Lufthansa has resumed flying to Cairo following a one-day suspension due to safety concerns.

The German airline’s website shows LH582 took off from Frankfurt after an almost two-hour delay and was expected to arrive in Egypt’s capital later Sunday.

On Saturday, British Airways announced the suspension of its flights to and from Cairo for seven days for unspecified reasons related to security.

British Airways attributed its cancellations to what it called its constant review of security arrangements at all airports, calling them “a precaution to allow for further assessment.”

Lufthansa said it was suspending its flights as a precaution, mentioning “safety” but not “security” as its concern.

Company spokespeople would not elaborate on what motivated the suspensions.

 

A Sudanese civilian detained and allegedly tortured by security agents in a central town has died in custody, a doctors committee linked to the country’s protest movement said Sunday.

The man died on Saturday in the town of Dilling in the state of South Kordofan after he was detained by agents of the feared National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), the doctors committee said in a statement.

The detainee “passed away on July 20, 2019 from torture while in detention at the NISS office in Dilling,” the statement said without elaborating on the circumstances of his arrest.

“NISS continues to torture and claim innocent civilian lives illegally without facing any consequences.”

Officers of NISS were not immediately available for comment.

Rights groups and activists had regularly accused NISS agents of cracking down on dissidents and restricting freedoms during the regime of veteran leader Omar al-Bashir who was ousted in April.

It was NISS that led a sweeping crackdown on protests against Bashir’s rule that first erupted in December.

Dozens were killed and hundreds of protesters, activists and opposition leaders were arrested during the months-long campaign that led to Bashir’s overthrow and subsequent demonstrations calling for civilian rule.

Last week a power-sharing deal was inked between the protest leaders and the ruling generals who seized power after ousting Bashir.

More talks between the two sides to thrash out some pending issues have been suspended following differences within the protest movement itself over the power-sharing deal.

 

There are more than 150 patients at the “Alcor Life Extension Foundation.” Each had their body frozen cryonically shortly after death in the hopes that one day, medical science will find a cure for what killed them, and they can be revived and healed. It’s a scientifically dubious idea, but some people are willing to pay a lot of money in the hopes that one day they can come back for a long and healthy life. Iacopo Luzi has the story. 

More than 400 teenagers from all over the US spent one week of their summer vacation renovating homes by day, and sleeping on the floor of local churches by night. As Faiza Elmasry tells us, the faith-based program is giving these young people a unique opportunity to learn and grow, while helping people in need. Faith Lapidus narrates.

A family of Cuban luthiers has produced more than 500 musical instruments for Cuban schools over the past five years in an unprecedented agreement with the country’s ministry of culture, helping to fill a void in the state’s own ability to produce musical instruments.

Britain on Saturday denounced Iran’s seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf as a “hostile act” and rejected Tehran’s explanation that it seized the vessel because it had been involved in an accident. 

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards posted a video online showing speedboats pulling alongside the Stena Impero tanker, its name clearly visible. Troops wearing ski masks and carrying machine guns rappelled to its deck from a helicopter, the same tactics used by British Royal Marines to seize an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar two weeks ago. 

Friday’s action in the global oil trade’s most important waterway has been viewed in the West as a major escalation after three months of confrontation that has already taken Iran and the United States to the brink of war. 

It follows threats from Tehran to retaliate for Britain’s July 4 seizure of the Iranian tanker Grace 1, accused of violating sanctions on Syria. 

British Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt called the incident a “hostile act”. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he had expressed “extreme disappointment” by phone to his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Britain also summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires in London. 

A spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier-General Ramezan Sharif, said Tehran had seized the ship in the Strait of Hormuz despite the “resistance and interference” of a British warship which had been escorting it. No British warship was visible in the video posted by the Guards. 

Iran’s Fars news agency said the Guards had taken control of the Stena Impero on Friday after it collided with an Iranian fishing boat whose distress call it ignored. 

The vessel, carrying no cargo, was taken to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. It will remain there with its 23 crew – 18 of them Indians – while the accident is investigated, Iranian news agencies quoted the head of Ports and Maritime Organization in southern Hormozgan province, Allahmorad Afifipour, as saying. 

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, Britain said the tanker was approached by Iranian forces when it was in Omani territorial waters exercising its lawful right of passage, and the action “constitutes illegal interference.” 

“Current tensions are extremely concerning, and our priority is to de-escalate. We do not seek confrontation with Iran,” the letter said. “But it is unacceptable and highly escalatory to threaten shipping going about its legitimate business through internationally recognized transit corridors.” 

