At least two people were killed when a four-story residential building collapsed on Tuesday in India’s financial capital Mumbai. Dozens are trapped in the rubble.

Teams from the national disaster response force and firefighters are racing to extricate those buried under the debris. Located in a maze of crowded, narrow lanes, rescue crews had to access the site by foot, parking vehicles some distance away. Local volunteers joined the effort, trying to remove the rubble by hand.

A young child and a woman were among the handful that were pulled to safety and taken to hospital in the hours after the collapse.

Eyewitnesses said the building, which was in a dilapidated condition, came crashing down after a loud thud was heard shortly before noon. Heavy rains in the city had inundated the area.  

Maharashtra state Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, told reporters the structure was about 100 years old and home to about 15 families. He said an investigation would be conducted.

Authorities say they had told the residents to evacuate the building, but people had ignored the warning.

Efforts are underway to rescue people from adjacent buildings, which are also unsafe. Low-income families, residing in such structures, often find it difficult to find alternate accommodations.

India is no stranger to building collapses, especially during the monsoon season that lasts from June to September when rains weaken the foundations of old structures. Poor construction standards are also often to blame for such disasters.

Mumbai has been pummeled by some of the heaviest rains in recent weeks. The city witnessed another disaster earlier this month when a wall collapsed burying shanty homes and killing 26 people.

On Monday, a building came crashing down in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, killing 14 people.

Journalists in Pakistan have staged demonstrations across the country to denounce censorship by the country’s powerful military and security services, layoffs due to budget cuts, and months-long delays in wage payments.

The protests on July 16 are spearheaded by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists to fight “unprecedented censorship.”

Afzal Butt, president of the union, said the rallies are only the “beginning of a protest movement.”

“We have launched a movement for the rights of journalists from today,” Butt said.

“Around 5,000 journalists have lost their jobs in the last eight months and we believe it is a continuation of censorship,” Butt said.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) last week blasted a decision by Pakistani authorities to suspend three TV news channels from cable networks for broadcasting an opposition figure’s news conference.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a report released in September that the climate for press freedom in Pakistan was deteriorating as the country’s army “quietly, but effectively” restricts reporting through “intimidation” and other means.

Pakistan ranks 142nd out of 180 countries listed on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index.

European Union foreign ministers on Monday turned up the pressure on Turkey after approving an initial batch of sanctions against the country over its drilling for gas in waters where EU member Cyprus has exclusive economic rights. 

The ministers said in a statement that in light of Turkey’s “continued and new illegal drilling activities,” they were suspending talks on an air transport agreement and would call on the European Investment Bank to “review” it’s lending to the country.

They also backed a proposal by the EU’s executive branch to reduce financial assistance to Turkey for next year. The ministers warned that additional “targeted measures” were being worked on to penalize Turkey, which started negotiations to join the EU in 2005.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu issued his own warning last week that his country would step up drilling activities off Cyprus if the EU moved ahead with sanctions. 

Two Turkish vessels escorted by warships are drilling for gas on either end of ethnically divided Cyprus.

The EU ministers repeated the “serious immediate negative impact” that Turkey’s illegal actions are having on EU-Turkey relations and called on Ankara to respect Cyprus’ sovereign rights in line with international law.

They also welcomed the Cypriot government’s invitation to Turkey to negotiate the borders of their respective exclusive economic zones and continental shelf.

Turkey doesn’t recognize Cyprus as a state and claims 44% of Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone as its own, according to Cyprus government officials. Turkish Cypriots in the east Mediterranean island nation’s breakaway north claim another 25%.

Cyprus was split along ethnic lines in 1974 when Turkey invaded in the wake of a coup by supporters of union with Greece. A Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence is recognized only by Turkey, which keeps more than 35,000 troops in the breakaway north. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, but only the internationally recognized south enjoys full membership benefits. 

Turkey contends that it’s protecting its rights and those of Turkish Cypriots to the area’s hydrocarbon deposits. Cypriot officials, however, accuse Turkey of using the minority Turkish Cypriots in order to pursue its goal of exerting control over the eastern Mediterranean region.

The Cypriot government says it will take legal action against any oil and gas companies supporting Turkish vessels in any repeat attempt to drill for gas. Cyprus has already issued around 20 international arrest warrants against three international companies assisting one of the two Turkish vessels now drilling 42 miles (68 kilometers) off the island’s west coast.

The Cyprus government has licensed energy companies including ExxonMobil, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni to carry out gas drilling in blocks, or areas, off the island’s southern coastline. At least three significant gas deposits have so far been discovered there.  

Meanwhile, Cyprus’ Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades will chair a meeting of political leaders Tuesday to discuss a renewed proposal by Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa AKinci to establish a joint committee with Greek Cypriots on managing offshore gas drilling activities.

Akinci has repeatedly called for the creation of such a committee that he says would give his community a say in how newly found gas deposits off Cyprus’ southern coast are managed and future proceeds are divvied up. A similar proposal was made by Akinci’s predecessor Dervis Eroglu in 2011. 

The Cypriot government says energy discussions with Turkish Cypriots should be part of overarching reunification talks, adding that Turkish Cypriot rights to the island’s energy reserves are assured. The government says future gas proceeds that will flow into an established hydrocarbons fund will be shared equitably after a peace deal is signed.

Former Democratic U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke raised a lackluster $3.6 million for his struggling presidential campaign in the second quarter of the year, his campaign said on Monday.

The fundraising haul was a warning sign for the Texas politician and a stark drop in campaign cash after he raised more than $9 million in two weeks the previous period.

O’Rourke, who entered the race after gaining national prominence in his failed 2018 bid for the U.S. Senate from Texas, has failed to gain traction in opinion polls.

Some two dozen Democrats are vying for their party’s nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election. The crowded nominating contest will require candidates to spend millions of dollars to be competitive.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker reported on Monday he raised $4.5 million in the three months ended June 30.

