Indian lawmakers on Tuesday approved a bill to end the Muslim practice of instant divorce two years after the Supreme Court ruled that it violated the constitutional rights of Muslim women.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the bill’s approval by the upper house of Parliament reflects the empowerment of women and India’s changing profile.

The more powerful lower house approved the bill last week. It will become law after India’s president approves it, which is a formality.

Most of the 170 million Muslims in India are Sunnis governed by the Muslim Personal Law for family matters. The law has included allowing Muslim men to divorce their wives by saying “Talaq,” the Arabic word for divorce, three times — and not necessarily consecutively, but at any time, and by any medium, including telephone, text message or social media post.

More than 20 countries, including neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh, have banned the practice.

The 99-84 approval on Tuesday was a victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The opposition had blocked the bill for more than a year, as the ruling party lacked majority support in the upper house. A split in the opposition ranks helped the government cross the line.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, a Congress party leader, said the opposition parties were opposed to a clause providing a three-year jail term for a husband who divorced his wife in such a way, arguing that no other religion has such a punishment. The opposition also said the bill had no clarity on spousal support if men were jailed for an instant divorce.

Both houses of Parliament rejected the opposition stand and also refused to refer the bill to a parliamentary committee to consider those provisions.

The United Nations says more Afghan civilians were killed by government and NATO-led troops than by the Taliban and other insurgent groups in the first half of 2019.

The U.N.’s mission in Afghanistan released a report Monday that showed a combined 717 civilians were killed by government and international forces — an increase of 31% from the same period in 2018 — compared to 531 killed by the Taliban and other hardline Islamist groups. Most of the deaths occurred during Afghan and NATO air and ground attacks against insurgents.  

The report said a total of 2,446 Afghan civilians were injured at that hands of pro-government and insurgent troops.  

“Parties to the conflict may give differing explanations for recent trends, each designed to justify their own military tactics,” said Richard Bennett, the human rights chief of the U.N.’s Afghanistan Mission. He said both sides could improve the situation “not just by abiding by international humanitarian law but also by reducing the intensity of the fighting.”

The United States is negotiating with Taliban on a peace deal to end the 18-year-long war, launched by the U.S. against Afghanistan’s then-ruling Taliban in response to the September 11, 2001, al-Qaida terror attacks on Washington and New York.  The Taliban wants the full withdrawal of all U.S. and foreign forces from Afghanistan, while the U.S. is seeking a number of security guarantees from hardline group, including a pledge that Afghanistan will never again be used as a base to launch terror attacks against the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump wants combat forces reduced in Afghanistan by the next U.S. presidential election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday, in comments that underlined the growing pressure from Washington to cut troop numbers there.

Trump’s South Asia strategy, unveiled in August 2017, called for an open-ended deployment of U.S. forces with the goal of compelling the Taliban to negotiate peace with the Kabul government to end nearly 18 years of war.

However, Pompeo’s comments underscored a shift that has apparently taken place since talks with the Taliban opened last year.

“That’s my directive from the president of the United States,” Pompeo told The Economic Club of Washington D.C. when asked whether he expects the United States to reduce troops in Afghanistan before the next election in November 2020.

“He’s been unambiguous: end the endless wars, draw down, reduce. It won’t just be us,” he said, referring to Trump’s directive. “We hope that overall the need for combat forces in the region is reduced.”

The disclosure of a timeline will add to speculation that Trump is prepared to strike any deal with the Taliban that will allow for at least partial U.S. withdrawal before American voters go to the polls, irrespective of the concerns of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

“Now suddenly adhering to the date suited to Trump’s election date has become more important than the meticulous task of bringing peace to Afghanistan,” said a senior Afghan official who is also a close aide to President Ashraf Ghani.

“The American haste to pull out foreign troops has only provided more leverage to the Taliban. Afghan forces will be soon abandoned to fight the war alone,” said the official, who declined to be identified.

Pompeo’s comments come at a delicate moment, as Afghanistan prepares for a presidential election of its own in September and the United States prepares to engage in another round talks with the insurgents.

Disclosing Trump’s goal of withdrawing forces could weaken the U.S. negotiating position if the Taliban believe Trump wants to get out, no matter what.

On Friday, the State Department said Pompeo and Ghani agreed in a telephone call to “accelerate efforts” to end the war, and that the United States remained committed to a “conditions-based” drawdown of troops.

Pompeo said he was optimistic about the negotiations with the Taliban to end the nearly 18-year-old war.

Washington wants a deal under which foreign forces would pull out in return for security guarantees by the Taliban, in particular a pledge that the country will not become a safe haven for terror groups.

“We want them to take their country back, and we want to reduce what is, for us, tens of billions of dollars a year in expenditures,” Pompeo said.