Oil prices up

Zarif told Hunt that the ship must go through a legal process before it can be released, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported. 

The strait, between Iran and the Arabian peninsula, is the sole outlet for exports of most Middle Eastern oil, and the seizure sent oil prices sharply higher. The United States, which tightened sanctions against Iran in May with the aim of halting its oil exports altogether, has been warning for months of an Iranian threat to shipping in the strait. 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he also discussed the situation with Hunt, his British counterpart. 

“We talked about what they’ve seen, what they know, and how they’re beginning to think about how they will respond,” Pompeo said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that was published on Saturday by the State Department. “Iran is in a place today that they have taken themselves.” 

Another oil tanker, the Mesdar, was also boarded by Iranian personnel on Friday and temporarily forced to divert toward Iran, but later was allowed to continue on its route through the strait. On Saturday Algeria’s APS news agency said the Mesdar was owned by Algeria’s state oil company Sonatrach. 

France, Germany and the European Union joined Britain in condemning the seizure. 

The three big European countries are signatories to a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that Washington undermined by quitting last year, setting Iran’s already fragile relations with the West on a downward spiral. 

Under the pact, Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work in return for lifting sanctions. The European countries opposed the Trump administration’s decision to abandon the agreement last year, but have so far failed to fulfill promises to Iran of providing alternative means for it to access world trade. 

Extreme disappointment 

“Just spoke to … Zarif and expressed extreme disappointment that having assured me last Saturday Iran wanted to de-escalate situation, they have behaved in the opposite way,” Hunt wrote on Twitter. “This has to be about actions not words if we are to find a way through.” 

Earlier he said London’s reaction would be “considered but robust” and it would ensure the safety of its shipping. 

On Friday, Hunt said the solution would be found via diplomacy and London was “not looking at military options.” Britain’s government said it had advised British shipping to stay out of the Hormuz area for an interim period. 

During the past three months of escalation, the United States and Iran come as close as ever to direct armed conflict. In June, Tehran shot down a U.S. drone and President Donald Trump ordered retaliatory air strikes, only to call them off just minutes before were to have been carried out. 

The vessel had been heading to a port in Saudi Arabia and suddenly changed course after passing through the strait. 

The United States has blamed Iran for a series of attacks on shipping around the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has rejected the allegations. Washington also said it had this week downed an Iranian drone near where the Stena Impero was seized. 

The United States is sending military personnel and resources to Saudi Arabia for the first time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. 

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Saturday that President Donald Trump relished a chant by the crowd at a campaign rally this week that called for a Democratic congresswoman to be sent back where she came from. 

Trump renewed his criticism of four minority women lawmakers on Friday, saying that they had said horrible things about the United States, and defended himself from criticism over his comment that they should leave the United States if unhappy. 

A day after saying his audience in North Carolina went too far when they chanted “Send her back!” about Somalia-born Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, on Friday he defended the crowd members as “incredible patriots.” 

Appearing before her constituents in New York City for the first time since the latest flare-up between Trump and the four Democratic congresswomen, Ocasio-Cortez rejected the president’s statement that he had tried to quiet the crowd, saying he had egged them on instead. 

“Roll back the tape … He relished it. He took it in and he’s doing this intentionally,” the freshman U.S. lawmaker told about 200 constituents gathered for a town hall meeting on immigration at a school in the Corona section of Queens. 

Video of the crowd in North Carolina shouting “Send her back!” shows Trump pausing his speech and looking around the arena for about ten seconds. 

The president’s attacks on the four congresswomen – known on Capitol Hill as “the squad” – have been condemned by Democrats as racist, while many Republicans have shrugged them off. 

Last weekend Trump ignited a firestorm by tweeting the four should “go back” to where they came from if they do not like the United States. 

All four are American citizens. Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were born in the United States while Omar came as a refugee from Somalia and is a naturalized citizen. 

All four are known as sharp critics of Trump’s policies as well as the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Ocasio-Cortez said the president’s comments had been hurtful, but “men like him” have been telling women like her to go back to their own country for a long time. 

“We’re gonna stay right here,” she said to applause “That’s where we’re gonna go,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere.” 

White House national security adviser John Bolton departed on Saturday for a trip to Japan and South Korea as the two countries are in the middle of a trade dispute. 

A White House National Security Council spokesman said on Twitter that Bolton planned to “continue conversations with critical allies and friends.” 

President Donald Trump on Friday offered his help to ease tensions in the political and economic dispute between the United States’ two biggest allies in Asia, which threatens global supplies of memory chips and smartphones. 