Booker’s haul, nearly a quarter of it raised in the four days after his strong appearance in the party’s first debate last month, lagged those of other Democratic contenders, including front-runner Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who each raised more than $20 million.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders raised $18 million in the second quarter.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren brought in $19 million and spent $11 million, according to the report her campaign filed on Monday to the Federal Election Commission.

Senator Amy Klobuchar raked in just under $4 million.

Senator Kamala Harris, who has traded places with Warren as voters’ third and fourth choices in recent polling, said last week her campaign had raised $12 million.

By comparison, Trump and the Republican National Committee said they raised $108 million for Trump’s re-election campaign.

Trump made the unprecedented move to file for re-election the day he took office on Jan. 20, 2017, allowing him to spend the past two years building his re-election operation.

Candidates are required under federal law to disclose their donors and campaign expenses. The latest reports cover the second quarter of the year, which ended on June 30.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Monday at the base of Hawaii’s tallest mountain to protest the construction of a giant telescope on land that some Native Hawaiians consider sacred.

At about daybreak, a group of kupuna, or elders, tied themselves together with rope at the road to the summit of Mauna Kea. Another group of protesters were on the ground, attached to a cattle grate. 

Around them, protesters sang and chanted. 

The road was later officially closed, hours after it was essentially blocked by protesters. The prone elders tied together were expecting to be arrested. 

After two protest leaders spoke with police, they addressed the crowd and told them anyone who didn’t move would be arrested. The group would move aside, but the elders were expected to remain, protest leaders Kaho’okahi Kanuha and Andre Perez said. 

Officials said anyone breaking the law will be prosecuted. Protesters who blocked the roadway during previous attempts to begin construction have been arrested. No arrests were immediately reported Monday morning.

Telescope opponent Jennifer Leina’ala Sleightholm said she expects protests to remain peaceful. “I don’t anticipate anybody will get out of hand,” she said. “We have never given them any reason to think that we would.” 

She said she hopes the construction convoys turn around and leave. 

“I think I know what will happen, but what I hope will happen is I hope that they would just turn around and save our kupuna,” she said, using the Hawaiian word for elders. 

A puuhonua, or place of refuge, set up at the base of Mauna Kea won’t be swept by authorities, Kanuha and Perez told protesters after consulting with police. Protesters planned to stay there overnight. 

Scientists hope the massive telescope they planned for the site — a world-renowned location for astronomy — will help them peer back to the time just after the Big Bang and answer fundamental questions about the universe.

But some Native Hawaiians consider the land holy, as a realm of gods and a place of worship.

Groups of activists sang and prayed at the base of the mountain on Sunday afternoon. They declared the area, which is well off the highway at the intersection of the mountain’s access road, a place of refuge and safety. 

 This is Hawaiian homelands,” said Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the protest leaders. “We’re clearly out of their way, we’re not obstructing anything, everyone is in ceremony.”

The project already has been delayed by years of legal battles and demonstrations, drawing attention from the likes of “Aquaman” actor Jason Momoa, who has Native Hawaiian ancestry and has voiced opposition to the telescope. 

Scientists selected Mauna Kea in 2009 after a five-year, worldwide search for the ideal site.

Protests disrupted a groundbreaking and Hawaiian blessing ceremony at the site in 2014. After that, the demonstrations intensified.

Construction stopped in April 2015 after protesters were arrested for blocking the work. A second attempt to restart construction a few months later ended with more arrests and crews pulling back.

But Hawaii’s Supreme Court has ruled the construction is legal, permits are in place, and the state has given the company behind the telescope a green light to resume its efforts. The company is made up of a group of universities in California and Canada, with partners from China, India and Japan.

According to the University of Hawaii, ancient Hawaiians considered the location kapu, or forbidden. Only the highest-ranking chiefs and priests were allowed to make the long trek to Mauna Kea’s summit above the clouds.

Today, the university leases the land at the summit from the state for existing telescopes and observatories on the summit. A road built for telescope access decades ago is used by thousands of tourists and locals each year, including Native Hawaiians who go there to pray.

Supporters of the $1.4 billion giant telescope say the cutting-edge instrument will not only make important scientific discoveries but bring educational and economic opportunities to Hawaii.

The telescope’s primary mirror would measure 98 feet (30 meters) in diameter. It would be three times as wide as the world’s largest existing visible-light telescope, with nine times more area.

Gov. David Ige said unarmed National Guard units will be used to transport personnel and supplies and enforce road closures, but they will not be used in a law enforcement capacity during planned protests.

In a news conference Sunday, Ige said that he “respected the right of people to protest” at the telescope site as long as protesters behave lawfully.

“As construction begins, our number one priority is keeping everyone safe,” Ige said, adding that he wants to make sure construction workers and truck drivers have unimpeded access to the telescope site.

Two leading UN agencies report nearly 20 million children worldwide—more than one in 10—were not vaccinated against killer diseases, such as measles, diphtheria and tetanus in 2018. 

Global life-saving vaccine coverage remains at 86 percent.  This is high, but the World Health Organization says it is not high enough.  It says 95 percent coverage is needed to protect against outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.  

The worldwide measles outbreak is the starkest and most alarming example of what can happen when vaccine coverage across countries and communities falls below 95 percent.  Last year, nearly 350,000 measles cases were reported globally, more than double that of 2017.

WHO’s director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, Kate O’Brien warns measles outbreaks are not just persisting, but are increasing.  She agrees some of the problem is due to misinformation and false information regarding the safety of the measles vaccine.  But she says low coverage is mainly linked to sharp inequalities in both low-income and high-income countries.

“Even in high-income countries, access to vaccines, inequality and quality of care are often the greatest obstacles for parents to get vaccines for their children.  So, we want to emphasize both of these things that barriers to vaccination are not only about poor countries, they are also about the situation in high-income and middle-income countries,” she said. 

