Along the shores of Lake Malawi, poverty and food shortages are chronic problems, due to declining fish catches in the lake. Women facing hunger, or trying to feed their families, sometimes resort to having sex with fishermen in order to get something to eat. 

Women carrying buckets each morning to buy fish at Lake Malawi is a common sight in the Makawa area.  

A less fortunate common sight is many of the women paying for the fish with sex. 

Cecelia Iman is secretary of the Village Beach Committee, responsible for taking care of lake resources in the area.

“[The practice] really happens here. Most fishermen came to the lake with a mission that they will find women right here. But the relationships do not last, they only bring problems to village women,” Iman said.

The women are lured into transactional sex when they don’t have enough money to buy fish, or when they accept an overture from fishermen, say local officials.

“For example, one can have MK 2,000 but want go to the lake to buy some fish and there, one fisherman offers her free fish. Taking into account that she didn’t eat last night together with her child, she would end up accepting the offer which would end into something,” Iman said.

The practice has brought a lot of misery to the women.

Iman says, “If the prevalence of HIV infection is increasing in our area, it is largely because of fishermen. Women are too desperate for fish. And also most of the fishermen are just impregnating the women then run away, leaving them struggle taking care of babies.”

Although transactional sex between women and fishermen in Lake Malawi is rampant, stigma and discrimination make it difficult to identify those involved.

One villager, Laika Atibu, told VOA she can’t allow fishermen to seduce her with fish.

“I don’t allow that. I try my best to do some piece work to raise money to buy fish. Because I fear, if I do this, I can contract HIV. And If I contract HIV, who can feed my children because I am the only parent to take care of them,” Atibu explained.

Fishermen distance themselves from the matter.

Yalid Nkhoma says using fish as a lure is tantamount to abuse of women.

He says, “We don’t do that. If a woman doesn’t have enough money to buy fish, we don’t ask to do anything with her,” Nkhoma said.

Different research shows that sex for fish in Malawi is more common between December and March because it is a period when the country is hard-hit with food shortages.

To curb the problem, community leaders have introduced economic empowerment initiatives for women, including a loan program, to ensure they have their own sources of income and don’t have rely on the fishermen to stave off hunger. 

Along the shores of Lake Malawi, poverty and food shortages are chronic problems, due to a declining fish catches in the lake. Women facing hunger, or trying to feed their families, sometimes resort to having sex with fishermen in order to get something to eat. Lameck Masina has the story from the town of Mangochi.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter turns 95 on October 1st, and even now has lived longer than any president in U.S. history. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, Carter reaches the historic milestone while engaging with new, and younger audiences, as he continues to work toward lifelong goals.

About 350,000 treasure hunters from all over the world, have been scouting out a large area in the Rocky Mountains stretching from Northern New Mexico to Montana, looking for a hidden treasure. As the story goes, all one needs to do to find the loot, is to decipher the nine clues in a poem written by wealthy art collector and entrepreneur Forrest Fenn, who says he collected and hid the treasure years ago. Its lore became wildly popular after he had written a book called “The Thrill of the Chase,” talking about his life and the treasure.  While many believe the treasure is real, others think it’s a hoax. VOA’s Penelope Poulou visited the area and spoke with Fenn about the meaning of it all

Clashes between two Turkish-backed rebel groups in the northwestern Syrian town of Afrin have left at least two fighters dead and about a dozen wounded, according to reports Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor group that has researchers across Syria, reported that fierce fighting between the al-Majd Legion and al-Sham Legion in Afrin erupted Saturday night following a disagreement over property.

“Our sources have confirmed that the infighting erupted after a dispute over the ownership of a house just outside of Afrin,” Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, told VOA.

Local news said the disputed house belonged to a Kurdish civilian that armed groups reportedly had seized months ago.

Frequent clashes

Armed confrontations among Syrian rebel factions have reportedly increased since Turkish military and allied Syrian rebels took control of Afrin after a two-month-long military campaign that ousted the Kurdish People Protection Units (YPG) from the region in March 2018, rights groups said.

“This is not the first time that such clashes take place over property and revenue-sharing among rebel groups,” the Syrian Observatory added.

Infighting among rebel groups has become a common issue in the region.

 “There is almost one occurrence like this one on a daily basis,” said Mohammed Billo, a journalist from Afrin.

