One of the wonderful ways that playgrounds have changed is in the way many are now making room for the disabled. Khrystyna Shevchenko visited one of the first special needs playgrounds in California. Anna Rice narrates her story.

A tech company is offering literature and short films created specifically for mobile devices. They already have 50 million monthly subscribers. Deana Mitchell tunes in.

Dozens of activists have marched in the capital of Ghana to protest impunity surrounding attacks on women and girls in the West African country.  The women activists added their voices to the global conversation about seeking justice for victims of sexual abuses, and holding abusers to account. Stacey Knott reports from Accra on the weekend protest march.

A collection of striking photographs set in the arid landscapes of northern Ethiopia aims to spotlight the harsh reality of water scarcity and how it impacts the lives of women across Africa, said artist

Americans’ diets are a little less sweet and a little crunchier but there’s still too much sugar, white bread and artery-clogging fat, a study suggests.

Overall, the authors estimated there was a modest improvement over 16 years on the government’s healthy eating index, from estimated scores of 56 to 58. That’s hardly cause for celebration – 100 is the top score.

Diets are still too heavy on foods that can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other prevalent U.S. health problems, said co-author Fang Fang Zhang, a nutrition researcher at Tufts University near Boston.

The study was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The results are from an analysis of U.S. government health surveys from 1999 to 2016 involving nearly 44,000 adults.

“Despite observed improvements,” the authors wrote, “important dietary challenges” remain. 

Among them: Getting Americans to cut down on snack foods, hot dogs, fatty beef, butter and other foods containing saturated fats. The study found these unhealthy fats increased from 11.5% to almost 12% of daily calories, above the recommended 10% limit.

And while the biggest change was a small drop in added sugars, from about 16% to roughly 14%, that’s still too high. The government says less than 10% of daily calories should come from added sugars. Researchers think fewer sweetened sodas contributed to the decline, but Zhang noted added sugars are often found in foods that don’t even seem sweet, including some yogurts and tomato sauce.

Fruits, nuts, oatmeal and other whole grains are among the types of foods adults ate slightly more of. Still, each of those contributed to less than 5% of daily calories in 2016, the study found.

Salt intake dipped slightly and a small decline in fruit juice contributed to a drop in low-quality carbs. But these still amount to 42% of daily calories, including many likely from highly processed white bread and other refined grains, Zhang said.

The study is based on in-person health surveys conducted every two years that ask adults to recall what foods they ate in the previous 24 hours. Starting in 2003, adults were asked that question twice several days apart.

The study lists food groups rather than individual foods; for example “whole grains,” not oatmeal, and “refined grains,” not white bread but Zhang said those two foods are among the most common grains in the U.S. diet.

U.S. dietary guidelines recommend a “healthy eating pattern” to reduce chances of developing chronic disease. The focus should be on nutrient-dense foods including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy products; plus varied proteins sources including seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs nuts and seeds, the recommendations say.   

During the study years, U.S. diabetes rates almost doubled, to more than 7%; obesity rates increased during many of those years, with about 70% of U.S. adults now overweight or obese. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death.

Besides continued public health efforts, “Cooperation from the food industry” is key, a journal editorial said, including by reducing sugar, salt and saturated fats in foods.

North Korea has quietly reopened a construction firm in Senegal in an apparent violation of United Nations sanctions targeting Pyongyang’s nuclear programs, VOA Korean has confirmed.

At least 31 North Koreans are working at the firm, Corman Construction & Commerce Senegal Sural (CCCSSS), according to interviews and official documents reviewed by VOA Korean.

Under a series of sweeping sanctions enacted two years ago, the U.N. prohibited member states from conducting most business activities with North Korea. The sanctions also prohibited member states from allowing in new North Korean workers and required any North Korean workers in place be expelled by the end of 2019.

Senegal told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in January 2018 that it had responded to the most recent sanctions by shutting down the North Korean company, Mansudae Overseas Project Group of Companies (MOP).

But documents show that Corman Construction was registered in June 2017 under management of a North Korean national. The company is working on some of the same construction projects that Mandudae Overseas worked on before it was closed.

Reporters from VOA Korean traveled to Dakar, the Senegalese capital, and reviewed business papers, immigration documents and copies of passports identifying the North Korean business activities in the African country. The source of the documents requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

On the morning of Sept. 16, VOA Korean reporters watched as a handful of North Korean workers emerged from a lodging compound in Dakar.

They squeezed into a double-cab pickup truck, then traveled for an hour to a factory owned by the Senegalese food processor,

Everton Simpson squints at the Caribbean from his motorboat, scanning the dazzling bands of color for hints of what lies beneath. Emerald green indicates sandy bottoms. Sapphire blue lies above seagrass meadows. And deep indigo marks coral reefs. That’s where he’s headed.