Nevertheless, O’Brien notes most unvaccinated children live in the poorest countries; especially in fragile or conflict-affected States.  Almost half, she said, are in just 16 countries.  Ten of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

WHO reports Nigeria, India and Pakistan have the lowest vaccination rates. It finds only two regions, the Americas and Western-Pacific had lower vaccination coverage in 2018 than in 2017.   Vaccinations in every other region, it says, have gone up or have plateaued.

While Africa remains the region with the lowest vaccine coverage, WHO says it has not gone backwards.  However, due to expected population rise, WHO projects fewer children in Africa are likely to receive life-saving vaccines in the coming decades.

 

Federal prosecutors, preparing for a bail fight Monday, say evidence against financier Jeffrey Epstein is growing “stronger by the day” after several more women contacted them in recent days to say he abused them when they were underage.

Prosecutors say Epstein, 66, is a flight risk and danger to the community and should remain incarcerated until he is tried on charges that he recruited and abused dozens of underage girls in New York and Florida in the early 2000s.

His lawyers counter that their client has not committed crimes since pleading guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution charges in Florida in 2008 and that the federal government is reneging on a 12-year-old deal not to prosecute him. They say he should be allowed to await trial under house arrest in his $77 million Manhattan mansion, with electronic monitoring.

In a written submission Friday to U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman, prosecutors revealed new information about their investigation and why they perceive Epstein as dangerous.

They said several additional women in multiple jurisdictions had identified themselves to the government, claiming Epstein abused them when they were minors. Also, dozens of individuals have called the government to report information about Epstein and the charges he faces, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said they believe Epstein might have tried to influence witnesses after discovering that he had paid a total of $350,000 to two individuals, including a former employee, in the last year. That came after the Miami Herald reported the circumstances of his state court conviction in 2008, which led to a 13-month jail term and his deal to avoid federal prosecution.

“This course of action, and in particular its timing, suggests the defendant was attempting to further influence co-conspirators who might provide information against him in light of the recently re-emerging allegations,” prosecutors said.

The decade-old secret plea deal led to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta’s resignation last week. Acosta came under renewed criticism following Epstein’s arrest over the 2008 non-prosecution agreement he oversaw as the U.S. attorney in Miami.

In addition to the charges in the indictment, prosecutors are also reviewing dozens of electronic files seized during a raid on Epstein’s residence after his July 6 arrest, finding even more photos than the hundreds or thousands of pictures of nude and seminude young women and girls they had reported prior to a court hearing a week ago.

In their submission to the judge, Epstein’s lawyers say their client has had a clean record since he began registering as a sex offender after his Florida conviction.

They said the accusations against Epstein are “outside the margins of federal criminal law” and don’t constitute sex trafficking since there were no allegations he “trafficked anybody for commercial profit; that he forced, coerced, defrauded, or enslaved anybody.”

Prosecutors said efforts by defense lawyers to characterize Epstein’s crimes as “simple prostitution” were “not only offensive but also utterly irrelevant given that federal law does not recognize the concept of a child prostitute – there are only trafficking victims – because a child cannot legally consent to being exploited.”

 

Unknown armed assailants killed a reporter for a local radio station in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province.

Nader Shah Sahibzada, a reporter for Voice of Gardiz local radio, went missing on Friday and authorities found his dead body on Saturday near his home in capital city, Gardiz.

Initial autopsy reports suggest that Sahibzada has been severely tortured and stabbed to death.

Aminullah Amiri, an editor of the Voice of Gardiz radio, told VOA that Sahibzada was running entertainment shows at the station and had no conflicts with anyone, suggesting he may have been killed because of his work.

Sardar Wali Tabassum, the provincial police spokesperson, told VOA that an investigation has been launched into the killing of Sahibzada and efforts are under way to bring those responsible for his death to justice.

Sahibzada’s case is not an isolated incident.  According to media advocacy groups in Afghanistan, so far this year seven local journalists have been killed by unknown armed men.

No group has immediately claimed responsibility for Sahibzada’s killing, but late last month the Taliban warned Afghan media outlets that if they do not stop what the militant group called “anti-Taliban statements”, they would be targeted.

“Those who continue doing so will be recognized by the group as military targets who are helping the Western-backed government of Afghanistan,” the insurgent group said in a statement.

“Reporters and staff members will not remain safe,” the statement added.

Both U.S. and Afghanistan condemned Taliban’s threats against the Afghan media outlets.

“Freedom of expression and attacks on media organizations is in contradiction to human and Islamic values,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said in a statement.

John Bass, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said in a tweet that the Taliban should stop threatening Afghan journalists.

“More violence, against journalists or civilians, will not bring security and opportunity to Afghanistan, nor will it help the Taliban reach their political objectives,” Bass said.

Deadliest place for journalists

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which advocates for freedom of the press around the world, reported that Afghanistan was the world’s deadliest country for journalists in 2018 followed by Syria.

The group said in its annual report in late December that 15 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan and 11 others have been killed in Syria, making both countries the deadliest places for journalists around the world.

The increased fatalities among journalists in Afghanistan is due in part to bombings and shootings that targeted media workers.

In April of 2018, a double bombing in Kabul killed nine journalists, including six Radio Free Europe reporters.

The Islamic State (IS) terror group claimed responsibility for those attacks, which they said deliberately targeted journalists.

Some of the materials used in this report came from Reuters.

 

Police used batons and pepper spray to disperse thousands of protesters who again took to the streets of a Hong Kong suburb to demand the complete withdrawal of a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China, as well as the resignation of the Beijing-approved leader Carrie Lam.
 
The protest in Sha Tin was peaceful through most of Sunday, but scuffles broke out between police and the demonstrators as the day came to an end. Some protesters ran into a local shopping mall where the scuffles continued.
 
Riot police used pepper spray and batons to clear protesters from the mall while demonstrators were seen using umbrellas and other make-shift weapons to fight police.
 