Lingering tensions, particularly over the issue of compensation for South Koreans forced to work for Japanese occupiers during World War Two, worsened this month when Japan restricted exports of high-tech materials to South Korea. 

Japan has denied that the dispute over compensation is behind the export curbs, even though one of its ministers cited broken trust with Seoul over the labor dispute in announcing the restrictions. 

The export curbs could hurt global technology companies. 

Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday that South Korean President Moon Jae-in had asked him if he could get involved. 

A spokeswoman for Moon confirmed Moon had asked Trump for help at their summit in Seoul on June 30. 

During his trip, Bolton is also likely to seek support for a U.S. initiative to heighten surveillance of vital Middle East shipping lanes, which has been greeted warily by allies reluctant to raise tensions with Iran, which Washington blames for attacks on tankers. 

Japanese media has said the issue could be on the agenda when Bolton visits Japan, where any military commitment abroad would risk inflaming a divide in public opinion in a country whose armed forces have not fought overseas since World War Two. 

A South Korean official said last week Washington had yet to make any official request to Seoul on the issue. 

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph Dunford, said this month Washington hoped to enlist allies in a military coalition to safeguard strategic waters off Iran and Yemen, where Washington blames Iran and Iran-aligned fighters for attacks. 

But with allies reluctant to commit new weaponry or fighting forces, a senior Pentagon official told Reuters on Thursday the aim was not to set up a military coalition but to shine a “flashlight” in the region to deter attacks on commercial shipping. 

Kathryn Wheelbarger, who briefed NATO allies in the past week on the U.S. proposal, said it was less operational and more geared toward increasing surveillance capabilities. 

Japan is the world’s fourth-biggest oil buyer and 86% of its oil supplies last year passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond. 

Japan’s position is complicated by the fact that it has maintained friendly ties with Iran which it would be reluctant to damage. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an unsuccessful bid to ease tensions in the region when he met Iranian leaders in Tehran last month. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday that Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven had assured him American citizen and rapper A$AP Rocky would be treated fairly. 
 
Trump said he assured Lofven that Rocky was not a flight risk and personally vouched for his bail. 
 
Swedish prosecutors on Friday extended Rocky’s detention by six days amid their investigation into a street fight in Stockholm. 

IRBIL / SULAIMANIYA, IRAQ – Security services in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region said Saturday that they had arrested the brother of a lawmaker serving in the Turkish parliament for the assassination of a Turkish diplomat in the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital, Irbil. 
 
The diplomat was one of at least two people shot dead on Wednesday when a gunman opened fire in a restaurant where Turkish diplomats were dining. 
 
“The Kurdistan region announced on Saturday the arrest of the man who planned the assassination of a Turkish diplomat in a restaurant in Irbil, less than a week after the attack,” the Asayish internal security service said in a statement. 
 
It did not name the suspect but said “reports indicated” that his sister served as a Kurdish lawmaker in the Turkish parliament. A separate statement from another Iraqi Kurdish security force, the Counter Terrorism Department, gave the suspect’s name as Mazlum Dag. 
 
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) later confirmed that the man who arrested was the brother of one of its lawmakers, Dersim Dag. 
 
It said it strongly condemned the attack on the diplomat and that “using the attack as a reason to make one of our lawmakers a target through the name of her brother is a provocation and unacceptable.”  
 
An accomplice of Mazlum Dag’s has also been arrested, the security services said in a later statement.  

Political violence is comparatively rare in Irbil, which has been spared the civil war and ethnic strife that hit the rest of Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. 
 
The shooter fled in a car driven by an accomplice, two Kurdish security officials and a witness said. The attack took place weeks after Turkey launched a new military offensive against Kurdish separatist militants based in northern Iraq. 
 
Ankara’s main enemy in Iraq is the PKK group, which has based fighters in the mountainous border region, north of Irbil, during a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Turkey. 
 
Turkey and the ruling Kurdish party in Irbil, the KDP, have blamed the PKK for other Turkey-related incidents in northern Iraq, including the storming of a Turkish military camp earlier this year. 

On the 50th anniversary of humanity’s first moon landing, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence paid tribute to the three American astronauts who helped make the historic event a reality.  
 
“They did more than win the space race, they brought together our nation, and for one brief moment, all the people of the world were truly one,” Pence said at an anniversary event Saturday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 
 
“Now, true to their creed, astronauts have never liked the idea of being called heroes. Yet for all they did, for all the risks they took, if Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins are not heroes, then there are no heroes,” said Pence, chairman of the National Space Council, to enthusiastic applause. 
 