“Usually when fighting gets out of control, Turkish military interferes to stop it,” he told VOA.

Some rights groups have also voiced concerns about growing violations against civilians in recent months in Afrin.

“Local sources in Afrin reported at least 110 abuses that appear to amount to instances of arbitrary detention, torture and abductions of civilians by pro-Turkey armed groups,” Amnesty International said in a report released in May.

YPG attacks

Since their ouster from Afrin in March 2018, Kurdish fighters affiliated with the YPG have occasionally carried out attacks against Turkish military and Syrian rebel forces in the Kurdish-majority region.

Last week, YPG fighters claimed responsibility for an attack on a Turkish military outpost in Afrin that killed two Turkish soldiers and wounded another.  

Ankara views the YPG as part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been engaged in a three-decade war with Turkish armed forces for greater Kurdish rights in Turkey. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.  

Turkey has repeatedly threatened to invade other YPG-held areas in northern Syria, despite a recent agreement with the United States to establish a safe zone along Syria’s border with Turkey.

The two countries have begun joint patrols along parts of the border, but Turkish officials continue their objection over Washington’s support for the YPG, which has been a key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State terror group in Syria.

 

A regional Chinese diplomat has rebuked the United States for being “ignorant” about his country’s ongoing key economic contributions and cooperation with Afghanistan.

Arrangements are being worked out to enhance the cooperation with Kabul even under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Yao Jing, the Chinese ambassador to neighboring Pakistan told VOA.

He hailed Saturday’s successful Afghan presidential election, saying China hopes they will boost peace-building efforts in a country wrecked by years of conflicts.

“We hope that with the election in Afghanistan, with the peace development moving forward in Afghanistan, Afghans will finally achieve a peaceful period, achieve the stability,” said the Chinese diplomat, who served in Kabul prior to his posting in Islamabad.

Earlier this month, U.S. officials and lawmakers during a congressional hearing in Washington sharply criticized China for its lack of economic assistance to Afghan rebuilding efforts.

“I think it’s fair to say that China has not contributed to the economic development of Afghanistan. We have not seen any substantial assistance from China,” Alice Wells, U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia, told lawmakers.

Wells, however, acknowledged that Beijing has worked with Washington on a way forward on peace as have other countries, including Russia and immediate neighbors of Afghanistan.

“She is a little ignorant about what China’s cooperation with Afghanistan is,” ambassador Yao said when asked to comment on the remarks made by Wells.

He recounted that Beijing late last year established a trade corridor with Kabul, which Afghan officials say have enabled local traders to directly export thousands of tons of pine nuts to the Chinese market annually, bringing much-needed dollars. Yao said a cargo train was also started in 2016 from eastern China to Afghanistan’s landlocked northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

China is also working on infrastructure projects, including the road linking Kabul to the eastern city of Jalalabad and the road between the central Afghan city of Bamiyan and Mazar-e-Sharif. Chinese companies, Yao, said are also helping in establishing transmission lines and other infrastructure being developed under the CASA-1000 electricity transmission project linking Central Asia to energy-starved South Asia nations through Afghanistan.

Ambassador Yao noted that China and Afghanistan signed a memorandum of understanding on BRI cooperation, identifying several major projects of connectivity.

“But the only problem is that the security situation pose a little challenge. So, that is why China and Pakistan and all the regional countries, we are working so hard trying to support or facilitate peace in Afghanistan,” he said.  

For her part, Ambassador Wells told U.S. lawmakers that China’s BRI is a “slogan” and “not any reality” in Afghanistan. “They have just tried to lockdown lucrative mining contracts but not following through with investment or real resources,” she noted.

Wells said that Washington continues to warn its partners, including the Afghan government about “falling prey to predatory loans or loans that are designed to benefit only the Chinese State.”

U.S. officials are generally critical of BRI for “known problems with corruption, debt distress, environmental damage, and a lack of transparency.” The projects aims to link China by sea and land through an infrastructure network with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

But Yao rejected those concerns and cited the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a pilot project of BRI, which has brought around $20 billion in Chinese investment to Pakistan within the past six years. It has helped Islamabad build roads and power plants, helping the country overcome its crippling electricity shortages, improve its transportation network and operationalize the strategic deep-sea Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea.

 

Yemen’s rebels Sunday claimed they launched a major attack on the border of Saudi Arabia, releasing video purporting to show captive Saudi soldiers and equipment.