Protesters have begun taking their marches to farther-flung areas of Hong Kong in an effort to reach the wider population. Sha Tin is located in the New Territories close to the border with mainland China, and is popular with mainland visitors.
 
Organizers said 110,000 protesters took part, while police put the number at 28,000, according to broadcaster RTHK.

 Hong Kong has been the site of weekend demonstrations for weeks.
 
The protests began because of the controversial extradition bill that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong criminal suspects to mainland China.
 
After several weeks of controversy and large, angry street protests, Lam recently said the extradition bill is “dead.”
 
But the protests have continued. Some are demanding Lam’s resignation, others an investigation into complaints of police violence and some called genuine elections.
 
Residents of Hong Kong do not directly choose their leaders, rather they are picked from a pool of candidates approved by the Communist regime in Beijing.
 
The former British colony was granted special autonomy for 50 years after it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. But many in Hong Kong are concerned that China is slowly encroaching on those rights and tightening its grip on the territory.

 

At least 10 people have died and thousands of shanty homes have been destroyed since April by monsoon rains in overcrowded Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh’s southeast, officials said Sunday.

Bangladesh’s meteorological department said the Cox’s Bazar district — home to nearly one million Rohingya Muslims who have fled a military crackdown in Myanmar — has seen at least 58.5 centimeters (nearly two feet) of rain since July 2.

An International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokeswoman said heavy rains triggered mudslides in the refugee camps — which are mostly built on hill-slopes — destroying some 4,889 tarpaulin and bamboo shacks.

More than 200 landslides have been reported since April in the camps, built near the border with Myanmar, and at least 10 people were killed, a UN report said.

In the last week alone, two Rohingya minors died and another 6,000 people were left without shelter because of heavy rains.

Displaced refugees said they were suffering as rain disrupted logistics and daily activity in the camps.

“It’s tough to go to food distribution centers by wading through a swamp of mud,” Nurun Jan, a Rohingya refugee, told AFP.

“Rains and gusty wind have made our life miserable.”

World Food Program (WFP) spokeswoman Gemma Snowdon said they had to significantly increase assistance in the camps to cope up with the monsoon.

“So far 11,400 people have required the extra food assistance due to the heavy rains, compared to 7,000 during the whole of July 2018,” she said.

Last year the UN refugee agency moved 30,000 Rohingya out of areas considered at high risk of landslides and floods.

Heavy rains frequently trigger flooding and landslides in Bangladesh’s southeastern hill districts, and in 2017 at least 170 people were killed.

Some 740,000 Rohingya fled a military crackdown in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017, joining about 200,000 already living in camps in Bangladesh.

Officials said landslides were increasing in the region because forests had been cleared to make way for the sprawling Rohingya camps. One of the settlements, Kutupalong, is now the world’s largest refugee center.

Bangladesh wants to relocate up to 100,000 of the refugees to Bhashan Char, a remote island in the Bay of Bengal, but this is opposed by the refugees and international rights groups.

Dhaka says any relocation to the island would be voluntary.

 

Thousands rallied in Hong Kong for a second day Sunday, in an area popular with mainland Chinese shoppers, as deep-seated anger and frustration at the government’s handling of an extradition bill refuses to dissipate.

Demonstrators marched in heat of about 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 degrees F) in Sha Tin, a town between Hong Kong island and the border with China that has previously been a battleground for those upset by the flood of Chinese day-trippers.

“I never missed a march so far since June,” said a 69-year-old man who gave only his surname, Chen, referring to a wave of protests that has drawn millions to the streets of the Asian financial hub, plunging it into turmoil.

“I support the youngsters, they have done something we haven’t done. There is nothing we can do to help them, but come out and march to show our appreciation and support,” he said.

A few protesters waved British and American flags, with banners calling for independence for Hong Kong flying from makeshift flagpoles. Some marchers beat drums and others carried banners that read, “Free Hong Kong.”

Chants of “Carrie Lam go to hell,” rang through the crowd, referring to the city’s embattled leader.

Biggest crisis since 1997

The protests have fueled the former British colony’s biggest political crisis since China regained control of Hong Kong in 1997 and pose a direct challenge to authorities in Beijing.

The focus of the rallies has veered occasionally from the extradition bill, which would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial, to broader issues fueling tension between Hong Kong people and mainland Chinese.

On Saturday, a largely peaceful demonstration in a town close to the Chinese border turned violent, as protesters hurled umbrellas and hardhats at police, who retaliated by swinging batons and firing pepper spray.

Critics see the now-suspended bill as a threat to the rule of law in Hong Kong. Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said it is “dead,” but opponents say they will settle for nothing short of the bill’s formal withdrawal.

They are also demanding that Lam step down and seeking an independent investigation into complaints of police brutality.

Erosion of freedom a worry

Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule 22 years ago under a “one country, two systems” formula that allows its people freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, including the liberty to protest and an independent judiciary.

Beijing denies interfering in Hong Kong affairs, but many residents worry about what they see as an erosion of those freedoms and a relentless march toward mainland control.

More than 23.6 million mainland Chinese visited Hong Kong in the first five months of this year, government data show, up 17.5% from a year earlier, and equivalent to at least three times Hong Kong’s population of 7.4 million.

The government condemned violent acts during Saturday’s protests against so-called “parallel traders” from the mainland who buy goods in bulk in Hong Kong to carry into China for profit.

It said that during the last 18 months it had arrested 126 mainland visitors suspected of contravening the terms of their stay by engaging in parallel trading, and barred about 5,000 mainland Chinese also suspected of involvement.

Earlier Sunday, hundreds of journalists joined a silent march to demand better treatment from police at protests.
 

