Turkey will carry out a military operation in a Kurdish-controlled area east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, its third offensive to dislodge Kurdish militia fighters close to its border.
 
Turkey had in the past warned of carrying out military operations east of the river, but put them on hold after agreeing with the United States to create a safe zone inside Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey that would be cleared of the Kurdish YPG militia.
 
But Ankara has accused Washington of stalling progress on setting up the safe zone and has demanded it sever its relations
with the YPG. The group was Washington’s main ally on the ground in Syria during the battle against Islamic State, but Turkey sees it as a terrorist organization.
 
Erdogan said both Russia and the United States have been told of the planned operation, but did not say when it would
begin. It would mark the third Turkish incursion into Syria in as many years.
 
“We entered Afrin, Jarablus, and Al-Bab. Now we will enter the east of the Euphrates,” Erdogan said on Sunday during a highway-opening ceremony.
 
Asked about Erdogan’s comments, a U.S. official told Reuters: “Bilateral discussions with Turkey continue on the possibility of a safe zone with U.S. and Turkish forces that addresses Turkey’s legitimate security concerns in northern Syria.”
 
Overnight, three Turkish-backed Syrian rebel fighters were killed during clashes with the YPG, state-owned Anadolu Agency reported on Sunday. It said the YPG tried to infiltrate the front lines in Syria’s al-Bab area, where Turkey carved out a de facto buffer zone in its 2016 “Euphrates Shield” offensive.
Clashes such as these are frequent in the area, but casualties tend to be rare.
 
On Thursday, the Kurdish-led administration running north and east Syria issued a statement objecting to Turkish threats to attack the area.
 
“These threats pose a danger on the area and on a peaceful solution in Syria, and any Turkish aggression on the area will open the way for the return of Daesh (Islamic State), and that aggression will also contribute to the widening of the circle of Turkish occupation in Syria,” the statement said.
It called on the international community to take a stance that stops Turkey from carrying out its threats.

 

As the nation reeled from two mass shootings in less than a day, President Donald Trump spent the first hours after the tragedies out of sight at his New Jersey golf course, sending out tweets of support awkwardly mixed in with those promoting a celebrity fight and attacking his political foes.

Trump was to travel back to Washington later Sunday and aides said he would likely address reporters, but the nation did not glimpse the president in the immediate aftermath of a shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed at least 20 people and, hours later, one in Dayton, Ohio, that claimed at least nine lives. Never seemingly comfortable consoling a nation in grief, Trump will be carefully watched for his response to the attacks, again inviting comparison to his predecessors who have tried to heal the country in moments of national trauma.

Investigators focused on whether the El Paso attack was a hate crime after the emergence of a racist, anti-immigrant screed that was posted online shortly beforehand. Detectives sought to determine if it was written by the man who was arrested.

In recent weeks, the president has issued racist tweets about four women of color who serve in Congress, and in rallies has spoken of an “invasion” at the southern border. His reelection strategy so far has placed racial animus at the forefront in an effort that his aides say is designed to activate his base of conservative voters, an approach not seen by an American president in the modern era.

Trump has also been widely criticized for offering a false equivalency when discussing racial violence, notably when he said there were “good people on both sides” after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of an anti-racism demonstrator.

The shootings will likely complicate that strategy, and Democrats who are campaigning to deny Trump a second term were quick to lay blame at the president’s feet.

“You reap what you sow, and he is sowing seeds of hate in this country. This harvest of hate violence we’re seeing right now lies at his feet,” Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He is responsible.”

White House aides said the president has been receiving updates about both shootings.

“The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio,” Trump tweeted Sunday morning. “God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio.”

His first tweet after the El Paso shooting on Saturday hit similar notes, with Trump calling it “terrible” and promising the full support of the federal government. But just 14 minutes later, he tweeted again, a discordant post wishing UFC fighter Colby Covington, a Trump supporter, good luck in his fight that evening. That was soon followed up with a pair of retweets of African American supporters offering testimonials to Trump’s policies helping black voters, though the president polls very poorly with blacks.

Trump’s two elder sons attended the UFC fight, while social media photos show that Trump stopped by a wedding at his Bedminster club on Saturday night.

The motive for the Dayton shooting, which happened in a popular nightlife district, was not immediately known. But Democrats pointed to the El Paso attack and blamed Trump for his incendiary rhetoric about immigrants that they say fosters an atmosphere of hate and violence.

Federal officials said they were treating the El Paso attack as a domestic terrorism case.

Trump’s language about immigrants, and his hardline policies, loomed over the El Paso shooting.

He has described groups of immigrants as “infestations,” declared in his campaign kickoff that many of those coming from Mexico were “rapists,”deemed a caravan of Hispanic migrants as invaders and wondered why the United States accepted so many immigrants from “s—hole countries” like Haiti, El Salvador and African nations. Critics also point to his campaign proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, his suggestion that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and his administration’s efforts to curtail asylum and separate immigrant children from their parents at the border.

The president has also repeatedly been denounced for being slow to criticize acts of violence carried out by white nationalists, or deem them acts of domestic terrorism, most notably when he declared there were good people on “both sides” of the 2017 deadly clash in Charlottesville. The number of hate groups has surged to record highs under Trump’s presidency, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“He is encouraging this. He doesn’t just tolerate it; he encourages it. Folks are responding to this.  It doesn’t just offend us, it encourages the kind of violence that we’re seeing, including in my home town of El Paso yesterday,” former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a 2020 Democratic contender, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “He is an open, avowed racist and is encouraging more racism in this country.  And this is incredibly dangerous for the United States of America right now.”

Other Democratic candidates also slammed Trump’s lack of response.

