Willie Elzy has been readying for a possible strike against General Motors for months and, pointing to a parking lot full of freshly built pickup trucks, he says it’s clear the automaker has been prep ring too.

“We’ve been getting ready for a strike because we want GM to treat people fairly,” said Elzy, 64, waving a sign saying “UAW On Strike” outside the No. 1 U.S. automaker’s engine plant in Flint, Michigan, on Monday. “GM knew this was coming and they’ve been stashing new trucks all over the county so they can keep selling while we’re on strike.”

At midnight around 48,000 U.S. hourly workers at GM represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) headed for the picket lines after labor contract talks reached an impasse over healthcare benefits, wages, profit-sharing and the use of temporary workers on Sunday.

The union and GM restarted bargaining on Monday.

GM has relatively high inventories of its high-margin vehicles, but the strike is expected to shut down all of its North American facilities quickly and could hurt the U.S. economy. 

Most of GM’s profits come from the U.S. market.

Like many others on the picket line in Flint or outside the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant Monday morning, Chaz Akers, 32, of Ferndale, Michigan, said he wants he wants temporary workers to be hired full-time.

“I work right across from a temporary employee who’s been there for two and a half years,” said Akers, who has worked at GM 3-1/2 years. “I install the passenger side headlight. He installs the driver side headlight. I make more money than he does. I have better health insurance than he does. It ain’t fair. It ain’t right. If you’re going to pay people to do a job, pay them all the same.”

Akers and other workers outside the Detroit plant, which does not have product allocated beyond the end of the year, said getting another product for the plant is not enough if GM does not address the disparities in worker pay.

U.S. automakers use temporary employees, who are paid less and receive fewer benefits, to be more cost-competitive versus their Asian and European counterparts with non-unionized plants in the U.S. South.

The mood on the picket lines in Flint and Detroit at the start of the widely anticipated strike was good-humored and morale among picketers was high. Most drivers passing by honked their horns to cheers from strikers under a gray, cool fall sky.

Outside the Detroit plant, a large red city fire engine did the same and turned on its emergency lights.

“We stood up to help GM through bankruptcy, we made concessions and we’ve built good product for them,” said Marty Chovanec, 61, who was hired at GM’s Flint truck plant at the age of 19.

“We’ve been patient and we haven’t had a raise in 12 years,” he added. “Now that GM is making record profits, we deserve a cut and a fair share.”

Harrison Bowyer, 50, showed up to show his support and to picket in Flint even though he is not scheduled to be on duty until Friday.

“GM works the crap out of temp workers and then throws them away, so I’m fighting for jobs for future generations,” he said.

“No one walks out on a paycheck for no reason, but as much as it’s going to hurt us, if the strike lasts a while, it will hurt GM more.”

The last time the UAW struck against GM, in 2007, the strike was over in two days. A more painful strike occurred in Flint in 1998, lasting 54 days and costing the automaker more than $2 billion.

While workers on the picket lines said they hope the strike is over quickly, they said they have been socking away cash to help make ends meet. Union strike pay for workers is $250 per week, a fraction of their normal wage.

Outside the Detroit plant, Dawn Bryant, 39, of Detroit, whose husband works at a GM plant in Romulus, said she took a temporary job on the assembly line about six months ago because she felt it would lead to a full-time position.

“If this goes on for weeks, how will we survive?” she said.

“No one could live off $250 a week. It’s just not possible.”

Bryant added, however, that it is a struggle earning about $10 an hour after taxes and health care premiums, and said GM should give her a path to full-time employment.

Outside GM’s Flint engine plant, Eric Cooley, 44, said everyone loses in a strike.

“But when the company is making billions and billions of dollars, it’s only fair to give us a little more,” he said. “It’s what I call the American way.”

U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services Alex Azar has applauded Uganda’s efforts to control the spread of Ebola in east and central Africa; however, while the U.S. remains the primary funder of Uganda’s health care sector, the secretary did not shy away from asking the East African country to find funds to independently sustain its health care budget.