Barry rolled into the Louisiana coast Saturday, flooding highways, forcing people to scramble to rooftops and dumping heavy rain that officials had feared could test the levees and pumps that were bolstered after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

After briefly becoming a Category 1 hurricane, the system weakened to a tropical storm as it made landfall near Intracoastal City, about 160 miles (257km) west of New Orleans, with its winds falling to 70 mph (112km), the National Hurricane Center said.

By early evening, New Orleans had been spared the worst effects, receiving only light showers and gusty winds. But officials warned that Barry could still cause disastrous flooding across a wide stretch of the Gulf Coast and drop up to 20 inches (50 cm) of rain through Sunday across a part of Louisiana that includes New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

“This is just the beginning,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said. “It’s going to be a long several days for our state.”

Levees overtopped south of New Orleans

The Coast Guard rescued a dozen people from flooded areas of Terrebonne Parish, south of New Orleans, some of them from rooftops, a spokeswoman said. The people included a 77-year-old man who called for help because he had about 4 feet of water in his home.

None of the main levees on the Mississippi River failed or were breached, Edwards said. But a levee in Terrebonne Parish was overtopped by water, officials said. And video showed water getting over a second levee in Plaquemines Parish, where fingers of land extend deep into the Gulf of Mexico. Terrebonne Parish ordered an evacuation affecting an estimated 400 people.

Nearly all businesses in Morgan City, about 85 miles west of New Orleans, were shuttered with the exception of Meche’s Donuts Shop. Owner Todd Hoffpauir did a brisk business despite the pounding winds and pulsating rain.

While making doughnuts, Hoffpauir said he heard an explosion and a ripping sound and later saw that the wind had peeled off layers of the roof at an adjacent apartment complex.

Still filling sandbags

In some places, residents continued to build defenses against rising water. At the edge of the town of Jean Lafitte just outside New Orleans, volunteers helped several town employees sandbag a 600-foot stretch of the two-lane state highway. The street was already lined with one-ton sandbags, and 30-pound bags were being used to strengthen them.

“I’m here for my family, trying to save their stuff,” volunteer Vinnie Tortorich said. “My cousin’s house is already under.”

In Lafayette, Willie Allen and his 11-year-old grandson, Gavin Coleman, shoveled sand into 20 green bags, joining a group of more than 20 other people doing the same thing during a break in the rain. Wearing a mud-streaked T-shirt and shorts, Allen loaded the bags onto the back of his pickup.

“Everybody is preparing,” he said. “Our biggest concern is the flood.”

Many businesses were also shut down or closed early in Baton Rouge, and winds were strong enough to rock large pickups. Whitecaps were visible on the Mississippi River.

Oil and gas operators evacuated hundreds of platforms and rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly 70% of Gulf oil production and 56% of gas production were turned off Saturday, according to the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which compiles the numbers from industry reports.

Barry preceded by deluge 

Barry developed from a disturbance in the Gulf that surprised New Orleans during the Wednesday morning rush with a sudden deluge that flooded streets, homes and businesses. For several days, officials braced for more flooding. But as sunset approached, the city saw only intermittent rain and wind, with occasional glimpses of sunshine.

Elsewhere, more than 120,000 customers in Louisiana and another nearly 6,000 customers in Mississippi and Alabama were without power Saturday, according to poweroutage.us.

During a storm update through Facebook Live, National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham pointed to a computer screen showing a huge, swirling mess of airborne water.

“That is just an amazing amount of moisture,” he said. “That is off the chart.”

Weekend of heavy rain

Barry was moving so slowly that heavy rain was expected to continue all weekend. Forecasts showed the storm on a path toward Chicago that would swell the Mississippi River basin with water that must eventually flow south again.

For a few hours, the storm had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph), just above the 74 mph (120 kph) threshold to be a hurricane. Barry was expected to continue weakening and become a tropical depression Sunday.

Downpours also lashed coastal Alabama and Mississippi. Parts of Dauphin Island, a barrier island in Alabama, were flooded both by rain and surging water from the Gulf, said Mayor Jeff Collier, who drove around in a Humvee to survey damage. He said wind damage was minimal.

Flooding closed some roads in low-lying areas of Mobile County in Alabama, and heavy rains contributed to accidents, said John Kilcullen, director of plans and operations for Mobile County Emergency Management Agency.

Governors declared emergencies in Louisiana and Mississippi, and authorities closed floodgates and raised water barriers around New Orleans. It was the first time since Katrina that all floodgates in the New Orleans area had been sealed.

Still, Edwards said he did not expect the Mississippi to spill over the levees despite water levels already running high from spring rains and melting snow upstream. The barriers range in height from about 20 feet to 25 feet (6 meters to 7.5 meters).

Authorities told at least 10,000 people in exposed, low-lying areas along the Gulf Coast to leave, but no evacuations were ordered in New Orleans, where officials urged residents to “shelter in place.”

Despite the apparent calm in her city, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell cautioned that the storm continued to pose a threat.

“The slow pace pushed the timing of expected impacts further into today, tonight and Sunday,” Cantrell said. “This means that New Orleans residents are not out of the woods with this system.”

NEW YORK — Authorities said a widespread power shortage in Manhattan on Saturday evening left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled. 
 
Power reportedly went out at much of Rockefeller Center, and the outage reached the city’s Upper West Side. The full extent of the outage, however, wasn’t clear. 
 
A diner on Broadway at West 69th Street lost its lights, as did other surrounding businesses. 
 
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority tweeted that there were outages at various underground stations. The MTA was working with Con Edison to determine the cause.   
 
Con Edison did not immediately respond to phone messages. 

KIOSSI, CAMEROON — Analysts and businesspeople in the six-member Central African Economic and Monetary Community say that although the African Continental Free Trade Area launched in Niger last Sunday at an African Union summit brings hope for pan African trade, they are not sure CEMAC will be fully implemented anytime soon. 

CEMAC’s similar free-trade area has been plagued by corruption, national egos and a limitation of movement that have stunted the initiative.  

