Amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran, U.S. President Donald Trump enters the week bolstered by Senate action that indirectly affirmed his latitude to order military strikes against Iran. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, late last week the Senate defeated an effort to force Trump to obtain congressional approval for any non-defensive military action taken against the Islamic nation.
Gay Pride Marches in US Mark 50th Anniversary of Modern Gay Rights Movement
New York staged a huge Gay Pride march Sunday, one of several in major U.S. cities marking the 50th anniversary of the clash between police and gay patrons at the city’s Stonewall Inn bar that sparked the modern gay rights movement.
The New York parade could attract three million rainbow flag-waving supporters. More than 650 contingents with 150,000 people, including community groups, corporations, politicians and celebrities, are planning to march through the city’s streets.
“I believe we are going to have the greatest Pride celebration in the history of the globe,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, a vocal defender of gay rights and a Democratic presidential candidate.
In Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, the city’s first openly gay mayor, is one of seven grand marshals for its parade.
The annual celebration of gay rights has its origin in the June 1969 riots sparked by repeated police raids on Stonewall Inn, a prominent gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village. The riots proved to be a pivotal touchpoint in the LGBTQ community’s struggle for civil rights.
The smaller Queer Liberation March started Sunday morning at the bar, with its organizers saying that the Pride march had become too commercialized and heavily policed.
Conservative Contenders Harden Brexit Language, Prompting EU Warnings
Both candidates to succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader and Britain’s next prime minister are now laying the political groundwork for a so-called “hard Brexit” — and are ready to leave the European Union without any withdrawal deal, an outcome independent observers and analysts warn could poison relations between Britain and its European neighbors for decades.
The exit Boris Johnson and his rival Jeremy Hunt, the country’s current foreign minister, are plotting would likely involve Britain withholding all or some of the $50 billion the country already agreed formally it would owe the EU for past financial obligations on exiting.
Johnson, the frontrunner, former London mayor and onetime journalist, is turning to hardline Brexiters in his party to draw up his plans and says the withdrawal agreement Theresa May struck with Brussels last November, and which she failed three times to get approved by a deadlocked House of Commons, is dead.
His rival is also hardening his Brexit rhetoric in what is turning into a ‘bidding war’ between the contenders as they vie for the votes of the 160,000 Conservative party members who will choose between them. The party members are being balloted by mail with the result scheduled for July 22. In recent months the party has seen a wave of new members with an estimated 30,000 new recruits being dubbed ‘Brexit entryists.’
On Sunday Hunt said in a newspaper interview that he wants “to change the withdrawal agreement” but if it isn’t possible, “I’ll take us out without a deal.” In a no-deal exit Hunt would withhold about half of the withdrawal money already agreed between London and Brussels. “Anyone who thinks I am going to write a blank check to the European Union is sorely mistaken,” he said.
Hunt has recruited the former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to lead his Brexit team, if he wins the keys to Downing Street, to help him to try to negotiate a free-trade deal with Brussels along the lines of the one agreed after seven years of talks between Ottawa and the EU.
But such a deal would only cover the trade in goods and not in services, which account for 79 percent of Britain’s economic output.
“Stephen Harper knows how you negotiate trade deals with both the EU and the U.S.. He’s got the T-shirt,” Hunt said.
The hardline positions being crafted by Johnson and Hunt would put whoever is elected on a collision course with Brussels and the national leaders of the EU 27. The French government warned both candidates Saturday that the divorce deal May brokered with EU is not up for renegotiation, echoing warnings from Brussels and across the continent all last week.
“If the United Kingdom wants to leave the union and to leave in an orderly fashion, the deal on the table is the deal we negotiated over two years,” France’s newly appointed European Affairs minister Amelie de Montchalin told the Anglo-American Press Association of Paris. “To reopen the withdrawal agreement, the position of the Council [of EU leaders] is very clear, it’s: ‘no’,” she added.
May’s premiership was wrecked after she failed to get her Brexit deal approved by the British parliament — the agreement is unpopular with both hardline Brexiters, who say it keeps Britain too closely tied to the bloc, and by Europhiles, who favor greater participation in the EU. She was forced to delay, with reluctant EU agreement, the deadline for Britain’s departure, to October 31.
EU national leaders and senior officials in Brussels have insisted for months that there can be no renegotiation of the withdrawal deal, although they say they are amendable to amending an accompanying political declaration outlining in more detail Britain’s possible future trade relationship with the bloc, which will be negotiated following Brexit.
May herself has warned her possible successors that they will face the same political impasse she did, as well as a parliament determined to block Britain leaving the EU without a withdrawal deal, which is designed to limit the economic pain Brexit will cause on both sides of the English Channel.
