While the U.S. scrambles to crack down on vaping, Britain has embraced electronic cigarettes as a powerful tool to help smokers kick the habit. 

The Royal College of Physicians explicitly tells doctors to promote e-cigarettes “as widely as possible” to people trying to quit. Public Health England’s advice is that vaping carries a small fraction of the risk of smoking. 

U.S. public health officials have taken a more wary approach, and have been slow to regulate e-cigarettes. That caution turned to alarm, though, with an explosion in teen vaping, prompting the federal government and some states to take steps to ban fruit and minty flavors that appeal to youths. 

And now, with hundreds of U.S. cases of a mysterious lung illness among vapers, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that people consider not using e-cigarettes, especially those with THC, the compound that gives pot its high. 

The U.S. reaction is “complete madness,” said Dr. John Britton, director of the U.K. Center for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies at the University of Nottingham. “The reality with smoking is, if you tell people to stop vaping, they will go back to tobacco and tobacco kills.” 

Regulations about e-cigarettes vary by country, making for a patchwork of policies. More than 30 countries ban e-cigarettes outright; India halted sales this month. Many European countries including Austria, Belgium, Germany and Italy classify e-cigarettes as tobacco products, subjecting them to strict controls. They are mostly sold as consumer products in Britain and France, under more lax rules. 

Since arriving in the U.S. in 2007, e-cigarettes have been largely unregulated. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration didn’t get the power to do that until three years ago and is still working out the details. Black market versions, meanwhile, have flourished. 

Appearing before Congress last week, the U.S. FDA’s acting commissioner was pressed to explain the agency’s position. Several lawmakers suggested e-cigarettes should be completely removed from the market. 

“We do not consider these products safe, we think they have harm,” said Dr. Ned Sharpless. “We do not think really anyone should be using them other than people using them in place of combustible tobacco.” 

In Britain, a review by Public Health England, an agency similar to the CDC, concluded that vaping is about 95% less dangerous than smoking. A leading British anti-tobacco charity, Ash, even called for e-cigarettes to be licensed as medicines and provided free to smokers trying to quit by Britain’s government-funded health system. 

“We need radical solutions to stop smoking and one option is providing smokers with e-cigarettes so they can get the nicotine they need without the tobacco smoke,” said Britton. “We have a much more relaxed attitude to people being addicted to nicotine on the basis that nicotine itself isn’t particularly hazardous.” 

E-cigarettes and other vaping devices typically heat a solution containing nicotine into a vapor that’s inhaled. The amount of nicotine varies widely: Some countries set limits on the amount. There’s no cap in the U.S. And the surge in U.S. teen vaping brought warnings from health officials that nicotine can harm a teenager’s still developing brain. 

“What’s right for England might not be right for the U.S.,” said Ryan Kennedy of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

Compared to the United States, England has had historically higher rates of tobacco use and a “deeper comfort” with the idea of substituting a less harmful habit for a dangerous one, Kennedy said. British health officials have been able and willing to strictly regulate e-cigarettes while promoting them as a stop-smoking tool. 

“It’s not very surprising that a place like England has embraced e-cigarettes,” Kennedy said. “A lot of things lined up to make sense to use these devices to help people transition away from cigarettes.” 

In the U.S., meanwhile, the rapid rise in e-cigarettes’ popularity among teenagers, a thriving black market for vapes containing marijuana extracts and the illness outbreak have muddied the public health message recently, Kennedy said. 
“Obviously there are a lot of moving parts with this,” he said. 

Another key difference is advertising. Unlike in the U.S., Britain has tight regulations on advertising vaping; all TV, online and radio marketing is banned, explained Linda Bauld, a public health professor at the University of Edinburgh. 

“E-cigarettes are promoted to middle-aged smokers as a way to quit and the imaging from our annual quit campaign is usually all men with beards, so it looks pretty boring,” she said. 

On Friday, the CDC said it appears THC vaping products are playing a role in the puzzling U.S. outbreak of lung injuries and deaths. 
The agency said many of the 800 people who got sick reported vaping THC. It said more information was needed on whether a single product, substance or brand is responsible. Some researchers suspect an ingredient used as a thickener in vaping oils, particularly in black market products. 

“It’s inconceivable that any legitimate vaping product would cause that degree of damage,” Britton said. 

Some British e-cigarette users said, in the meantime, their own habits wouldn’t change. 

“There seems to be a bit of a panic over there, but that has nothing to do with us,” said Lewis Niall, a personal trainer outside a north London vaping store. 

Niall said vaping as a whole shouldn’t be tarnished if the problem is illicit marijuana products. 

“For me, I feel so much better since switching from cigarettes that I don’t think anything will change my mind,” he said.