On July 20, 1969, America’s lunar module named Eagle touched down at 2018 GMT, with Armstrong, the late astronaut, placing his left foot on the lunar surface six hours later. 
 
The landing was an enormous diplomatic and technological Cold War-era achievement for the U.S., which was bested by the Soviet Union in putting the first human and satellite in space. 
 
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement Saturday that the moon landing was a steppingstone to future space missions: “I have instructed the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) to send the next man and first woman to the Moon and to take the next giant leap — sending Americans to Mars.” 
 
The administration has launched plans to return to the moon by 2024 and land on Mars for the first time by 2033. 
 
But debate about whether to return to the moon or go directly to Mars resurfaced Friday during a White House Oval Office gathering that included Apollo 11 astronauts Aldrin and Collins. 
 
Collins, 88, who stayed in the command module while Aldrin and Armstrong descended to the moon, told Trump he supported going directly to Mars. 

Celebrations are in full swing across the country for the 50th anniversary of humanity’s first footsteps on another world.
 
Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. Armstrong was the first one out, proclaiming: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

 
At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, cars were backed up for miles Saturday morning outside the visitor complex. In Armstrong’s hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, runners competed in “Run to the Moon” races.

The White House reiterated its goal to send astronauts back to the moon and “take the next giant leap – sending Americans to Mars.” Vice President Mike Pence headed to Kennedy to tour the Apollo 11 launch pad and give a speech.

Switzerland has officially said it is helping the government of Cameroon negotiate with rebels to end the separatist crisis that has killed more than 2,000 people in Cameroon. The Swiss ambassador to Cameroon, Pietro Lazzeri, spoke in Yaounde about attempting reconciliation after more than 20 people were killed within two days of fighting in the crisis-stricken regions.

Pietro Lazzeri, Switzerland’s ambassador to Cameroon, says his country is mediating the political crisis that has plagued Cameroon’s English-speaking northwest and southwest regions since 2016. He says the negotiations are being guided by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

“Over the last months, we have been trying to create dialogue among the parties because we have the acceptance of the parties and we are doing it because we have a certain expertise. We are referees, we are not the players,” said Lazzeri. “We need the willingness of the parties in order to build the dialogue.”

Separatists say on social media two meetings already have taken place in Geneva but no details were given.

Lazzeri also declined giving details on how far they had gone with negotiations but said his country, in collaboration with the Geneva-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, intend to find a peaceful and lasting solution to the crisis that has been claiming so many lives in the restive English speaking regions of Cameroon.

He said besides the dialogue, they have been providing humanitarian assistance to the hundreds of thousands affected by the separatist war.

The crisis escalated on October 1, 2017, when militant secessionist groups symbolically proclaimed independence from the English-speaking state of Ambazonia.

Cameroon President Paul Biya declared war against the separatists in November 2017, calling them terrorists. Biya said he would never negotiate with terrorists who are out to separate his country and that it was his duty to ensure public order, social peace, the unity of the nation and Cameroon’s integrity.

In May, Cameroon Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute visited the restive English speaking towns of Bamenda, Buea and Kumba and said Biya had sent him to tell English speakers that the government is open to dialogue, but that separatists cannot be tolerated because Cameroon is one nation and indivisible.

Separatists on social media have maintained they will make the English-speaking regions ungovernable by the central government in Yaounde until they have their independence. They say they will only negotiate with the government in Yaounde if it withdraws all of its troops, which they call occupational forces, from the English-speaking regions, insisting the negotiations must be on their terms.

William Arrey, lecturer of peace and conflict studies at the Protestant University of Central Africa, says for successful negotiations to occur and for peace to return, each of the conflicted parties should shift from their original positions.

“The conflicted parties are still so stiff at the level of their various positions,” said Arrey. “There is no way we will be able to resolve this conflict if we are not able to shift from our original positions, which we call in conflict management — compromise.”

As the Swiss ambassador announced his country was spearheading negotiations, Cameroon’s military said at lease 20 separatist fighters had been killed in battles in the English-speaking villages of Wainamah and Mbot and the towns of Jakiri, Kumba and Njinikom.

Lieutenant General Rene Claude Meka, Cameroon’s defense chief, who visited the English-speaking towns of Buea and Bamenda on Thursday, says they will continue to fight until the fighters are defeated.

He says although the military has been scoring huge victories, the war continues to rage. Meka says he is calling on the population to assist the military by denouncing separatist fighters and providing information about where where they are hiding so they can be defeated and for peace to return.

The United Nations estimates at least 2,000 people have been killed and more than 530,000 displaced since fighting broke out. It says about 1.3 million people are in need of assistance.

VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.