Neither Johnson nor Hunt have outlined what the trade-offs would be, if Britain left without a withdrawal agreement, say Conservative critics and EU officials. “Johnson’s sole contribution to the conversation about the difficult trade-offs involved in Britain’s most important political challenge since the Second World War has been a reheating of his two-decade-old adage: ‘My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it,’” said Matthew Parris, a former Conservative lawmaker and now a columnist at The Times of London.
Both Britain and the EU — especially the near neighbors of Ireland, France, Belgium and The Netherlands — would be hurt economically by a no-deal and the reimposition of trade barriers and tariffs between the bloc and Britain.
According to a study by the University of Leuven in Holland, there will be close to two million job loses across the continent as a result of a no-deal Brexit. With Germany possibly losing nearly 300,000 jobs as a result. But the biggest immediate impact would likely be felt in Britain, which could see more than half-a-million jobs lost and the country’s GDP take a 4.4 percent, according to the study. Bank of England economists have predicted a recession in Britain, if there is a hard Brexit.
Johnson’s supporters say such studies should give Brussels pause and will convince EU leaders to cave to British demands.
EU officials fear both Conservative candidates — especially Johnson — are backing themselves into a corner in a competition of political machismo. Johnson is stating unequivocally that he will, if in Downing Street, lead Britain out of the EU on October 31, deal or no deal, pledging to do so “do or die.” Hunt has allowed himself some wiggle room, saying the deadline could be passed if there is a chance of a new deal.
Schumer: ATF Should Investigate Dominican Republic Deaths
The Senate’s top Democrat called on the U.S. government Sunday to step up its efforts to investigate the deaths of Americans who traveled to the Dominican Republic and is asking the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to get involved.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the agency should step in to lend investigative support to the FBI and local law enforcement officials after at least eight Americans died in the Dominican Republic this year. Family members of the tourists have called on authorities to investigate whether there’s any connection between the deaths and have raised the possibility the deaths may have been caused by adulterated alcohol or misused pesticides.
The ATF – the agency primarily investigates firearms-related crimes but is also charged with regulating alcohol and tobacco – is uniquely positioned to provide technical and forensic expertise in the investigation, Schumer said. The agency also has offices in the Caribbean.
“Given that we still have a whole lot of questions and very few answers into just what, if anything, is cause for the recent spate of sicknesses and several deaths of Americans in the Dominican Republic, the feds should double their efforts on helping get to the bottom of things,” Schumer said in a statement to The Associated Press.
An ATF spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Francisco Javier Garcia, the tourism minister in the Dominican Republic, said earlier this month that the deaths are not part of any mysterious wave of fatalities but instead are a statistically normal phenomenon that has been lumped together by the U.S. media. He said autopsies show the tourists died of natural causes.
Five of the autopsies were complete as of last week, while three were undergoing further toxicological analysis with the help from the FBI because of the circumstances of the deaths.
Trump Meets Kim at DMZ, Crosses Into North Korea
Donald Trump on Sunday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit North Korea, stepping across the border during a meeting at the demilitarized zone with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. At the impromptu summit, Trump said they agreed to resume working level negotiations, which had been stalled, as VOA’s William Gallo reports from Seoul.
Taliban Say Latest Round of Talks with US ‘Critical’
The seventh and latest round of peace talks between the U.S. and Taliban is “critical,” said Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen on Sunday, the second day of talks with Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in the Mideastern state of Qatar, where the militant group maintains a political office.
Shaheen told The Associated Press both sides are looking for “tangible results” as they try to hammer out the fine print of agreements that will see the eventual withdrawal of over 20,000 U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan, and end America’s longest-running war.
The agreements are also expected to provide guarantees that Afghanistan will not again harbor terrorists to carry out attacks worldwide.
The talks began on Saturday and are expected to continue into the next week.
The two sides sat down to negotiate just days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was hopeful of a deal to end Afghanistan’s protracted war by Sept. 1.
“Getting a comprehensive peace agreement with the Taliban before Sept. 1 would be nothing short of a miracle,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson’s Center.
“That said, I could certainly envision a more limited deal being in place by Sept. 1 on a U.S. troop withdrawal, given that there’s already been ample progress on this issue.”
Pompeo and Khalilzad have both said the final accord will include not only agreements with the Taliban on troop withdrawal and guarantees of a non-threatening Afghanistan, but also agreement on intra-Afghan dialogue and a permanent cease fire.
Until now the Taliban have refused direct talks with the Afghan government while holding two separate meetings with a wide array of prominent Afghans from Kabul, including former president Hamid Karzai, members of the former northern alliance that fought the Taliban during its five-year rule as well as members of the government.
The Taliban have said they will meet government officials but as ordinary Afghans, labeling President Ashraf Ghani’s government a U.S. puppet and noting that the U.S. is the final arbiter on their central issue, which is troop withdrawal.