“We must come together to reject this dangerous and growing culture of bigotry espoused by Trump and his allies,” tweeted Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “Instead of wasting money putting children in cages, we must seriously address the scourge of violent bigotry and domestic terrorism.”

And Pete Buttigieg said Trump is “condoning and encouraging white nationalism.”

“It is very clear that this kind of hate is being legitimized from on high,” Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said in an interview on CNN.

Trump ordered flags to be lowered in remembrance of both shootings.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney defended the president’s response, saying Trump was “a combination of saddened by this and he’s angry about it.” Mulvaney told ABC’s “This Week” that Trump’s first call was “to the attorney general to find out what we could do to prevent this type of thing from happening.”

“These are sick people,” he said. “And we need to figure out what we can do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Mulvaney focused on the challenges of mental illness and largely dodged the notion of supporting widespread gun control measures, though he pointed out the administration banned bump stocks, which help turn semi-automatic weapons into even more lethal automatic ones. Trump, who has enjoyed deep support from the National Rifle Association gun lobbying group, has stayed away from most gun control measures, including after being personally lobbied by survivors of last year’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, urged Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to call an emergency session to put a House-passed bill on universal background checks up for debate and a vote “immediately.”

White House officials said there were no immediate plans for Trump to address the nation after the shooting. Other presidents have used the aftermath of a national tragedy to reassure citizens, including when George W. Bush visited a mosque less than a week after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to stand up for Muslims in the United States and when Obama spoke emotionally after mass shootings in a Sandy Hook school and Charleston church.

Trump has struggled to convey such empathy and support, and drew widespread criticism when he tossed paper towels like basketballs to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico. He has also, at times, seemed to welcome violence toward immigrants. At a May rally in Panama City Beach, Florida, Trump bemoaned legal protections for migrants and asked rhetorically, “How do you stop these people?”

“Shoot them!” cried one audience member.

Trump chuckled and said “Only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement.”

In 13 hours of carnage in the United States, two shooters in separate incidents killed 29 people and injured dozens, leaving authorities searching for motives behind the mayhem.

A gunman wearing body armor and carrying extra magazines of ammunition was shot to death by police less than a minute after he opened fire early Sunday in a popular nightlife area in the Midwest city of Dayton, Ohio, killing nine people and injuring at least 27, four of them seriously.

Police said they believe there was only one shooter in the incident, but have yet to identify him or suggest a motive.

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said the quick response by police “saved literally hundreds of lives” in the crowded Oregon district of the city filled with bars, restaurants and theaters.

She said the gunman was carrying a .223-caliber semi-automatic weapon, the same-sized weapon a gunman employed in the one of the most horrific mass shootings in the U.S. in recent years, the assault in which 20 school children and six adults were killed in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

The Ohio bloodshed occurred about 13 hours after police in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, Texas, say a gunman opened fired at a Walmart store, killing at least 20 people and wounding 26 — an attack authorities say they are investigating as a possible hate crime targeting Hispanics.

The El Paso and Dayton incidents are the nation’s 21st and 22nd mass killing incidents this year, according to a database compiled by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. The archive defines a mass killing as four or more people shot dead, excluding the gunman, at one location.

The latest incidents occurred a week after a gunman killed three at a food festival in California and followed the killing of 58 at a country music festival in 2017 in California, 49 at an Orlando, Fla., night club in 2016 and 25 at a Texas church in 2017.

U.S. authorities occasionally try to figure out ways to stop the slaughter of innocents in a country where gun ownership is enshrined as a constitutional right. Some lawmakers have attempted to curb gun ownership or stiffen the regulations surrounding gun sales, but have generally been rebuffed by other lawmakers opposed to new restrictions.

After the Dayton attack, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said he was angered that state and national lawmakers won’t approve more gun controls, saying politicians’ “thoughts and prayers are not enough” of a response to mass killings.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday on Twitter, “The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio. Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton. Much has already be learned in El Paso. Law enforcement was very rapid in both instances. Updates will be given throughout the day!”

The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio. Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton. Much has already be learned in El Paso. Law enforcement was very rapid in both instances. Updates will be given throughout the day!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2019

“God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio,” he implored.

God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2019

In El Paso, police chief Greg Allen said police are seeking to confirm that the 21-year-old white male suspect now in custody was the author of an online posting predicting a shooting spree intended to target Hispanics. The suspect was identified by police as Patrick Crusius, who lived in the Dallas area, hundreds of kilometers away from El Paso.

The post appeared online about an hour before the shooting and included language that complained about the “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. The author of the manifesto wrote that he expected to be killed during the attack.

The writer of the manifesto denied that he was a white supremacist, but decried “race mixing” in the United States, calling instead for territorial enclaves separated by race. The first sentence of the document expressed support for the man accused of killing 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, after he had posted his own conspiracy theory that non-white migrants were replacing whites.

Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said in a statement that in El Paso, “This vile act of terrorism against Hispanic Americans was inspired by divisive racial and ethnic rhetoric and enabled by weapons of war. The language in the shooter’s manifesto is consistent with President Donald Trump’s description of Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’”

Castro, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said, “Today’s shooting is a stark reminder of the dangers of such rhetoric.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were killed in the shooting and six Mexicans were wounded.
 
Trump said Saturday that he and first lady Melania Trump “send our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the great people of Texas.”

He also tweeted: “Today’s shooting in El Paso, Texas was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice.  I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people.”
 
Police began receiving calls about 10:39 a.m. local time with multiple reports of a shooting at Walmart and the nearby Cielo Vista Mall complex on the east side of the city.