More than 20,000 U.S. and other NATO coalition troops are in Afghanistan as part of a mission to train, assist and advise Afghan forces, which remain heavily dependent on U.S. air support, and to carry out counterterrorism operations.

Intra-Afghan talks 

While U.S. diplomats say the peace process must be “Afghan owned and led,” senior Afghan officials and Western diplomats said the timetable being imposed by the White House to get U.S. troops out risked overshadowing the wider aim of peace among Afghans.

“Ensuring that the Afghan government and the Taliban hold direct talks has clearly slipped below the radar, the main aim is to cut a deal with the Taliban before Afghan elections in September,” said one European diplomat in Kabul.

While the Taliban have held meetings with Afghan politicians and civil society representatives, they have refused to deal with the Afghan government, which they deride as a U.S. “puppet.”

Some U.S. allies fear that once a timetable for a U.S. pullout is announced, the Afghan government will have little leverage over the militants in their talks about how to run the country.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the veteran Afghan-American diplomat leading negotiations for Washington, expects Ghani to appoint a team of politicians, civil society members and women rights’ activists to meet Taliban leaders, a second European diplomat said.

But those so-called intra-Afghan talks will only come after the United States has struck and announced its troop withdrawal plan with the Taliban.

“The bargaining power to protect democracy and basic freedom will be surrendered once the pullout is announced,” the second diplomat said.

Officials at the NATO’s Resolute Support in Kabul said they were working on a drawdown plan while maintaining support for Afghan forces in their fight against the militants.

“There is a massive churning, some bases could be vacated and some could be merged together but security and counter-terrorism operations are not being compromised,” said a senior NATO officer.

Top diplomats from the Asia-Pacific region started gathering Tuesday in the Thai capital to discuss issues of concern to the area, including security on the Korean peninsula and China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The meetings in Bangkok are hosted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, chaired this year by Thailand. Thai officials say there will be 27 meetings in all through Saturday, and 31 countries and alliances will participate.

The core ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting brings together the group’s top diplomats, but they are likely to be overshadowed by the big power players attending the adjunct meetings, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.

The heavy-hitters in Bangkok this week include U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Other ASEAN dialogue partners include Australia, India, the European Union, Japan and South Korea.

Most attention will be on these side meetings, in which ASEAN will play a supporting role, if any.

A representative of North Korea will be present in Bangkok, a Thai foreign ministry spokesman said last week, though it is not clear if Pyongyang is sending its foreign minister. Washington has downplayed Pyongyang’s recent launch of medium-range missiles and expressed interest in reviving talks on North Korean denuclearization, so sideline talks are a possibility.

Reports say that the United States is also willing to hold a sidelines meeting with Japan and South Korea to discuss the bitter trade dispute between the two East Asian nations that threatens to disrupt Seoul’s electronics industry by hindering its purchase of semiconductor components.

The dispute also draws on long-standing bitterness over Japan’s actions toward Korea during World War II and threatens to poison relations at a time when Washington would prefer to see a united front in dealing with North Korea.

ASEAN’s own most pressing concern arguably involves Beijing’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, which pits it against the claims of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

The dispute is long-running, but flared up again earlier this month when Vietnam accused China of violating its sovereignty by interfering with offshore oil and gas activities in disputed waters.

Vietnam can count on having some allies at this week’s meetings but may have to operate outside the conventional ASEAN framework by forming a de facto maritime bloc with Indonesia, which has aggressively dealt with Chinese poachers in its waters, and the Philippines, still smarting over a June incident in which a Chinese fishing vessel hit a Philippine fishing boat and fled the scene as 22 Filipinos escaped their sinking vessel.

It’s unlikely ASEAN will agree on any major statement against China since it operates by consensus, which in practice means a single member can exercise veto over the group’s decisions and declarations. Beijing can count on the support of allies such as Cambodia and Laos, and reluctance by others to defy Asia’s superpower.

Beijing also is disinclined to flout legal norms that might restrain its actions, say critics, citing as an example the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling on the South China Sea case brought by the Philippines.

The struggle for influence between the U.S. and China looms larger than ever over this year’s meetings, with their trade disputes fueling the rivalry.

Beijing’s attempts to project its influence even further afield through its Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious global development program of major infrastructure projects, has sharpened the sense of unease among some parties.

The U.S. has countered with its own vision strategy for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, which Beijing regards as directed against it.

ASEAN leaders at their summit meeting in June adopted a five-page “ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific” statement that sought to find a middle ground. But some analysts suggest it is less an assertion that the regional grouping is a player in its own right than a weak effort to keep on the good side of both Washington and Beijing.

“Its significance is in the monumental opportunity squandered,” said Benjamin Zawacki, author of “Thailand: Shifting Ground between the U.S. and a Rising China.” 

