 days later on August 20.

“Abbey Road” was released on September 26 — six days after Lennon privately told his band mates he was quitting the group.

The album contained 17 tracks, including Harrison’s “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”, Starr’s “Octopus’s Garden”, Lennon’s “Come Together”, and the closing medley of scraps of unfinished songs largely by McCartney.

The front cover, unusually, did not feature the name of the band or the album. However, the record, and its sleeve became cherished classics.

The cover also fuelled the “Paul Is Dead” conspiracy theory.

Some people believed that McCartney having a cigarette in his right hand despite being left-handed proved he was an imposter, and saw hidden messages in him walking out of step with the others and being barefoot.

– Pilgrimage site –

Abbey Road Studios is in St. John’s Wood, a wealthy residential part of northwest London, and McCartney still lives a few streets away.

Some 190 of The Beatles’ 210 songs were recorded at the world’s first purpose-built recording studio.

It has drawn Beatles pilgrims from across the world ever since, with countless fans having walked over the zebra crossing, replicating the picture.

The crossing is also continuously live-streamed on the studio’s website.

The crossing gained Grade II protected status in 2010, meaning that it is recognised as nationally important and of special interest.

“It was very emotional and moving. There was an aura about it,” said Janet Barnett, 68, from Broadstairs in southeast England, after joining in the 50th anniversary celebrations.

Chris Barnett, 63, added: “They changed music forever. They sang about love and peace and you could feel that.

“In another 50 years, people will still be here doing it.”

China has demanded that U.S. diplomats based in Hong Kong stop meddling in matters involving the city after a diplomat reportedly met with pro-democracy activists.

The foreign ministry said Thursday it expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with U.S. officials over a U.S. consulate official’s reported meeting with a local “independence group.”

The ministry called on the the U.S. consulate to “immediately make a clean break with various anti-China rioters” and to “stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs immediately.”

The Hong Kong newspaper Takungpao reported U.S. Consulate General political counselor Julie Eadeh met with members of the pro-democracy political party Demosisto, including prominent activist Joshua Wong.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told AFP representatives of the U.S. government “meet regularly with a wide cross section of people across Hong Kong and Macau.”

China has claimed the anti-government protests in Hong Kong are funded by the West, but has failed to produce evidence other than supportive statements from some Western politicians.

Tensions in the semi-autonomous region are high after two months of protests that have sometimes turned violent.

The unrest was initially triggered in June by a planned bill that would have allowed suspects to be extradited to China to face trial.

The protests have since evolved into a movement for democratic reforms.

Demosisto maintains it is fighting for more self-determination for Hong Kong and not independence.
 

On the ground, climate change is hitting us where it counts: the stomach — not to mention the forests, plants and animals.

A new United Nations scientific report examines how global warming and land interact in a vicious cycle. Human-caused climate change is dramatically degrading the land, while the way people use the land is making global warming worse.

Thursday’s science-laden report says the combination is making food more expensive, scarcer and even less nutritious.

“The cycle is accelerating,” said NASA climate scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, a report co-author. “The threat of climate change affecting people’s food on their dinner table is increasing.”

But if people change the way they eat, grow food and manage forests, it could help save the planet from a far warmer future, scientists said.

Land warming faster

Earth’s land masses, which are only 30% of the globe, are warming twice as fast as the planet as a whole. While heat-trapping gases are causing problems in the atmosphere, the land has been less talked about as part of climate change. A special report, written by more than 100 scientists and unanimously approved by diplomats from nations around the world at a meeting in Geneva, proposed possible fixes and made more dire warnings.

“The way we use land is both part of the problem and also part of the solution,” said Valerie Masson-Delmotte, a French climate scientist who co-chairs one of the panel’s working groups. “Sustainable land management can help secure a future that is comfortable.”

The report said climate change has worsened land degradation, caused deserts to grow, permafrost to thaw and made forests more vulnerable to drought, fire, pests and disease. That’s happened even as much of the globe has gotten greener because of extra carbon dioxide in the air. Climate change has also added to other forces that have reduced the number of species on Earth.

“Climate change is really slamming the land,” said World Resources Institute researcher Kelly Levin, who wasn’t part of the study but praised it.

And the future could be worse.

Less-nutritious food

“The stability of food supply is projected to decrease as the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events that disrupt food chains increases,” the report said.