Renewed clashes broke out in Hong Kong Saturday night as police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse hardcore protesters hurling Molotovs and bricks after tens of thousands rallied peacefully in a nearby park.

Huge crowds had gathered to mark the fifth anniversary of the “Umbrella Movement”, the failed pro-democracy campaign that laid the groundwork for the massive protests currently engulfing the finance hub.

Tens of thousands crammed into a park outside the city’s parliament, the same site that was the epicenter of the 2014 protests.

But smaller crowds took over a main road opposite the building with groups of hardcore activists in masks throwing bricks and petrol bombs at the nearby Central Government Offices.

Police responded with water cannon laced with pepper solution and tear gas volleys, though the crowds soon dispersed at the sight of riot police.

The scenes were reminiscent of the Umbrella Movement, which exploded when huge crowds came out after police fired tear gas at a student-led rally which had taken over the same highway — and was named after the ubiquitous tool people used to defend themselves from police.

Both 2014’s protests and the current demonstrations were fueled by fears that Beijing is eroding freedoms in the semi-autonomous Chinese city and frustrations over the lack of direct elections. But the character of the protests has noticeably hardened in the intervening years.

Compared to the current strife — where street battles have erupted for 16 consecutive weeks — 2014’s protests were famous for students completing classwork in the camps, recycling their waste, and the police largely avoiding direct conflict during the 79-day occupation.

This summer’s pro-democracy protests have had a distinctly more existential feel, with clashes growing in intensity and Beijing issuing increasingly shrill warnings.

‘Peaceful achieved nothing’

“I think people have prepared for a long-term fight, it is not easy to gain democracy from Chinese Communist Party,” a 29-year-old engineer, who gave her surname as Yuan, told AFP.

She said she had largely sat out the 2014 protests but felt compelled to join the streets this summer, especially after police were accused of responding too slowly to a gang of Beijing supporters who attacked protesters in late July.

“Police behavior is a major catalyst for people coming out,” she said.

Many of those attending Saturday’s rally defended the use of violence by more hardcore activists and spoke wistfully about the more festive atmosphere that characterized the Umbrella Movement.

But they said Beijing’s refusal to grant democracy — coupled with the ongoing erosion of freedoms — had hardened their resolve.

“If Hong Kong people could have achieved our demands with peaceful, rational and non-violent action, then of course we would not have needed to use more radical approaches,” a 20-year-old student, who gave her surname as Chan, told AFP.

“Looking back at the peaceful umbrella movement, there was no achievement at all.”

The Umbrella Movement introduced a whole new generation of Hong Kongers to direct action.

Earlier Saturday, Joshua Wong, a prominent former student leader who served a short jail sentence for his role in organizing the 2014 protests, announced that he would stand in upcoming district council elections.

He recently returned from the United States where he testified before a Congressional committee about eroding freedoms in Hong Kong, infuriating Beijing.

China’s birthday

This summer’s protests were ignited by a now-scrapped plan to allow extraditions to the authoritarian mainland.

But they have snowballed into a wider movement calling for democratic rights and police accountability after Beijing and the city’s leader Carrie Lam took a hard line.

Activists are planning to ramp up their protests in the coming days.

Beijing is preparing a huge military parade on Tuesday to mark 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, reveling in its transformation into a global superpower.

But democracy protesters are determined to take the shine off the festivities, with many shouting “save your energy!” on Saturday night as they changed clothes and dispersed.

Rallies are planned for Sunday to mark a Global Anti-Totalitarianism Day.

Students are planning a class boycott on Monday while online message boards — used to organize the largely leaderless protests — have filled with calls to disrupt celebrations of the People’s Republic’s 70th anniversary.

Among the demands being made by protesters is an independent inquiry into the police, an amnesty for the 1,500 people arrested, and universal suffrage.

But Beijing and local leader Carrie Lam have repeatedly dismissed those demands. Earlier this week a top Chinese envoy in the city described them as “political blackmail.”

U.N. agencies are rushing to provide aid to tens of thousands of people affected by severe flooding in Niger.  Floods caused by heavy rains, which began in June, have killed 57 people and affected 211,000.

Niger is facing multiple emergencies.  The floods are just adding to the crises already stretching the capacity of the government and humanitarian agencies to respond.  

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports the situation took a dramatic turn for the worse the last week of August.  That was when water levels of the Niger basin reached flood stage and overflow from dams in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali contributed to the surging waters.  

OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke says the last time the Niger basin reached this level was in 2012.

“At that time, the floods left dozens of dead and affected nearly half-a-million people… Each year, there has been an upward trend in how many people are affected by these seasonal rains.  We have seen a doubling of the number of people affected since 2015, as well as increasing material damage including destruction of crops and loss of livestock,” Laerke said.  