He steers the boat to an unmarked spot that he knows as the “coral nursery.” “It’s like a forest under the sea,” he says, strapping on blue flippers and fastening his tank before tipping backward into the azure waters. He swims down 25 feet (7.6 meters) carrying a pair of metal shears, fishing line and a plastic crate.

On the ocean floor, small coral fragments dangle from suspended ropes, like socks hung on a laundry line. Simpson and other divers tend to this underwater nursery as gardeners mind a flower bed — slowly and painstakingly plucking off snails and fireworms that feast on immature coral.

When each stub grows to about the size of a human hand, Simpson collects them in his crate to individually “transplant” onto a reef, a process akin to planting each blade of grass in a lawn separately.

Even fast-growing coral species add just a few inches a year. And it’s not possible to simply scatter seeds.

A few hours later, at a site called Dickie’s Reef, Simpson dives again and uses bits of fishing line to tie clusters of staghorn coral onto rocky outcroppings — a temporary binding until the coral’s limestone skeleton grows and fixes itself onto the rock. The goal is to jumpstart the natural growth of a coral reef. And so far, it’s working.

Almost everyone in Jamaica depends on the sea, including Simpson, who lives in a modest house he built himself near the island’s northern coast. The energetic 68-year-old has reinvented himself several times, but always made a living from the ocean.

Once a spear fisherman and later a scuba-diving instructor, Simpson started working as a “coral gardener” two years ago — part of grassroots efforts to bring Jamaica’s coral reefs back from the brink.

‘Rainforests of the sea’

Coral reefs are often called “rainforests of the sea” for the astonishing diversity of life they shelter.

Just 2% of the ocean floor is filled with coral, but the branching structures — shaped like everything from reindeer antlers to human brains — sustain a quarter of all marine species. Clown fish, parrotfish, groupers and snappers lay eggs and hide from predators in the reef’s nooks and crannies, and their presence draws eels, sea snakes, octopuses and even sharks. In healthy reefs, jellyfish and sea turtles are regular visitors.

With fish and coral, it’s a codependent relationship — the fish rely upon the reef structure to evade danger and lay eggs, and they also eat up the coral’s rivals.

Life on the ocean floor is like a slow-motion competition for space, or an underwater game of musical chairs. Tropical fish and other marine animals, like black sea urchins, munch on fast-growing algae and seaweed that may otherwise outcompete the slow-growing coral for space. When too many fish disappear, the coral suffers — and vice-versa.

After a series of natural and man-made disasters in the 1980s and 1990s, Jamaica lost 85% of its once-bountiful coral reefs. Meanwhile, fish catches declined to a sixth of what they had been in the 1950s, pushing families that depend on seafood closer to poverty. Many scientists thought that most of Jamaica’s coral reef had been permanently replaced by seaweed, like jungle overtaking a ruined cathedral.

But today, the corals and tropical fish are slowly reappearing, thanks in part to a series of careful interventions.

Restoring reefs

The delicate labor of the coral gardener is only one part of restoring a reef — and for all its intricacy, it’s actually the most straightforward part. Convincing lifelong fishermen to curtail when and where they fish and controlling the surging waste dumped into the ocean are trickier endeavors.

Still, slowly, the comeback effort is gaining momentum.

“The coral are coming back; the fish are coming back,” says Stuart Sandin, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. “It’s probably some of the most vibrant coral reefs we’ve seen in Jamaica since the 1970s.”

“When you give nature a chance, she can repair herself,” he adds. “It’s not too late.”

Sandin is studying the health of coral reefs around the world as part of a research project called the “100 Island Challenge.” His starting assumption was that the most populated islands would have the most degraded habitats, but what he found instead is that humans can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on how they manage resources.

In Jamaica, more than a dozen grassroots-run coral nurseries and fish sanctuaries have sprung up in the past decade, supported by small grants from foundations, local businesses such as hotels and scuba clinics, and the Jamaican government.

At White River Fish Sanctuary, which is only about 2 years old and where Simpson works, the clearest proof of early success is the return of tropical fish that inhabit the reefs, as well as hungry pelicans, skimming the surface of the water to feed on them.

Jamaica’s coral reefs were once among the world’s most celebrated, with their golden branching structures and resident bright-colored fish drawing the attention of travelers from Christopher Columbus to Ian Fleming, who wrote most of his James Bond novels on the island nation’s northern coast in the 1950s and ’60s.

In 1965, the country became the site of the first global research hub for coral reefs, the Discovery Bay Marine Lab, now associated with the University of the West Indies. The pathbreaking marine biologist couple Thomas and Nora Goreau completed fundamental research here, including describing the symbiotic relationship between coral and algae and pioneering the use of scuba equipment for marine studies.

Disasters

The same lab also provided a vantage point as the coral disappeared.