The Taliban have refused a ceasefire until the withdrawal is complete, saying that to restart their insurgency if the U.S. reneges on its promises could be difficult.
But the accelerated pace of negotiations and the sudden announcement of a Sept. 1 target date for an agreement could be linked to Afghan President Ghani’s insistence on presidential polls scheduled for Sept. 28 in Afghanistan, say analysts.
The upcoming elections have been criticized by many of his political opponents who often point to last October’s parliamentary polls. The voting was so badly mismanaged that Ghani fired the entire Independent Election Commission, and several of the parliamentary seats are still being contested.
A biometric identification system aimed at reducing election fraud was prematurely rolled out for the polls, with the few people trained on the machines not showing up on election day.
While there were incidences of violence during the polling, analysts widely agreed the greatest flaw was the widespread mismanagement and fraud.
Khalilzad has also suggested that presidential elections could hamper reaching a peace agreement.
“I do think the U.S. government recognizes that the election could pose a major obstacle to peace talks, given that it will be a distraction and given that it will accentuate and intensify the fractures and rivalries in the Afghan political environment that undercut reconciliation prospects,” said Kugelman.
“Another reason for the focus on Sept. 1 is much simpler: President Trump wants out, and he wants a deal as soon as possible.”
Libyan Fighters Threaten to Target Turkish Interests
The forces of Libya’s Khalifa Hifter said Friday that Turkish vessels and interests are “legitimate targets” in its battle to seize the capital of Tripoli, after it accused Turkey of helping rival militias allied with the U.N.-supported government.
The self-styled Libyan National Army, led by Hifter, already controls much of the country’s east and south. It launched an offensive against the weak Tripoli-based government in April. The fighting has threatened to plunge Libya into another bout of violence on the scale of the 2011 conflict that ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi and led to his death.
A spokesman for the LNA, Ahmed al-Mesmari, said the country had “come under illegitimate Turkish aggression” in recent weeks.
“Turkey has become directly involved in the battle (for Tripoli), with its soldiers, planes, sea ships and all the supplies that now reach Misrata, Tripoli and Zuwara directly,” al-Mesmari said.
He said Turkey had helped push the LNA out of the town of Gharyan, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Tripoli. The town was a key supply route for Hifter’s forces pushing toward the capital.
Turkish forces also bombed LNA positions and provided air cover for militias allied with the Tripoli-based government to retake the town, he said.
Al-Mesmari said LNA forces have now been ordered to target any Turkish ships, strategic sites or companies operating in Libya or its territorial waters, and to arrest any Turkish nationals in Libya.
Libyan officials said they had carried out “heavy” airstrikes in retaliation against the fighters who retook Gharyan. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
The government in the east said LNA forces were killed after being captured alive in hospitals in Gharyan, a claim denied by Gharyan Gov. Yousef Bediri, who is loyal to the Tripoli government.
Bediri called on rights groups to investigate the killing in Gharyan saying the LNA troops were killed earlier during the fighting.
Col. Mohamed Gnono, a spokesman for the Tripoli government forces, told a news conference in Gharyan that they captured over 150 of Hifter’s troops and seized armored vehicles, three drones and U.S.-made weapons and missiles.
Oded Berkowitz, an Israeli security analyst who specializes in the Libyan conflict, said “the most interesting and notable” of these seized weapons were FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles, UAE-made Yabhon drones, and Russia-made Kornet anti-tank guided missiles.
“This is a game changer not only because it’s a highly advanced weapon, but because it’s also American,” he said.
Last month, a Facebook page linked to the Tripoli government posted photos appearing to show more than a dozen armored vehicles arriving at port, without saying who supplied them. Supporters of the various militias allied with the government said the vehicles, which resemble Turkish-made Kirpi armored carriers, were supplied by Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday he was unaware of the LNA’s orders. “If Hifter has given such an order, we’ll get that evaluated,” he said. He said Turkey had already taken “necessary” precautions.
Erdogan said in April his government would stand by Tripoli authorities as they repel the offensive launched by Hifter’s forces.
The U.N.-supported government condemned Hifter threats of targeting Turkey’s interests in Libya.
The Government of National accord, backed by Turkey, urged the U.N. support mission in Libya to have “clear positions” toward these “unprecedented comments” by the LNA spokesman.
In a press conference late Saturday, al-Mesmari said their airstrikes would continue on Gharyan and outskirts of Tripoli.
He said LNA forces repelled attacks by militias allied with the U.N.-supported government on towns of Ain Zara and Wadi al-Rabie outside Tripoli.
“Forensic reports showed that wounded in Gharyan hospitals were knifed, shot deal in their heads or rammed by cars,” he said.