The hardest hit regions are Zinder, Maradi and Agadez.  The U.N. reports more than 16,000 houses have been damaged, rendering tens of thousands of people homeless.  The U.N. children’s fund says an estimated 123,000 children are directly affected by the floods.  

Spokeswoman Marixie Mercado says children are the most vulnerable to respiratory infections, water-borne diseases and a host of other problems.

“The children in Niger face malnutrition, recurrent disease epidemics and outbreaks, cyclical floods, drought and displacement.  This, of course, is exacerbated by the instability in neighboring countries.  We have now an influx of thousands of refugees, returnees and migrants.  All of whom are in need of basic social services for survival,” Mercado said.  

The U.N. cites priority needs as shelter, non-food items, food, water, sanitation and hygiene supplies.  Humanitarian agencies warn they are having difficulty meeting the urgent needs because of serious under-funding.

For instance, OCHA says it only has received 37 percent of its $383 million appeal.  It says that is not enough to care for the 2.3 million people in need of aid in Niger, half of them children.

Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO caught in the middle of a whistleblower complaint over the President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, resigned Friday from his post as special envoy to the Eastern European nation, according to a U.S. official.

The official said Volker told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday of his decision to leave the job, following disclosures that he had connected Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani with Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his family over allegedly corrupt business dealings.

Giuliani has said he was in frequent contact with Volker about his efforts. The State Department had no immediate comment on his resignation and has said only that Volker put Giuliani in touch with an aide to Ukraine’s president.

Pompeo said Thursday that as far as he knew, all State Department employees had acted appropriately in dealing with Ukraine.

Volker was brought into the Trump administration by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to serve as envoy for Ukraine. He worked in a volunteer capacity and had retained his job as head of the John McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. Arizona State’s student newspaper was the first to report his resignation.

Prominent Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong announced plans Saturday to contest local elections and warned that any attempt to disqualify him will only spur more support for monthslong pro-democracy protests.

His announcement came ahead of a major rally later Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of the Umbrella protests, where he first shot to fame as a youth leader. During the Umbrella Movement, protesters occupied key thoroughfares in the city for 79 days to demand for free elections for the city’s leaders but failed to win any concession.

Wong, 22, said he will run in district council elections in November and that the vote is crucial to send a message to Beijing that the people are more determined than ever to win the battle for more rights.

“Five years ago, we claimed that we will be back and now we are back with even stronger determination,” he told a news conference. “The battle ahead is the battle for our home and our homeland.”

Risk of being disqualified

Wong, who has been arrested and jailed repeatedly, said he is aware that he could be disqualified. Members of the Demosisto party that he co-founded in 2016 have in the past been disqualified from serving and running for office because they advocated self-determination.

He said the political censorship by Beijing showed an erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy under the “one country, two systems” framework when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1996.

“If they disqualify me, it will just generate more and more momentum … they will pay the price,” he said.

Lennon Walls

On Saturday, protesters were rebuilding Lennon Walls of anti-government graffiti as they marked the Umbrella anniversary.

Some Lennon Walls were torn down by pro-Beijing activists last weekend. The large mosaics of Post-it notes calling for democracy have cropped up in underpasses, outside shopping centers, at bus stops and universities.

“Lennon Walls carry the spirit of civil disobedience from the Umbrella movement,” said pro-democracy protester Kelvin Law, 24. “I am not sure when this protest will end. Either we win or we lose. But as long as we are united and fight, generation after generation, we can achieve democracy.”

Apart from Saturday’s rally in the city center, protesters are also planning global “anti-totalitarianism” rallies Sunday in Hong Kong and more than 60 cities worldwide to denounce what they called “Chinese tyranny.”

Fears for Tuesday

But the biggest worry for the government is Tuesday. Protesters plan a major march downtown, sparking fears of a bloody showdown that could embarrass China’s ruling Communist Party as it marks its 70th year in power with grand festivities in Beijing. Pro-Beijing groups have also vowed to come out, adding to the tension.

Police have banned the march but protesters have in the past turned up anyway. Hong Kong’s government has toned down National Day celebrations, canceling an annual firework display and moving a reception indoor.

Separately, U.S. Rep. James McGovern and Sen. Marco Rubio, who are spearheading efforts to push through a law to support Hong Kong’s democracy, said in a joint statement there was an “accelerated erosion” of Hong Kong’s human rights and freedom since the 2014 Umbrella Movement.

They urged Carrie Lam’s government to make universal suffrage a priority and acquiesce to demands for an independent inquiry on alleged police brutality against protesters.

“We continue to stand with the people of Hong Kong … we also stand committed to swiftly passing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in the U.S. Congress,” they said.