For instance, the Cameroonian town of Kiossi shares borders with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and quite often, authorities in those two countries seal their borders without any comment. 
 
Last December, Equatorial Guinea sealed its borders for a month. That same month, Gabon was expelling foreign citizens, especially Cameroonians, from its territory for what it called security reasons. 

Puzzled by move
 
Gabonese-born Gabriel Ndongma, who buys building material from Cameroon and supplies for his country and Equatorial Guinea, said recently that he did not understand why the borders have to be sealed and people have to be chased away when central African states have a common monetary and economic community created to facilitate movement and trade. 

He said CEMAC leaders should make strong political decisions that will make it possible for their people to travel freely among Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Central African Republic, Cameroon and Congo, the members of the economic bloc. 

CEMAC was created in 1994. All member states ratified the treaty creating it in 1999, and free movement of goods, services, capital and people was officially implemented in 2000. It has a population of about 45 million and covers 3 million square kilometers.  

In 2017, CEMAC said it had reached a milestone after heads of state meeting in Chad lifted visa requirements for their citizens traveling within the bloc.  

Chadian-born transporter Bismau Halidou said that besides the regular closure of borders by some states in the region, nontariff barriers have made it difficult for free interstate trade to take off. 

Corruption problems
 
He said there were high levels of corruption among police, tax and customs officials in all central African states. He also noted that, surprisingly, Cameroon — which should pilot the integration process because it has a population of more than 25 million, more than half the region’s total — was viewed as a country not to be trusted because of notorious corruption. 

Daniel Ona Ondo, president of the CEMAC commission, said security challenges were making it difficult to ensure free movement that can deepen economic integration for its citizens. He said carnage has continued in CAR, Boko Haram terrorism has continued along Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria, and the separatist crisis has killed thousands in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon.   
 
He said the region remains a place where pockets of tension and violence scare entrepreneurs away from investing or trading. He said it is still very difficult for people and goods to move freely because commuters are harassed by rebels and terrorists, and at times by security forces who are supposed to protect them. 
 
Chadian-born Fatima Haram Acyl, CEMAC commissioner for trade and industry, said Central Africa is one of the poorest regions in the world, with 70 percent of the population living on less than $1 a day and 30 percent of the people going hungry. He said the people there see the African Continental Free Trade Area as providing a way to fight poverty. He also said the challenges faced by the region require that uncompetitive industries be developed or knocked out of the market by stiffer competition. 
 
“We are going to have a big continental market in Africa, so it is very, very important for us to protect ourselves,” he said. “You know, when we have a big continental free trade area, there is going to be a lot of foreign products coming, so we have to protect our industries, we have to protect our people, we have to protect our market, because it is attractive for the whole world.” 

Much yet to do
 
Acyl said that despite the launch of the ACFTA, much work needs to be done before the agreement — signed by all 55 members of the African Union except Eritrea — becomes effective.  
 
Trade between African countries has been held back by several bottlenecks, such as poor infrastructure, cumbersome border procedures, trade regulations, tariffs and the high cost of transactions.  
 
The U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, however, estimates an increase in intra-African trade of 52.3 percent by 2020, asserting it will increase employment, facilitate better use of local resources for manufacturing and agriculture, and provide access to less expensive products. 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he will not impose quotas on importing uranium, backing away from a possible trade confrontation and breaking with a Commerce Department assessment that America’s use of foreign uranium raises national security concerns. 
 
The decision is unusual for Trump, who has pointed to national security concerns in calling for restrictions on foreign metal and autos in trade negotiations. It’s also drawing rare criticism from Republicans in energy-rich states. 
 
Uranium is a vital component for the U.S. nuclear arsenal, submarines and power plants, which prompted a monthslong Commerce Department investigation into whether such materials fall under the national security umbrella. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said that just 5 percent of the uranium the U.S. needs for military and electricity generation comes from domestic production. Russia, China and other countries supply the rest. 
 
In a statement issued late Friday, Trump said Ross’s findings about national security “raise significant concerns.” Yet the president opted against quotas as advocated by the domestic uranium industry, which would limit imports to guarantee that U.S. miners supply 25 percent of uranium for domestic use. 

Working group
 
Trump instead announced he was going to order a working group to take 90 days to formulate recommendations to increase domestic uranium production. 
 
Two Colorado-based uranium mining companies — Energy Fuels Inc. and Ur-Energy Inc. — petitioned the Commerce Department in January 2018 to impose the 25 percent requirement under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. The companies said relying on imports poses a “serious threat to our national defense and energy security.” 
 
Much of the uranium mined in the U.S. comes from Wyoming. “The decision by the Trump administration is a missed opportunity to protect America’s uranium producers,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who denounced using foreign materials. “America should not rely on Vladimir Putin and his satellites to supply our uranium. It’s dangerous and unacceptable.” 
 
Environmentalists saw the mining companies’ petition as part of an effort to expand mining across the U.S. They also were worried about the area outside the boundary of Grand Canyon National Park, where an Obama-era decision placed roughly 1 million acres off limits to new mining claims for 20 years. 
 
“We’re obviously relieved there’s not a quota, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” said Amber Reimondo, energy program director for the Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental group in Flagstaff, Ariz. “There’s clearly some concern with this working group that the president has ordered. And, depending on what comes out of that, it seems likely that there could be additional shortcuts to environmental safeguards.” 

Critical minerals
 
Last month, the Trump administration designated nearly three dozen minerals, including uranium, as critical. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said at the time the department would work “expeditiously” to streamline the permitting process for mining to locate domestic supplies of minerals. 
 
Energy Fuels has been waiting for uranium prices to rise to restart operations at its Canyon Mine near the Grand Canyon’s South Rim entrance. In a statement, the energy companies said they “commend” Trump for recognizing that the nuclear industry was “under siege” and for establishing the working group. 
 