Hifter, who in recent years has been battling Islamic extremists and other militias across eastern Libya, says he is determined to restore stability to the North African country. His opponents view him as an aspiring autocrat and fear a return to one-man rule.
Hifter has received support from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, while his rivals receive support from Qatar and Turkey.
The fight for Tripoli has killed at least 739 people, according to the World Health Organization.
Pittsburgh Confesses Its Love For Beer, Turns Church Into Brewery
There are hundreds of thousands of churches in the United States. And though some 4,000 to 5,000 new congregations open their doors in the country each year, just as many close, mainly due to economic reasons. The vacant churches are then remodeled and reused as apartment complexes, bookstores and museums. Or turned into breweries, as was done in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nataliya Leonova has the story.
Thousands March in Madrid to Save Anti-Pollution Plan
Thousands marched through Madrid on Saturday to ask the Spanish capital’s new mayor not to ditch ambitious traffic restrictions in the center only recently set up to improve air quality.
“Madrid Central,” as it is called, was one of the measures that persuaded the European Commission not to take Spain to court last year over its bad air pollution in the capital and Barcelona, as it did with France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
“Fewer cars, better air” and “The new city hall seriously harms your health” were the messages on banners as protesters walked through the city’s center in 40-degree-Celsius heat.
The capital’s new conservative mayor, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, made ditching “Madrid Central” a priority during his campaign, saying it had done nothing to ease pollution and only caused a nuisance for locals.
But since he has taken power as part of a coalition with center-right party Ciudadanos, city officials have toned this down, saying the government is merely seeking to reform a system that does not work properly, having mistakingly handed out some fines.
When the system was launched in November, Madrid followed in the steps of other European cities such as London, Stockholm and Milan that have restricted traffic in their centers.
But while in these cases drivers can pay to enter such zones, Madrid went a step further, banning many vehicles from accessing the center altogether and fining them if they did.
These fines will be suspended from July 1 to the end of September as the new city hall team audits the system.
For Beatriz Navarro, 44, a university biochemistry professor who took part in the march, the system is working fine.
“It’s a small seed … among everything that has to be done to slow down climate change,” she said.
In a statement, environmental group Ecologistas en Accion said “the levels of pollution from nitrogen dioxide (NO2) registered during May this year were lower than those of 2018 in all the [measuring] stations in the system.”
“In 14 of the 24 stations [in Madrid], the value registered in May 2019 was the lowest in the last 10 years.”
Trump Administration Agrees to Delay Health Care Rule
The Trump administration has agreed to postpone implementing a rule allowing medical workers to decline performing abortions or other treatments on moral or religious grounds while the so-called “conscience” rule is challenged in a California court.
The rule was supposed to take effect on July 22 but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its opponents in a California lawsuit mutually agreed Friday to delay a final ruling on the matter until Nov. 22.
The agency called it the “most efficient way to adjudicate” the rule.
A federal judge in San Francisco permitted the change on Saturday.
A California lawsuit alleges that the department exceeded its authority with the rule, which President Trump announced in May.
The measure known as Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care; Delegations of Authority would require institutions that receive money from federal programs to certify that they comply with some 25 federal laws protecting conscience and religious rights.
Most laws pertain to medical procedures such as abortion, sterilization and assisted suicide.
The department has previously said that past administrations haven’t done enough to protect such rights in the medical field.
The rule is a priority for religious conservatives, but critics fear it will become a pretext for denying medical attention to LGBT people or women seeking abortions, a legal medical procedure.
“The Trump administration is trying to systematically limit access to critical medical care for women, the LGBTQ community, and other vulnerable patients,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement announcing Friday’s decision. “Hospitals are no place to put personal beliefs above patient care.”
San Francisco would have faced losing about $1 billion in federal funding for health care-related programs if the rule took effect, according to the statement from his office.
American Baseball Brings a Wild Show to London
Rest assured, British fans: Most baseball games are not like the one played Saturday in London, not even the crazy ones between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
Each team scored six runs in a first inning that lasted nearly an hour, with Aaron Hicks hitting the first European homer. Brett Gardner had a tiebreaking, two-run drive in the third, Aaron Judge went deep to cap a six-run fourth and the Yankees outlasted their rivals 17-13 in a game that stretched for 4 hours, 42 minutes — 3 minutes shy of the record for a nine-inning game.
“Well, cricket takes like all weekend to play, right? So, I’m sure a lot of people are used to it,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We should remind them there’s not 30 runs every game.”
The game was played before a sellout crowd of 59,659 that included supporters from Britain, Beantown and the Big Apple plus royalty, and America’s national pastime seemed to make a positive impression on British fans.
“I think we’re getting as good a reception as football has for the last couple years,” Yankees first baseman Luke Voit said.
Great weather
The weather helped. It was a warm, picture-perfect day in often overcast London — baseball weather at its best, played on a midsummer’s eve with sunlight that seemed to never fade.