 
Sgt. Robert Gomez, a spokesman with the El Paso Police Department, said most of the shootings occurred at the Walmart, where there were more than 1,000 shoppers and 100 employees. Many families were taking advantage of a sales-tax holiday to shop for back-to-school supplies, officials said.
 
“This is unprecedented in El Paso,” Gomez said of the mass shooting.
 
Gomez said an assault-style rifle was used in the shooting.

El Paso, a city of about 680,000 people in western Texas, shares the border with Juarez, Mexico.

 

 

Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue of the communist Khmer Rouge regime that destroyed a generation of Cambodians, died Sunday, the country’s U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal said. He was 93.

Nuon Chea was known as Brother No. 2, the right-hand man of Pol Pot, the leader of the regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The group’s fanatical efforts to realize a utopian society led to the death of some 1.7 million people — more than a quarter of the country’s population at the time — from starvation, disease, overwork and executions.
 
Researchers believe Nuon Chea was responsible for the extremist policies of the Khmer Rouge and was directly involved in its purges and executions.
 
He was serving life in prison after convictions by the U.N.-backed tribunal on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
 
But Nuon Chea never admitted his guilt.
 
At the long-awaited Khmer Rouge trials, he told a court that he and his comrades were not “bad people,” denying responsibility for any deaths.
 
For decades after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea lived quietly with his family in a wooden house in Pailin, a former guerrilla stronghold near the border with Thailand.
 
“I wasn’t a war criminal,” he said in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press. “I admit that there was a mistake. But I had my ideology. I wanted to free my country. I wanted people to have well-being.”
 
He was arrested in 2007 to face trial along with other surviving but ailing top Khmer Rouge leaders, and charged with crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture.
 
Three decades after his accused crimes, Nuon Chea took the stand as an old man with white hair and sunken cheeks. Frail from a variety of health problems — including high blood pressure, heart problems and cataracts — he peered over eyeglasses as he defiantly defended the regime he served.
 
“I don’t want the next generation to misunderstand history. I don’t want them to believe the Khmer Rouge are bad people, are criminals,” Nuon Chea testified in 2011 at the age of 85. “Nothing is true about that.”
 
During his testimony, he insisted that the regime was not responsible for any atrocities and reiterated long-standing Khmer Rouge claims that mass graves found after the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power held the bodies of people killed by Vietnamese troops.
 
“These war crimes and crimes against humanity were not committed by the Cambodian people,” Nuon Chea said. “It was the Vietnamese who killed Cambodians.”
 
Vietnam, a onetime communist ally of the Khmer Rouge, suffered several bloody attacks from them and finally struck back in late 1978, chasing the Khmer Rouge from power in early 1979 and installing a client regime of former members of the Khmer Rouge who had split with the group. One of them was Cambodia’s current prime minister, Hun Sen.
 
Nuon Chea’s fellow defendants also denied any wrongdoing: Khieu Samphan, the regime’s former head of state, who also told the court he bore no responsibility for atrocities, and Ieng Sary, the regime’s former foreign minister. Ieng Sary died before the trials concluded, but Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea were found guilty in the tribunal’s final verdicts in November 2018.
 
At one point before his arrest, Nuon Chea told journalists that he had become an adherent of Buddhism — an irony for the man who served a regime that abolished religion and turned Buddhist monasteries into sites for torture and execution.
 
Nuon Chea was born on July 7, 1926, to a wealthy Sino-Cambodian family in Battambang province in northwestern Cambodia. He studied law at Thammasat University in Thailand.
 
In an interview with government agents a year after his surrender in 1998, Nuon Chea said he joined the communist movement in Thailand in 1950. Other sources say he became a communist in 1948 and returned to Cambodia a year later.
 
That was a time when communist and nationalist groups, struggling to oust French colonialists, were gaining strength in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
 
Nuon Chea said in that interview that he and Saloth Sar, Pol Pot’s real name, played key roles in building up a homegrown movement free from the dominance of Vietnam, which was to become the Khmer Rouge’s arch-enemy.
 
In its early stages, that movement was largely in disarray, facing constant threats from authorities and having neither a clear strategy nor adequate resources, according to Nuon Chea.
 
Nuon Chea said he and Pol Pot worked together in mapping out “a strategic path and tactics” that the party adopted at a clandestine congress at the Phnom Penh railway station in September 1960.
 
“Marxism-Leninism was the goal of the party, which had to be built from the countryside up. Rural areas were the basis for cities to rely on and ignite” the revolution, Nuon Chea said.
 
After coming to power in 1975 following a brutal war, the Khmer Rouge evicted people from cities and turned the country into a vast labor camp.
 
For a movement known for paranoia and secrecy, Nuon Chea was as shadowy as Pol Pot, or even more so, according to historians.
 
“Except for Nuon Chea, Pol Pot was the least accessible Cambodian leader since World War II,”  David Chandler, an American scholar on Cambodia, wrote in “Brother Number One,” a biography of Pol Pot.
 
Researchers say he was the chief ideologue responsible for devising the Khmer Rouge’s most brutal policies, notably at Tuol Sleng — or S-21 — prison, which is now a genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Some 16,000 men, women and children passed through the prison’s gate before being tortured and executed.
 
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which researches Khmer Rouge crimes, said strong evidence links Nuon Chea to the killings. He said the 800,000 documents about the country’s holocaust his center has gathered include many that incriminate Nuon Chea.
 
“He was born like all of us, but he was driven by power and he later committed crimes against his own people,” Youk Chhang said Sunday.
 
After being ousted from power in 1979, the Khmer Rouge waged guerrilla warfare for another two decades before disintegrating. Pol Pot died in the jungle in 1998, and on Christmas Eve that year, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan surrendered.
 