The decision was a rare moment in which the Trump administration did not use the powers of the government to give American companies a trade advantage over international competition. The administration had previously levied tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, leading to retaliatory tariffs from Canada, Mexico, China and Europe. 

Thousands of protesters in Hong Kong turned out Saturday to demonstrate against traders from mainland China.

The demonstration was mounted in Sheung Shui, a town near the Chinese city of Shenzhen, along the border with Hong Kong.

The protesters want traders from China to stop buying goods in Hong Kong that the traders then sell on the mainland.

Many of the stores in the area of the demonstration in Sheung Shui were shuttered.

The protests started peacefully, but ended with clashes between the demonstrators and the police, who used pepper spray on the crowd.

Hong Kong has been the site of weekend demonstrations for weeks.

The protests began because of a controversial extradition bill that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong criminal suspects to  mainland China.

After several weeks of controversy and large, angry street protests, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam recently said the extradition bill is “dead.”

Lam called the attempts at passing the bill “a total failure,” but did not say whether the bill is being withdrawn, as protesters have demanded.

The bill sparked massive demonstrations from the moment it was introduced in April, with opponents alarmed about extraditing criminal suspects to China, which has a substantially different legal system than Hong Kong. The sentiment was shared along a wide cross section of Hong Kong society, from international business groups to legal societies and pro-democracy parties.

The former British colony was granted special autonomy for 50 years after it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. But many in Hong Kong are concerned that China is slowly encroaching on those rights and tightening its grip on the territory.
 
The extradition debate has seen the government unwittingly reignite Hong Kong’s protest movement, and calls for the direct election of its leader, five years after 2014’s so-called Umbrella Movement democracy protests came to an end.

As Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters vow to keep up their fight, churches remain on the front lines. Christian groups hold regular public gatherings and sing hymns at demonstrations, both as a way to protest and to de-escalate clashes between police and more aggressive protesters. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, many churches in Hong Kong fear a crackdown on religion as China expands its influence.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

The United States is backing a renewed Argentine effort to prosecute Iranian and Hezbollah agents accused of plotting a deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

At a Washington forum Friday about the 25th anniversary of the attack, U.S. Counterterrorism Coordinator Nathan Sales joined Argentine Ambassador to the U.S. Fernando Oris de Roa to call for Iran to cooperate with Argentine authorities seeking justice for the victims.

In Latin America’s deadliest terrorist attack, a suicide car bomber struck the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) center in the Argentine capital, July 18, 1994, killing 85 people.

Argentine prosecutors have long said they believe Lebanese militant group Hezbollah carried out the attack on the order of its Iranian government patrons, but none of the suspected perpetrators have been apprehended to stand trial. Tehran has denied involvement.

“Impunity must end,” Sales told an audience at the Wilson Center event about the implications of the AMIA bombing for present-day counterterrorism policies. He said the Trump administration is working with Argentina and other Latin American nations to hold Iran and its proxy Hezbollah accountable.

“In this hemisphere, we’re actively working with our partners to counter Iranian and Hezbollah terrorism. We’re partnering with key multilateral players like the Organization of American States and the 15 member Caribbean Community, CARICOM,” Sales said. “We also have robust bilateral counterterrorism cooperation throughout the region, including with countries such as Argentina, Panama, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru and Colombia,” he added.

Sales said he aims to expand that cooperation next week, when he visits Buenos Aires as part of a U.S. delegation to a Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial meeting. He said the participating nations will discuss how to bolster their counterterrorism capabilities and eliminate security gaps, such as those that enable terrorists to travel and acquire funds.

In his remarks to the Wilson Center forum, Oris de Roa said the Argentine government is determined to interrogate and eventually convict all people involved in the AMIA bombing.

“Argentina continues to request that Iran cooperates with Argentine judicial authorities,” Oris de Roa said. “We ask countries that are friends of Argentina to join us in this (demand) and avoid receiving or sheltering under diplomatic immunity any of the accused for whom international arrest warrants have been issued or (for whom) red notices (akin to arrest warrants) have been circulated by Interpol.”

Five suspects targeted by the red notices have remained at large, living freely in Iran and traveling to 20 countries that are Interpol members, according to a research note by the Wilson Center and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which co-organized Friday’s event. Argentine authorities have been unable to extradite the suspects despite making requests to countries such as China and Russia, the note said.

In an interview with U.S. network CNN’s Spanish-language channel conducted this week, Argentine President Mauricio Macri said he is preparing to get tougher with Hezbollah. In an online preview of the interview ahead of its Sunday broadcast, Macri said he is taking steps to declare Hezbollah’s armed forces to be a terrorist organization.

Washington has designated all of Hezbollah as a terrorist group.

Argentine lawyer Miguel Bronfman, who leads AMIA’s legal team, welcomed reports that his government is beginning to act against Hezbollah.

“It’s a crucial measure that was long awaited,” Bronfman told VOA Persian at the Wilson Center forum. “It will help not only the investigations of the AMIA case, but also the prevention of future attacks and movements by Hezbollah,” he said. “And we hope other countries, especially Paraguay and Brazil, will follow Argentina’s initiative.”

But Bronfman said sanctioning only Hezbollah’s armed forces, as Macri suggested, would not be enough. He called for Argentina’s government to issue a terrorist declaration for all parts of the militant group, including those that engage in political and social welfare activities.

This week’s indictment of American multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges shows how public and political pressure fueled by the #MeToo movement is prompting prosecutors to take a closer look at sexual assault cases that most likely would have fallen by the wayside just a few years ago.

In 2007, Epstein, then a jet-setting money manager for the wealthy who counted Donald Trump and Bill Clinton among his friends, avoided charges for alleged sexual crimes involving minors that, upon conviction, could have put him behind bars for decades. 