The images of the attack released by the rebels, known as Houthis, show armored vehicles with stenciled Saudi markings, arms and ammunition the rebels claim they seized.

The video also shows fighting in a mountainous area, with Houthi fighters apparently attacking Saudi troops in armored vehicles.

It shows what appear to be corpses and wounded in Saudi military uniforms. Several troops identified themselves as Saudis.

The kingdom did not immediately acknowledge the attack. A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis on behalf of an internationally recognized Yemeni government since 2015.

In the past, the Houthis have claimed that they occupied Saudi villages after cross-border attacks, but often they enter a village, raise a banner, then pull out.

They have also held Saudi soldiers and officers captive in the past, using them as bargaining chips. Usually, they force the soldier to show his ID and speak on camera as proof. This time they did not show IDs.

Yahia Sarie, a spokesman for Houthi forces, claimed in a news conference Sunday the rebels took captive more than 2,000 troops, without offering evidence.

He also alleged that “three brigades have fallen,” and that the Houthis “liberated 350 kilometers square (135 square miles).”

Yemeni military officials said Sunday the soldiers the Houthis claimed they captured were fighters recruited informally by the Saudi-led coalition to fight inside Saudi Arabian borders. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

Yemen’s stalemated war has killed tens of thousands of people, badly damaged Yemen’s infrastructure and crippled its health system.

House Democrats are planning a rapid start to their push for impeachment of President Donald Trump, with hearings and depositions starting this week.

Democratic leaders have instructed committees to move quickly — and not to lose momentum — after revelations that Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate his potential 2020 Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, and his family. The action is beginning even though lawmakers left town Friday for a two-week recess.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., says his committee is moving “expeditiously” on hearings and subpoenas. That committee, as well as the House Oversight and Reform Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have scheduled depositions starting this week for State Department officials linked to Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

A look at next steps as Democrats march toward an impeachment vote:

A BUSY RECESS

Members of the House Intelligence Committee have been told to be prepared to return to Washington during the break. California Rep. Jackie Speier said she has already canceled some of her previous commitments.

“We’re expected to be here,” Speier said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told the Democrats they need to “strike while the iron is hot” on impeachment, sending the committees into overdrive. Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat, said a plan is “being formed very rapidly.”

“What I know for sure is that momentum will not slow,” Himes said.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said they will have to “work harder” and “sleep less.”

LONG WITNESS LIST, QUICK TIMELINE

Schiff’s committee has been negotiating to interview the whistleblower who began the firestorm by reporting to the inspector general for the intelligence community that Trump had urged the investigations on a July phone call with Zelenskiy.

Schiff told ABC’s “This Week” that his panel had reached agreement to hear from the whistleblower, who would testify “very soon.” Schiff said the exact date would depend in part on how quickly acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire completes the security clearance process for the whistleblower’s lawyers. “We’ll keep obviously riding shotgun to make sure the acting director doesn’t delay in that clearance process,” Schiff said.

The complaint from the whistleblower, whose identity is not publicly known, was released last week after Maguire withheld it from Congress for weeks. In the complaint, the whistleblower said White House officials moved to “lock down” the details of Trump’s call by putting all the records of it on a separate computer system.

The inspector general who handled that complaint, Michael Atkinson, is slated to testify to the Intelligence Committee in private on Friday, according to a person familiar with the committee who was spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Lawmakers on the committee say they also want to speak to White House aides who were present for the call and to Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, who urged the investigations. Giuliani told ABC on Sunday that he “wouldn’t cooperate” with Schiff, but if Trump “decides that he wants me to testify, of course I’ll testify.” Schiff says he hasn’t decided whether he wants to hear from Giuliani.

Democrats say they hope to finish the investigation in a matter of weeks — perhaps even before Thanksgiving.

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT

Once the committees have finished their own investigations, the committees will submit their findings to the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees the impeachment process.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who serves on the Judiciary Committee, said the Intelligence Committee will be the “star of the show” as it investigates Trump’s activities related to Ukraine. Articles of impeachment would be drafted by the Judiciary Committee and, if adopted, sent to the House floor.

The Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has said he wants resolution on impeachment by the end of the year. Jayapal said that deadline “absolutely” stands, and that the plan is to be done before January, or “perhaps sooner.”