Prime Minister Hun Sen welcomed the duo at his home and gave them and family members a beach holiday, providing sports utility vehicles and security escorts.
 
When asked at the time who was to blame for the massacres under his regime, Nuon Chea told a news conference, “Let’s consider that an old issue.”

 

 

Lawmakers from Israel’s ruling Likud party say they will only accept Benjamin Netanyahu as the party’s candidate for prime minister, “regardless of the election results.”

Netanyahu’s party issued a statement Sunday saying that all of its Knesset members signed a “unity petition” affirming that Netanyahu “is the only Likud candidate for prime minister – and there will be no other candidate.”

The move appeared aimed at quashing any demand by potential coalition partners that Netanyahu step down.

Netanyahu passed David Ben-Gurion last month as Israel’s longest serving prime minister and seeks re-election for a fourth consecutive term. Israel is holding an unprecedented repeat election on September 17 after Netanyahu failed to form a government following April’s vote.

He also faces a pre-indictment hearing in a series of corruption cases.

 

Thousands of protesters took to Hong Kong’s streets Sunday, a day after violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police, and as China’s official news agency warned Beijing will not let the situation in the Asian financial hub continue.

The Chinese-controlled city has been rocked by months of protests against a proposed bill to allow people to be extradited to stand trial in mainland China and a general strike aimed at bringing the city to a halt is planned for Monday.

Police said in a statement early Sunday that they had arrested more than 20 people for offenses overnight including unlawful assembly and assault.

On Saturday, police fired multiple tear gas rounds in confrontations with black-clad activists in the city’s Kowloon area. On Sunday, thousands of demonstrators marched peacefully in the town of Tseung Kwan O in the New Territories brandishing colorful banners and leaflets.

Dressed in black, the protesters cheered as they called for a mass strike across Hong Kong Monday.

Government unresponsive

“We’re trying to tell the government to (withdraw) the extradition bill and to police to stop the investigations and the violence,” said Gabriel Lee, a 21-year-old technology student.

Lee said what made him most angry was that the government was not responding to any of the protesters’ demands or examining the police violence.

Protesters Saturday set fires in the streets, outside a police station and in rubbish bins, and blocked the entrance to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel, cutting a major artery linking Hong Kong island and the Kowloon peninsula.

Major shops in the popular tourist and commercial area Nathan Road, normally packed on a Saturday, were shuttered including 7-11 convenience stores, jewelry chain Chow Tai Fook and watch brands Rolex and Tudor.

Warning from mainland

What started as an angry response to the now-suspended extradition bill, has expanded to demands for greater democracy and the resignation of leader Carrie Lam.

The protests have become the most serious political crisis in Hong Kong since it returned to Chinese rule 22 years ago after being governed by Britain.

Thousands of civil servants joined in the anti-government protests on Friday for the first time since they started in June, defying a warning from authorities to remain politically neutral.

The protests mark the biggest popular challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since he took office in 2012.

China’s official news agency Xinhua wrote on Sunday that the “central government will not sit idly by and let this situation continue. We firmly believe that Hong Kong will be able to overcome the difficulties and challenges ahead. “

Hong Kong has been allowed to retain extensive freedoms, such as an independent judiciary but many residents see the extradition bill as the latest step in a relentless march toward mainland control.

Economic toll

Months of demonstrations are taking a growing toll on the city’s economy, as local shoppers and tourists avoid parts of one of the world’s most famous shopping destinations.

Matthew Wang, a 22-year-old marketing executive for a multinational corporation, said that the government was “encouraging people to become more radical to affect decision making because they are not addressing any of the demands.”
 

Iranian media say the Revolutionary Guard has seized an oil tanker carrying 700,000 liters of “smuggled fuel” in the Persian Gulf.

The semi-official Fars news agency says seven crew members were detained when the ship was seized late Wednesday. It did not provide further details on the vessel or the nationality of the crew.

This would mark the third commercial vessel seized by Iranian forces in recent weeks and the second accused of smuggling fuel. Tensions have soared in the Gulf in recent months as the U.S. has boosted its military presence and oil tankers have been seized by Iranian forces or targeted by unknown saboteurs.

The tensions are rooted in the U.S. decision last year to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear accord and impose sweeping sanctions on Iran.
 

Thousands of protesters took to Hong Kong’s streets Sunday, a day after violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police, and as China’s official news agency warned Beijing will not let the situation in the Asian financial hub continue.

The Chinese-controlled city has been rocked by months of protests against a proposed bill to allow people to be extradited to stand trial in mainland China and a general strike aimed at bringing the city to a halt is planned for Monday.

Police said in a statement early Sunday that they had arrested more than 20 people for offenses overnight including unlawful assembly and assault.

On Saturday, police fired multiple tear gas rounds in confrontations with black-clad activists in the city’s Kowloon area. On Sunday, thousands of demonstrators marched peacefully in the town of Tseung Kwan O in the New Territories brandishing colorful banners and leaflets.

Dressed in black, the protesters cheered as they called for a mass strike across Hong Kong Monday.

Government unresponsive

“We’re trying to tell the government to (withdraw) the extradition bill and to police to stop the investigations and the violence,” said Gabriel Lee, a 21-year-old technology student.

Lee said what made him most angry was that the government was not responding to any of the protesters’ demands or examining the police violence.

Protesters Saturday set fires in the streets, outside a police station and in rubbish bins, and blocked the entrance to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel, cutting a major artery linking Hong Kong island and the Kowloon peninsula.