China has slammed the bill, which proposes economic sanctions and penalties on Chinese and Hong Kong officials found to have suppressed democracy in the city as interference in its affairs.

Reuters contributed to this report.

VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — After more than two years of political and legal strife, U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be prevailing in revamping immigration policy and building portions of a wall to limit migration across the southern U.S. border.

Trump views boosting border security as a “promise kept” to the American people, one he will tout to voters in his re-election bid next year.

“[W]e’re doing it. We get it done,” the president said this past week. “The [border] wall is being built.”

The U.S. Senate has voted again to block President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration and his plan to divert $3.6 billion from military projects to extend wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border. Despite the setback, Trump could win a larger narrative on border security — an important issue for his supporters going into next year’s election. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.
 

The United States rejected a request by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to visit Iran’s United Nations ambassador in a New York hospital where he is being treated for cancer, the U.S. State Department and Iranian U.N. mission said on Friday.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Zarif’s request would be granted if Iran released one of several American citizens it had detained.

In July the United States imposed tight travel restrictions on Zarif before a visit that month to the United Nations, as well as on Iranian diplomats and their families living in New York, which Zarif described as “basically inhuman.”

Unless they receive prior approval from Washington, they are only allowed to travel within a small area of Manhattan, Queens and to and from John F. Kennedy airport.

Iran’s U.N. mission spokesman Alireza Miryousefi said Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi was being treated for cancer in a hospital not far away in Manhattan’s Upper East Side neighborhood. Zarif is in New York for the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

“Iran has wrongfully detained several U.S. citizens for years, to the pain of their families and friends they cannot freely visit,” the State Department spokesperson said. “We have relayed to the Iranian mission that the travel request will be granted if Iran releases a U.S. citizen.”

The United States and Iran are at odds over a host of issues, including the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, U.S. accusations — denied by Tehran — that Iran attacked two Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14 and Iran’s detention of U.S. citizens on what the United States regards as spurious grounds.

Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, on Monday said that if Iran wanted to show good faith, it should release the U.S. citizens it has detained, including Xiyue Wang, a U.S. citizen and Princeton University graduate student who was detained in Iran in 2016.

At a news conference in New York on Thursday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran was open to talking about prisoner swaps but that the ball was in Washington’s court after Iran’s release of a Lebanese man with U.S. permanent residency in June.

The United States deported an Iranian woman who pleaded guilty to exporting restricted U.S. technology to Iran on Tuesday. During a visit to New York in April, Zarif specifically mentioned the woman’s case when talking about possible prisoner swaps.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday declined to discuss the possibility of a U.S.-Iranian prisoner swap after the woman’s deportation.   

Afghans headed to the polls Saturday to elect a new president amid high security and Taliban threats to disrupt the elections, with the rebels warning citizens to stay home or risk being hurt.

Still at some polling stations in the capital voters lined up even before the centers opened, while in others election workers had yet to arrive by poll opening time.

Imam Baksh, who works as a security guard, said he wasn’t worried about his safety as he stood waiting to mark his ballot, wondering who he would vote for.

“All of them have been so disappointing for our country,” he said.

The leading contenders are incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and his partner in the 5-year-old unity government, Abdullah Abdullah, who already alleges power abuse by his opponent.

Fear and frustration at the relentless corruption that has characterized successive governments ranks high among the concerns of Afghanistan’s 9.6 million eligible voters.

Tens of thousands of police, intelligence officials and Afghan National Army personnel have been deployed throughout the country to protect the 4,942 election centers.  Authorities said 431 polling centers will stay closed because it was impossible to guarantee their security since they were either in areas under Taliban control or where insurgents could threaten nearby villages.

In Kabul traffic was light, with police and the army scattered throughout the city, stopping cars and looking for anything out of the ordinary. The Taliban said they would take particular aim at Afghanistan’s cities.

Outfitted in bullet-proof vests, their rifles by their side, soldiers slowed traffic to a crawl as they searched vehicles. Larger vehicles were not being allowed into the capital Saturday, which is a usual working day but for the elections was declared a holiday.

The following reporters contributed to this report: Matiado Vilme, Yves Manuel, Dieuline Gedeus in Port-au-Prince, Jaudelet Junior Saint Vil in Fort Liberte, Innocente Desgranges in Petit Goave, Socrate Ameyes Jean Pierre, James Dorvil, Alexandre Joram in Miragoane, Junior Racine in St. Marc, Hernst Eliscar in Les Cayes

WASHINGTON, PORT-au-PRINCE, GONAIVES, FORT LIBERTE, PETIT  GOAVE, MIRAGOANE, ST. MARC, LES CAYES – Haiti’s latest protests began with explosions when hundreds of Cite Soleil residents, a slum notorious for gang activity, drug dealing and kidnapping, attacked the local UDMO security force headquarters.