WHITE HOUSE – Global tensions continue to mount over Iran’s seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, with Britain issuing a stern warning to Tehran and the Islamic Republic maintaining the seizure was a “reciprocal” move.   

Britain’s Foreign Office said Saturday it summoned Iran’s Charge d’Affaires in London, one day after British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Tehran “may be choosing a dangerous path of illegal and destabilizing behavior” and warned Britain’s “reaction will be considered but robust.”

Iran’s powerful Guardian Council said Saturday the seizure was in response to Britain’s participation in the capture two weeks ago of an Iranian oil tanker transporting more than 2 million gallons of Iranian crude oil near the British territory of Gibraltar on Spain’s southern coast.

Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei told Iran’s Fars News Agency “the rule of reciprocal action is well-known in international law” and that Iran’s seizure was justifiable given “the illegitimate economic war and seizure of oil tankers.”

U.S. President Donald Trump declared after Iran’s Friday seizure that Iran is “nothing but trouble” and said the U.S. will “be working with the U.K.” In response to a question from VOA on the White House South Lawn, Trump said “We have no written agreement [with the British], but I think we have an agreement that is long-standing.”

Germany called for the release of the Swedish-owned, British-flagged Stena Impero, with its foreign ministry declaring Iran’s seizure was a “dangerous further aggravation of an already tense situation.”

France also called on Iran to release the vessel, saying the seizure “hampers a necessary de-escalation of tensions in the Gulf region.”
 
Iran’s maritime authorities had requested the capture of the Stena Impero for “not following international maritime regulations,” according to the guard corps, which is a branch of the Iranian armed forces.

Personnel on board

The owners of the Stena Impero, which was heading to Saudi Arabia, say they have been unable to contact their vessel, with 23 personnel on board, which was “heading north towards Iran” after being approached by “unidentified small crafts and a helicopter” in the strait.

Drone shot down

Earlier Friday, Trump expressed confidence an Iranian drone was downed Thursday in the strait as it approached a U.S. warship.

“No doubt about it. No. We shot it down,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“There’s no question that this was an Iranian drone,” Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, chimed in. “The USS Boxer took it out as the president announced yesterday because it posed a threat to the ship and its crew. It was entirely the right thing to do.”

Asked  before news of the seizure of the oil tankers became public — if he was worried about a broader clash with Iran in the Strait, Trump replied he was not.

“We hope for their sake they don’t do anything foolish. If they do, they will pay a price like nobody’s ever paid a price.”

VOA later asked Trump if seizing the tankers was foolish, but he declined to answer specifically.

Speaking Friday at a security forum in Aspen, Colorado, U.S. Defense Intelligence Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley said Iran is at what he described as an inflection point due to ongoing economic strife as a result of U.S. sanctions.

“What you see is an attempt to break that status quo,” Asley said.

“We saw this coming a couple of weeks out,” he told the audience, adding that while Tehran does not want war, “there’s always the possibility of miscalculation.”

A senior administration official, earlier Friday, told reporters it is anticipated that the Defense Department will release video evidence of the drone shootdown.

Iran is denying the United States military shot down one of its drones.

“We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on Twitter, adding he is “worried” the U.S. amphibious assault ship had shot down an American military drone “by mistake.”

We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else. I am worried that USS Boxer has shot down their own UAS by mistake!

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 19, 2019

“The Iranians don’t have a great history with the truth,” responded a senior U.S. official to the assertion from Tehran. “They have a 40-year history of provoking us.”

 

…

Officials say the death toll has risen to 152 in monsoon flooding in South Asia as millions of people and animals continue to face the brunt in three countries.

At least 90 people have died in Nepal and 50 in India’s Assam state. A dozen people have been killed in neighboring Bangladesh.

Shiv Kumar, a government official in Assam, said Saturday that 10 rare one-horned rhinos have died at the Kaziranga National Park after swirling gray waters of the Brahmaputra River burst its banks and entered the reserve.

The Assam Disaster Response Authority says 4.8 million people spread across 3,700 villages across the northeastern state are affected by the floods. 

Monsoon rains hit the region in June-September. The rains are crucial for rain-fed crops planted during the season.
 

Iran has taken a British-flagged oil tanker it seized in the Strait of Hormuz to Bandar Abbas port, where it and its crew will remain while an investigation into the vessel’s conduct is carried out, Iran’s Fars news agency said Saturday.

The Stena Impero was in an accident with an Iranian fishing boat whose distress call it ignored, the agency quoted the head of Ports and Maritime Organization in southern Hormozgan province, Allahmorad Afifipour, as saying.