REPUBLICAN RESISTANCE

Republicans have focused their ire about impeachment on the Democrats, criticizing the probes as a rerun of a two-year investigation into Russian election interference in the 2016 election.

California Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said Democrats “don’t want answers, they want a public spectacle.”

“They have been trying to reverse the results of the 2016 election since President Trump took office,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

SLOWER SENATE

If the House votes to approve charges against Trump, the Republican-led Senate would then hold a trial.

Some Senate Republicans have expressed concerns about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine, but there are few signs that there would be enough discontent to convict the president, who still has strong support in the GOP ranks. If Trump were impeached, it would take a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict him and remove him from office. A memorandum from Senate Republicans circulated over the weekend acknowledged it would be hard for McConnell to block an impeachment trial, but he could deflect any House-approved impeachment articles to a committee.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., has said his committee will investigate the Ukraine matter but “don’t expect us to move at light speed — that will probably happen in the House.”

A NOD TO HISTORY

Trump would join a rare group if the House moves forward toward impeachment. Only two presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Both won acquittal in the Senate.

President Richard Nixon, who faced impeachment proceedings, resigned from office in 1974.

Afghan officials are counting votes after Saturday’s presidential election that was held amid repeated threats by the Taliban and fear of post-election chaos. Better performance by electoral and security authorities notwithstanding, fears remain that disagreements on the result might engulf the country into a destabilizing fight for power. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports from Kabul

The Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says it has reached an agreement to hear from a whistleblower whose whose complaint that has sparked an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

“We are taking all the precautions we can to … allow that testimony to go forward in a way that protects the whistleblower’s identity,” Adam Schiff told the ABC news show “This Week.” With the president issuing threats … you can imagine the security concerns here.”

The whistleblower alleges that Trump, in a July 25 phone call, sought help from the new president of Ukraine in digging up incriminating information about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter that would hurt Biden’s prospects of winning the Democratic presidential nomination and challenging Trump in 2020.

President Donald Trump, who has released a rough transcript of the phone call, has insisted he did nothing wrong and has continued to defend himself via Twitter.  Has he called the impeachment inquiry launched by Democrats in the House of Representatives “the greatest scam in the history of American politics.”

His adviser, Stephen Miller, told “Fox News Sunday” that the whistleblower’s behavior was “close to a spy” and said Trump himself was the true whistleblower for revealing alleged corruption by the Bidens.

As vice president, Biden and other Western leaders pressured Ukraine to get rid of the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, because he was seen as not tough enough on corruption.

Trump has claimed Biden was seeking to protect his son but that allegation has been debunked.

The whistleblower’s complaint also said the White House tried to “lock down” the information to prevent its public disclosure. Efforts to hide the information allegedly included the removal of the transcript of the call from the computer system that is typically used for such records of calls with foreign leaders and loading it into a separate electronic system that is used only for classified information that is of an “especially sensitive nature.”

White House officials have stressed that the whistleblower didn’t have first hand information to make the allegations.
 
The complaint noted that a White House official described that as an abuse of the secure system because there was nothing “remotely sensitive” on the phone call from a national security perspective.
 
On Thursday, before leaving New York where he attended the U.N. General Assembly, Trump told a crowd of staff from the United States Mission to the U.N. that he wants to know who provided information to the whistleblower. He said that whomever did so was “close to a spy” and that “in the old days,” spies were dealt with differently,” according to The New York Times newspaper.

 

Pope Francis on Sunday decried “the culture of comfort” that leads to indifference in the face of a global migration and refugee crisis.

The pope who has made caring for migrants a hallmark of his papacy spoke during a Mass for the World Day for Migrants and Refugees.

“We cannot be indifferent to the tragedy of old and new forms of poverty, to the bleak isolation, contempt and discrimination experienced by those who do not belong to ‘our group,’” Francis said. “We cannot remain insensitive, our hearts deadened, before the misery of so many innocent people. We must not fail to weep. We must not fail to respond.”

The pontiff has often spoken of the need to be welcoming to migrants, traveling to the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2013 on his first trip as pope to comfort refugees. His message found political resistance in Italy’s previous populist government, during which the former hard-line interior minister, Matteo Salvini, campaigned to prevent the arrival in Italy of migrants rescued at sea by humanitarian groups.