They looted, carrying out furniture and other materials, then set fire to the building and police cars, prompting the explosions.

At the United Nations, the news is not often good. But Friday was different, and U.N. chief Antonio Guterres expressed what many at a high-level meeting on Sudan’s transition toward democracy after 30 years of dictatorship were feeling. 
 
“This is clearly the happiest moment I have in this high-level week,” the secretary-general said. “If one year ago we were forecasting the possibility of this meeting, I think no one would believe. But the fact is we are here celebrating a new Sudan.” 
 
Guterres reaffirmed U.N. support for Sudan and noted that the transition was not the destination, but the beginning of its journey. 
 
Both he and AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat urged the lifting of all economic sanctions on Sudan, as well as its removal from the United States’ State Sponsors of Terrorism list. 

Crucial step
 
Transitional Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok told the meeting that de-listing was vital. 
 
“This is key to anything we can touch and do,” Hamdok said. “It is linked to the economy, it is linked to debt, to investment, but opening the country at large. We have to get understanding, and fast, from our American friends in de-listing Sudan. Sudan that is upholding good human rights, good governance, rule of law is not a threat to anybody.” 

He said his top priority was peace. 
 
“Our number one and top priority: stopping the war and building solid ground for sustainable peace,” Hamdok said. “I think the time of achieving peace is now. And I think we are moving in the right direction to achieve precisely that.” 
 
Earlier this week, Sudan’s foreign minister signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to open offices in the capital, Khartoum, and in four conflict-affected areas of the country. 

A U.S. judge on Friday blocked a Trump administration rule that sought to detain migrant families indefinitely, saying it was inconsistent with a 1997 court settlement that governs conditions for migrant children in U.S. custody.

The 1997 settlement agreement, which originated in 1985 with a complaint brought on behalf of 15-year-old Salvadoran immigrant Jenny L. Flores, set standards for humane treatment of children in detention and ordered their prompt release in most cases.

The Trump administration had hoped a new rule issued on Aug. 23 would supersede that settlement.

“This regulation is inconsistent with one of the primary goals of the Flores Agreement, which is to instate a general policy favoring release and expeditiously place minors ‘in the least restrictive setting appropriate to the minor’s age and special needs,’” Judge Dolly Gee wrote in her ruling.

‘Loopholes’

President Donald Trump has made cracking down on immigration a hallmark of his presidency, and administration officials have repeatedly referred to the Flores agreement’s standards as “loopholes” that attract migrants by forcing authorities to release people pending their immigration hearings.

The new regulation would have allowed the administration to hold families in detention centers until their cases are decided, a process that can take months or years. It had been due to go into effect next month.

In a court hearing in Los Angeles on Friday, Gee asked Department of Justice Attorney August Flentje how he could argue that the new regulations were not inconsistent with the terms of the Flores agreement.

“Just because you tell me it is night outside, doesn’t mean it is not day,” Gee said.  

Sixty-six refugees from Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea were freed from detention in Libya and flown to Rwanda on Thursday, on a flight chartered by the U.N. refugee agency.  

This was the first group of refugees to benefit from a so-called Emergency Transit Mechanism agreed to early this month by Rwanda, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the African Union.   
 
U.N. refugee agency spokesman Babar Baloch told VOA his agency expected and hoped to continue the evacuations. He noted Rwanda’s refugee center has the capacity to care for 500 people. 

“But it does not mean that Rwanda will only have 500,” he said. “We hope that as people come in, they are able to find solutions and move to safer locations. … And, we hope that in the coming days and weeks, we are able to fly out more refugees from Libya to safety.”  
 
Baloch said the UNHCR had registered more than 3,000 refugees in Libyan detention centers. However, he noted, more than 5,000 refugees and migrants are being held under brutal, appalling conditions in government-run facilities. 

26 children
 
He said 26 of the 66 refugees flown to Rwanda were children, nearly all of them unaccompanied. He said one of the evacuees had not been outside a detention center for more than four years. 
 
Baloch said the refugees were registered and were given documentation upon arrival in Kigali. They were then transferred to a transit center in Gashora, 60 kilometers south of the capital, where they were provided with accommodations, food, water and other basic relief.   
 
“A team of nine health professionals, including a psychologist, will work alongside counselors specialized in working with children and survivors of sexual violence to provide health care and assist evacuees who survived torture, sexual violence and human rights abuses during their time in Libya,” he said. 
 
Baloch said all members of the group had been granted asylum-seeker status while their refugee claims are being assessed. This, he said, gives them the same rights as other refugees in Rwanda. They will be able to access education and health care, and work. 
 