“The increasing tension between Washington and Beijing does afford ASEAN more, rather than less, influence and room to maneuver, but it is influence and room that ASEAN would rather not have and will choose not to use,” he said. “ASEAN is most comfortable when it has the least influence and room to maneuver, for such provides a ready justification for its indecisiveness, inertia, and utter obsession with neutrality.”

More than 12,000 children were killed and injured in armed conflicts last year – a record number – with Afghanistan, the Palestinians, Syria and Yemen topping the casualty list, according to a new U.N. report.

The deaths and injuries were among more than 24,000 “grave violations” against children verified by the United Nations including the recruitment and use of youngsters by combatants, sexual violence, abductions, and attacks on schools and hospitals, it said.

According to Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres’ annual report to the Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict obtained Monday by The Associated Press, violations by armed groups remained steady but there was “an alarming increase” in the number of violations by government and international forces compared to 2017.

The secretary-general’s eagerly awaited blacklist of countries that committed grave violations against children during conflicts remained virtually unchanged from last year, angering several human rights groups.

Human Rights Watch and the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, an international advocacy group, pointed to the Saudi-led coalition remaining on the list of parties that have put in place measures to protect children, citing a rise in child casualties by government and coalition forces in Yemen.

“The Saudi-led coalition since 2015 has committed appalling violations against children in Yemen without any evidence that it’s trying to improve its record,” said Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch. “By including them once again in the ‘not so bad’ category of serious reformers, the secretary-general makes a mockery of the whole exercise.”

Watchlist program director Adrianne Lapar said that praising “empty promises” by the coalition, also led by the United Arab Emirates, “undermines the deadly repercussions of war on children and ignores the facts on the ground.”

She also asked why conflicts in Cameroon and Ukraine are “conspicuously missing from the report.”

Guterres said he was “deeply concerned by the scale and severity of the grave violations committed against children in 2018, notably the record high number of casualties as a result of killing and maiming and the increase in the number of violations attributed to international forces.”

According to the report, verified cases of deaths and injuries were the highest since the Security Council authorized monitoring and reporting in 2005. 

Afghanistan topped the list with 3,062 child casualties in 2018, “and children accounted for 28 percent of all civilian casualties,” the report said, while in Syria, air strikes, barrel bombs and cluster munitions killed and injured 1,854 youngsters “and in Yemen, 1,689 children bore the brunt of ground fighting and other offensives.”

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.N. said that in 2018 it verified the highest number of Palestinian children killed – 59 – and injured – 2,756 – since 2014. During the same period, six Israeli children were injured.

Guterres said he is “extremely concerned by the significant rise” in injuries, including by inhaling tear gas. He asked U.N. envoy Nikolay Mladenov to examine cases caused by Israeli forces “and urge Israel to immediately put in place preventive and protective measures to end the excessive use of force.”

Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, expressed concern that Israeli forces, U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan, and the Afghan National Army were left off Guterres’ “list of shame,” and that the Somali National Army got “credit” for protecting children even though its violations increased. 

According to the report, parties to the conflict in Somalia recruited and used 2,300 children, some as young as 8-years-old, with al-Shabab extremists significantly increasing their recruitment to 1,865 youngsters. Nigeria was in second place, with 1,947 children recruited, including some used as suicide bombers

Somalia also had the highest verified figure for sexual violence against children, with 331 cases in 2018, followed by Congo with 277 cases though the secretary-general said cases remain significantly underreported, particularly against boys because of stigma. And Somalia had the highest number of child abductions last year – 1,609.

Guterres said thousands of children were also affected by 1,023 verified attacks on schools and hospitals last year.

In Syria, 2018 saw 225 attacks on schools and medical facilities, the highest number since the conflict began in 2011, he said, and Afghanistan also saw an increase with 254 schools and hospitals targeted.

“Increased numbers of attacks were also verified in the Central African Republic, Colombia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, the Sudan and Yemen,” Guterres said.

The secretary-general also expressed increasing concern at the increasing detention of children, reiterating that “this measure should only be used as a last resort, for the shortest period of time, and that alternatives to detention should be prioritized whenever possible.”

In December 2018, Guterres said, 1,248 children, mainly under the age of 5, of 46 nationalities from areas formerly controlled by Islamic State extremists, were “deprived of their liberty” in camps in northeast Syria. 

In Iraq, 902 children remained in detention on national security charges, including for associating with IS, he said. 

And as of December, Guterres said, Israel was holding 203 Palestinian children over security offenses, including 114 awaiting trial or being tried, and 87 serving a sentence. He said the U.N. received affidavits from 127 Palestinian boys “who during interviews with the United Nations reported ill-treatment and breaches of due process during their arrest, transfer and detention.”  

Mexico unveiled on Monday a stimulus package of over $25 billion to boost the country’s infrastructure, investment and private consumption as Latin America’s second-largest economy teeters on the brink of a recession. 

