Afghanistan’s spy agency this week arrested four Islamic State operatives, including a university professor in Kabul. The arrests come as some of the students at Kabul University, the most prestigious school in the country, express concerns that extremism is rising at some of the country’s educational institutions, including Kabul University. VOA’s Haseeb Maudoodi reports from Kabul. 

The U.S. and Turkey remain on a collision course with the imminent delivery of Russian S-400 missiles. With reports one battery will be based in Ankara, analysts suggest Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a personal stake in the escalating crisis. 
 
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus warned Tuesday of “real and negative consequences” if the Russian missiles are procured. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said Wednesday that the United States should avoid “missteps to harm bilateral relations.” 
 
Washington claims the missiles will compromise NATO’s military defense systems, in particular the stealth technology of its latest F-35 fighter jet, and it is threatening sanctions against Ankara if it goes ahead with the purchase.  

Despite mounting diplomatic pressure and Washington’s offer of its Patriot missile system as an alternative, Erdogan has stood firm. In the past year, a presidential source repeatedly insisted Erdogan had made up his mind on buying the S-400 missile system from the Russians. 
 
Reports this week in pro-government media that one of the two missile batteries will be based in Ankara are seen by analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners, a business management consultancy based in New York, as an explanation for Erdogan’s stance. 

Protection for Ankara?
 
“If one of the batteries is truly located in Ankara, where it would have no defensive purpose in protecting vital assets against foreign threats, then I would think President Erdogan would have a personal stake in this,” Yesilada said, “as the only asset worth protecting in Ankara is the parliament and the palace. 
 
“But I don’t want to think that our president or any president has become so paranoid that he fears his own air force. To me that doesn’t seem rational.” 

The S-400 battery reportedly would be located at the Akinci Air Base near Ankara. The air base was the headquarters of plotters convicted in the 2016 failed coup attempt, in which 251 people died. Erdogan’s palace and parliament were repeatedly bombed during the putsch. 
 
Three years on from the coup attempt, mass arrests of military personnel are continuing. On Monday, prosecutors issued 176 warrants for armed forces members in an operation encompassing the army, air force and navy. Since the coup attempt, Turkey has purged 716 fighter pilots.  

Ankara blames Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen for masterminding the takeover attempt. The U.S.-based Gulen vehemently denies the charge. 
 
“How often do you expect your air force to bomb you?” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, adding, “The choice of the S-400 also suggests where you expect your enemies to come from.” 

“If the country has not resolved these [perceived military threat] issues, we are in deeper trouble,” said Ozel. “This is not an S-400 matter any longer. It’s about Turkey’s political system, the legitimacy of the system, the unity of that system and all sorts of things.” 
 
Ankara blames Washington for its decision to buy the S-400, claiming the reluctance of then-President Barack Obama and Congress to sell Patriot missiles forced it to turn to Moscow. However, questions remain about the military rationale of procuring Russian missiles. 

‘No logic at all’
 
“From a military point of view, there is no logic at all,” said retired Turkish Gen. Haldun Solmazturk, who now heads the 21st Century Turkey Institute, an Ankara-based research organization.  
 
“Air defense requires the highest degree of integration,” he said. “This is a NATO-wide integration, including fighter-bombers, the command-control air defense system, et cetera.” Air defense in NATO is a solid and integrated system, he said, and “introducing the Russian-made S-400 system would be unthinkable.” 
 
Turkey’s long borders have meant the country’s air defenses relied for decades on fighter jets, rather than less mobile missiles. Two years ago, several Turkish towns on Syria’s border were hit by short-range missile attacks blamed on Syrian-Kurdish rebels. However, observers say any missile threat has now passed. 
 
“Turkey does not need an anti-missile system,” said Yesilada. “Who possibly would attack us with missiles?  The only countries that have such potential are Russia and Iran, and they are allies. No one else has an arsenal with long-range missiles.” 
 
However, Ankara insists, the S-400 will also enhance its rapidly expanding indigenous defense industry, through technology transfer. “With God’s will, we will start joint production. There are no problems,” Erdogan told reporters Wednesday. 
 
Technology transfer was and is a stumbling block in Ankara’s efforts to procure U.S. Patriots. But observers point out it remains unclear how much of the technology from its most advanced missile system Moscow is prepared to share, given Turkey’s NATO membership. 
 

Washington is also warning that if the S-400 missile sale is completed, Turkish defense companies will be thrown out of the consortium building the F-35 jets, losing billions of dollars in contracts. 
 
The rising cost for Ankara of procuring S-400s can only result in greater scrutiny into why Erdogan remains so determined to complete the purchase. 
 

President Donald Trump is directing the government to revamp the nation’s care for kidney disease, so that more people whose kidneys fail have a chance at early transplants and home dialysis — along with better prevention so patients don’t get that sick to begin with.