Major shops in the popular tourist and commercial area Nathan Road, normally packed on a Saturday, were shuttered including 7-11 convenience stores, jewelry chain Chow Tai Fook and watch brands Rolex and Tudor.

Warning from mainland

What started as an angry response to the now-suspended extradition bill, has expanded to demands for greater democracy and the resignation of leader Carrie Lam.

The protests have become the most serious political crisis in Hong Kong since it returned to Chinese rule 22 years ago after being governed by Britain.

Thousands of civil servants joined in the anti-government protests on Friday for the first time since they started in June, defying a warning from authorities to remain politically neutral.

The protests mark the biggest popular challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since he took office in 2012.

China’s official news agency Xinhua wrote on Sunday that the “central government will not sit idly by and let this situation continue. We firmly believe that Hong Kong will be able to overcome the difficulties and challenges ahead. “

Hong Kong has been allowed to retain extensive freedoms, such as an independent judiciary but many residents see the extradition bill as the latest step in a relentless march toward mainland control.

Economic toll

Months of demonstrations are taking a growing toll on the city’s economy, as local shoppers and tourists avoid parts of one of the world’s most famous shopping destinations.

Matthew Wang, a 22-year-old marketing executive for a multinational corporation, said that the government was “encouraging people to become more radical to affect decision making because they are not addressing any of the demands.”
 

Democratic presidential candidates expressed outrage Saturday that mass shootings have becoming chillingly common nationwide and blamed the National Rifle Association and its congressional allies after a gunman opened fire at a shopping area near the Texas-Mexico border.

“It’s not just today, it has happened several times this week. It’s happened here in Las Vegas where some lunatic killed 50 some odd people,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said as he and 18 other White House hopefuls were in Nevada to address the nation’s largest public employees union. “All over the world, people are looking at the United States and wondering what is going on? What is the mental health situation in America, where time after time, after time, after time, we’re seeing indescribable horror.”

Sanders blasted Republican Senate leadership for being “more concerned about pleasing the NRA than listening to the vast majority of the American people” and said that President Donald Trump has a responsibility to support commonsense gun safety legislation.

At least 20 people were killed amid back-to-school shopping in El Paso. A 21-year-old man was taken into custody, law enforcement officials said.

Shortly after the shooting and before its death toll was widely reported, White House officials said Trump was briefed while spending the weekend at his New Jersey golf club. He conveyed his initial reaction on Twitter, writing that the shooting was “terrible” and that he was in close consultation with state officials. He turned to other topics, tweeting a note of encouragement to UFC fighter Colby Covington, a Trump supporter, and retweeting a pair of messages that furthered his recent argument that African Americans had flourished under his administration.

President Trump’s racism does not just offend our sensibilities; it fundamentally changes the character of this country. And it leads to violence.

An Iranian serving a life sentence on a conviction of designing a pornographic website has fled the country while on short-term release from prison and has arrived in Canada, Iranian authorities and his family said.

Iranian authorities Saturday confirmed state television reports that Saeed Malekpour, who is also a permanent resident of Canada, had left the Islamic Republic.

“This individual was barred from leaving the country and has apparently left … via unofficial channels and has not returned,” said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili.

“This individual was sentenced to life in jail and had served more than 11 years of his sentence,” Esmaili said, quoted by the judiciary’s official news agency, Mizan Online.

Didn’t return from furlough

He said Malekpour was given a three-day furlough July 20 and by the end of it did not turn himself in to the prison.

His sister posted a video on Twitter confirming he had returned to Canada.

“The nightmare is finally over,” Maryam Malekpour said, thanking all those who supported the family.

Payam Akhavan, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who supported Malekpour, told CBC TV that his family in Iran and his lawyer knew nothing about the escape.

Original sentence: death

Malekpour was arrested in December 2008 in Iran when he returned to his native land to visit his dying father. He was accused of operating a pornographic website.

He was initially sentenced to death, but that was commuted to life in prison in August 2013.

According to reports at the time, he had been found guilty on three counts, including “designing and moderating adult content websites” and “insulting the sanctity of Islam.”

SRINAGAR, INDIA — Thousands of Indian students and visitors were fleeing Indian-controlled Kashmir over the weekend after the government ordered tourists and Hindu pilgrims visiting a Himalayan cave shrine “to curtail their stay” in the disputed territory, citing security concerns.  
 
Meanwhile, tensions flared along the highly militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan as Pakistan accused India of using cluster munitions to target the civilian population, killing two people.  
 
Hundreds of Indian and foreign visitors, including some Hindu pilgrims, on Saturday congregated outside the main terminal at the airport in Srinagar, the region’s main city, seeking seats on flights out. Most were unlikely to get tickets, however, as authorities had yet to arrange additional flights, officials said. 
 
On Friday, Indian aviation authorities told airlines to be ready to operate additional flights from Srinagar to ferry pilgrims and tourists out, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. 
 
Tourists and pilgrims also took buses out of the region after authorities went to hotels in the tourist resorts of Pahalgam and Gulmarg on Friday evening to tell them to leave. Authorities also bused out hundreds of Indian students from some colleges in Srinagar. 
 
The order cited the “prevailing security situation” and the “latest intelligence inputs of terror threats with specific targeting” of the annual Hindu pilgrimage as reasons for the advisory. 

Pilgrimage suspended
 
On Thursday, officials suspended the pilgrimage for four days because of bad weather along the route. Over 300,000 people have visited the icy cave since July 1. 
 
The evacuation order has intensified tensions following India’s announcement that it was sending thousands more troops to one of the world’s most militarized areas, sparking fears in Kashmir that New Delhi was planning to scrap an Indian constitutional provision that forbids Indians from outside the region from buying land in the Muslim-majority territory. 
 