The announcement by Finance Minister Arturo Herrera came just days before Mexico’s national statistics agency publishes second-quarter growth figures amid a discussion on whether the economy has slipped into recession. 

The package includes credits, accelerated spending on goods and services and money tapped from an infrastructure fund, officials said.

“We have decided on actions that would mobilize 485 billion pesos ($25.5 billion) that would allow us to boost the creation of infrastructure projects, incentivize infrastructure investment and private consumption,” Herrera said at a press conference.

Herrera said Mexico’s government would accelerate spending this year and bring purchases of goods and services that had been scheduled for 2020 forward, actions which he added would have an immediate effect.

“Mexico is not immune (to global headwinds) and because of this we have been thinking about starting a program that aims to help the economy,” Herrera said, adding that there were concerns about a slowdown in Mexico.

A recession would be a blow to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has rejected the notion that the national economy is facing a deep contraction.

The unprecedented resignation of Puerto Rico’s governor after days of massive island-wide protests has thrown the U.S. territory into a full-blown political crisis.

Less than four days before Gov. Ricardo Rossello steps down, no one knows who will take his place. Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez, his constitutional successor, said Sunday that she didn’t want the job. The next in line would be Education Secretary Eligio Hernandez, a largely unknown bureaucrat with little political experience.

Rossello’s party says it wants him to nominate a successor before he steps down, but Rossello has said nothing about his plans, time is running out and some on the island are even talking about the need for more federal control over a territory whose finances are already overseen from Washington.

Rossello resigned following nearly two weeks of daily protests in which hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans took to the streets, mounted horses and jet skis, organized a twerkathon and came up with other creative ways to demand his ouster. On Monday, protesters were to gather once again, but this time to demand that Vazquez not assume the governorship. Under normal circumstances, Rossello’s successor would be the territory’s secretary of state, but veteran politician Luis Rivera Marin resigned from that post on July 13 as part of the scandal that toppled the governor.

Next in line

Vazquez, a 59-year-old prosecutor who worked as a district attorney and was later director of the Office for Women’s Rights, does not have widespread support among Puerto Ricans. Many have criticized her for not being aggressive enough in investigating cases involving members of the party that she and Rossello belong to, and of not prioritizing gender violence as justice secretary. She also has been accused of not pursuing the alleged mismanagement of supplies for victims of Hurricane Maria.

Facing a new wave of protests, Vazquez tweeted Sunday that she had no desire to succeed Rossello.

“I have no interest in the governor’s office,” she wrote. “I hope the governor nominates a secretary of state before Aug. 2.”

If a secretary of state is not nominated before Rossello resigns, Vazquez would automatically become the new governor. She would then have the power to nominate a secretary of state, or she could also reject being governor, in which case the constitution states the treasury secretary would be next in line. However, Treasury Secretary Francisco Pares is 31 years old, and the constitution dictates a governor has to be at least 35. In that case, the governorship would go to Hernandez, who replaced the former education secretary, Julia Keleher, who resigned in April and was arrested on July 10 on federal corruption charges. She has pleaded not guilty.

But Hernandez has not been clear on whether he would accept becoming governor.

“At this time, this public servant is focused solely and exclusively on the work of the Department of Education,” he told Radio Isla 1320 AM on Monday. A spokesman for Hernandez did not return a message seeking comment.

‘Uncertainties are dangerous’

Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans are growing anxious about what the lack of leadership could mean for the island’s political and economic future.

“It’s very important that the government have a certain degree of stability,” said Luis Rodriguez, a 36-year-old accountant, adding that all political parties should be paying attention to what’s happening. “We’re tired of the various political parties that always climb to power and have let us down a bit and have taken the island to the point where it finds itself right now.”

Hector Luis Acevedo, a university professor and former secretary of state, said both the governor’s party and the main opposition party that he supports, the Popular Democratic Party, have weakened in recent years. He added that new leadership needs to be found soon.

“These uncertainties are dangerous in a democracy because they tend to strengthen the extremes,” he said. “This vacuum is greatly harming the island.”

Puerto Ricans until recently had celebrated that Rossello and more than a dozen other officials had resigned in the wake of an obscenity-laced chat in which they mocked women and the victims of Hurricane Maria, among others, in 889 pages leaked on July 13. But now, many are concerned that the government is not moving quickly enough to restore order and leadership to an island mired in a 13-year recession as it struggles to recover from the Category 4 storm and tries to restructure a portion of its more than $70 billion public debt load.

Gabriel Rodriguez Aguilo, a member of Rossello’s New Progressive Party, which supports statehood, said in a telephone interview that legislators are waiting on Rossello to nominate a secretary of state, who would then become governor since Vazquez has said she is not interested in the position.

“I hope that whoever is nominated is someone who respects people, who can give the people of Puerto Rico hope and has the capacity to rule,” he said. “We cannot rush into this. There must be sanity and restraint in this process.”