Senior administration officials told The Associated Press that Trump is set to sign an executive order Wednesday calling for strategies that have the potential to save lives and millions of Medicare dollars.

That won’t happen overnight — some of the initiatives will require new government regulations.

And because a severe organ shortage complicates the call for more transplants, the administration also aims to ease financial hardships for living donors, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement.

Another key change: steps to help the groups that collect deceased donations do a better job. Officials cited a study that suggests long-term, it may be possible to find 17,000 more kidneys and 11,000 other organs from deceased donors for transplant every year.

Federal health officials have made clear for months that they intend to shake up a system that today favors expensive, time-consuming dialysis in large centers over easier-to-tolerate at-home care or transplants that help patients live longer.

“Right now every financial incentive is toward dialysis and not toward transplantation and long-term survivorship,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, whose father experienced traditional and at-home dialysis before getting a living donor transplant, told a Senate hearing in March. “And you get what you pay for.”

About 30 million American adults have chronic kidney disease, costing Medicare a staggering $113 billion.

Careful treatment — including control of diabetes and high blood pressure, the two main culprits — can help prevent further kidney deterioration. But more than 700,000 people have end-stage renal disease, meaning their kidneys have failed, and require either a transplant or dialysis to survive. Only about a third received specialized kidney care before they got so sick.

More than 94,000 of the 113,000 people on the national organ waiting list need a kidney. Last year, there were 21,167 kidney transplants. A fraction — 6,442 — were from living donors, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system.

“The longer you’re on dialysis, the outcomes are worse,” said Dr. Amit Tevar, a transplant surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who praised the Trump administration initiatives being announced Wednesday.

Too often, transplant centers don’t see a kidney patient until they’ve been on dialysis for years, he said. And while any transplant is preferable, one from a living donor is best because those organs “work better, longer and faster,” Tevar said.

Among the initiatives that take effect first:

—Medicare payment changes that would provide a financial incentive for doctors and clinics to help kidney patients stave off end-stage disease by about six months.

—A bonus to kidney specialists who help prepare patients for early transplant, with steps that can begin even before they need dialysis.

—Additional Medicare changes so that dialysis providers can earn as much by helping patients get dialysis at home as in the large centers that predominate today. Patients typically must spend hours three or four times a week hooked to machines that filter waste out of their blood.

Home options include portable blood-cleansing machines, or what’s called peritoneal dialysis that works through an abdominal tube, usually while patients are sleeping.

Today, about 14% of patients in kidney failure get at-home dialysis or an early transplant. By 2025, the goal is to have 80% of people with newly diagnosed kidney failure getting one of those options, officials said.

These changes are being implemented through Medicare’s innovation center, created under the Obama-era Affordable Care Act and empowered to seek savings and improved quality. The Trump administration is relying on the innovation center even as it argues in federal court that the law that created it is unconstitutional and should be struck down entirely.

Other initiatives will require new regulations, expected to be proposed later this year. Among them:

—Allowing reimbursement of lost wages and other expenses for living donors, who can give one of their kidneys or a piece of their liver. The transplant recipient’s insurance pays the donor’s medical bills. But they are out of work for weeks recuperating and one study found more than a third of living kidney donors reported lost wages, a median of $2,712, in the year following donation. Details about who pays — and who qualifies — still have to be worked out.

—Clearer ways to measure how well the nation’s 58 organ procurement organizations collect donations from deceased donors. Some do a better job than others, but today’s performance standards are self-reported, varying around the country and making it hard for government regulators or the OPOs themselves to take steps to improve.

“Some OPOs are very aggressive and move forward with getting organs allocated and donors consented, and there are those that are a little more lackadaisical about it,” said Pittsburgh’s Tevar. Unlike the medical advances in transplantation, “we haven’t really made big dents and progress and moves in increasing cadaveric organs or increasing live donor options.”

Marc Maron never set out to be an actor, but he’s been expanding his resume beyond standup and his popular podcast lately.
 
In addition to his role on the Netflix series “GLOW,” Maron has been dabbling more in movies including a lead in the indie comedy “Sword of Trust” and a smaller part in this fall’s “Joker.”
 
Maron says he’s not gunning for the big stuff, although he did go out for a part in the “Avatar” sequels he didn’t get.
 
He often is cast to play a variation of himself, but he says he’d like to get to a point where he can lose himself in a role, too.

Bulgaria’s government has decided to buy eight new F-16 fighters in a bid to replace its aging Soviet-built jets and bring its air force in line with NATO standards.

The government gave the go-head Wednesday for the defense minister to sign the contract for the purchase of eight multi-role F-16 Block 70 fighter aircraft.