In its election manifesto earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party promised to do away with special rights for Kashmiris under India’s Constitution. 
 
Rumors had swirled in the region on Friday, ranging from disarming of Kashmiri police forces to the Indian military taking over local police installations and schools being ordered closed. 
 
By Friday night, residents in Srinagar and other towns thronged grocery stores and medical shops to stock up on essentials. They lined up at ATMs to take out money and at gas stations to fill up their vehicles. 
 
However, tensions eased Saturday, though Kashmiri politicians and the public were eager to know what is to come. 
 
Omar Abdullah, a pro-India Kashmiri leader who has criticized the Modi-led government’s muscular approach in Kashmir, said New Delhi should clear the air in Kashmir. 

Tougher crackdown feared
 
Ordinary Kashmiris fear the government measures are a prelude to intensifying a crackdown against anti-India dissenters. Kashmir, a region known for lush green valleys, lakes, meadows and dense forested mountains, has become notorious for security lockdowns and crackdowns. 
 

On Saturday, Pakistan’s military accused Indian forces of using banned cluster munitions to target the civilian population along the Line of Control in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, killing a 4-year-old boy and a woman.  It said another 11 villagers were critically wounded. 
 
“This is violation of Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law,” the military said in a statement. “This blatant Indian aggression against all international norms exposes true character of the Indian army and their moral standing.”  
 
Pakistan urged the international community to take notice. 
 
The Indian army rejected the Pakistan claim. It said Indian soldiers killed five attackers while foiling an attempt by gunmen from Pakistani to target an Indian post. 
 
Indian responses are made only against military targets and “infiltrating terrorists who are aided by Pakistan army,” another statement by the Indian army said.    

‘Toy bombs’
 
As tension escalated between the two sides, authorities in Pakistan-held Kashmir ordered evacuation of thousands of residents along the frontier. They also asked residents to remain vigilant of “toy bombs” fired by India. 
 
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry urged India to act “responsibly” and “work toward preserving rather than imperiling peace and security in South Asia.”  
 
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and each claims the divided Himalayan territory in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting Indian control since 1989. Most Kashmiris support the rebels’ demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country, while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control. 
 
About 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian crackdown. 

Updated at 4:21 p.m. Aug. 3.

White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed to this report. 
 
Several people were killed and one person was in custody Saturday after a mass shooting occurred in a shopping complex in the border town of El Paso, Texas, police said. 
 
Police began receiving calls around 11 a.m. local time with multiple reports of a shooting at a Walmart and the nearby Cielo Vista Mall complex on the east side of the city. 
 
Police spokesman Sgt. Enrique Carrillo said a suspect was in custody. Local media said the suspect was a 21-year-old male. 
 
El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said three suspects had been taken into custody, according to the El Paso Times. Police spokesman Sgt. Robert Gomez, however, told the newspaper that police thought there was only one shooter and that the man was in custody. 
 
“This is just a tragedy that I’m having a hard time getting my arms around,” Margo told CNN. 
 
Gomez said a rifle was used in the shooting, according to the Times. 
 
State Representative Cesar Blanco, who represents the El Paso area in the state Legislature, told MSNBC that 18 people had been shot.  
 
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News, “We have between 15 and 20 casualties. We don’t know the number of fatalities,” according to a report from the French news agency AFP. 
 
During the early moments of the incident, police warned people to stay away from the area. 
 
A White House spokesperson said President Donald Trump, who was spending the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, had been briefed on the shooting, “and we continue to monitor the situation. The president has spoken with Attorney General [William] Barr and [Texas] Governor Greg Abbott.” 
 
Abbott released a statement saying, “Today, the El Paso community was struck by a heinous and senseless act of violence. Our hearts go out to the victims of this horrific shooting and to the entire community in this time of loss.” 
 
Abbott’s office said he was heading to El Paso. 
 
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who formerly represented the El Paso district in the U.S. House, said he was leaving an event in Las Vegas to return to the city where his family lives. 
 
El Paso, a city of about 680,000 people in western Texas, shares the border with Juarez, Mexico. 

Nematullah Bakhtyar, a member of the Afghan National Army (ANA), was thought to have been killed while fighting the Afghan insurgents in southern Afghanistan in 2018. A body was returned to the family, who held a funeral and buried the body they believed to be their son’s. Almost a year later, Bakhtyar makes contact and returns home, where he was recently married. VOA’s Zabihullah Ghazi reports from Kunar, Afghanistan, about this sad war story with a happy ending.  

Turkish media freedom advocates are raising alarms about newly announced government powers to license, inspect and possibly censor online broadcasts in the country. 
 
The new regulations for the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), the government’s media regulator, were published this week in Turkey’s Official Gazette. 
 
Among other things, the rules would impose licensing requirements and fees and allow the RTÜK to suspend programs and cancel licenses as sanctions for not complying with the rules.  
 
The regulations were drafted a year ago, said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University whose expertise is online censorship.  
 
The move has potentially broad implications, he said, because anyone can transmit content on the internet these days. About 2 in 5 people in Turkey say they get most of their news online, a Reuters Institute report found.

‘Censorship regime’
 
Considering the country’s history of blocking or punishing journalists and dissidents online, the new rules are “not a licensing regime, it’s a censorship regime,” Akdeniz said. 
 
“This is what happens in Turkey. We are talking about the country which blocks access to the Wikipedia platform for over two years,” he said. 
 
One uncertainty about the regulations is how they will affect Netflix, the BBC, the Voice of America and other news and entertainment organizations that broadcast internet and mobile content in Turkey. 
 