Things American fans take for granted, like standing for the national anthem, or joshing rival fans without getting overly crude, struck many Brits in London Stadium as a refreshing change.
“It’s brilliant, it’s amazing, it’s so American as well,” said Jack Lockwood, a 23-year-old who pitches and plays catcher in an amateur baseball league in the city of Sheffield. “I’ve been to hundreds of football (soccer) games and it’s just such a different atmosphere. I just like the American positivity.”
Lockwood spent about six hours on a train to get to and from London for the game, but he considered the trip well worth it, even though his favorite team — the Los Angeles Dodgers — wasn’t playing.
He said it would be impossible to have fans from two rival English soccer teams sit in the same stands — intermingled as Yankee and Red Sox fans were Saturday — without violent scenes.
“You put two rival football teams’ fans in the same stands, you’ll get a fight,” he said. “In baseball, you can put the fans together and you can have a laugh with anyone.”
British touches
There were some British touches at the game, like the roaming vendors selling Pimm’s cocktails and gin and tonics, but the focus was generally on typical American ballpark fare: hot dogs, nachos, burgers and beer. There were even supersized hot dogs, checking in at 2 feet long.
“It’s the way the Americans do sports,” said pleased British fan Stuart Graham, 45. “The way they have the spectator in mind. You know, you’re sitting there and the man comes around with your beer and your hot dogs, and you can relax and enjoy the game. It’s really very different to what we’re used to.”
He and Ian Muggridge bought the tickets months ago, spurred in part by the storied Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, which promised to bring top talent to the British capital.
“Two big heavyweights of U.S. baseball, sort of like Manchester United playing Liverpool in the UK,” he said, referring to British soccer rivals. “Great spectacle to come and see.”
He did find one disappointment to baseball in Britain: The hot dogs weren’t as good as the ones he’d enjoyed at an American park.
Muggridge appreciated the mood in the park, with the playing of the U.S. and British national anthems before the game.
‘Patriotic feel’
“I like the fact that it’s got quite a patriotic feel about it,” he said. “You don’t often get that in British sports. We tend to avoid that, whereas in America you just put it out there.”
While many British fans only had to jump a Tube train to get to the park, thousands of American fans flew across the Atlantic at considerable expense to catch the historic games.
Yankees fan Danielle McCauley of Clifton, N.J., built a weeklong British holiday around Saturday’s game.
“It’s been fun. The whole thing has been really cool,” she said, although she found the crowd far less raucous than those she had been part of in Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. Call it British reserve.
“It’s quiet,” she said. “It’s the quietest sporting event I’ve ever been to.”
Mexico Seeks Closer China Business Ties
Mexico wants to deepen economic ties with China by increasing its exports and attracting more investment from the Asian country, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Saturday ahead of a visit to Beijing.
Ebrard was speaking to reporters via a video link from the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, where he said that talks with other government officials had demonstrated there was growing interest in boosting trade and investment with Mexico.
This was “very clear” in the case of China, where Ebrard said he would be giving priority to expanding business ties during his visit there at the start of next week.
“What we’re interested in,” he said, “is increasing Mexico’s presence in China, Mexico’s capacity to export to China. And China’s investments in Mexico.”
Ebrard was representing Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at the summit, who in a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he could not attend because there were “urgent” matters requiring his attention in Mexico.
Ebrard is due to speak to media on Tuesday in China, which exports much more to Mexico than vice versa.
Last year, according to Mexican economy ministry data, Mexico imported $83.5 billion worth of goods from China, while its exports to China were worth $7.4 billion.
Mexico sends around 80% of its exports to the United States, and is eager to sell more to other countries to reduce its economic dependence on its neighbor.
That dependence has become an increasing liability since U.S. President Donald Trump last month vowed to slap tariffs on all Mexican exports to the United States if Mexico did not do more to stem a surge in migrants heading to the United States.
During the summit, Ebrard said, Trump had told him the United States “had good signs that things were going well” in Mexico’s bid to cut the flow of mostly Central Americans seeking to cross the U.S. border.
Ebrard also noted India was interested in doing more business with Mexico, and that he would visit New Delhi “soon.”
Despite that, concern in business circles about the Lopez Obrador administration’s ability to attract investment grew last week when Mexican state power utility CFE said it wanted to get “fairer” terms for contracts signed under the last government.
That drew criticism from Canada, whose government voiced its concerns at the G-20 about CFE’s desire to revisit a major pipeline contract involving a Canadian firm, Mexican Finance Minister Carlos Urzua said.
Ship Carrying Waste Returns to Canada From Philippines
A ship carrying 69 containers of waste mislabeled as plastic recyclables returned to Canada on Saturday from the Philippines, closing a chapter on a dispute that started in 2013 and sparked a diplomatic furor between Ottawa and Manila.