During his homily Sunday, the pope also noted the weapons that fuel wars are often produced and sold in other regions “which are then unwilling to take in the refugees generated buy these conflicts.”

Many migrants and refugees from conflicts throughout the world attended the Mass in St. Peter’s Square, which closed with the unveiling of a bronze statue by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz depicting migrants packed on a boat.

“This statue depicts a group of migrants from various cultures and over different historic periods. I wanted this artistic work here in St. Peter’s Square to remind everyone of the evangelical challenge of hospitality,” Francis said.

During the Mass, a multiethnic chorus sang and the incense burned came from a refugee camp in southern Ethiopia, where refugees are rekindling a 600-year-old tradition of collecting incense. The Vatican said the incense “reminds us that refugees can also thrive, not just survive.”

 

Thousands of protesters jammed a central Moscow square on September 29 as opposition groups sought to regain momentum following a summer of demonstrations that targeted both local elections but also Russia’s broader political system.

The rally was the first major effort by liberal political groups and allied parties since elections earlier in the month that ended up being a catalyst for the biggest wave of sustained anti-government rallies in nearly a decade.

Instead of elections, the Moscow event was focused on “political repression,” as activists demanded that authorities halt a campaign of raids and arrests targeting anti-corruption crusader Aleksei Navalny and his network of supporters nationwide.

Activists were rallying against harsh police tactics used in earlier demonstrations as well as what many Muscovites say were harsh jail sentences handed down against those detained by police.

Under a cold rain on September 29 , demonstrators walked through metal detectors installed along Sakharov Boulevard before gathering under umbrellas and flags of political parties near a sound stage where leaders were expected to speak.

The rally was authorized by the Moscow mayor’s office, meaning mass detentions by police were less likely.

The nongovernmental organization White Counter estimated about 9,000 people were in attendance at the start of the rally.

In a video posted online ahead of time, Lyubov Sobol, a human rights lawyer and Navalny supporter who was a key organizer of the summer rallies, accused the Russian government of pursuing “political cases” to “frighten the opposition.”

Harsh Crackdown

During the near-weekly rallies held in the Russian capital in July and August, more than 3,000 people were detained and many were beaten as police in some cases used force to disperse crowds. The harsh crackdown sparked condemnation from human rights groups and Western governments.

The protests were among the largest in Moscow since a wave of demonstrations in 2011-12 sparked by anger over evidence of electoral fraud and dismay at Putin’s return to the Kremlin for a third presidential term.

Moscow, along with many regions and municipalities across Russia, held local and regional elections on September 8 — a test for the Kremlin-allied United Russia party ahead of parliamentary elections in 2021.

Despite the exclusion of dozens of opposition and independent candidates, the September 8 elections delivered a stinging setback to United Russia, which lost 13 seats in the 45-member city council in Moscow.

That outcome was credited in part to Navalny’s so-called Smart Voting strategy, under which he urged Russians to back candidates with the best chance of beating United Russia politicians — all of whom ran as independents in Moscow apparently to hide their affiliation with the party.

Never very popular, United Russia has seen its support fall further amid economic uncertainty and political fallout over moves such as raising the retirement age and hiking the VAT tax rate.

Other unpopular initiatives have included a program to tax long-distance trucking, and crackdowns on protests in many cities over local issues such as waste dumps and construction.

Putin’s ratings have also suffered.

Outside of Moscow, United Russia held its own, winning all regional governorships contested on September 8.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities have used a mix of tactics in an effort to quash the protest sentiment that erupted during summer and prevent it from spreading.

Seven people detained during the protests have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to five years, but prosecutors and courts — widely believed to answer to the Kremlin — have relented to pressure in some cases.

Strong winds and heavy snow caused power outages and temporary road closures in northwestern Montana as a wintry storm threatened to drop several feet of snow in some areas of the northern Rocky Mountains.

The National Weather Service in Great Falls reported 16 inches (41 centimeters) of snow had fallen near Marias Pass just south of Glacier National Park by early Saturday afternoon. The area is forecast to see a total of up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) by the time the storm winds down Sunday night, said meteorologist Megan Syner.

Gusty winds Saturday knocked down trees and damaged power lines, causing scattered outages in northwestern Montana and along the Rocky Mountain Front. Up to 30 large trees were down on the east side of Flathead Lake, the Missoulian reported.