Peter Gayle has been a marine biologist at Discovery Bay since 1985. From the yard outside his office, he points toward the reef crest about 300 meters away — a thin brown line splashed with white waves. “Before 1980, Jamaica had healthy coral,” he notes. Then several disasters struck.

The first calamity was 1980’s Hurricane Allen, one of the most powerful cyclones in recorded history. “Its 40-foot waves crashed against the shore and basically chewed up the reef,” Gayle says. Coral can grow back after natural disasters, but only when given a chance to recover — which it never got.

That same decade, a mysterious epidemic killed more than 95% of the black sea urchins in the Caribbean, while overfishing ravaged fish populations. And surging waste from the island’s growing human population, which nearly doubled between 1960 and 2010, released chemicals and nutrients into the water that spur faster algae growth. The result: Seaweed and algae took over.

“There was a tipping point in the 1980s, when it switched from being a coral-dominated system to being an algae-dominated system,” Gayle says. “Scientists call it a ‘phase shift.’”

That seemed like the end of the story, until an unlikely alliance started to tip the ecosystem back in the other direction, with help from residents like Everton Simpson and his fellow fisherman Lipton Bailey.

Protecting reefs

The fishing community of White River revolves around a small boat-docking area about a quarter-mile from where the river flows into the Caribbean Sea. One early morning, as purple dawn light filters into the sky, Simpson and Bailey step onto a 28-foot motorboat called the Interceptor.

Both men have lived and fished their whole lives in the community. Recently, they have come to believe that they need to protect the coral reefs that attract tropical fish, while setting limits on fishing to ensure the sea isn’t emptied too quickly.

In the White River area, the solution was to create a protected area — a “fish sanctuary” — for immature fish to grow and reach reproductive age before they are caught.

Two years ago, the fishermen joined with local businesses, including hotel owners, to form a marine association and negotiate the boundaries for a no-fishing zone stretching two miles along the coast. A simple line in the water is hardly a deterrent, however; to make the boundary meaningful, it must be enforced. Today, the local fishermen, including Simpson and Bailey, take turns patrolling the boundary in the Interceptor.

On this morning, the men steer the boat just outside a row of orange buoys marked “No Fishing.” “We are looking for violators,” Bailey says, his eyes trained on the rocky coast. “Sometimes you find spearmen. They think they’re smart. We try to beat them at their game.”

Most of the older and more established fishermen, who own boats and set out lines and wire cages, have come to accept the no-fishing zone. Besides, the risk of having their equipment confiscated is too great. But not everyone is on board. Some younger men hunt with lightweight spearguns, swimming out to sea and firing at close-range. These men — some of them poor and with few options — are the most likely trespassers.

The patrols carry no weapons, so they must master the art of persuasion. “Let them understand this. It’s not a you thing or a me thing. This isn’t personal,” Bailey says of past encounters with violators.

These are sometimes risky efforts. Two years ago, Jerlene Layne, a manager at nearby Boscobel Fish Sanctuary, landed in the hospital with a bruised leg after being attacked by a man she had reprimanded for fishing illegally in the sanctuary. “He used a stick to hit my leg because I was doing my job, telling him he cannot fish in the protected area,” she says.

Layne believes her work would be safer with more formal support from the police, but she isn’t going to stop.

“Public mindsets can change,” she says. “If I back down on this, what kind of message does that send? You have to stand for something.”

She has pressed charges in court against repeat trespassers, typically resulting in a fine and equipment confiscation.

Boundary skeptics

One such violator is Damian Brown, 33, who lives in a coastal neighborhood called Stewart Town. Sitting outside on a concrete staircase near his modest home, Brown says fishing is his only option for work — and he believes the sanctuary boundaries extend too far.

But others who once were skeptical say they’ve come to see limits as a good thing.

Back at the White River docking area, Rick Walker, a 35-year-old spearfisherman, is cleaning his motorboat. He remembers the early opposition to the fish sanctuary, with many people saying, “‘No, they’re trying to stop our livelihood.’”

Two years later, Walker, who is not involved in running the sanctuary but supports its boundary, says he can see the benefits. “It’s easier to catch snapper and barracuda,” he says. “At least my great grandkids will get to see some fish.”

When Columbus landed in Jamaica, he sailed into Oracabessa Bay, today a 20-minute drive from the mouth of the White River.

Oracabessa Bay Fish Sanctuary was the first of the grassroots-led efforts to revive Jamaica’s coral reefs. Its sanctuary was legally incorporated in 2010, and its approach of enlisting local fishermen as patrols became a model for other regions.

“The fishermen are mostly on board and happy, that’s the distinction. That’s why it’s working,” sanctuary manager Inilek Wilmot says.