The shipment was taken off the container ship Anna Maersk docked close to Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal and arrived at GCT Deltaport in Delta, British Columbia, part of Greater Vancouver, GCT said in a statement.
Sarah Lusk, Metro Vancouver spokeswoman, said the waste would be sent to a Waste-to-Energy facility in Burnaby where it will be incinerated, but added that there was “uncertainty with respect to timing” and the facility may not receive the waste over the weekend.
The waste containers became part of a diplomatic dispute between Manila and Ottawa, as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened Canada with war and withdrew top diplomats from Canada after Canada missed a May 15 deadline to take back the waste.
The waste was shipped to the Philippines in 2013 and 2014 and mislabeled as recyclable plastics. Instead, it was filled with garbage including used diapers and newspapers. A Philippine court ruled in 2016 that it be returned.
Canada made arrangements in late May to accept the containers and said they hired Bollore Logistics Canada to safely bring them back as soon as possible.
Waste disposal has emerged as a topic of political dispute between Southeast Asian countries and the developed world, with Malaysia in May becoming the latest to demand nations such as the United States, Japan, France, Canada, Australia and Britain take back 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste.
The government department Environment and Climate Change Canada told Reuters earlier this month that the government was in talks with Malaysia to recover the plastic waste that originated from Canada.
Americans Arrive in Canada to Get Cheaper Insulin
A self-declared “caravan” of Americans bused across the Canada-U.S. border on Saturday, seeking affordable prices for insulin and raising awareness of “the insulin price crisis” in the United States.
The group called Caravan to Canada started the journey from Minneapolis, Minn., on Friday and stopped at London, Ontario, on Saturday to purchase lifesaving type 1 diabetes medication at a pharmacy.
About 20 people made the trip, according to Nicole Smith-Holt, a member of the group. Smith-Holt said her 26-year-old son died in June 2017 because he was forced to ration costly insulin.
Caravan to Canada trekked across the border in May for the same reason, and Smith-Holt was on that trip, too. She said the previous group was smaller than this week’s group. Americans have gone to countries like Mexico and Canada for more affordable medications in the past and continue to do so, she added.
‘Resurgence’ in visitors
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported in May that Canadian pharmacists have seen a “quiet resurgence” in Americans coming to Canada looking for cheaper pharmaceuticals.
Insulin prices in the United States nearly doubled to an average annual cost of $5,705 in 2016 from $2,864 in 2012, according to a study in January.
While not everyone purchased the same amount of insulin, Smith-Holt said most people were saving around $3,000 for three months’ worth of insulin, and as a whole the group was saving around $15,000 to $20,000.
Prescriptions for insulin are not required in Canadian pharmacies Smith-Holt said, but the caravan has them so they can prove to the border patrol they are not intending to resell them when returning to the United States.
T1International, a nonprofit that advocates for increased access to type 1 diabetes medication, has described the situation in U.S. as an insulin crisis. Quinn Nystrom, a leader of T1International’s Minnesota chapter, said on May via Twitter that the price of insulin in the United States per vial was $320, while in Canada the same medication under a different name was $30.
“We know that many people couldn’t make this trip because they cannot afford the costs associated with traveling to another country to buy insulin there,” Elizabeth Pfiester, executive director of T1International, said in a press release.
Banting House
An itinerary said the caravan planned to stop at the Banting House in London later in the day. The Banting House is where Canadian physician and scientist Frederick Banting, who discovered insulin, lived from 1920 to 1921, and the building is called the “birthplace of insulin,” according to the Banting House website.
Smith-Holt said the group was not currently planning any future trips, but they could be organized in the near future depending on need. She hopes for long-term solutions in the United States like price caps, anti-gouging laws, patent reform and transparency from pharmaceutical companies.
Italy arrests captain of charity vessel carrying migrants
Italian police Saturday arrested the captain of the Dutch-flagged Sea Watch 3 vessel, owned by a German charity, after it docked in the port of Lampedusa with out authorization. The vessel, still carrying 40 African migrants, had been at sea for more than two weeks.
Carola Rakete, the 31-year-old German captain of the Sea Watch 3, was arrested Saturday morning amid heavy police presence in the port of Lampedusa. She had entered the port without authorization and docked the vessel.
Rakete said she had no choice but to enter the port because the situation of the migrants on board was very tense and she feared they would inflict self-harm.
Italian authorities had refused to allow the vessel entry into Lampedusa since it rescued 53 migrants on an inflatable raft off the coast of Libya on June 12. Malta had also refused port entry to the Sea Watch 3.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had been clear about his requests.