Emergency travel only was recommended in some areas along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountain Front and treacherous travel was reported around the region, including over Rogers Pass on Montana Highway 200 northwest of Helena, Syner said.

Following the storm, temperatures are expected to drop into the teens and 20s (around minus 13 Celsius) across much of western and central Montana overnight Monday.

The weekend storm system was also bringing strong winds and snow to the mountains of northern Washington and northern Idaho.

Homeless shelters in Spokane, Washington, were relaxing their entrance policies and the city was preparing a backup shelter, if needed.

Dave Wall, a Union Gospel Mission spokesman, said the shelter’s director and Spokane’s mayor agreed the mission would not enforce its drug and alcohol policies while temperatures were below freezing, as long as patrons weren’t acting unsafe, The Spokesman Review reported.

LG Electronics said this year it would cut smartphone production at home in South Korea and move it to Vietnam, according to Korean news reports. Meanwhile in Vietnam, the domestic conglomerate Vingroup is hawking its four Vsmart phone models to a growing domestic middle class, sending what the Vietnam Investment Review calls “ripples” through the market.

These vignettes suggest that Vietnam is no longer just a world-renowned hot spot for making shoes, garments and textiles for export. The Southeast Asian country that has attracted investment in export manufacturing because of cheap labor is shifting toward higher-value goods, a boon to the economy and a challenge to China’s status as the go-to country for making items such as consumer electronics.

“The structure of exports has already seen a big transformation in terms of value adding,” market research firm IHS Markit’s Asia-Pacific chief economist Rajiv Biswas said, comparing 2010 to 2019.

Investment in factories that make phones, computers and accessories such as earphones is leading Vietnam’s climb up the value chain, analysts say. Exports of phones, the top grossing export type, totaled $45.1 billion in 2017 and the category of computers plus other electronic goods took third place after textiles at $25.9 billion.

Electronics overall make up Vietnam’s top export category, business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates says. 

“There has already been a shift toward higher value adding in electronics,” Biswas said.

How Vietnam is adding value

When Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization in 2007, textiles, garments and footwear commanded the largest share of exports, said Maxfield Brown, senior associate with Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City. But electronics began to take off around that time, he said.

Labor in Vietnam costs 50% of what employers pay in China, the consultancy says. That edge has helped Vietnam turn itself from a war-torn country in the 1970s to one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies today.

Universities and company training programs have raised the skills of Vietnamese workers to where they can make parts for electronics as well assemble finished goods, analysts in the country say. China traditionally leads in workforce education.

Now Vietnam is a “clear leader as an alternative” in electronics, Biswas said, especially as China loses competitiveness to the Sino-U.S. trade war.

Vietnam’s growing middle class helps it move up the value chain, too, he said. If per capita GDP, which was $2,587 last year, eventually reaches $5,000, automotive purchases will rise and attract automotive factories, Biswas said. Their cars could sell to some of Vietnam’s 95.5 million people as well as overseas. Investors that make automotive peripherals such as tires and leather seats would come in behind the manufacturers of vehicles, Biswas said.

One third of Vietnamese will be middle class or higher by next year, the Boston Consulting Group forecasts.

Who’s who in electronics

For now, analysts agree, electronics is the top source of higher-value exports in Vietnam.

“What I’m starting to see is a specialization between different countries in particular industries, and I think that Vietnam has now become pretty widely recognized as an electronics production hub, and I would imagine that in the coming years it will continue to double down on that industry so that local companies can participate more and more,” Brown said.

LG plans to move smartphone production to the Vietnamese port city of Haiphong after losing money for 15 straight quarters, Korean news outlet Hankyoreh said in April. LG declined comment for this report.

The electronics giant would follow Korean peer Samsung Electronics, which has allocated more than $17 billion to its Vietnam factories and R&D. Samsung is Vietnam’s largest exporter. It joins microprocessor developer Intel as one of the first major foreign tech firms to locate in Vietnam.

Vingroup started selling Vsmart phones in December and has earned a name for specs that are “quite good” compared to other low-end devices, said Thanh Vo, senior market analyst with the tech research firm IDC.

The tech sector still has room to grow into higher-end gear, Biswas said.

Government refocus

The Vietnamese government encourages foreign factory investment by working on its legal framework, improving infrastructure and developing a “quality” workforce, the state Foreign Investment Agency says on its website. In 2011 Vietnam began encouraging development of industries that support the tech sector.