David Murray, head of the Oracabessa Fishers’ Association, notes that Jamaica’s 60,000 fishermen operate without a safety net. “Fishing is like gambling, it’s a game. Sometimes you catch something, sometimes you don’t,” he says.

Fish populations

When fish populations began to collapse two decades ago, something had to change.

Murray now works as a warden in the Oracabessa sanctuary, while continuing to fish outside its boundary. He also spends time explaining the concept to neighbors.

“It’s people work — it’s a process to get people to agree on a sanctuary boundary,” he says. “It’s a tough job to tell a man who’s been fishing all his life that he can’t fish here.”

But once it became clear that a no-fishing zone actually helped nearby fish populations rebound, it became easier to build support. The number of fish in the sanctuary has doubled between 2011 and 2017, and the individual fish have grown larger — nearly tripling in length on average — according to annual surveys by Jamaica’s National Environment and Planning Agency. And that boosts catches in surrounding areas.

After word got out about Oracabessa, other regions wanted advice.

“We have the data to show success, but even more important than data is word of mouth,” says Wilmot, who oversaw training to help start the fish sanctuary at White River.

Belinda Morrow, a lifelong water-sports enthusiast often seen paddle-boarding with her dog Shadow, runs the White River Marine Association. She attends fishers’ meetings and raises small grants from the Jamaican government and other foundations to support equipment purchases and coral replanting campaigns.

“We all depend on the ocean,” Morrow says, sitting in a small office decorated with nautical maps in the iconic 70-year-old Jamaica Inn. “If we don’t have a good healthy reef and a good healthy marine environment, we will lose too much. Too much of the country relies on the sea.”

VOA’s Victoria Macchi contributed to this report.

With the U.S. Supreme Court’s

After a week of political gridlock, and one politically-charged year, Israel appears to have avoided its third election now that President Reuvin Rivlin has announced both sides have taken significant steps toward forming a unity government.

Rivlin’s role is largely ceremonial, but he has been thrust into the spotlight to choose which contender will first get to form a government.  He has fiercely advocated for a unity government between Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party and Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud.  And last night, he just might have succeeded in letting the two leaders work it out for themselves.

In order to form a government, a party must win at least 61 seats to get a majority. Typically, as there are numerous parties, Israel has a coalition government.  However, neither Gantz nor Netanyahu have been able to cobble enough parties together.

This election has been centered on two hot button issues: security, and the divide between religion and the state.

On security issues, observers say Netanyahu and Gantz are not that different. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Stayyeh described them as “the difference between Coke and Pepsi.” Both have advocated for a hardline against Hamas in Gaza, and have declared that the Jordan Valley along the border between the West Bank and Jordan must remain under Israeli control.  Israeli citizens have largely sustained economic stability and strong homeland security under Netanyahu’s tenure.  

However, the candidates starkly contrast on the issue of just how much influence religion should yield in government, business, schools, and even romance.

Ultra-orthodox backing

Ultra-Orthodox parties have historically been necessary to form coalition governments. The group does not serve in the military and receives government financial aid to study Torah full-time, opting out of work to pray.  Secular Israelis argue they are not contributing their part to society, and the ultra-orthodox argue their faith serves the nation through pleasing God with their piety.

The group’s demands are often met, and Netanyahu is no exception to this rule.  His campaign almost requires the religious conservative ultra-Orthodox parties’ backing to serve yet another term in office.  Another requirement of ultra-orthodox backing is their power over Israeli marriage practices.  Jewish Israelis cannot legally marry in Israel outside of the Jewish faith.  However, secular marriages performed abroad are recognized.

Arab parties

Gantz supports a secular “liberal” government, which would exclude the ultra-orthodox from the coalition.  He has mentioned his interest to media outlets about forming a unity government, and hastening the election process in the meanwhile.  Gantz stated that a “paralyzed national government does not benefit the people.”

Meanwhile, no Arab party has ever joined an Israeli government in history, but that did not stop Arabs Israeli citizens from showing up at the polls.

The Joint List scored third after Gantz and Netanyahu’s parties with 13 seats.  Party leader Ayman Odeh reports that his supporters showed up at the polls exclusively to vote out Netanyahu stating “We want to put an end to the Netanyahu era. . . There is no shared future without full and equal participation of Arab Palestinian citizens.”  

The question now is whether or not the Arab parties will be invited to join in Gantz and Netanyahu’s unity government, and be viewed as legitimate partners to shape the national agenda.

U.S. relations

The United States is watching political developments in Israel closely, to see what impact it could have on relations and issues in the region.

VOA reached out Iran-Israel expert Henry Rome with Eurasia Group for comment and analysis.

He assessed that for U.S.-Israel relations, “The ties are institutional and historical, and endure even if the two leaders do not get along.  As Prime Minister, Gantz would likely emphasize, much more than Netanyahu, the importance of a bipartisan relationship with the United States.”