A summary of the regulations published by the global law firm Baker McKenzie said the rules cover foreign service providers that “broadcast internet content in Turkish aimed at persons in Turkey.”
 
Netflix released a statement saying the company was watching developments. “Netflix has a loyal and growing fan base in Turkey, which values the diversity of content on our service,” the statement said. 
 

The Media and Law Studies Association, a Turkish nonprofit group, said it would challenge the directive. The group said the new rules violate the rights to free expression and dissemination of news. 
 
Veysel Ok, the nonprofit’s co-director, said requiring licenses and fees could hurt journalists who have established their own online news platforms. Ok also flagged a lack of clarity in the regulations. 
 
“There are also no standards as to what constitutes a news platform and what doesn’t, as the language used in the text is too ambiguous,” Ok said. “Many extremely qualified journalists have turned towards internet media. This new directive aims to attack and control these platforms.” 

Akdeniz, the law professor, said it’s possible authorities could require Netflix to censor its content offerings.  
 
“They can say there’s too much nudity, there’s too much obscenity, there’s smoking or drinking,” he said. “They might say this program promotes homosexuality or such possibility now.”  

Enforcement question
 
However, it remains to be seen how authorities enforce the regulations.  
 
“We’ll find out within the next months,” Akdeniz said.  
 
Turkey is the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders, which ranks the country toward the bottom in its annual press freedom index. The Journalists Union of Turkey said there currently are 134 journalists and media workers imprisoned in the country. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper says he wants to see American ground-based intermediate-range conventional missiles deployed to Asia.

Speaking to reporters on his first international trip as head of the Defense Department, Esper said the weapons were important due to the “the great distances” covered in the Indo-Pacific region.

The United States previously was unable to pursue ground-based missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers because of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a decades-old arms control pact with Russia. Washington withdrew from that pact on Friday, citing years of Russian violations.

“It’s about time that we were unburdened by the treaty and kind of allowed to pursue our own interests, and our NATO allies share that view as well,” Esper said.

He declined to discuss when or where in Asia they could be deployed until the weapons were ready, but said he hoped the deployments come within months.

While analysts have primarily focused on what the INF treaty withdrawal means for signatory nations Russia and the United States, the change also allows the United States to strengthen its position against China. Esper said China has more than 80% of its missile inventory with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers.

“So it should not surprise them [China] that we would want to have a like capability,” he added.

China is the top priority of the Pentagon under the Defense Department’s National Defense Strategy. Beijing and Washington also have been embroiled for months in a trade dispute, with U.S. President Donald Trump announcing Thursday on Twitter that he would impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods starting September 1.

“China is certainly the center of the dialogue right now. It’s a competition, they’re not an enemy, but certainly they are pressing their power in every corner,” Rudy deLeon, a defense policy expert with the Center for American Progress, and a former deputy secretary of defense, told VOA.

In the event of a conflict with China, the United States needs to have various capabilities in place ahead of time in order to prevent sabotage during transport from China’s advanced sensors and artificial intelligence, according to Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“We need to distribute our assets, and we need to have them in the region when the conflict starts. The idea that we’re going to spend like we did in the first Gulf War, weeks or months, sending large cargo aircraft and cargo vessels across the ocean to get into conflict, they’ll never arrive,” Bowman told VOA.

Esper began his trip Friday with a stop at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii to visit the head of the command, Admiral Philip Davidson. Esper arrived Saturday in Australia for a two-plus-two meeting on Sunday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and their Australian counterparts.

Esper also will visit New Zealand, Japan, Mongolia and South Korea before returning to Washington.

Defense officials have for years referred to the Asia-Pacific as the “priority” theater.

Former secretary of defense Jim Mattis, Esper’s predecessor in the Trump administration, also started his time in office with a trip to Asia, visiting Japan and South Korea in February 2017.

Russian police detained nearly 200 people Saturday at a Moscow protest against unfair elections, a monitoring group said.

The non-governmental group OVD-Info, which monitors arrests, said 194 people were arrested along thoroughfares in the city center, where Russian officials said unauthorized opposition protests were held.

Prominent activist Lyubov Sobol was among those who were detained, as were six journalists, according to the French news agency. Police took Sobol into custody from a taxi minutes before the protest began.

Activists called for the demonstration after a number of opposition candidates were prohibited from participating in Moscow’s city council election being held in September.

Authorities contend the candidates failed to collect enough authentic signatures to register for the election, which is seen as a dry run for the country’s 2021 national parliamentary election.

Some of the opposition candidates have been jailed along with opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

At a demonstration for the same cause last week during which there were violent outbreaks, police arrested more than 1,000 people, sparking widespread global condemnation.

Russian investigators said Saturday they launched a criminal investigation into Navalny’s alleged laundering of more than $15 million through and anti-corruption foundation he established. 

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that things are going well with China, insisting U.S. consumers are not paying for import taxes he has imposed on goods from that country although economists say Americans are footing the bill.

“Things are going along very well with China. They are paying us Tens of Billions of Dollars, made possible by their monetary devaluations and pumping in massive amounts of cash to
keep their system going. So far our consumer is paying nothing – and no inflation. No help from Fed!” Trump said on Twitter.

He also said – without presenting evidence – that countries are asking to negotiate “REAL trade deals,” saying on Twitter, “They don’t want to be targeted for Tariffs by the U.S.”

Trump abruptly decided on Thursday to slap 10% tariffs $300 billion in Chinese imports, stunning financial markets and ending a month-long trade truce.

China vowed on Friday to fight back.

Tariffs are intended to make foreign goods more expensive to boost domestic producers, unless international exporters reduce prices. But there has been no evidence that China is cutting
prices to accommodate Trump’s tariffs.