He added that anyone who was not considered a refugee and in need of international protection would either be helped to return home or given the possibility of gaining regular status in Rwanda. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations on Friday that India was launching a campaign to stamp out the use of single-use plastics.

“Even as I am addressing you today, a very large campaign is being started across the entire country to make India free of single-use plastic,” Modi, who wants to scrap such plastics by 2022, told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly.

Officials told Reuters last month that India is set to impose a nationwide ban on plastic bags, cups and straws on Oct. 2.

Indonesia’s anti-graft commission on Friday arrested a former sports minister accused of stealing public money, as students across the country protested a new law that critics say will cripple the commission.

Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi faces graft charges related to a National Sports Committee grant which he allegedly used for himself. He faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment if found guilty.

Nahrawi resigned last week after the Corruption Eradication Commission announced that he was suspected of personally using the 26.5 billion rupiah ($1.8 million) grant.

“I am ready to undergo my destiny,” Nahrawi told reporters before entering a car to be taken to a holding cell after being questioned by investigators. “Please pray for me in facing this destiny.”

Commissioner Alexander Marwata earlier said Nahrawi is suspected of receiving about $1 million in bribes through his personal assistant, Miftahul Ulum, who was also named a suspect, between 2014 and 2018. He said Nahrawi allegedly asked for an additional $830,000 between 2016 and 2018.

His arrest came during a week of violent demonstrations by thousands of students across the country against the new law. At least three people, including two students, died and several hundred others were injured.

The demonstrators are enraged that Parliament passed the law reducing the authority of the corruption commission, a key body fighting endemic graft in the country.

The death of the students sparked a national outcry, prompting President Joko Widodo to express his deep condolences and order the National Police chief to conduct a thorough investigation.

Clashes between protesters and police continued Friday in various cities, including in Makassar and Medan, as calm largely returned to Jakarta after three straight days of violent protests.

The anti-graft commission, one of the few effective institutions in the country of nearly 270 million people, is frequently under attack by lawmakers who want to reduce its powers.

Previous cases

Nahrawi is the second minister in Widodo’s Cabinet to be arrested for alleged graft after former social affairs minister Idrus Marham, who was sentenced to five years in prison for involvement in a bribery case related to a coal-fired power plant project on Sumatra island.

Nahrawi is also the second sports and youth minister to resign after being accused of corruption after Andi Mallarangeng, who served under former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Mallarangeng was sentenced in 2014 to four years in jail and fined $17,000 for accepting $720,000 from a contractor for a $122 million sports complex in the West Java village of Hambalang.

The cases, which underline Indonesia’s challenge in reducing graft, have threatened the credibility of Widodo, who recently won reelection after campaigning for clean governance.

Students took to the streets across the globe in the hundreds of thousands Friday for a second wave of worldwide protests demanding swift action on climate change.

The protests were inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who spoke to world leaders this week at a United Nations summit in New York.

Friday’s rallies kicked off in New Zealand, where young people marched on Parliament in Wellington, holding one of the largest protests ever held there. Organizers in the capital were forced to change their security plans to accommodate the crowds, while thousands more marched in Auckland and other parts of the country.

On the other side of the planet, more than 100,000 rallied in Italy’s capital, Rome, where protesters held up signs with slogans such as “Change the system, not the climate” or just the word “Future.”

Marches took place in about 180 locations across Italy, including the country’s financial hub of Milan where one banner read “How dare you!” — the accusation Thunberg, 16, leveled at world leaders during her U.N. speech in New York on Monday. The Italian Education Ministry said students attending the event would not be penalized for missing school.

Fears about the impact of global warming on the younger generation were expressed by schoolchildren in Dharmsala, India. South Asia depends heavily on water from the Himalayan glaciers that are under threat from climate change.

In Berlin, activists from the Fridays for Future group braved persistent rain to protest against a package the German government recently agreed for cutting the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Experts say the proposal falls far short of what’s needed if the world’s sixth biggest emitter is to meet the goal of the Paris climate accord.

Actor Javier Bardem joined dozens of young people in San Sebastian in one of several early demonstrations and rallies held across Spain on Friday morning ahead of evening demonstrations to be held in the major towns and cities. They are expected to draw big crowds, especially in Madrid and Barcelona.

Bardem was in San Sebastian to promote a documentary he worked on with Greenpeace.

Thunberg said she planned to attend a protest in Montreal.

“New Zealand leading the way into Friday nr 2 in #WeekForFuture,” she tweeted. “Good luck everyone striking around the world. Change is coming!!”

In Wellington, 18-year-old university student Katherine Rivers said it was great to see young people taking action and personal responsibility by marching.