Support within the U.S. for a Jewish state comes from the small American Jewish community (~2% of the population), and the much larger evangelical right-wing base that politically backs U.S. President Donald Trump.  However, amongst liberal Democrats, support for Israel has waned amidst partisan lines deepening in the US.  General Gantz is more likely than Netanyahu to reach out specifically to Democrats and be cautious to steer clear of partisan battles in Congress.

Rome also noted that Gantz would feel equally as strong against US diplomatic relations with Iran; however, he would certainly be less likely than Netanyahu to publicly engage in speaking caustically against sitting US presidents or Iranian threats.

One thing is for sure: whether or not Netanyahu manages to cling on as prime minister in his possibly new rotating role, little will likely change in the U.S.-Israel relationship.   

Since coming into office in January 2017, the White House has been working towards an Israel-Palestinian peace plan. Middle East Envoy Jason Greenblatt tweeted on August 28, 2019 that “We have decided that we will not be releasing the peace vision (or parts of it) prior to the Israeli election.”  If Israel’s Arab population felt involved in a Gantz government, then Trump’s Palestinian-Israeli peace plan would have a greater chance of being treated seriously by Palestinian leaders.

 

The New York Times says it turned to the Irish government to rescue a reporter threatened with arrest in Egypt two years ago out of concern that the Trump administration wouldn’t help.

Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger revealed the incident during a speech at Brown University and in an op-ed published Tuesday. Sulzberger said the paper was warned by a U.S. government official that Egypt planned to seize reporter Declan Walsh.

The official said the Trump administration intended to let the arrest be carried out. The official worried about being punished for even warning the Times about it.

The paper turned to Ireland, where Walsh is a citizen, and one of that country’s diplomats helped the reporter get out of Egypt.

 

A masterpiece attributed to 13th century Italian painter Cimabue has been discovered in a French woman’s kitchen —and it’s expected to sell for millions of euros at an upcoming auction.

Titled “Christ Mocked,” the small wood painting depicts Christ surrounded by a crowd. Experts think it to be part of a larger diptych Cimabue painted around 1280, said Stephane Pinta, an art specialist with the Turquin gallery in Paris.

“It’s a major discovery for the history of art,” Pinta said of the newly discovered work measuring about 10 inches by 8 inches (24 centimeters by 20 centimeters). Other experts agreed.

Until recently, the painting hung on a wall between the kitchen and the dining room of a home in Compiègne. The woman considered it an icon of little importance until an auctioneer spotted the painting while going through her house and suggested bringing it to art experts, Pinta said.

Cimabue, who taught Italian master Giotto, is widely considered the forefather of the Italian Renaissance. He broke from the Byzantine style popular in the Middle Ages and incorporated elements of movement and perspective that came to characterize Western painting.

After examining the French kitchen find, Turquin gallery specialists concluded with “certitude” it bore hallmarks of Cimabue’s work, Pinta said.

They noted clear similarities with the two panels of Cimabue’s diptych, one displayed at the Frick Collection in New York and the other at the National Gallery in London.

Likenesses in the facial expressions and buildings the artist painted and the techniques used to convey light and distance specifically pointed to the small piece having been created by Cimabue’s hand.

Pinta said all those characteristics animate the newly discovered piece.

“What’s moving in this painting is the motion that we see in Christ,” Pinta said.

Alexis Ashot, an independent art consultant for British auction house Christie’s, said the discovery in France sent ripples of excitement in other parts of the art world.

“It’s wonderful to be reminded that there are paintings of such major importance that are still out there and still to be discovered,” he said.

The painting will be the first Cimabue masterpiece to be auctioned when it is put up for sale at the Acteon auction house north of Paris on Oct. 27, according to Pinta. Turquin experts think a major art museum will buy it for a price of between 4 million and 6 million euros.

Ashot said he thinks the painting could fetch even more.

“I could easily see that if word gets out there that this painting is available for sale, then the price could be much higher than they are estimating,” he said.

Israel’s two largest parties met Tuesday to discuss the possibility of forming a unity government, in a long-shot effort to break the political deadlock following last week’s national elections.

The meeting between party representatives comes a day after Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the rival Likud party held their first working meeting since the vote. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin brought them together in hopes of breaking an impasse that could lead to months of political limbo and potentially force a third election in less than a year.
“We took a significant step this evening, and now the main challenge is building a direct channel of communication out of trust between the two sides,” Rivlin told the two rivals. “People expect you to find a solution and to prevent further elections, even if it comes at a personal and even ideological cost.”

Israel’s president is responsible for choosing a candidate for prime minister after national elections. That task is usually a formality, but it is far more complicated this time since neither of the top two candidates can build a stable parliamentary majority on his own.