Deputy defense minister Atanas Zapryanov told reporters that the $1.25 billion deal includes the aircraft, ammunition, equipment and pilot training, and that there is an option for the U.S. Congress to contribute $60 million. He said that six single-seat and two two-seat F-16s would be delivered by 2023.
 
The decision still needs parliamentary approval, but it is expected to get that easily given that the ruling coalition has a majority.
 
Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004.

 

Australia will hold a national vote within three years on whether to include recognition of indigenous people in its constitution, the government said on Wednesday, an issue that has spurred decades of often heated debate.

Australia has struggled to reconcile with descendants of its first inhabitants, who arrived on the continent about 50,000 years before British colonists but are not recognized in the national constitution.

However, with public support on the issue growing, Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt promised a referendum before 2022.

“I will develop and bring forward a consensus option for constitutional recognition to be put to a referendum during the current parliamentary term,” Wyatt said in a speech in Canberra.

Australians must return to the polls by 2022 after Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition government was returned in a “miracle” election win in May.

However, to meet the timetable Wyatt will need to facilitate an agreement between the government and indigenous leaders, who have demanded a bigger voice in the running of the country.

Indigenous leaders proposed in 2017 establishing an advisory body comprised of elected indigenous Australians enshrined in the constitution. The government rejected the proposal, insisting it would create a de facto third chamber in parliament.

The government has come under growing pressure since then to revisit the issue, with several corporate giants insisting that meaningful recognition is the only way to bridge the divide in Australia’s population.

“A first nations voice to parliament is a meaningful step towards reconciliation,” BHP Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mackenzie said earlier this year.

Indigenous Australians account for about 700,000 people in a total population of 23 million and have tracked near the bottom in almost every socio-economic indicator, suffering disproportionately high rates of suicide, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and imprisonment.

Denied the vote until the mid-1960s, they face a 10-year gap in life expectancy compared with other Australians and make up 27% of the prison population.

The U.S. State Department said Tuesday it will continue to deal with British diplomats in Washington as usual, unless directed differently by the White House. U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his Twitter attack on British ambassador to Washington Kim Darroch, whose unflattering reports on the White House had angered him. Trump also did not mince words in his tweeted references to outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports British officials have come to the defense of their ambassador.
 

The survival of wild animals such as elephants and tigers are at risk, and one of the main reasons is poaching. These animals are being hunted, even in protected wildlife parks, for their body parts such as elephants’ tusks and tigers’ skins. Park rangers may soon have a powerful tool to help fight poachers thanks to artificial intelligence. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains.

Smoke and soot from central Alaska wildfires have afflicted the subarctic city of Fairbanks with some of the world’s worst air pollution in recent days, forcing many residents indoors and prompting one hospital to set up a “clean air shelter.”

Fine particulate matter carried by smoke into the Fairbanks North Star Borough over the past two weeks has been measured at concentrations as high as more than double the minimum level deemed hazardous to human health, borough air quality manager Nick Czarnecki said.

The hazardous threshold was exceeded again on Tuesday in the Fairbanks suburb of North Pole, the borough reported.

The problem is mostly linked to two fires burning since June 21 on either side of the Fairbanks borough – Alaska’s second-most populous metropolitan area, totaling some 97,000 residents.

The Shovel Creek and Nugget fires, both sparked by lightning strikes, have scorched nearly 20,000 acres (8,094 hectares) of timber and brush combined, fire authorities said.

Farther north, the massive Hess Creek blaze, also sparked by lightning, has raged across nearly 173,000 acres (70,000 hectares) of remote timber and grasslands, making it the largest U.S. wildfire so far this year, according to fire command spokeswoman Sarah Wheeler.

Thick smoke drifting into Fairbanks has prompted air quality alerts warning that outdoor exertion is dangerous to health and urging the elderly, the very young and individuals with
respiratory problems to limit their exposure by staying indoors.

That restriction has proved difficult for some because few homes in Fairbanks, a city just 200 miles (322 km) south of the Arctic Circle by road, are equipped with air conditioning, and a heat wave in the region has driven temperatures into the 80s and 90s Fahrenheit.

Fairbanks Memorial Hospital has opened a round-the-clock clean-air room where members of the public can find respite from the pollution. A Fairbanks auto shop was also giving away breathing masks to help residents cope.

“All the HEPA filters and everything are sold out in town, and the smoke is terrible,” Pearson Auto employee Michelle Pippin said.

A similar but somewhat less dire predicament faced residents of Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, about 350 miles (560 km) to the south, where smoke from a major fire raging for the past month in the neighboring Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has caused unhealthy air.

The Swan Lake blaze has charred nearly 97,000 acres (39,200 hectares) of the Kenai Peninsula since it was triggered by lightning on June 5.

Anchorage has also baked in unusually high temperatures, with three of its hottest days on record posted during the past week, including the city’s first-ever 90-degree Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) reading on July Fourth.