In the worst case scenario, food security problems change from moderate to high risk with just a few more tenths of a degree of warming from now. They go from high to “very high” risk with just another 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) of warming from now.

Scientists had long thought one of the few benefits of higher levels of carbon dioxide, the major heat-trapping gas, was that it made plants grow more and the world greener, Rosenzweig said. But numerous studies show that the high levels of carbon dioxide reduce protein and nutrients in many crops.

For example, high levels of carbon in the air in experiments show wheat has 6 to 13% less protein, 4 to 7% less zinc and 5 to 8% less iron, she said.

Better farming, better diet

But better farming practices, such as no-till agricultural and better targeted fertilizer application, have the potential to fight global warming too, reducing carbon pollution up to 18% of current emissions levels by 2050, the report said.

If people change their diets, reducing red meat and increasing plant-based foods, such as fruits, vegetables and seeds, the world can save as much as another 15% of current emissions by midcentury. It would also make people more healthy, Rosenzweig said.

Reducing food waste can fight climate change even more. The report said that between 2010 and 2016 global food waste accounted for 8 to 10% of heat-trapping emissions.

“Currently 25-30% of total food produced is lost or wasted,” the report said. Fixing that would free up millions of square miles of land.

With just another 0.9 degrees of warming (0.5 degrees Celsius), which could happen in the next 10 to 30 years, the risk of unstable food supplies, wildfire damage, thawing permafrost and water shortages in dry areas “are projected to be high,” the report said.

At another 1.8 degrees of warming from now (1 degree Celsius), which could happen in about 50 years, it said those risks “are projected to be very high.”

Most scenarios predict the world’s tropical regions will have “unprecedented climatic conditions by the mid to late 20th century,” the report noted.

Agriculture and forestry together account for about 23% of the heat-trapping gases that are warming the Earth, slightly less than from cars, trucks, boats and planes. Add in transporting food, energy costs, packaging and that grows to 37%, the report said.

Great carbon ‘sink’

But the land is also a great carbon “sink,” which sucks heat-trapping gases out of the air.

From about 2007 to 2016, agriculture and forestry every year put 5.7 billion tons (5.2 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide into the air, but pulled 12.3 billion tons (11.2 billion metric tons) of it out.

“This additional gift from nature is limited. It’s not going to continue forever,” said study co-author Luis Verchot, a scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia. “If we continue to degrade ecosystems, if we continue to convert natural ecosystems, we continue to deforest and we continued to destroy our soils, we’re going to lose this natural subsidy…”

Overall land emissions are increasing, especially because of cutting down forests in the Amazon in places such as Brazil, Colombia and Peru, Verchot said.

Stanford University environmental sciences chief Chris Field, who wasn’t part of the report, said the bottom line is “we ought to recognize that we have profound limits on the amount of land available and we have to be careful about how we utilize it.”

The body of an Israeli soldier was found with stab wounds near a West Bank settlement south of Jerusalem early Thursday, the military said.

According to an army statement, Israeli troops and police officers were searching the area near the Etzion settlement bloc where the body was found in the “early morning hours.”

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said that the soldier was a student in a pre-military Jewish seminary program and was neither armed nor in uniform. He said the military was investigating the circumstances of his death.

The soldier was later identified as 19-year-old Dvir Sorek, from the West Bank settlement of Ofra. His remains were found near the military seminary where he studied in the West Bank.

Army pursuing suspects

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying that security forces were “in pursuit now in order to capture the despicable terrorist and bring him to account.”

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin offered his condolences and said the security forces were “pursuing the murderers and will not rest until we find them.”

“Our prayers this morning are with the family of the murdered soldier and our hearts grieve for the life cut short,” Rivlin said. “We fight terrorism without compromise to ensure the security of our people.”

Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim the territories as part of a future state.

West Bank

Most of the international community considers Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal and an obstacle to creating a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel considers the territories “disputed,” and says the fate of the settlements should be determined through negotiations, which have been moribund for years.

Yair Golan, a former army general and a Democratic Union party candidate in the elections next month, said in an interview with Israel’s Kan television that the settlements near where Sorek was found “needed to be encircled ages ago with a security fence that would help to separate between the Jewish population and the Palestinian population.”

He added that a diplomatic solution to the conflict was necessary.

Israel is holding an unprecedented repeat election Sept. 17 after Netanyahu failed to form a government following April’s vote.