“We need to stop pandering to some of the people who are making money off climate change. The big oil companies, the dairy industry etc.,” she said. “And make a change for the future of these kids that are here.”

While thousands of high school students elected to take time off school to protest, many adults also joined the marches. One of them was 83-year-old grandmother-of-three Violet McIntosh.

“It’s not my future we’re thinking about,” McIntosh said.  She said it was time politicians should listen to young people like Thunberg, whom she described as “amazing.”

“She stood out there by herself to start it all. Millions of people are following her now,” McIntosh said. “She should be very proud of herself.”

In the Netherlands, where thousands joined a protest in The Hague, some participants acknowledged that getting politicians to take action against global warming was only part of the story.

“It’s also about then leading sustainable lives and making changes to make your life more sustainable,” said Utrecht University student Beth Meadows.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said part of the government’s plan is to encourage citizens to shift their behavior.

“People, and businesses too, know that over the coming years, step by step, behavior that harms the climate (and) causes a lot of emissions will have a higher price than before,” Seibert told reporters in Berlin.

The remains of Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe, who died early this month, have been moved from his Harare house to his rural village ahead of burial expected this weekend, his family said Friday.

After weeks of wrangling between government and his family over the final resting place for the country’s founding leader, the Mugabes have opted to entomb him at his birth place and rural home, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of the capital Harare.

The body was moved Thursday evening under police and military vehicles escort, according to a video clip shared on Twitter.

It was the second time Mugabe’s body made its way back to Kutama village in Zvimba district where he was born 95 years ago.

When the body was first taken home last week for the public to pay their last respects, it was airlifted by a military helicopter.

“The body arrived (at the village) around 1900 hours, yesterday,” family spokesman and Mugabe’s nephew Leo Mugabe told AFP Friday.

The decision to bury Mugabe in the village is seen as a snub of the government offer to bury him at what was to be a specially built mausoleum at a national heroes shrine in Harare where dozens of other prominent independence war veterans are interred.

The family had greed to have his body entombed at the shrine where preparations for a special mausoleum were in progress.

Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, said the family had earlier consented that they were “happy with burial at Heroes Acre,” but suddenly Thursday “they indicated that they want to go to Zvimba and (the) government agreed.”

The family gave no reason for the change of plans.

Hong Kong’s beleaguered leader Carrie Lam faced her public with humility, but she may not get the response she hoped for.

In a face-off with an antagonistic audience, Lam quietly took blow after blow as citizens at a town hall session Thursday vented anger at her refusal to give more concessions to end more than three months of anti-government protests that have rocked the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

After the dialogue ended, Lam remained in the building for another four hours to avoid confrontation with angry protesters outside and left only after most of them dispersed.

But analysts say Lam’s hope of using the community engagement to buy some goodwill that will diffuse tensions ahead of rallies planned this weekend in the lead-up to Oct. 1 celebrations of China’s National Day is unlikely to succeed.

“Carrie Lam showed some sincerity,” said Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Center for China Studies at Hong Kong’s Chinese University who is not related to the Hong Kong leader. “She sat through more than two hours of humiliation and demonstrated at least willingness to hear radically different views. She has the guts to face opposition but still it’s not good enough.”

Proposed law sparked protests

The protests began in June in opposition to a proposed law that would have allowed some criminal suspects to be sent for trial on the mainland, but have since widened into an anti-China protest spurred by widespread concern that Beijing has been eroding the autonomy Hong Kong was promised when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

During the town hall, Lam vowed to work to regain public trust and shouldered the responsibility for causing political havoc with the extradition bill. Yet she offered no concrete actions she will take apart from promises to listen and address deep-seated societal woes such as a lack of affordable housing that the government believes has contributed to the protests.

Lam stood her ground against demands for an independent inquiry into accusations of police brutality against protesters and the unconditional release of more than 1,500 people detained since the protests began in June. She also sidestepped calls for direct elections of the city’s leaders.

“It was a good occasion for people to reduce pent-up anger, but it will not cool down emotions because there was no concrete reconciliatory moves,” Willy Lam said.

Nevertheless, he said it was a good sign that the tightly guarded event proceeded without disruption and opens the possibility that future planned dialogue with the community could be more in-depth or even show results.

So far the only concession the Hong Kong leader has made was a promise to completely withdraw the extradition bill, a move that may have eased tensions had it been made in June but did little to calm things when announced in September. Huge protests have continued on most weekends, as have the clashes with police that often break out after nightfall.

Saturday rally

Another major rally organized by the Civil Human Rights Front is set Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of the Umbrella Revolution, when protesters occupied key thoroughfares in the city for 79 days in 2014 to demand universal suffrage. That movement ended without any government concession.