The record heat has only added to the general misery index in Alaska, where the National Interagency Fire Center reports about 40 large wildfires have burned more than 810,000 acres (32,780 hectares) across the state.

Wildfires have consumed more than 1 million acres (404,685 hectares) in all so far this year, but that pales in comparison with the record 6.5 million acres (2.6 million hectares) that went up in flames across Alaska in 2004.

Creditors holding Venezuelan debt on Tuesday pushed back on debt restructuring plans backed by opposition leader Juan Guaido, urging a “fair and effective” framework for talks and improved communications with investors holding defaulted bonds.

The main committee of Venezuela creditors said it opposed requests for a U.S. executive order that would prevent asset seizures by investors and disagreed with a proposal to give different treatment for debts to Russia and China.

But the statement added that restructuring would not begin until the end of a “humanitarian crisis,” in reference to the hyperinflationary collapse overseen by President Nicolas Maduro that has fueled malnutrition and disease.

“A new government should work with creditor parties, such as the Committee, to agree on the design of the restructuring process and to negotiate the financial and other terms of the restructuring,” the statement said.

Guaido in January cited articles of the constitution to assume an interim presidency after calling Maduro’s 2018 election a fraud, quickly winning recognition by more than 50 countries including the United States.

Maduro’s government, which continues to exercise power thanks to the loyalty of the military, has failed to pay creditors some $11.4 billion in principal and interest since 2017, according to the creditors.

Jose Ignacio Hernandez, Guaido’s overseas legal representative, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The committee opposed requests by Guaido and his allies for an executive order by the White House that would block creditors from seizing U.S. refiner Citgo, which is owned by state oil company PDVSA.

“An executive order issued by the US government that undermines good faith negotiations would not further the long-term interests of Venezuela or its stakeholders,” the statement said.

The committee also took exception to the idea that debts to Russia and China would be treated differently than others.

“It is critical that the burden placed on creditors must be equitably shared among all creditors, public and private,” the committee wrote.

U.S. and Chinese trade officials held a “constructive” phone conversation on Tuesday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said, marking a new round of talks after the world’s two largest economies agreed to a truce in a year-long trade war.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and Minister Zhong Shan on Tuesday in a further effort to resolve outstanding trade disputes between the countries, a U.S. official said earlier in an emailed statement.

Kudlow said the talks “went well” and were constructive. He said the two sides were talking about a face-to-face meeting, but warned that there was not a magic way to reach what has so far been an elusive deal.

“There are no miracles here,” Kudlow told reporters at the White House. “There was headway last winter and spring, then it stopped. Hopefully we can pick up where we left off, but I don’t know that yet.”

Trade talks stalled in May after China backed away from commitments it had made to secure legal changes to its system, according to U.S. officials.

Kudlow’s comments suggested it was still unclear whether the two sides would resume work from the draft text agreed before that pull-back, as U.S. officials want, or whether they will use a different starting point.

A face-to-face meeting between the two negotiating teams would be a good thing and could take place in Beijing, Kudlow said, but no details were available yet.

“Both sides will continue these talks as appropriate,” the separate U.S. official said in an email, declining to provide details on what was discussed and the next steps for talks.

The negotiations picked up after a two-month hiatus, but a year since a tit-for-tat tariff battle began between the two countries. Washington wants Beijing to address what U.S. officials see as decades of unfair and illegal trading practices.

The United States and China agreed during a Group of 20 nations summit in Japan last month to resume discussions, easing fears of an escalation. After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20, U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to suspend a new round of tariffs on $300 billion worth of imported Chinese consumer goods while the two sides resumed negotiations.

Trump said then that China would restart large purchases of U.S. agricultural commodities, and the United States would ease some export restrictions on Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies.

“President Xi is expected, we hope in return for our accommodations, to move immediately, quickly, while the talks are going on, on the agriculture (purchases),” Kudlow said on Tuesday at an event hosted by CNBC. “That’s very, very important.”

He also said relaxed U.S. government restrictions on Huawei could help the technology giant but would only be in place for a limited time.

Kudlow, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, later told reporters there was no specific timeline for the agricultural buys, or for reaching an agreement. “No timeline. Quality not speed,” he added.

Three sources familiar with the state of the talks said the Chinese side did not make firm commitments for immediate purchases. It’s unclear that the two sides’ differences have narrowed, even as the discussions resume.

The sister of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman went on trial Tuesday in Paris over the alleged beating of a workman at her family’s apartment.

Princess Hassa bint Salman is accused of ordering her bodyguard to beat an Egyptian workman after he was seen taking a photograph inside the home on Paris’ exclusive Avenue Foch in 2016.

According to the indictment, the workman Ashraf Eid told police that he took a picture of the bathroom where he was working so he he could remember where items were placed before he started. 