Rivlin summoned Gantz and Netanyahu for another summit Wednesday before making his decision. No breakthrough is expected, and it is unclear which way Rivlin is leaning.

On Tuesday, negotiators from the two parties met for what they described in a joint statement as a “matter-of-fact” meeting “held in good spirits.”

Gantz’s centrist Blue and White came in first in the elections, with 33 seats, trailed by Netanyahu’s Likud with 31. With smaller allied parties, a total of 55 lawmakers have thrown their support behind Netanyahu, against 54 for Gantz, leaving both men short of the required 61-seat majority.

A unity deal between the large parties, with a rotating leadership, is seen as perhaps the only way out of the gridlock. That’s what Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, is insisting upon. Lieberman, who controls eight seats, has refused to endorse either candidate and is demanding they join him in a broad, secular unity government that excludes the ultra-Orthodox parties
Netanyahu’s long-time partners. A former aide and ally of Netanyahu, Lieberman forced the Sept. 17 repeat vote by refusing to join Netanyahu’s coalition and robbing him of his parliamentary majority.

Both Netanyahu and Gantz have expressed support for a unity government but have deep disagreements over its agenda and who should lead it.

Gantz insists he should go first and has vowed not to partner with Likud so long as Netanyahu is at the helm, citing the prime minister’s legal predicament. Israel’s attorney general has recommended charging Netanyahu with a series of corruption-related charges and is expected to make a final decision following a hearing with the prime minister early next month.

Netanyahu, seeking protection from prosecution, believes he should remain as prime minister and has signed a deal with his smaller allies, including ultra-Orthodox parties, to negotiate as a “bloc.” The joint statement noted that while Netanyahu’s negotiator, Yariv Levine, claims to represent all 55 members of the right-wing bloc, Gantz’s negotiator, Yoram Turbovitch, views Levine as representing only Netanyahu and the Likud.

“It is going to be very hard, if not downright impossible, to form a government based on the two larger parties, when one of them drags its satellite parties along with it,” wrote columnist Nahum Barnea in the Yediot Ahronot daily. “That’s like a bride who wants to bring her brother, cousin, neighbor and rabbi along with her to the consummation of her marriage. It won’t work.”

U.S. President Donald Trump told his staff to withhold about $400 million in aid to Ukraine days before a phone call with the country’s leader that is at the center of a debate between Congress and the White House over a whistleblower complaint.

Reports late Wednesday from the Associated Press, Washington Post and New York Times all cited multiple senior administration officials saying Trump froze the funding, and that the order was communicated to the State Department and Pentagon with the explanation that he was looking into whether the money needed to be spent.

Earlier Wednesday, the leaders of three House of Representatives committees demanded Secretary of State Mike Pompeo turn over all documents related to the call Trump made to Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.  

The Democratic chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight committees — Elliot Engel, Adam Schiff, and Elijah Cummings — set a Thursday deadline, the same day the intelligence committee is set to hear testimony from acting director national intelligence Joseph Maguire about the whistleblower complaint linked to the call.

Trump is said to have pushed for an investigation into leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who served for years on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

The three House members said in their letter the State Department has admitted that a senior Pompeo staffer directly helped set up meetings between Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Ukrainian officials days after the call.

“By withholding these documents and refusing to engage with the committees, the Trump Administration is obstructing Congress’ oversight duty under the Constitution to protect our nation’s democratic process,” they wrote.

Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Monday that he met several weeks ago with Zelenskiy, and that the Ukranian administration worried the aid cutoff “was a consequence for their unwillingness, at the time, to investigate the Bidens.”

“They were unwilling to conduct this investigation because there was no merit to it,” Murphy said.

Also Monday, a group of first-term Democratic members of the House of Representatives with backgrounds in national security wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying if the allegations of Trump’s actions are true, the lawmakers believe they “represent an impeachable offense.”

“The president of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use U.S. taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it,” they wrote.  “He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption and to protect our national security interests, for his own personal gain.”

The group includes Reps. Gil Cisneros, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, Elaine Luria, Mikie Sherrill, Elissa Slotkin and Abigail Spanberger.

Trump on Monday dismissed the Democratic drumbeat for impeachment, saying he does not take such threats “at all seriously.” He insisted his call with Zelenskiy was a “very nice call,” congratulating him on becoming Ukrainian president.

Trump said he could very easily release a transcript of the call, and the press would be disappointed. But he refused to commit to doing so, saying it would be a bad precedent.

The controversy began last week when reports emerged that an unidentified whistleblower in the national intelligence community became alarmed about a series of actions inside the Trump administration. They include what is now known to be Trump’s telephone call with Zelenskiy. 

This person contacted the intelligence inspector general, who called the complaint “serious” and “urgent.” 

Maguire has refused to turn over the inspector’s report to Congress, which the law requires him to do.