It was taken to Bander Abbas, on Iran’s southern coast and facing the strait. 

“All its 23 crew members will remain on the ship until the probe is over,” Afifipour said. The crew is made up of 18 Indian nationals and five others of other nationalities, he said.

The tanker’s operator, Stena Bulk, said Friday the ship had been “in full compliance with all navigation and international regulations,” but was no longer under the crew’s control and could not be contacted.

Britain’s foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said Saturday that he was worried Iran had taken a “dangerous path” after it seized a British-flagged tanker on Friday.

“Yesterday’s action in Gulf shows worrying signs Iran may be choosing a dangerous path of illegal and destabilizing behavior after Gibraltar’s LEGAL detention of oil bound for Syria,” Hunt said Twitter.

“As I said yesterday our reaction will be considered but robust. We have been trying to find a way to resolve Grace1 issue but WILL ensure the safety of our shipping.”

The British navy seized Iran’s Grace 1 tanker in Gibraltar on July 4 on suspicion of smuggling oil to Syria in breach of European Union sanctions.

No one was immediately available for comment at the Foreign Office early Saturday.

The vessel had been heading to a port in Saudi Arabia and suddenly changed course after passing through the strait at the mouth of the Gulf, through which a fifth of the world’s oil supplies pass.

Strained relations

Already strained relations between Iran and the West have become increasingly fraught since the British navy seized Iran’s Grace 1 tanker in Gibraltar July 4 on suspicion of smuggling oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions.

Hunt warned of “serious consequences” if the Stena Impero’s situation was not resolved quickly. Britain was however “not looking at military options. We are looking at a diplomatic way to resolve the situation,” he told reporters.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would talk to Britain about Friday’s seizure, which drove oil prices up above $62 a barrel.

The United States has blamed Iran for a series of attacks since mid-May on shipping around the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran rejects the allegations.

Blunder into war

The incidents have increased international concern that both sides could blunder into a war in the strategic waterway.

The United States is sending military personnel and resources to Saudi Arabia for the first time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the escalating tensions.

Relations between Washington and Tehran worsened last year when Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran. Under the pact, Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work, long seen by the West as a cover for developing atomic bombs, in return for lifting sanctions. But sanctions have been imposed again, badly hurting Iran’s economy.

Summer in the city is hot. How hot? A team at the University of Georgia is developing a way to map how hot it is in so-called urban heat islands, down to the level of individual street blocks. Faith Lapidus reports.

The Trump administration has told federally funded family planning clinics it is considering a delay in enforcing a controversial rule that bars them from referring women for abortions. That comes after clinics had vowed defiance.

Two people attending meetings this week between the Department of Health and Human Services and clinic representatives told The Associated Press that officials said the clinics should be given more time to comply with the rule’s new requirements. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly before any decision has been announced.

HHS said Friday that its policy has not changed.

Rule announced, to take effect immediately

On Monday, agency officials announced that the government would immediately begin enforcing the rule, catching the clinics off-guard and prompting an outcry. Planned Parenthood said its 400 clinics would defy the requirement. Some states, including Illinois and Maryland, backed the clinics. The family planning program serves about 4 million women a year, and many low-income women get basic health care from the clinics.

The administration’s abortion restrictions, cheered by social and religious conservatives, are being challenged in court by groups representing the clinics, several states, and the American Medical Association. The litigation is still in its early stages. An enforcement pause may allow for a clearer indication of where the court cases are headed.

The people who spoke to AP said that HHS Office of Population Affairs Director Diane Foley told representatives of the clinics the administration is considering rewinding the clock on enforcement. Instead of requiring immediate compliance, the administration would issue a new timetable and start the process at that point.

Some requirements would be effective in 60 days, others in 120 days, and others would take effect next year.

The clinics had complained to HHS that the agency gave them no guidance on how to comply with the new restrictions, while expecting them to do so immediately.

No abortion referrals

The rule bars the family planning clinics from referring women for abortions. Abortion could still be discussed with patients, but only physicians or clinicians with advanced training could have those conversations. All pregnant patients would have to be referred for prenatal care, whether or not they request it. Minors would be encouraged to involve their parents in family planning decisions.

Under the rule, facilities that provide family planning services as well as abortions would have to strictly separate finances and physical space.

Known as Title X, the family-planning program funds a network of clinics, many operated by Planned Parenthood affiliates. The clinics also provide basic health services, including screening for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. The program distributes about $260 million a year in grants to clinics, and those funds cannot be used to pay for abortions.

The family planning rule is part of a series of Trump administration efforts to remake government policy on reproductive health to please conservatives who are a key part of its political base.