‘Rethink the constitution’

Another option was recently raised by Jenniffer Gonzalez, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress. Last week, she urged U.S. President Donald Trump to appoint a federal coordinator to oversee hurricane reconstruction and ensure the proper use of federal funds in the U.S. territory, a suggestion rejected by many on an island already under the direction of a federal control board overseeing its finances and debt restructuring process.

As legislators wait for Rossello to nominate a secretary of state, they have started debating whether to amend the constitution to allow for a vice president or lieutenant governor, among other things.

The constitution currently does not allow the government to hold early elections, noted Yanira Reyes Gil, a university professor and constitutional attorney.

“We have to rethink the constitution,” she said, adding that there are holes in the current one, including that people are not allowed to participate in choosing a new governor if the previous one resigns.

Reyes also said people are worried that the House and Senate might rush to approve a new secretary of state without sufficient vetting.

“Given the short amount of time, people have doubts that the person will undergo a strict evaluation,” she said. “We’re in a situation where the people have lost faith in the government agencies, they have lost faith in their leaders.”

Scientists warn the most effective drug used to treat malaria is becoming ineffective in parts of Southeast Asia — and unless rapid action is taken, it could lead to a global health emergency.

Writing in the Lancet journal, researchers from Thailand’s Mahidol University and Britain’s Oxford University say parasites that carry malaria are developing resistance to a key drug combination across multiple regions of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

The report warns that the parasite Plasmodium falciparum — which causes the most lethal form of human malaria — is becoming resistant to the first-choice drug, DHA-piperaquine, in parts of Southeast Asia, with patients seeing a failure rate of 50 percent or more.

The situation is so critical that scientists say the treatment should not be used in Cambodia, Vietnam and northeast Thailand, because it is ineffective and contributes to increased malaria transmission.

New treatments must be considered, says Sterghios Moschos of the University of Northumbria.

“It might be opportune at this point in time to explore whether or not we should bring together different new classes of medications so that when the problem starts becoming more substantial, there is a solution potentially that works at the multi-drug level,” said Moschos.

The report says urgent action is now needed to eliminate falciparum malaria from the region — otherwise the resistant strains of the parasite could further spread to other parts of Asia and Africa, potentially causing global health emergency.

“All it takes is a ship with infected individuals, or a pool of water where mosquitoes are, getting into Africa and then slowly that parasite establishing a foothold,” he added. “The likely scenario, however, will be that improvement of health care on a day-to-day basis in Africa will create the opportunity for the parasite to evolve resistance.”

Currently, malaria vaccine trials are under way in several African countries. But drug combinations like DHA-piperaquine remain vital in treating malaria — especially in countries with poor health systems.

Since 2014, global progress against malaria has stalled. There were an estimated 219 million cases and 435,000 related deaths in 2017, most of them children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa.

Authorities in California are trying to figure out why a teenager killed three people, including two children, at a popular food festival south of San Francisco before being shot dead by police. 

The shooter, identified as 19-year-old Santino William Legan, appeared to randomly target people with an “assault-type rifle” on the last day of the Gilroy Garlic festival Sunday, according to Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee.

The dead included a six-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl and a man in his 20s. Twelve other festival-goers were wounded in the attack.

Smithee told reporters Monday that police responded in less than a minute of the shooter opening fire. 

“It could have gone so much worse so fast,” he said.

Authorities said they were searching Monday for a possible second suspect, following unconfirmed reports by eyewitnesses that Legan may have had an accomplice.

The food festival, in the agricultural city of Gilroy about 170 kilometers (106 miles) southeast of San Francisco, had security that required people to go through screening with metal detectors and bag checks. Police say the shooter cut through a fence to avoid the security checks.

Police believe Legan legally purchased his weapon in Nevada this month. They say his motive is still not known.

President Donald Trump on Monday expressed deep “sadness and sorrow” over the incident. “While families were spending time together at a local festival, a wicked murderer opened fire and killed three innocent citizens, including a young child. We grieve for their families,” he said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a tweet that he was grateful for the police response to the shooting and called the attack “nothing short of horrific.”

The three-day garlic festival attracts around 100,000 people each year and features food and drink, cooking competitions and live music.

Smithee said the festival relies on thousands of volunteers each year and raises money for various organizations in the community.

“I think that the number of people that are willing to give their time for the betterment of other people is a wonderful thing. It is just incredibly sad and disheartening that an event that does so much good for our community has to suffer from a tragedy like this,” he said.

The Russian-financed Sputnik language service in Turkey canceled a radio program after the show’s three Turkish journalists interviewed a prominent critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The July 19 interview with former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu covered his effort to launch a new party to challenge Erdogan’s AK Party, among other topics.