As vice president under Barack Obama, Joe Biden went to Ukraine in 2016 and threatened to withhold billions of dollars in U.S. loan guarantees unless the government cracked down on corruption. Biden also demanded that Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin be fired. 

Shokin had previously investigated the gas company on which Hunter Biden served on the board. But the probe had been inactive for a year before Joe Biden’s visit. Hunter Biden has said he was not the target of any investigation and no evidence of any wrongdoing by the Bidens has surfaced. 

An angry Biden said “there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.”

Generally the tarmac of a large international airport is strictly off limits to civilians. But every year hundreds storm the runways of Washington Dulles Airport for an annual traditional that involves teamwork and big planes. Sandzhar Khamidov visited the event. Anna Rice narrates his story.

Plastic pollution continues in Lake Malawi despite a recent ban on the use of plastics. Conservationists say the plastic is putting a strain on aquatic life in the lake. Studies have warned that the fish stock in the lake could be depleted by 2050 unless the pollution stops. Lameck Masina reports from Lakeside district of Mangochi.

Global trade rules are “no longer fit for purpose” and must be changed to accommodate China’s new status as a developed economy, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a major foreign policy speech in the United States.

The global community had engaged with China to help it grow but now must demand the world’s second-largest economy bring more transparency to its trade relationships and take a greater share of the responsibilty for addressing climate change, Morrison said.

“The world’s global institutions must adjust their settings for China, in recognition of this new status,” said Morrison in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, referring to China as a “newly developed economy.”

“That means more will be expected of course, as has always been the case for nations like the United States who’ve always had this standing,” Morrison said in the speech, according to transcript provided to Reuters.

Global trade rules were “no longer fit for purpose” and in some cases were “designed for a completely different economy in another era, one that simply doesn’t exist any more,” he added.

Referring to China as a newly developed economy marks a change from Beijing’s self-declared status as a developing economy, which affords it concessions such as longer times to implement agreed commitments, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

It also puts Australia into line with a campaign led by U.S. President Donald Trump to remove China’s developing nation status. In an April 7, 2018 tweet, Trump wrote that China was a “great economic power” but received “tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the U.S.”

Morrison has previously urged China to reform its economy and end a trade war with the United States but has until now stopped short of taking a public position on its WTO status.

While two-way trade between Australia and China has grown since the countries signed a trade pact in 2015, increasing to a record A$183 billion ($127 billion) last year, the bilateral relationship has at times been strained.

In December 2017, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull accused China of meddling in its domestic affairs. The relationship was further soured by Canberra’s decision last year to effectively ban Chinese telecoms firm Huawei Technologies from its 5G broadband network rollout.

Morrison said Australia and the United States had different relationships with China, given Australia had a trade surplus with China while the United States had a trade deficit.

“The engagement with China has been enormously beneficial to our country,” he said. “We want to see that continue.”

 

French researchers are developing what they say is the most powerful Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner in the world which will use a supermagnet the weight of a blue whale and should allow earlier diagnosis of diseases such as Parkinson’s.

“We can potentially detect the disease in its earlier stages and, consequently, monitor it more precisely” Nicolas Boulant the project’s scientific director, told Reuters.

MRI, which has been in use for decades, allows physicians to see which parts of the brain have been damaged while a patient is still alive. The technology uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed images.

The scanner being developed by the French researchers, as part of what is called Project Iseult, involves a new supermagnet in a cylinder shape which is much heavier than those in use already.

The supermagnet measures 5 meters (16 feet) in length and 5 meters in diameter, about as long as a sedan, and weighs 130 metric tons, the weight of a blue whale.

It will obtain brain images a hundred times more detailed than current imaging machines, the researchers say. It is still in development and is expected to produce its first image by the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021.

Project Iseult will also allow scientists “to better understand our brain and how it works, and to study characteristics of what is special to the human species, things like music, mathematics and language,” added Boulant.

 

Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, called on world leaders meeting in New York this week to back an international fund to help female victims of sexual violence during armed conflict.

Mukwege has devoted the past 20 years to helping women raped by armed rebels, treating more than 55,000 women at the Panzi Hospital he set up in Bukavu in the east of war-torn Congo.

But despite winning a list of global accolades for his work, surviving an assassination attempt in 2012, and receiving daily threats, Mukwege said he had struggled for 10 years to generate enough interest to start a fund to recompense victims.

That changed, however, after he was named joint winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize with Yazidi activist Nadia Murad for their work to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war – and his ambition was finally coming to fruition, he said.

Mukwege said France, Germany and the European Union had pledged money for the fund, which will be officially launched on Oct. 30, and he urged government and business leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week to join them.

“Giving women reparations can help them resume their lives and are a way to rebuild the fabric of societies, families and communities,” Mukwege, 64, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview on a sidewalk cafe in New York on Monday.