Other regulations tangled up in court would allow employers to opt out of offering free birth control to women workers on the basis of religious or moral objections, and grant health care professionals wider leeway to opt out of procedures that offend their religious or moral scruples.

Legal procedure

Abortion is a legal medical procedure, but federal laws prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman.

Planned Parenthood is also the nation’s leading abortion provider, and abortion opponents see the family-planning money as a subsidy, even if federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortions.

Planned Parenthood is in the midst of a leadership upheaval, after its board abruptly ousted the organization’s president this week.

Leana Wen, a physician, had sought to reposition Planned Parenthood as a health care provider. In her resignation letter, she said the organization’s board has determined the top priority should be to “double down on abortion rights advocacy.”
 

In the Spanish colonial fortress that serves as his official residence, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello is under siege.

Motorcyclists, celebrities, horse enthusiasts and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Puerto Ricans have swarmed outside La Fortaleza (The Fort) in Old San Juan this week, demanding Rossello resign over a series of leaked online chats insulting women, political opponents and even victims of Hurricane Maria. 

Rossello, the telegenic 40-year-old son of a former governor, has dropped his normally intense rhythm of public appearances and gone into relatively long periods of near-silence in the media, intensifying questions about his future.

For much of his 2½ years in office, Rossello has given three or four lengthy news conferences a week, comfortably fielding question after question in Spanish and English from the local and international press. And that’s on top of public appearances, one-on-one interviews and televised meetings with visiting politicians and members of his administration. 

But since July 11, when Rossello cut short a family vacation in France and returned home to face the first signs of what has become an island-wide movement to oust him, the governor has made four appearances, all but one in highly controlled situations. 

New protests began Friday afternoon, with unionized workers organizing a march to La Fortaleza from the nearby waterfront. 

Horseback riders join the march

Horseback riders joined them with a self-declared cavalry march, while hundreds of other people came from around the city and surrounding areas.  A string of smaller events was on the agenda across the island over the weekend, followed by what many expected to be a massive protest on Monday. 

The chorus calling for Rossello’s resignation was joined Friday by Puerto Rico’s non-voting member of Congress, Jenniffer Gonzalez; U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida; and New York Congresswomen Nydia Velazquez and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. 

The crisis has even cut back Rossello’s affable online presence. The governor normally started every day by tweeting “Good morning!” to his followers around 5 a.m. The last such bright-and-early message came on July 8. The tweets from his account have dwindled to a trickle since then, and each one is met by a flood of often-abusive responses from Puerto Ricans demanding he resign. 

Rossello’s secretary of public affairs, Anthony Maceira, told reporters Friday that the governor was in La Fortaleza working on signing laws and filling posts emptied by the resignations of fellow members of the leaked chat group. 

Political party meeting planned

The head of Rossello’s pro-statehood political party said a meeting of its directors had been convened for coming days, although the agenda was not disclosed beyond “addressing every one of the complaints of our colleagues.” 

Rossello offered a press conference on July 11 to address the arrest of two of his former department heads on federal corruption charges. He also asked the people of Puerto Rico to forgive him for a profanity-laced and at times misogynistic online chat with nine other male members of his administration, short selections of which had leaked to local media. Two days later, at least 889 pages of the chat were published by Puerto Rico’s award-winning Center for Investigative Journalism, and things got much, much worse for Rossello. 

In the chats on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Rossello calls one New York female politician of Puerto Rican background a “whore,” describes another as a “daughter of a bitch” and makes fun of an obese man he posed with in a photo. The chat also contains vulgar references to Puerto Rican star Ricky Martin’s homosexuality and a series of emojis of a raised middle finger directed at a federal control board overseeing the island’s finances.

Asks for forgiveness

The next day, Sunday, Rossello appeared in a San Juan church and asked the congregation for forgiveness, without informing the press. The church broadcasts its services online, however, and his remarks became public. On Monday, July 15, Rossello gave a notably non-confrontational interview to a salsa music radio station. The governor’s spokesman said the questions had been “negotiated” between Rossello’s press team and the station. That night, thousands swarmed Old San Juan to demand his resignation.

On July 16, Rossello held a press conference and faced aggressive questioning about the chat scandal and the corruption arrests. Later that day, an ally tweeted a photo of Rossello embracing Wilfredo Santiago, an obese man whom the governor had mocked in one of the most infamous sections of the chat. 

Since then, it’s been silence. There have been a handful of tweets, press releases and statements, some saying he won’t resign but mostly about purportedly routine meetings of administration officials.