Twice a week on Sputnik Turkish, journalists Yavuz Oghan, Akif Beki and Ismail Saymaz hosted a call-in program titled “Soylemesi Bizden.” They first pitched the interview for their show but didn’t get approval. Then, Oghan  posted it on his YouTube channel, and Sputnik Turkish canceled their contracts.

“Good work never goes unpunished in Turkey,” Oghan later said on Twitter.

Mahir Boztepe, chief editor of Sputnik Turkish, dismissed concerns about censorship.

“We informed Yavuz Oghan that the interview could not be conducted under our broadcast guidelines, but they went ahead with the interview,” he said. “We, under our editorial policy, do not attach importance to a political figure like Davutoglu, and we don’t want to provide a platform for his views. We don’t believe that he is newsworthy,” Boztepe said.

Purported bias

Erdogan’s grip on the media has tightened in the wake of a failed 2016 coup attempt and subsequent constitutional reforms that consolidated his power. Opposition newspapers have been closed and hundreds of journalists have been jailed.

Sputnik’s Turkish language radio service, part of the Russian government-funded Russian Media Agency, has operated in Turkey for the past six years.

The show’s cancellation follows a report this month by a pro-government Turkish think tank that chastised international media organizations, including Sputnik, for alleged antigovernment bias.

The report by the Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research, or SETA, compiled social media posts and the employment history of journalists working in Turkey. It cited Oghan for allegedly “posting messages on social media that are critical of the government.”

Beki and Saymaz both wrote on Twitter that Sputnik took their program down “as required by the SETA report.”

Family ties

Davutoglu was Turkey’s prime minister from 2014 to 2016, but resigned as Erdogan pushed ahead with plans to strengthen presidential powers. In the interview, he had harsh words for the constitutional reforms that voters approved in 2017, allowing Erdogan to potentially extend his time in office.

In an apparent reference to Erdogan’s son-in-law, who serves as finance minister, Davutoglu said, “Family ties should be kept out of politics.”

Davutoglu also criticized Sputnik’s decision to cancel the radio show.

“There can never be an explanation for this decision,” he wrote on Twitter. “They were only doing journalism.”

Wildlife officers are racing against time to rescue animals caught in floodwaters from torrential monsoon rains in India’s famed Kaziranga National Park as the death toll rose to 215.

Most of the World Heritage-listed Kaziranga National Park — home to two-thirds of the world’s remaining one-horned rhinos — in the northeastern Indian state of Assam was submerged by heavy rains.

While some animals were able to survive by fleeing to higher ground so far 215 wild creatures, including 19 rhinos and 129 hog deer have died, officials said.

The floodwaters have started to ease in some areas but forestry officials and rescuers from the Wildlife Trust of India continue to find distressed animals trapped in the floodwaters.

On Wednesday, a rhino calf was pulled onto a rescue speedboat and taken to a rehabilitation centre where it was checked by a vet.

“Today we rescued a rhino calf which is about two months old… She is very weak,” the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation’s senior veterinarian Panjit Basumatary told AFP.

“The flood this year has been massive and we found several distressed wild animals, especially in the fringe areas (of the park).”

Basumatary said he was hopeful that most of the animals could be released back into the wild after they receive treatment at the centre.

Ethiopians planted more than 200 million trees on Monday, which officials stated will be a world record. The ambitious initiative of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed aims to help restore the country’s landscape which experts say is fast being eroded by deforestation and climate change.
 
The state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate announced more than 224 million trees were planted on Monday, surpassing the initial goal of 200 million trees planted in one day.
 
“Today Ethiopia is set in our attempt to break the world record together for a green legacy,” the prime minister’s office tweeted on Monday morning. Early Monday, Abiy planted trees in Ethiopia’s southern region.

Ethiopia is in the midst of a tree planting campaign in which it aims to plant 4 billion trees between May and October. Agriculture officials stated that so far more than 2.6 billion trees have been planted in almost all parts of the East African nation.
 
According to Farm Africa, an organization involved in forest management in Ethiopia, less than 4% of the country’s land is now forested, a sharp decline from around 30% at the end of the 19th century. Ethiopia’s rapidly growing population and the need for more farmlands, unsustainable forest use and climate change are often cited as the causes for rapid deforestation.
 
In addition to ordinary Ethiopians, various international organizations and the business community have joined the tree planting spree which aims to overtake India’s 66 million trees planting record set in 2017.
 
It is not yet clear if the Guinness World Records is monitoring Ethiopia’s the mass planting scheme but the prime minister’s office told The Associated Press that specially developed software is helping with the count.
       

 

 

In new video released Monday, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer is heard telling a British warship not to interfere or put their “life in danger” as the paramilitary force, using speedboats and a helicopter, seized a U.K.-flagged commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month.