“Without justice, you can’t build peace, and the example of Congo makes that very clear.”

Mukwege said talking to women raped during conflict he realized victims wanted different forms of recompense, just as they needed different sorts of treatment, ranging from medical and psychological to economic, social and legal.

Some wanted financial help to rebuild their lives or requested education for their children to secure them a better future, while others wanted an apology from the authorities who had failed to protect them or punish those responsible.

“In remote areas particularly, women said they were suffering from a loss of dignity and what they wanted most was an apology so they could then move on,” he said.

It was important to also ensure action was taken against those responsible for sexual violence, he added, and this had yet to happen, particularly in Congo where some of the offenders were in positions of power.

Democratic Republic of Congo was engulfed in war from 1996 to 2003, and several smaller conflicts still simmer.

“I believe you can’t build peace without justice,” said Mukwege, who lives with his wife in the Panzi Hospital which has round-the-clock security.

He said the fund would be administered by a board – yet to be appointed – which would listen to requests from victims and decide how best to allocate resources.

So far France has committed to give about 6 million euros ($6.6 million) to the fund over three years, Germany 400,000 euros over two years, and the European Union a one-off donation of 2 million euros.

Mukwege said it was heartening to see women were starting to speak out and the issue of sexual violence in war was getting the international spotlight.

In 2015, the United Nations proclaimed June 19 of each year to be International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict to raise awareness of the need to end such violence and to honor the victims and survivors globally.

“The number of women who are breaking their silence and coming to hospital is increasing every year,” Mukwege said.

A U.S. Army soldier has been arrested for sharing bomb-making instructions on social media.

Jarrett William Smith, a 24-year-old private first class, also discussed bombing a news network, killing far-left activists known as “antifa” and naming presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke as a possible target, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday.

Smith was charged with one count of distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction in federal court in Topeka, Kansas.

If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

Smith also posted on Facebook his desire to go to Ukraine and join in the fighting with a paramilitary group known as Azov Batallion.

Last month, Smith began chatting online with an undercover investigator about how he was looking for more “radicals” like himself to carry out an attack within the United States.

As recently as last week, he offered to teach the undercover investigator how to make weapons and explosives with common household items.

“Making AK-47s out of expensive parts is cool,” he said. But imagine, “going to Walmart instead of a gun store to buy weapons.”

Smith told undercover FBI investigators that his ultimate aim was to cause “chaos.”

The World Health Organization is “rationing” Ebola vaccines in Democratic Republic of Congo, with access controls meaning too few people at risk are being protected in an outbreak of the deadly disease, the aid group MSF said Monday.

The medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) accused the WHO of using a rigid system of eligibility for vaccination, and said the restrictions are allowing the viral disease to resurge in communities previously thought to be protected.

“The WHO is rationing Ebola vaccines and hampering efforts to make them quickly available to all who are at risk of infection,” MSF said in a statement. “As a result, the outbreak keeps coming back to areas that have supposedly been covered by vaccination.”

The WHO denied it was rationing the vaccine and said it was working as hard as any organization to end Congo’s deadly Ebola outbreak.

“We partner closely with the DRC government to reach as many communities and individuals in the outbreak area as possible and are not limiting access to vaccine,” it said in a statement.

The Congo Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,100 people since the middle of last year, second only to the 2013-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa that killed more than 11,300.

MSF called for more transparency around access to the vaccine, which is manufactured by the U.S. drugmaker Merck and is being deployed in the WHO-led emergency response.

“Time is of essence in an outbreak: medical teams should be able to rapidly provide treatments or vaccines based on what they see on the ground,” MSF’s emergency coordinator, Natalie Roberts, said. “But our capacity … is severely undermined by a rigid system which is hard to comprehend.”

The WHO and the Congolese health ministry say that since August 2018, more than 223,000 people have been vaccinated with rVSV-ZEBOV, the Merck vaccine that has been shown in clinical trials to be highly protective against Ebola infection.

MSF said it estimates that based on the number of Ebola cases in the outbreak so far, the vaccine should have been given to twice as many — between 450,000 and 600,000 people.

Congo health authorities gave the go-ahead on Saturday for plans to introduce a second Ebola vaccine, made by Johnson & Johnson, to help fight the outbreak.

‘Ring vaccination’

The Merck shot is being deployed in a strategy known as “ring vaccination,” which aims to control Ebola by identifying and offering the vaccine to contacts of those likely to be infected.

The WHO said that because Ebola spreads via person-to-person contact, this is “the most effective means of stopping” its spread. It said the Merck vaccine eligibility and strategy were recommended by independent specialists in agreement with Congo.

The plan with the addition of the J&J vaccine, it said, is to extend protection by providing it to “targeted at-risk populations” in areas where the disease is not yet being actively transmitted.