The princess reportedly accused him of taking the photo in order to sell the image of the toney home. 

Eid told police the bodyguard bound his hands, punched and kicked him, and forced him to kiss the princess’ feet.  

The bodyguard was held by police but the princess left France soon after the incident. France issued a warrant for her arrest in December 2017. 

The bodyguard told the court Tuesday: “When I heard the princess shouting for help, I got there and saw them grasping the phone with their hands.”

“I seized [him] and overpowered him, I didn’t know what he was after,” he said, according to AFP.

The princess’ lawyers have said she is the victim of false accusations. “The princess is a caring, humble, approachable and cultured woman,” her lawyer, Emmanuel Moyne, said before the trial began.

The Saudi crown prince was under the media spotlight recently for his alleged involvement in the murder of dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi.

Agnes Callamard, a United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, said in a report released last month that there was “credible evidence” linking the crown prince to the strangulation and dismemberment of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Growing potatoes and carrots high in the wind-swept mountains of western Venezuela had always proven a challenge for Luis Villamizar.

But as oil production in the South American country has collapsed under years of mismanagement and U.S. sanctions, many in the industry are confronting another hardship: Fuel shortages.

“Nobody’s going to eat this. It’s a loss for sure, said Villamizar, 53, as he dug up potatoes darkened with spots from a damaging infestation. “Who’s going to buy these? This won’t do.”

He’s not alone. Across Venezuela, crops are spoiling in the fields – at a time of unprecedented hunger – as farmers become the latest casualty of the nation’s deepening crisis.

Without a dependable supply of gasoline, critical shipments of pesticides have been entirely cut off, basic equipment has become impossible to operate, field workers cannot be bussed in and crops aren’t arriving at markets – further jeopardizing an already shaky sector in a country that has seen a whopping 10% of the population emigrate.

Oil output has reached record lows, with state run company PDVSA estimated to be producing at 10 to 15% of its capacity. Gasoline is dirt cheap at filling stations, but hard to find – driving the black market price for a 5.3 gallon (20 liter) container up to $100 in remote mountain communities. Many motorists have also grown accustomed to waiting days to fill up their cars or doing without any at all.

Critics blame the downfall on corruption after two decades of socialist rule, while embattled President Nicolas Maduro blames U.S. sanctions that were implemented against PDVSA this year to pressure him from office and put opposition leader Juan Guaido in charge.

In the middle are the nation’s farmers.

While the nation boasts the world’s largest reserves of oil, agriculture and related industries in Venezuela still account for a critical sliver of the country’s GDP, which has shrunk by more than 70% since 2012. In rural places like the western state of Tachira, many manage to eke out livelihoods by tending to crops such as potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes and peppers.

The lack of fuel is driving the industry toward collapse.

Robert Maldonado, a sweet pepper famer and outspoken community leader, represents roughly 1,500 farmers across the rural stretch traversed by the Andes, where the highest peak rises to nearly 12,800 feet (3,900 meters) above sea level.

In the past, produce ranging from cabbage to bananas was sent to markets and kitchens across Venezuela.

These days, Maldonado says the price of fuel has eaten up profits and made it impossible for farmers to feed themselves – let alone supply a country where hunger and hyperinflation run rampant. According to survey results published by three of the country’s most prominent universities, six in 10 Venezuelans said they lost weight, an average of 24 pounds (11 kilograms), between 2017 and 2018. Last year, inflation topped 1 million percent.

“We’re quite worried that in three or four months the production will collapse by more than half,” Maldonado said.

Ricardo Hausmann, a Harvard University economist and former Venezuelan planning minister who is now an opposition figure, estimates that Venezuela’s farming output is down 90 percent from its 2005-2007 average, with fuel shortages adding to the blow.

“The planted area is the smallest we’ve seen in decades,” he said, calling it a “systemic collapse” of a supply chain for the sector – including shortages of seed, fertilizer and spare parts for tractors.

Before the oil boom started in Venezuela nearly a century ago, agriculture, forestry, and fishing made up more than 50 percent of GDP. In the 1930s farms provided 60 percent of the nation’s jobs.

This landscape began to dramatically change in the 1970s as the petro state took off, and today agriculture makes up a smaller portion of the economy than in any other country in Latin America. As farms declined, the government used its oil windfall to import food.

In the years following the 2010 government takeover of private agricultural company Agroislena, farmers had hunted for everything from seeds to pesticides – or even traveled to neighboring Colombia to secure supplies – in order to sustain production.

Rarely though, had crops spoiled, tractors sat idle and fields left completely fallow.

Villamizar, who has a tanned face and rough hands from years of toiling outside, still farms a small patch of land in the rugged mountains his family has tended for generations and said his last harvest of 14 60-kilogram (132 pound) potato sacks rotted before he could send it into town.