The video includes a shot apparently filmed on the day of the July 19 incident from above the British warship Foxtrot 236 that was in the vicinity of the U.K.-flagged Stena Impero, showing the British navy unable to prevent Iran’s seizure of the ship in the critical waterway.
 
It also offers additional audio to that released by maritime security risk firm Dryad Global, which last week made public a portion of the exchange between the Foxtrot and the Iranian Guard during the incident.
 
The seizure of the Stena Impero further heightened tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between Iran and Oman. The narrow waterway is of critical importance to the world’s energy supplies because one-fifth of all global crude exports passes through the strait.
 
Tensions there have soared following President Donald Trump’s decision last year to withdraw from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers and impose sanctions on Iran that have targeted its oil exports, among other key industries.
 
In the nearly two-minute video released by the Iranian Guard, an officer is heard telling the Foxtrot: “You are ordered to not interfere in my operation.” The Iranian officer repeats: “You are required not to interfere in this issue.”

“This is British warship Foxtrot 236. I am in vicinity of the internationally recognized strait with a merchant vessel in my vicinity conducting transit passage,” a British officer responds.

The Iranian officer is then heard saying: “Don’t put your life in danger.” He is also heard telling the British warship that the British tanker is under Iranian control.

The audio appeared to have been edited, leaving out other parts of the exchange that Dryad Global had released where a British officer is heard telling the Iranian Guard its forces must not impair, impede or obstruct the passage of the Stena Impero.
 
The Guard had previously released video of the incident showing Iranian commandos in black ski masks and fatigues rappelling from a helicopter onto the Stena Impero.

This latest video and audio comes just days after the U.K. dispatched an additional warship to the region to accompany British-flagged ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said the HMS Duncan will join the frigate HMS Montrose in the Persian Gulf to defend freedom of navigation until a diplomatic resolution is found to secure the key waterway.

Britain has figured prominently in rising U.S. tensions with Iran ever since British Royal Marines took part in the seizure of an Iranian oil tanker off Gibraltar, a British overseas territory. Officials there initially said the July 4 seizure happened on orders from the U.S. The U.K. says the tanker was suspected of violating sanctions on oil shipments to Syria.

Iranian officials, meanwhile, have alleged the Stena Impero was seized after it violated international maritime law by turning off its signaling for longer than is allowed and passing through the wrong channels. Iranian officials have also suggested the ship was seized in response to Britain’s role in impounding the Iranian supertanker two weeks earlier.
 
Both sides have called the interception of one another’s ships “hostile acts” and “piracy.”

Democratic Party presidential candidates will try to distance themselves from their rivals as they jockey for position in Democratic debates in Detroit this week.  Mike O’Sullivan reports that progressive standard-bearers Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will share the stage on Tuesday, and frontrunner Joe Biden will fend off attacks Wednesday as 10 of 20 candidates square off on each of the two nights.

Syrian war observers say five people were killed in a government raid in Idlib province on Sunday, adding to the toll of more than a 100 killed in the past days. The government of President Bashar al-Assad has resumed its deadly campaign to retake control of the remaining rebel-held areas in Syria, not sparing schools or hospitals. The United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet opined what she called the “international indifference” to the plight of Syrian civilians. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

In the world of combat sports, only one emerges with a consensus thumbs-up vote.  This weekend in Britain, judges crowned the strongest digits in this year’s men’s, women’s and children’s World Thumb Wrestling Championships.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi points the way to victory.

U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators shift to Shanghai this week for their first in-person talks since a G20 truce last month, a change of scenery for two sides struggling to resolve deep differences on how to end a year-long trade war.

Expectations for progress during the two-day Shanghai meeting are low, so officials and businesses are hoping Washington and Beijing can at least detail commitments for “goodwill” gestures and clear the path for future negotiations.

These include Chinese purchases of U.S. farm commodities and the United States allowing firms to resume some sales to China’s tech giant Huawei Technologies.

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he thinks China may not want to sign a trade deal until after the 2020 election in the hope that they could then negotiate more favorable terms with a different U.S. president.

“I think probably China will say “Let’s wait,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Let’s wait and see if one of these people who gives the United States away, let’s see if one of them could get elected.”

For more than a year, the world’s two largest economies have slapped billions of dollars of tariffs on each other’s imports, disrupting global supply chains and shaking financial markets in their dispute over China’s “state capitalism” mode of doing business with the world. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at last month’s G20 summit in Osaka, Japan to restart trade talks that stalled in May, after Washington accused Beijing of reneging on major portions of a draft agreement — a collapse in the talks that prompted a steep U.S. tariff hike on $200 billion of Chinese goods.

Trump said after the Osaka meeting that he would not impose new tariffs on a final $300 billion of Chinese imports and would ease some U.S. restrictions on Huawei if China agreed to make purchases of U.S. agricultural products.