But Vietnam is holding back incentives to lower-end manufacturers now, a sign that it prefers higher-value ones, said Frederick Burke, partner with the law firm Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City.

“They see the world beating a path to their door and they don’t have to give away the barn,” Burke said. “I think they’re not giving away a lot of incentives for lower-end manufacturing and that’s how they’re trying to boost in the higher-end area.”

Up and down the continent, African politics sees more than its share of chaos and corruption. Africans use colorful terms and phrases to describe the unfolding developments and, sometimes, make fun of them. A new online Dictionary of African Politics, published by Oxford University Press, tries to define these words.

In Nigeria, for instance, the term “zoning” has nothing to do with buildings or real estate. It describes power sharing between the north and south.

In Kenya, a “three-piece suit” refers to a party asking voters to back its full slate of candidates, for president, governor and member of parliament.

Oxford student Sa’eed Husaini, one of the dictionary’s authors, said he and his colleagues thought the project would “give us an opportunity to basically shine a light on the diversity of words and diversity of meanings that are part of African politics. … There is a lot of meaning that is being generated, a lot of new content words, like ‘stomach infrastructure,’ that “will help us understand how Africa conducts contemporary politics.”

The term “stomach infrastructure” was coined by a politician in the 2015 elections in Nigeria. He promised people rice and chicken over development and won that election.

In Benin, switching of parties by politicians is called “transhumance,” which is the act of moving animals from one grazing ground to another.

In Ghana, supporting the president of one party and a member of parliament from another party is called “skirt and blouse” voting.

Another Kenyan term is “negotiated democracy,” which means the arranged sharing of power between communities BEFORE an election takes place.

Kimani Njogu, an African linguist, said people create and use such terms everywhere, acts of what he called “semantic expansion.”

“It brings in a certain playfulness in our politics, certain humor, ingenuity, relaxation of atmosphere, normalization of the politics, so that it’s not seen to be too removed from the day-to-day experiences of people,” Njogu said.

Former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has seen this type of language throughout his long career.

“It’s not that they are being simplistic about complex issues,” Odinga said. “It’s just that they want to make it light. Sometimes you should crack a joke about those issues, but I think it’s a way of expression that in one hand tells you it’s not right, but also with a light touch. I think that’s part of the African culture.”

The Oxford dictionary covers 350 words commonly used in Africa since the introduction of multiparty democracy more than three decades ago.

Njogu said the dictionary would change over time, as old expressions lose their usefulness and people create new ones to comment on their politics. 

Donald Trump’s administration is amping up an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, The Washington Post reported Saturday, breathing new life into a pet issue used by the president to rail against his opponent during the 2016 elections.

The question of whether Clinton improperly used a private email account and server while secretary of state led to Trump’s repeat assertion that she deserved to be put in prison and frequent chants of “lock her up” at his political rallies.

Following an FBI investigation into the matter, former director James Comey did not recommend charges against Clinton but did describe her conduct as “extremely careless.”

Officials contacted

In recent weeks, up to 130 officials have been contacted by State Department investigators concerning emails they sent years ago that have been retroactively classified, nearly all of which were sent to or eventually made their way into Clinton’s unsecure email account, the Post reported.

The paper, which cited current and former officials, said State Department investigators began contacting employees about 1½ years ago, before the effort trailed off, only to be revived again in August.

“This has nothing to do with who is in the White House,” one senior State Department official told the Post, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about 3½ years.”

Revelation of the renewed effort comes the same week that Democrats in Congress launched an impeachment investigation into Trump over accusations he tried to arm-twist the Ukrainian president into providing dirt on one of his main 2020 election rivals, Joe Biden.

No political motivation

State Department officials deny the renewed email effort has any political motivation.

However, one former senior US official familiar with the investigation said it seemed to be a means for Republicans “to keep the Clinton email issue alive” and represented “a way to tarnish a whole bunch of Democratic foreign policy people.”

Those who have found their emails swept up in the investigation do not seem to be at risk of criminal prosecution, however.

Trump’s own handling of classified information has come into repeat question, such as when he revealed highly classified information on the Islamic State group to senior Russian officials in an Oval Office meeting in May 2017.

And in April, a whistleblower told Congress some 25 White House officials including top advisors of Trump were given security clearances despite staff recommendations against it.