Fellow farmer Hauchy Pereira estimated he would lose 6 tons of onions since the transportation of his seedlings from greenhouses to open fields was delayed.

Pereira said a farming collective overseen by a general had given him a pass to fill up his truck in two months’ time, but his onion sprouts were already wilting.

“If you have the harvest and there’s no gas, you can’t sell it,” the 34-year-old said. “There is no way to transport it without fuel.”

 

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday any disruption to oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz will be a “major obstacle” for his country’s economy which has too few oil export outlets.

His government was studying contingency plans to deal with possible disruption, including looking at alternative routes for oil exports, Abdul Mahdi said.

“Iraq has too few export outlets,” Abdul Mahdi told reporters at his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “Right now, most of the Iraqi oil exports are being done through southern terminals.”

“We need to diversify our export outlets,” he said.

The prime minister’s comments came in response to a question on whether tensions between Iran and the United States could affect Iraq’s oil exports via the Strait.

A vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond, the Strait of Hormuz has been at the heart of regional tensions for decades.

Recent months have seen a bout of instability in the region, with six tankers attacked since May amid escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Many fear the tensions could affect the flow of oil. Abdul Mahdi said as part of contingency planning, his cabinet had authorized the country’s oil ministry to move forward on two projects to bolster the country’s future exports.

The ministry was tasked with conducting feasibility studies and looking at investment models to build a major pipeline to export oil from southern Iraq to Jordan’s Aqaba port, he said.
The ministry will also look at establishing an offshore oil installation in the south.

 

Twitter now prohibits hate speech that targets religious groups using dehumanizing language.
 
The social network already bars hateful language directed at individual religious adherents. Tuesday’s change broadens that rule to forbid likening entire religious groups to subhumans or vermin.
 
The company has come under fire – along with fellow social media networks such as Facebook and YouTube – for the prevalence of harassment and offensive language on its service.
 
Twitter’s latest update came after users wrote in thousands of responses when the company asked for suggestions on how to expand its hate speech policies.
 
The company says it may also ban similar language aimed at other groups such as those defined by gender, race and sexual orientation.

 

Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young and the Dave Matthews Band will headline Farm Aid 2019 when the music and food festival visits Wisconsin’s dairy country in September.
 
Tickets for the Sept. 21 event at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy go on sale Friday.
 
Farm Aid says the farming economy this year resembles how things were when Nelson founded Farm Aid in 1985. Nelson says devastating weather, low prices and current federal farm and trade policies pose enormous challenges to family farmers struggling to keep their farms.
 
Other performers include Bonnie Raitt, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Margo Price, Jamey Johnson, Tanya Tucker, Brothers Osborne, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Yola, and Particle Kid.
 
Farm Aid has raised $57 million since 1985.

Amazon and Microsoft are battling it out over a $10 billion opportunity to build the U.S. military its first “war cloud” computing system. But Amazon’s early hopes of a shock-and-awe victory may be slipping away.

Formally called the Joint Enterprise Department Infrastructure plan, or JEDI, the military’s computing project would store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the Pentagon to use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities. The Defense Department hopes to award the winner-take-all contract as soon as August. Oracle and IBM were eliminated at an earlier round of the contract competition.

But that’s only if the project isn’t derailed first. It faces a legal challenge by Oracle and growing congressional concerns about alleged Pentagon favoritism toward Amazon. Military officials hope to get started soon on what will be a decade-long business partnership they describe as vital to national security.

”This is not your grandfather’s internet,” said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a defense-oriented think tank. “You’re talking about a cloud where you can go from the Pentagon literally to the soldier on the battlefield carrying classified information.”

Amazon was considered an early favorite when the Pentagon began detailing its cloud needs in 2017, but its candidacy has been marred by an Oracle allegation that Amazon executives and the Pentagon have been overly cozy. Oracle has a final chance to make its case against Amazon — and the integrity of the government’s bidding process — in a court hearing Wednesday.

”This is really the cloud sweepstakes, which is why there are such fierce lawsuits,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives.

Ives said an opportunity that was a “no brainer” for Amazon a year ago now seems just as likely to go to Microsoft, which has spent the past year burnishing its credentials to meet the government’s security requirements.

For years, Amazon Web Services has been the industry leader in moving businesses and other institutions onto its cloud — a term used to describe banks of servers in remote data centers that can be accessed from almost anywhere. But Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform has been steadily catching up, as have other providers such as Google, in both corporate and government settings.

With an acronym evoking Star Wars and a price tag of up to $10 billion over the next decade, JEDI has attracted more attention than most cloud deals. A cloud strategy document unveiled by the Defense Department last year calls for replacing the military’s “disjointed and stove-piped information systems” with a commercial cloud service “that will empower the warfighter with data and is critical to maintaining our military’s technological advantage.”