At the time, Epstein stood accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls at his Florida and New York homes. Then the U.S. attorney’s office in Florida offered Epstein a secret deal allowing him to walk free after a little over a year in prison. The office was headed by Alexander Acosta, who currently serves as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary. Acosta announced his resignation Friday over his handling of Epstein’s case. 

The Epstein deal was a decade before the movement known as #MeToo surfaced in 2017. Thousands of women in the United States and around the world came forward with harrowing personal accounts of mistreatment, from sexual harassment to rape. The movement also focused attention on how powerful men had gotten away with harassment by intimidating victims and using their influence to get more lenient punishments when caught.  

On Monday, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed a new indictment against Epstein, charging him with sex trafficking crimes that could keep him locked up for the rest of his life. 

The failure of federal prosecutors in Florida to charge Epstein with the same crimes set off a political firestorm, leading to Acosta’s resignation. For many, the uproar is emblematic of how society views sexual violence in the #MeToo era. 

Without the #MeToo movement, “we would not have seen the reopening of the case against Jeffrey Epstein and certainly would not have seen the level of outrage that’s existing,” said Yasmin Vafa, executive director of Rights4Girls, an advocacy organization that campaigns against sexual violence.

The #MeToo movement started as a Twitter hashtag in October 2017, after numerous women went public with allegations of sexual assault against powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

In the months that followed, as more victims came forward with their own accounts of sexual abuse, dozens of influential men in business and the news media resigned in disgrace, accused of using their positions of authority to harass or assault women. 

“I think that for a long time you saw a reluctance to prosecute very high-profile offenders, and I think that’s one of the things that the #MeToo movement has been able to change in a very positive way,” said Camille Cooper, vice president of public policy at RAINN, the largest anti-sexual abuse organization in the United States. “Some of those people that would have been left at large, like well-known comedian Bill Cosby, are now being held accountable for their crimes.”

In April 2018, Cosby was found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in Pennsylvania nearly 14 years earlier, one of dozens of women who had made similar allegations going back decades. 

In May 2018, Weinstein was charged in New York with rape and other sex crimes against two women, and is awaiting trial.

And Thursday, R&B singer and songwriter R. Kelly was arrested in Chicago on a federal indictment that accuses him and members of his entourage of recruiting women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with him. 

History of leniency 

Some legal scholars say that in years past, prosecutors often ignored evidence or refused to believe victims. In Weinstein’s case, for example, the Manhattan district attorney’s office disregarded an audiotape in which Weinstein admitted to harassing one of his victims. In the Epstein case, prosecutors had “significant evidence,” yet they allowed him to plead to two lesser state charges, according to Vafa. 

Penny Venetis, a law professor at Rutgers University, said the leniency shown to Epstein was common in a criminal justice system that often seems to favor the wealthy and well-connected. 

“Whereas someone who is not as connected as he was would have gotten life in jail for sex crimes committed against minors, he was able to use the jail as a hotel with his wife and then spend the evening after a certain time in a private jail cell,” Venetis said. 

Speaking at a press conference Monday in New York, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman declined to say what led prosecutors to reopen a case that had been dropped more than a decade ago. But Berman credited a recent investigative story by the Miami Herald that found about 80 women who had allegedly been sexually abused as minors by Epstein. 

The November 2018 expose triggered calls on the Justice Department to examine the Epstein deal, making it all but impossible for prosecutors to ignore revisiting the case, according to legal experts.

Increased prosecutions?

For all of #MeToo’s impact, some see little evidence the movement has led to increased prosecution of sexual assault cases or stiffer penalties for the perpetrators. 

“If you go into any courthouse across this entire country, you’ll see a significant number of sex crimes being pled down to very little time at all,” Cooper said. 

In a recent survey by the University of California at San Diego, 23 percent of women and 9 percent men reported being sexually assaulted, a figure that has stayed steady over the past year. Most sexual assault cases remain unreported, and when they are reported, they’re rarely prosecuted.

Yet with greater public awareness about sexual violence, authorities are less likely to avoid prosecuting someone based on a belief that a jury won’t deliver a guilty verdict, said Jennifer Long, chief executive of AEquitas, a group of former prosecutors who work against sexual violence.

“With the greater awareness in the community and greater resolve to hold these perpetrators accountable, it bolsters the efforts of prosecutors who want to take these cases forward and who want to obtain justice on behalf of victims and on behalf of the community,” said Long, who is also an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University. 

“#MeToo follows along decades of important advocacy, and it has certainly left many of us who’ve been working on these issues for a long time very hopeful,” she added. “We have moved from a society that labels underage individuals as somehow complicit in any type of violence that they’re suffering.” 

The Trump administration Friday asked the Supreme Court to lift a freeze on Pentagon money it wants to use to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.

Two lower courts have ruled against the administration in a lawsuit over the funding. Last week, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco kept in place a lower court ruling preventing the government from tapping Defense Department counterdrug money to build high-priority sections of wall in Arizona, California and New Mexico.

At stake in the case is billions of dollars that would allow Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump ended a 35-day government shutdown in February after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding, far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking. Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall.

The money includes $3.6 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion from Defense Department counterdrug activities and $600 million from the Treasury Department’s asset forfeiture fund. The Treasury Department funds have so far survived legal challenges, but the transfer of the military construction funds has not yet been approved.

At issue here: $2.5 billion

At issue in the case before the Supreme Court is just the $2.5 billion in Defense Department funds, which the administration says will be used to construct more than 100 miles of fencing. The lawsuit challenging the use of those funds was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Sierra Club and Southern Border Communities Coalition. Late Friday, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan gave the groups until the afternoon of July 19 to respond in writing to the Trump administration’s filing.

The administration wants the Supreme Court to lift the freeze on the Department of Defense money while it continues its case at the appeals court and, if necessary, appeals to the Supreme Court. The administration says the trial judge who initially heard the case and put a freeze on the funds was wrong and that the groups bringing the lawsuit don’t have a right to sue.