He said he wanted the arrest of any unlawful person who even put at risk Italian law and order officials, a fine for this foreign NGO, the seizure of the ship to stop it going around the Mediterranean breaking the laws and the distribution of all the migrants on board in other European states.
Forty African migrants, who had fled horrors and tortures in Libya, were still on board when the vessel entered the port Saturday morning.
It remained unclear whether the migrants would be allowed to disembark and what their fate would be, although Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, speaking at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, said a number of other European Union countries said they were prepared to accept the migrants.
A Village Benefits as India Links Welfare To Digital Economy
Biru Devi is relaxed about getting paid for her labor as she toils on the picturesque hill slopes in Tanda village with a group of other women. She is working on a construction project under India’s flagship $10 billion rural jobs program that guarantees poor rural households 100 days of work every year.
“Earlier my money was never paid in time, maybe the bills did not get passed. But now my wages go into my bank account and are not delayed,” said Devi.
The payments got streamlined after the 60-year-old Devi opened a bank account using her biometric identity card. The unique 12-digit identification number made it possible to operate the account even though she did not know how to read and write. All the 3000 village residents did so as part of a project led by a public sector bank and village authorities to transform Tanda into a digital village.
The switchover from cash to online payments is helping address one of the biggest problems that had plagued the rural welfare scheme – middlemen who used to siphon off money from the anti-poverty program that provides work to 70 million people.
Using the world’s biggest biometric identity project under which citizens have been given an identity number, India is starting to transform the way it gets welfare to the poor. Although glitches remain and some controversy dogs the biometric program called “Aadhaar” which means foundation, it is helping root out graft from welfare schemes on which India spends billions of dollars.
It took time to persuade women like Biru Devi that their money in the bank would be safe – the majority of workers of the rural jobs program are women and many like Devi are illiterate.
“They are happy that they have to just show their Aadhaar card, and they have to just put their finger or thumb, and they get their money or deposit their money or get the money transferred, so it is changing,” said Ekta Mahajan, branch manager at State Bank of India in Palampur, which led the digitization drive in the village. But now they know the benefits. “There will be no corruption, there will be no commission, they will benefit directly and faster.”
Besides wages for the rural welfare program, subsidized food rations that India gives nearly 800 million people have also been linked to the biometric cards. The more than $20 billion food welfare program that guarantees cheap rice and wheat to the poor is the world’s largest public food distribution system, but it was beset with graft for decades. A large part of the food was siphoned off by corrupt officials and sold to traders at market rates and thousands of fake names were often put on the rolls of beneficiaries.
That is changing. At the local ration shop in Tanda, eligible residents now show their electronic cards or use their thumb and finger impressions to get the rations. It ensures the food goes to the intended beneficiaries.
The shop’s owner says it has reduced his work of making entries in registers. But an erratic wifi network can still pose a hurdle in bringing technology to rural areas.“Sometimes people have to wait for half an hour because we cannot connect to the system,” Rajiv Kumar admitted ruefully.
Although some activists have long opposed linking the biometric identity cards to welfare schemes, India’s Supreme Court cleared the way for it last year, saying it empowers the poor. “Aadhaar gives dignity to the marginalized,” the court ruling stated.
These activists say that the biometric cards have failed to cut fraud and denied welfare benefits to many poor people who have found it difficult to link their Aadhaar cards to the programs. The problem is the most acute in underdeveloped states where governance is poor.
“In many cases it leads to other ways of corruption,” said Reetika Khera, an economist at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. She said the major problem lies in what she calls “quantity fraud” or short changing people on the rations they are entitled to. “They may still give you half the rations you are entitled to, or tell people that the authentication failed even if it has not and use their quota.”
India’s top court has said that such challenges meant the plan had to be improved, not axed.
Besides cutting graft from welfare schemes, digitization has brought other benefits in Tanda village as it gets plugged into the banking economy for the first time. Women who attend a workshop learn how they can avail themselves of education loans or cheap farm loans meant for rural areas.
“They have savings, they are taking loans to teach their children,” according to the village head, Jasbir Singh. “Access to loans has boosted our agriculture and traditional dairy farming and improved incomes. So even those who cannot get jobs earn a decent livelihood.”
Leapfrogging into the digital era has transformed this Himalayan village in more ways than one.
With their smart phones, villagers now shop for vegetables and groceries at the local store the modern way. “Our children also tell us, mom the old times are over. Become a model for the new world. We also feel happy that we too are part of a new age,” said a laughing 60-year-old Rekha Devi.
And women, whose only way to save money was to put it under mattresses or tuck it at the back of cupboards, have a new sense of security. “If there for an emergency, I can take out money,” said Biru Devi proudly. (( end it))
US, Taliban Open Doha Talks in Fresh Bid to End War
A fresh round of talks between the U.S. and the Taliban began in Qatar on Saturday, just days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington is hoping for an Afghan peace agreement before Sept. 1.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed to The Associated Press that negotiations had begun. Originally scheduled to begin in the morning, the two sides sat down mid-afternoon for the seventh time in a series of direct talks that began last year following the appointment of U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad.