In a court filing last month, Lt. Gen. Bradford Shwedo said further delays in the Oracle case will “hamper our critical efforts in AI” as the U.S. tries to maintain its advantage over adversaries who are “weaponizing their use of data.” Shwedo said JEDI’s computing capabilities could help the U.S. analyze data collected from surveillance aircraft, predict when equipment needs maintenance and speed up communications if fiber and satellite connections go down.

Amazon was considered an early front-runner for the project in part because of its existing high-security cloud contract with the Central Intelligence Agency. It beat out IBM for that deal in 2013.  

Worried that the Pentagon’s bid seemed tailor-made for Amazon, rivals Oracle and IBM lodged formal protests last year arguing against the decision to award it to a single vendor.

In an October blog post , IBM executive Sam Gordy wrote that a single-cloud approach went against industry trends and “would give bad actors just one target to focus on should they want to undermine the military’s IT backbone.”

The Government Accountability Office later dismissed those protests, but Oracle persisted by taking its case to the Court of Federal Claims, where it has pointed to emails and other documents that it says show conflicts of interest between Amazon and the government. Oral arguments in that case are scheduled for Wednesday. The case has delayed the procurement process, though the Pentagon says it now hopes to award the contract as early as Aug. 23.

Oracle’s argument is centered on the activities of a Defense Department official who later went to work for Amazon. Amazon says Oracle has exaggerated that employee’s role in the procurement using “tabloid sensationalism.”

Some defense-contracting experts say the conflict allegations are troubling.

”No one seems to deny that these were actual conflicts and the players affirmatively attempted to conceal them,” said Steven Schooner, a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University. “That simply cannot be tolerated.”

But Goure, whose think tank gets funding from Amazon but not from its cloud rivals Microsoft, Oracle or IBM, said the criticism is “coming from the also-rans.” He says rivals like Oracle “missed the boat” in cloud technology and are trying to make up lost ground through legal maneuvers.

The Pentagon has repeatedly defended its bidding process, though the concerns have trickled into Congress and onto prime-time TV. Fox News host Tucker Carlson devoted a segment last month to the cloud contract that questioned an Amazon executive’s 2017 meeting with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Carlson also aired concerns by Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, who said “the allegations are incredible” and should be investigated.

A Wall Street Journal report on Sunday further detailed government emails about that meeting and another one between Mattis and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos later that year. In response, Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said the bidding process should be started over.

Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith said while military leaders are expected to engage with industry, no one in the defense secretary’s “front office” participated in drafting the contract requirements or soliciting bids.

Ives said it remains to be seen how much the conflict allegations will hurt Amazon or help Microsoft. Microsoft has largely stayed quiet during the dispute. In a statement, it focused on highlighting its 40-year partnership supplying the military with services such as email.

VOA Student Union’s Sahar Majid interviewed 2019 Miss District of Columbia Katelynne Cox, who talked about issues including her pageant journey and advocacy organization.

Katelynne Cox was chosen as the 2019 Miss District of Columbia last month.

Cox, a native of Washington state, is the manager of fundraising and events at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation in Washington, D.C.

In the pageant, Cox was able to speak to her advocacy for the #MeToo movement.

Through the organization Silence Is Not Compliance, which Cox founded in 2016, she is providing rehabilitation resources to survivors of sexual assault and educating kids on how to prevent sexual violence.

Cox is a rape survivor, and works to inspire other women who have gone through similar trauma and have not been able to speak up.

“I am a survivor of sexual assault and was raped in college, and I wanted to turn my terrible experience into a way that could help others,” she said.

As she established Silence Is Not Compliance, Cox began lobbying for the victims for sexual assault before the U.S. Congress.

“I would argue right now, in our current policies, that victims are treated as tools for prosecution rather than victims deserving a rescue and that’s what I want to change,” she said.

Before moving to Washington, D.C., Cox attended the University of Missouri where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree. She also has two graduate certificates in nonprofit and public management from the school.

Cox said she became involved with the Miss District of Columbia organization for several reasons. The Miss DC pageant, which is part of the Miss America program, offers over $25,000 in scholarships each year to contestants. The winner receives a $10,000 scholarship and there are a variety of other awards available for academics.

Cox said the scholarship was one of the reasons she got involved with the organization.

Every year, the Miss District of Columbia Scholarship Organization recognizes high-achieving women between the ages of 18 and 25 who have been living or working in Washington, D.C., for at least six months preceding the date of the pageant. The program’s website says that a contestant who is not a district resident can obtain a waiver by showing her education or employment status in the District of Columbia. There is no entry fee to compete. This year’s event was held June 23.

The Miss DC organization has a partnership with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals – a Utah-based nonprofit organization that raises funds for children’s health care.