His official spokespeople aren’t answering many questions, and even his whereabouts are mostly unknown.  

Raised in the public eye

Rossello was raised in the public eye, as the youngest son of Pedro Rossello, who served as governor from 1993 to 2001. One of Puerto Rico’s most charismatic and controversial governors, the elder Rossello launched a string of large-scale infrastructure projects that swelled the public debt and ensuing bankruptcy that his son has inherited. 

Known widely as Ricky, the younger Rossello started his political career in his father’s pro-statehood New Progressive Party. Trained in biomechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan and Duke University, he launched his campaign for governor in 2015 with little previous history of public service. 

Deflecting questions about whether he owed his success to his connections, Rossello portrayed himself as an affable technocrat with solutions to Puerto Rico’s debt and crumbling infrastructure, and by less than 3% of the total votes cast defeated David Bernier of the Popular Democratic Party, which advocates greater Puerto Rican autonomy from the mainland United States. 

Until now, Rossello’s greatest challenge was Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, 2017, destroying the island’s power and communications systems. Rossello came under heavy criticism for mismanaging the crisis, particularly for understating the deaths from the storm. While some of his deputies were vilified, Rossello seemed to emerge relatively unscathed, perhaps because of his friendly and non-confrontational manner with critics, opponents and journalists alike.  

Shares family pictures online

The father of two young children, he often posts their photos online, along with images of his wife and their two rescue dogs, a Siberian husky and a Yorkshire terrier. Rossello once halted a press conference to help local journalists move their equipment out of the rain. 

Among the greatest shocks of the leaked chats for many Puerto Ricans was the puncturing of that image of low-key charm by the gross misogyny of online conversations.  

“He was making an effort, carrying out his governor’s role,” said Jessica Castro, a 38-year-old San Juan resident attending a Friday evening protest with her family. “He was mocking everyone behind their backs, the people who believed in him. People are really disillusioned. He’s got to go.”

The Trump administration is considering more dramatic cuts to the U.S. refugee program, with one official suggesting the White House not allow any refugees into the country in the coming fiscal year.

In a Politico report released Thursday, government officials from several federal agencies attended a meeting last week and discussed several options that included a ceiling of 10,000 — well below the current refugee ceiling of 30,000, which is already an all-time low for the program.

The U.S. resettled 23,190 refugees since the beginning of fiscal 2019 last October. With 2½ months remaining until the count resets, the U.S. is on track to fall short of this year’s cap, according to U.S. State Department data.

Since the so-called “refugee ceiling” is an upper limit, and not a quota, the government is not required to meet the annual admissions number.

Multiple figures

Scott Arbeiter, president of World Relief, one of the primary refugee resettlement nongovernmental organizations in the U.S., said he has heard multiple figures proposed for the coming fiscal year, all well below the program’s historical annual threshold of around 60,000 to 70,000.

In President Barack Obama’s last year two years in office, his administration made a concerted effort to increase the number of admitted refugees, with a particular focus on Syrians fleeing conflict and persecution.

And since the U.S. president is the one who ultimately makes the final decision when it comes to the number of refugee admissions, President Donald Trump has leeway to further reduce the total allowed.

“The president hasn’t made an actual decision, that won’t happen till October. But I suspect they’re testing the waters a bit to see if, in fact, the public will respond to this, and if there will be any public outrage,” Arbeiter told VOA. “So it is a proposed number, it is not a final number, but a number anywhere between zero, and we’ve heard 3,000, 7,000 10,000, but anywhere in that range, what it effectively does is it closes the door on refugees, and effectively constitutes a total ban on refugees.”

Earlier ban attempts

Trump repeatedly attempted a ban on refugees with multiple executive orders on travel during his first year in office, citing “national security” concerns.

Those worries, however, were not substantiated by data and no scientific study demonstrates a correlation between refugee admissions and elevated crime or security risks.

Each year, the president makes an annual determination, after appropriate consultation with Congress, regarding the refugee admissions ceiling for the following fiscal year. That determination is expected to be made before the start of fiscal 2020 on Oct. 1, 2019.

The U.S. State Department is one of the leading agencies involved in the deliberation process with the White House over refugee admissions. In an emailed statement Friday, a spokesperson reiterated the president makes the decision on the ceiling every year “after appropriate consultation with Congress.”

Beyond that, however, the spokesperson said the State Department would “not discuss internal and interagency deliberations or communications involved in such deliberations.”

Last year, however, the White House was criticized by members of Congress after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the fiscal 2019 cap would be 30,000, before the legally required meetings with Capitol Hill lawmakers happened.