As in previous talks between Khalilzad and the Taliban, the focus will be on the withdrawal of U.S. troops and Taliban guarantees to prevent Afghanistan from again hosting militants who can stage global attacks.
Both sides say they have come to an understanding on the withdrawal and the guarantees but the details have yet to be worked out.
Both Khalilzad and Pompeo have said that agreements with the Taliban will come hand in hand with agreements on an intra-Afghan dialogue and a permanent cease fire.
Until now, the Taliban have refused to meet directly with President Ashraf Ghani’s government but have held several rounds of talks with a collection of Afghan personalities from Kabul, including former President Hamid Karzai, several prominent opposition leaders and government peace council members. Both those meetings were held in Moscow earlier this year. The Taliban say they will meet with government officials but as ordinary Afghans and not representatives of the government – at least not until an agreement with the U.S. is finalized, saying the U.S. is the final arbiter on the Taliban’s biggest issue of troop withdrawal.
The Taliban have also refused a cease-fire. Taliban officials who have spoken to the AP on condition they not be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media, say they won’t agree to a cease-fire until troop withdrawal is in place because returning Taliban to the battlefield with the same momentum of today if the U.S. reneges on its promises could be difficult.
Khalilzad has been in the region for several weeks meeting a legion of regional and Afghan officials, including Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
Khalilzad has been relentless in his pursuit of an intra-Afghan dialogue after an earlier planned meeting between the government and the Taliban in Doha was scuttled when both sides disagreed on participants.
Still the latest round of talks comes amid heightened expectations that followed Pompeo’s optimistic time frame for a pact to end Afghanistan’s nearly 18-year war and America’s longest-running military engagement.
Latest Taliban Attacks Kill At Least 42 Afghan Forces
The Taliban has killed dozens of government forces in its latest battlefield attacks in Afghanistan as the insurgent group opens a new round of peace negotiations with the United States in Qatar to discuss a political settlement to the deadly Afghan war.
Officials in northern Baghlan province said Saturday a large group of insurgents assaulted several security outposts in Nahreen district, triggering hours-long fierce clashes.
The district chief, Fazluddin Mardi, told VOA the attack killed 26 in the pro-government anti-Taliban forces and wounded eight others. He asserted that insurgents also suffered heavy casualties but gave no further details.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid gave a much higher casualty toll for Afghan forces, saying several senior commanders were also among those killed.
Attack in Kandahar province
The Taliban also carried out an early morning attack against police posts in southern Kandahar province. A security official told VOA the insurgent raid in the Takhta Pol district near the airport of the provincial capital, also named Kandahar, killed 16 policemen and wounded four others.
The insurgent group in a statement claimed it killed 20 Afghan police personnel, though Taliban spokesman people often issue inflated claims for such attacks.
Taliban captured
Separately, provincial governor Hayatullah Hayat told a news conference Afghan forces have captured 40 Taliban members during recent raids in the Kandahar city. He claimed a large number of the detainees are specially trained insurgents tasked to carry out guerrilla attacks in urban centers.
The deadly violence came ahead of Saturday’s seventh round of peace negotiations between the Taliban and U.S. negotiators led by Afghan-born American diplomat, Zalmay Khalilzad.
The two sides are expected to finalize a draft text outlining insurgent commitments that Taliban-controlled areas will not be allowed to become a hub of international terrorism. In return, the Taliban says, Washington has promised to announce a troop withdrawal timeline.
Khalilzad, however, has emphasized the final agreement must include a Taliban cease-fire and its engagement in intra-Afghan peace dialogue. The insurgent group, for its part, has publicly rejected those assertions, saying it would discuss a cease-fire and participation in Afghan-to-Afghan talks only after the U.S. side agrees to and announces a troop withdrawal timetable.
Mexico Steps Up Border Enforcement; US Lawmakers OK Border Funding
Mexico and the United States are scrambling to address rising numbers of immigrants arriving at their shared border. Mexican border guards are stepping up raids against immigrants traveling north. In the United States, an uproar over the treatment of children in U.S. detention facilities led American lawmakers to approve a $4.6 billion emergency bill. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
Composting Service on Wheels Appears in New York City
A group of New York bikers has set out to save the environment by starting a bike-powered composting service. They collect food waste from restaurants and households for composting, and then use that compost as fertilizer to grow vegetables. In a city with a population of 8.5 million people, this might seem like a drop in the bucket, but while the scope might be small now, the organizers have big and green plans for the project. Nina Vishneva has the story narrated by Anna Rice.