Clinton has previously chalked up her election defeat to Comey’s brief re-opening of the FBI investigation into her use of the private email account and server just days before the 2016 election. 

At least 36 people died and 36 others were injured in east China when a packed coach with a flat tire collided with a truck, authorities said Sunday.

The bus was carrying 69 people, its maximum capacity, when it crossed into oncoming traffic and hit the freight truck on an expressway in eastern Jiangsu province Saturday morning, the Yixing public security bureau said.

A preliminary investigation determined the accident was caused by a flat tire on the left front wheel of the bus, the bureau said in a statement.

Nine people were seriously injured, 26 were slightly hurt and one was discharged from the hospital.

The Changchun-Shenzhen expressway reopened after eight hours of rescue work.

Deadly road accidents are common in China, where traffic regulations are often flouted or go unenforced.

According to authorities 58,000 people were killed in accidents across the country in 2015, the last available figures.

Violations of traffic laws were blamed for nearly 90 percent of accidents that caused deaths or injuries that year. 

The United States does not currently plan to stop Chinese companies from listing on U.S. exchanges, Bloomberg reported Saturday, citing a U.S. Treasury official.

“The administration is not contemplating blocking Chinese companies from listing shares on U.S. stock exchanges at this time,” Bloomberg quoted Treasury spokeswoman Monica Crowley as saying.

Reuters reported Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration is considering delisting Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges in a move that would be part of a broader effort to limit U.S. investment in Chinese companies.

The Treasury did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

More than half a dozen people were reportedly killed Friday during a terrorist attack on an Egyptian military checkpoint near the northern Sinai town of Bir al-Abed. The Islamic State group reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.   

Amateur video showed ambulances — sirens blaring — rushing to the checkpoint which faces an apple orchard outside Bir al-Abed. It was not the first time that the area has come under attack by terrorists.

The Egyptian military issued a statement in response saying that it has exacted a heavy toll on terrorists in the northern Sinai in recent weeks, killing 118 of them, destroying their armored vehicles, motorcycles, and hideouts, but that it has also lost a number of its own men.

An Egyptian military spokesman said that nine soldiers and one officer were killed or wounded during fighting while conducting searches. VOA could not independently confirm how many were killed.

Social media websites showed pictures of at least five Egyptian soldiers who were reportedly killed in Friday’s attack.

Reuters news agency reported that Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the Egyptian military checkpoint. It was not clear from which country the terrorist group issued its declaration.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told the annual opening session of the U.N. General Assembly earlier this week that more needs to be done to fight terrorism and that countries that support it should be sanctioned.
He said terrorism is the scourge of our times and that it is necessary to hold everyone accountable for supporting terrorists.

Egyptian media has frequently accused both Qatar and Turkey of supporting Islamic State and other terrorist groups.  A Turkish newspaper showed photos of what it said were Turkish intelligence personnel sending weapons to IS in Syria several years ago, before the newspaper was shut down and the journalists who wrote the article were arrested.

Egyptian political sociologist Said Sadek told VOA that he thinks that both Friday’s terrorist attack and efforts to spark popular protests were coming from groups and media outlets in Turkey, Qatar and Iran. He points to an audio recording aired by Arab media of a Muslim Brotherhood figure based in Istanbul, Turkey speaking with an Egyptian activist about fomenting protests against President Sissi.  Egypt outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013.

Sadek said he thinks that both the terrorist attack and the protests were “an attempt to draw attention away from internal social and economic problems in Iran and distract international media away from covering the crisis in the Gulf.”

In a separate development, Arab media reported that death sentences against terrorists involved in an ambush in the town of Helwan several years ago were handed down Saturday and that they need final approval by Egypt’s mufti before being carried out. 

Local media outlets are reporting that legendary Mexican crooner Jose Jose, known as the “Prince of Song,” has died from pancreatic cancer. He was 71.

Multiple outlets said Saturday the singer known for sad love songs had died at a hospital in South Florida.

Jose Jose, whose real name is Jose Romulo Sosa Ortiz, climbed to the top of the Latin charts in the 1970s slow ballads like “El Triste” or “The Sad Man,” and “Almohada” or “Pillow.” The power of his voice and ability to sing technically difficult tunes at a high register made him a treasured cultural icon in Latin America. 

His music also became popular in non-speaking countries such as Japan and Russia.