Chips and commodities

Since then, China has signaled that it would allow Chinese firms to make some tariff-free purchases of U.S. farm goods. Washington has encouraged companies to apply for waivers to a national security ban on sales to Huawei, and said it would respond to them in the next few weeks. 

But going into next week’s talks, neither side has implemented the measures that were intended to show their goodwill. That bodes ill for their chances of resolving core issues in the trade dispute, such as U.S. complaints about Chinese state subsidies, forced technology transfers and intellectual property violations.

U.S. officials have stressed that relief on U.S. sales to Huawei would apply only to products with no implications for national security, and industry watchers expect those waivers will only allow the Chinese technology giant to buy the most commoditized U.S. components.

Reuters reported last week that despite the carrot of a potential exemption from import tariffs, Chinese soybean crushers are unlikely to buy in bulk from the United States any time soon as they grapple with poor margins and longer-term doubts about Sino-U.S. trade relations. Soybeans are the largest U.S. agricultural export to China.

“They are doing this little dance with Huawei and Ag purchases,” said one source recently briefed by senior Chinese negotiators.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Friday said he “wouldn’t expect any grand deal,” at the meeting and negotiators would try to “reset the stage” to bring the talks back to where they were before the May blow-up. “We anticipate, we strongly expect the Chinese to follow through (on) goodwill and just helping the trade balance with large-scale purchases of U.S. agriculture products and services.” Kudlow said on CNBC television.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He for two days of talks in Shanghai starting on Tuesday, both sides said.

“Less politics, more business,” Tu Xinquan, a trade expert at Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics, who closely follows the trade talks, said of the possible reason Shanghai was chosen as the site for talks. “Each side can take a small step first to build some trust, followed by more actions,” Tu said of the potential goodwill gestures.

‘Do the Deal’

A delegation of U.S. company executives traveled to Beijing last week to stress to Chinese officials the urgency of a trade deal, according to three sources who asked to not be named. They cautioned Chinese negotiators in meetings that if a deal is not reached in the coming months the political calendar in China and the impending U.S. presidential election will make reaching an agreement extremely difficult.

“Do the deal. It’s going to be a slog, but if this goes past Dec. 31, it’s not going to happen,” one American executive told Reuters, citing the U.S. 2020 election campaign. Others said the timeline was even shorter.

Two sources briefed by senior-level Chinese negotiators ahead of next week’s talks said China was still demanding that all U.S. tariffs be removed as one of the conditions for a deal. Beijing is opposed to a phased withdrawal of duties, while U.S. trade officials see tariff removal — and the threat of reinstating them — as leverage for enforcing any agreement. China also is adamant that any purchase agreement for U.S. goods be at a reasonable level, and that the deal is balanced and respects Chinese legal sovereignty.

U.S. negotiators have demanded that China make changes to its laws as assurances for safeguarding U.S. companies’ know-how, an insistence that Beijing has vehemently rejected. If U.S. negotiators want progress in this area, they might be satisfied with directives issued by China’s State Council instead, one of the sources said.

One U.S.-based industry source said expectations for any kind of breakthrough during the Shanghai talks were low, and that the main objective was for each side to get clarity on the “goodwill” measures associated with the Osaka summit.

There is little clarity on which negotiating text the two sides will rely on, with Washington wanting to adhere to the pre-May draft, and China wanting to start anew with the copy it sent back to U.S. officials with numerous edits and redactions, precipitating the collapse in talks in May.

Zhang Huanbo, senior researcher at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), said he could not verify U.S. officials’ complaints that 90 percent of the deal had been agreed before the May breakdown. “We can only say there may be an initial draft. There is only zero and 100% – deal or no deal,” Zhang said.

At least five people were shot Sunday at an annual food festival in Northern California, a hospital spokeswoman says. 

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center spokeswoman Joy Alexiou says the hospital has received two victims from the shooting and expects three more. She had no information on their conditions.

Video first posted on social media sites showed people running for safety at the festival.

The festival is a nationally known three-day event that attracts thousands of garlic lovers. Sunday was the final day of the festival.

In a series of tweets over the weekend, U.S. President Trump lashed out against one of his most vocal Democratic critics, attacking Congressman Elijah Cummings and calling the Maryland lawmaker’s district “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” The comments sparked backlash from critics calling the language racist and unacceptable. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more.

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra suggested Sunday cutting short his term in office for early elections to end what he called an institutional crisis.

He said in a speech to Congress this would also involve cutting short the term of the legislature. As it stands, general elections are scheduled for July of next year.

Vizcarra’s proposal comes with Peru’s executive and legislative branches locked in a power struggle.

The president said his idea would need to be passed by the opposition-controlled legislature, and then approved in a referendum.

“The voice of the people must be heard,” Vizcarra told lawmakers, as some cheered him and others yelled insults.

“Peru is screaming for a new beginning,” Vizcarra said.