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic research in March found that all of the cost of tariffs imposed in 2018 were passed on to U.S. consumers.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)

 

The African Union envoy to Sudan said Saturday the pro-democracy movement and the ruling military council have finalized a power-sharing agreement.

Mohammed el-Hassan Lebatt told reporters that the two sides “fully agreed” on a constitutional declaration outlining the division of power for a three-year transition to elections. He did not provide further details, but said both sides would meet later Saturday to prepare for a signing ceremony.

The pro-democracy coalition issued a statement saying they would sign the document Sunday.

Mass protests, then coup

The military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir in April following months of mass protests against his three-decade-long authoritarian rule. The protesters remained in the streets, demanding a rapid transition to a civilian government. They have been locked in tense negotiations with the military for weeks while holding mass protests.

The two sides reached a preliminary agreement last month following pressure from the United States and its Arab allies, amid growing concerns the political crisis could ignite civil war.

That document provided for the establishment of a joint civilian-military sovereign council that would rule Sudan for a little more than three years while elections are organized. A military leader would head the 11-member council for the first 21 months, followed by a civilian leader for the next 18. There would also be a Cabinet made up of technocrats chosen by the protesters, as well as a legislative council, the makeup of which would be decided within three months.

But the two sides remained divided on a number of issues, including whether military leaders would be immune from prosecution over recent violence against protesters. It was not immediately clear whether they had resolved that dispute.

Troops kill protesters

The two sides came under renewed pressure this week after security forces opened fire on student protesters in the city of Obeid, leaving six people dead. At least nine troops from the paramilitary Rapid Support forces were arrested over the killings.

In June, security forces violently dispersed the protesters’ main sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum, killing dozens of people and plunging the fragile transition into crisis.

Protest leader Omar al-Dagir said the agreement announced Saturday would pave the way for appointments to the transitional bodies.

“The government will prioritize peace (with rebel groups) and an independent and fair investigation to reveal those who killed the martyrs and hold them accountable,” he said.

Sudan has been convulsed by rebellions in its far-flung provinces for decades. Al-Bashir, who was jailed after being removed from power, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide stemming from the Darfur conflict in the early 2000s. The military has said he will not be extradited. Sudanese prosecutors have charged him with involvement in violence against protesters.

Forty-eight insects are currently included on the U.S. Endangered Species List, and the only way any insect has ever come off the list is through extinction. This is especially troubling for the world’s butterfly populations, which have declined by 20% over the last decades. 

This time of year, Nate Fuller can often be found counting butterflies. The director of the Sarett Nature Center in Benton Harbor, Michigan, needs an accurate count of Mitchell’s satyr butterflies, to help preserve one of their last known habitats.

“They’re very particular in the kind of habitat where they can live, which is part of what makes them so rare and amazing indicators for our water quality,” he said.

Hard to spot

Emerging into a vast wetland of soupy ground covered in shoulder-high grasses and sedges, dotted with poisonous sumac trees, it’s slow going, but a cell phone app helps keep track of where butterflies have been spotted as well as when and how many, all important data for better understanding Mitchell’s satyr populations.

Finding the small brown butterflies with golden-ringed eyespots on their wings can be difficult. There just aren’t many around. They also rest with their wings closed to blend in with their surroundings.

“We can step over this way, there’s a chance we might stir up a Mitchell’s satyr,” Fuller said.

The Mitchell’s satyr was placed on the Endangered Species List in 1991. Initially it was thought that the loss of wetlands contributed to their decline.

Why the decline?

“We knew them to be where spring fed wetlands were,” Fuller said. “The assumption was it was a case of invasive plant species, humans destroying wetlands, draining them, dredging them.”

But, as habitats were restored, the Mitchell’s satyr continued to decline. Fuller says environmentalists realized something more complicated was at work.

“The clues seem to suggest that it’s not just habitat availability,” Fuller said. “It’s ground water and the amount and the quality of ground water coming into these wetlands seemed to be a challenge for the butterflies.”

While the decline is likely the result of a combination of factors, the fact that water quality might contribute is unsettling because the wetlands are the headwaters for the Midwest’s rivers and streams.

Toledo Zoo breeding program

A captive breeding program was started four years ago at the Toledo Zoo to get to the bottom of the mystery. Ryan Walsh is its director.

“We’re actually doing two things with these guys,” Walsh said. “We’re starting a captive colony. We’ll occasionally collect them to add new genetics to the captive population. We can really breed a large number of the butterflies. The rest of them, the ones that won’t be left back for captive breeding will be released out into the wild.”

The caterpillars spend the winter in a special weather-controlled chamber. That helped determine the Mitchell’s satyrs don’t do well below 4.4 degrees Celsius, the temperature at which hard freezes in the fen wetlands will kill the insects.

With that knowledge, the program produced 1,300 new eggs this year, something that may go a long way toward restoring the population. And may, one day, earn the butterflies a ticket off the Endangered Species List.

Meanwhile, back at the Nature Center, our luck isn’t so great. In two hours, we’ve spotted only three Mitchell’s satyrs. But Fuller says if anything, that’s a good reason to continue to build the breeding program.

“We should care because they’re indicators that there’s something wrong with our landscape, whether it’s water quality, water quantity or habitat? But sort of the bigger picture, do we care about creation? Do we care about the world we live in? It’s the idea of caring about the land, so that the land can care for us in return,” he said.

The United States has pulled out of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in order to develop its own new missiles, after the Russians refused to destroy new missiles that NATO says violate the pact. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise” because Moscow failed to return to compliance despite repeated warnings.  VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington on the end of a landmark treaty.