Protesters are also organizing “anti-totalitarianism” rallies in Hong and many cities worldwide on Sunday against what they denounced as China’s tyranny.

The Front is also planning a big march Oct. 1, sparking fears of a bloody showdown that will embarrass China’s ruling Communist Party as it marks its 70th year in power with grand festivities in Beijing. The Hong Kong government has scaled down National Day celebrations by calling off an annual firework display and moving a reception indoors.

Lam’s government has insisted that it can handle the conflict on its own, amid fears of Chinese military intervention. Despite the bashing Thursday, Lam vowed to continue talks with various communities, including protesters, to hear their grievances.
 

Indonesia is seeing its largest protests in two decades, amid a wave of public anger at a proposed overhaul of the country’s criminal code and a controversial move to weaken an anti-corruption body.

Tens of thousands have protested this month nationwide, including in the capital, Jakarta, where police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse student protesters outside the parliament building Tuesday.

Many are upset at a proposal that would outlaw or strengthen existing restrictions on abortion, sex outside marriage, blasphemy, and insulting the president or other symbols of government.

Others are angry at the passage of recent legislation that threatens to diminish the independence of, and strips key powers from the country’s respected Corruption Eradication Commission.

Separately, at least 30 people were killed this week during an outbreak of anti-government protests in the eastern region of Papua, where there has long been a low-level insurgency.

Challenge for the president

The developments amount to a major challenge for President Joko Widodo, who is set to begin his second five-year term in October after easily winning re-election in April.

“It’s very serious,” says Devi Asmarani, Jakarta-based founder and editor of The Magdalene, an online feminist magazine.

Widodo has long wanted to revise Indonesia’s criminal code, which was set up by the country’s former Dutch colonial rulers. His past attempts to do so have failed.

“The whole purpose was to make the criminal code more Indonesian, because it was a legacy of the Dutch colonial era,” Asmarani says. “But instead we came up with something that criminalizes everything.”

Most international headlines have focused on aspects of the bill that would outlaw sex outside marriage, and how that may impact popular international tourist destinations, such as Bali.

But the proposal, which contains more than 600 articles, could impact a large section of Indonesian society.

Women, gender minorities

Human Rights Watch called the draft criminal code “disastrous not only for women and religious and gender minorities, but for all Indonesians.”

It is likely to disproportionately affect women and criminalize same-sex conduct, something Indonesia has never done, said the rights group’s Indonesia researcher, Andreas Harsono.

Under the proposal, couples who have premarital sex could receive up to a year in prison. Unmarried couples who live together face up to six months in jail. Abortions would be outlawed in most circumstances.

Lawmakers this week delayed the proposal after Widodo bowed to public pressure, saying more input was needed. But some fear the bill could be passed by the next session of parliament.

Bill pauses, protests continue

Protests have continued even after the bill was paused. In Jakarta this week, hundreds of protesters and dozens of police officers were injured when protesters tried to break into the parliament building, officials said.

The protests are the largest Indonesia has seen since 1998 when mass demonstrations led to the resignation of Suharto, the military leader who had ruled the country for three decades.

Some protesters now accuse the government of risking a return to Suharto’s oppressive “New Order.”

The protester demands have recently widened to include an end to what they call “militarism” in Papua, the stoppage of man-made forest fires that have spread a toxic haze throughout Southeast Asia, the release of political prisoners, and other wider democratic reforms.

Reforms in jeopardy

Since Suharto’s downfall, Indonesia has undertaken a series of reforms. Observers say those reforms are now threatened by a combination of political polarization and the influence of and response to political Islam.

“There is no question Indonesian politics have moved in a more illiberal direction in recent years,” says Aaron Connelly, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in Singapore.

“That is partly down to the cynical use of Islamist movements by opposition politicians to stir discontent with (Widodo),” he says. “But it is also because of actions that Jokowi himself and his appointees have taken to suppress dissent,” he said, using a nickname for the president.

Widodo is seen by some as being aligned with the political elites from the Suharto era. His attempt to revise the criminal code has also received support from some conservative Muslim groups.

It is those dual forces — the old, established bases of power combined with the long-simmering forces of political Islam — that pose a major threat, Asmarani says.

“And I think these two forces are even more powerful when they’re married,” as with the current effort to revise the criminal code, she says.

Yellowstone, America’s first national park, has added another first.

The National Park Service has named Sarah Davis to be Yellowstone’s first female chief ranger in the park’s more than 100-year history.

Davis, whose official title is Chief of Resource and Visitor Protection, will begin her new job in December.

The North Carolina native is a 20 year veteran of the National Park Service.

Davis will supervise 275 staff members, responsible for everything from collecting park fees to law enforcement and emergency services as well as conducting search and rescue operations.