“This organization is near and dear to my heart,” Cox said, adding it gave her another reason to become involved with the Miss DC organization. Cox has been working with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals since she was a child.

In addition, the Miss DC organization provides contestants with an opportunity to pick a social impact initiative with which to become involved. “It was an amazing experience to promote my organization, Silence Is Not Compliance, as Miss DC,” Cox said.

This year, the Miss District of Columbia Pageant eliminated the swimsuit segment. It was a decision by the Miss America organization to replace it with onstage interviews of contestants.

Cox is grateful for the decision because it gave her an opportunity to talk about the #MeToo movement on stage and her experience as a survivor to connect with other survivors.

She highlighted her singing abilities for the talent portion.

“Well, my mom likes to say that I started singing before I could even talk,” she said, while telling the story of her musical journey.

Cox has worked with Red Hammer Records, a label based in Portland, Oregon, and released three albums during her teen years. She also had an opportunity to tour nationwide for her musical shows.

Cox believes scholarship programs, such as Miss America or Miss DC, provide young women with a platform to talk about social issues that need to be addressed.

“I think that inherently there is a problem with the thought that being involved in pageants is somehow sexually objectifying someone. I would argue that if you say that pageants are sexually objectifying me, then you are sexually objectifying me, not the pageant itself,” Cox said.

Cox is now gearing up for the 2020 Miss America contest, to be held on September 8 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

A delegation of more than 50 Afghans concluded a high-profile conference with the Taliban Monday with a joint statement emphasizing the need to bring civilian casualties in the nation’s civil war to zero and reaching a positive outcome in the on-going negotiations between the Taliban and the United States in Doha. 

They also emphasized the need to include all parties in the negotiations to end the 18-year-long conflict.

“All participants have full consensus that achieving sustainable, thorough, and a dignified peace, which is a demand of the Afghan people, is only possible via inclusive Afghan negotiations,” read the statement.

The conference is being hailed as a historic first for including members of the Afghan government, albeit in their personal capacity. Previously, the Taliban have been reluctant to engage directly with any government representatives, calling the Kabul administration “illegal” and a “puppet” of the Americans.

“There were cabinet ministers in the room in the past two days,” said Lotfullah Najafizada, a delegate and head of one of Afghanistan’s biggest TV news channels Tolo News, adding that in his opinion the pattern would be repeated in future dialogue. 

It was also the first intra-Afghan dialogue hosted formally by two governments—Qatar and Germany.  A previous conference in Moscow was organized by a government-linked NGO. 

The two sides agreed to the need to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan by listing targets that should be off-limits for attacks by either side including “schools, hospitals, madrassas, markets, water dams, and residential areas.”

The statement also called for ensuring women’s rights in “political, social, economic, educational, and cultural affairs, within the framework of Islamic values.”

The two sides asked for the “unconditional release of elderly, disabled, and sick inmates” by both Taliban and the Afghan government.

The two-day conference comes at a time when a team of Americans, led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, is simultaneously negotiating an end to the conflict with the Taliban. 

His intermittent presence at the venue, interacting with the delegates and media in the hallways and meeting rooms of Sheraton Doha, indicated the importance the U.S. government associated with the event which the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called “a long time coming.” 

All eyes now turn to the negotiation he resumed Tuesday with the Taliban, also in Doha, which both sides claim is going well. “We progressed a lot in the last week and we hope that the few items left, we can finalize them also,” said Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, who is leading negotiations with the Americans. His comments reinforced Khalilzad’s Tweet calling the last week “the most productive session to date.”

The last 6 days of talks have been the most productive session to date. We made substantive progress on ALL 4 parts of a peace agreement: counter-terrorism assurances, troop withdrawal, participation in intra-Afghan dialogue & negotiations, and permanent & comprehensive ceasefire

— U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) July 6, 2019

Still, in public at least, the two sides continue to define progress differently. Stanikzai said Monday his team was negotiating with the Americans on two issues, a time-table for the withdrawal of foreign troops and how to prevent Afghan soil from being used for terrorism. Khalilzad on the other hand, insisted the two sides had made progress on four issues, including a cease-fire in Afghanistan, and making Afghan government a part of peace negotiations.  

Several delegates said the wording of the joint statement indicated Taliban flexibility on the issue of direct negotiations with the government, which has been a stumbling block so far. 

And while most delegates from both sides exuded optimism about the outcome, they acknowledged there was a long way to go. 

“Let’s not forget, we’re in the beginning of the process. It requires formal negotiations,” Najafizada said.

Top U.S. officials say Iran should not test America’s patience, as the Islamic Republic creates nuclear material in quantities and purity above limits set in the 2015 international nuclear deal. The reaction came as the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors verified that Iran breached the limit set in the nuclear deal aimed at restraining Tehran’s nuclear weapons development. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.