Since June, Uganda has identified and isolated four Ebola victims who entered the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The monitoring has prevented the Ebola epidemic which has killed nearly 2,000 people in eastern Congo from crossing the border.

Secretary Azar is leading a U.S. delegation to Rwanda, the DRC and now Uganda regarding Ebola.

“There’s immense work that has had to be done in bolstering preparedness and response capacities. Screening those crossing the borders and responding to the discovery of cases. Uganda, particularly the Ministry of Health and Minister Aceng have risen to the occasion providing a model for the region,” said Azar.

The U.S. is a major financier of Uganda’s health sector, helping to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola and improve maternal and child health care.

In fiscal year 2018, the U.S. provided more than $511 million in health care funding.

Secretary Azar encouraged Uganda to be more self-sustaining.

“And we have seen tremendous achievement in Uganda in terms of the building up of the public health system and health care infrastructure as a result of that partnership,” Azar said. “Now of course, overtime that needs to be more self-sustained. And that does require that Uganda invest its own resources also in the health care system.”

Ambassador Deborah Malac expressed confidence Uganda is capable of meeting its own health care needs.

“But one cannot expect that the U.S. government will be the donor of choice in this area, you know, in an open-ended future,” said Malac. “So, it really is about building its capacity and ultimately putting ourselves out of the assistance business.”

On Sunday, there were reports from Tanzania that a doctor who was studying in Uganda had died of a viral infection akin to Ebola. The Tanzanian ministry quickly came out and denied the allegations, calling them rumors.

Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam, the World Health Organization representative in Uganda, expressed concern about the situation.

“This mysterious disease has to be investigated and samples have to be tested. We couldn’t rule out any of the viral hemorrhagic fevers and the investigations will continue,” Yonas said. “And we look forward of the Tanzanian government collaborating as per the International health regulations to address this issue.”

Countries near Congo continue to be on high alert for any new cases of Ebola, with strict adherence to control guidelines set by the WHO.

Indonesian authorities have arrested 185 people suspected of starting forest fires that are spreading a thick, noxious haze around Southeast Asia, police said Monday.

Nearly every year, Indonesian forest fires spread health-damaging haze across the country and into neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. The fires are often started by smallholders and plantation owners to clear land for planting.

National police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo said police formally handed over investigations of 23 of those who were arrested to prosecutors last week, while 45 others will be tried later this month. Police are still investigating the rest.

Prasetyo said the suspects were arrested in six provinces that have declared a state of emergency over forest fires. The provinces have a combined population of more than 23 million.

He said the suspects could be prosecuted under an environmental protection law that allows a maximum 10-year prison sentence for setting fires to clear land.

Poor visibility caused by smoke has caused delays of flights in several airports in Indonesia and Malaysia and prompted authorities to shut schools in some parts of the two countries.

Indonesia’s forestry and environment ministry said recently that authorities had sealed off at least 42 companies in the past week, including a Singaporean-based company and four firms affiliated with a Malaysian palm oil corporate group.

The Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency detected 2,153 hotspots across the country on Monday. It said 99% of the hotspots were caused by deliberately set fires.

The agency said 44 helicopters had dropped more than 263 million liters (69.5 million gallons) of water and 164 tons of salt for cloud seeding as part of the firefighting efforts.

Indonesian authorities have deployed more than 9,000 people to fight the fires, which have razed more than 328,700 hectares (812,000 acres) of land across the nation, with more than half in the provinces of Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan.

Indonesia’s annual dry season fires were particularly disastrous in 2015, burning 2.6 million hectares (10,000 square miles) of land and spreading health-damaging haze across Indonesia, Singapore, southern Thailand and Malaysia. The World Bank estimated the fires cost Indonesia $16 billion, and a Harvard and Columbia study estimated the haze hastened 100,000 deaths in the region.

At least six Cameroonian troops are reported dead following a wave of fighting with Boko Haram terrorists on the central African state’s northern border with Nigeria. The attacks followed a visit in which Cameroon’s chief of defense staff declared that his military had drastically reduced Boko Haram’s ability to attack. 

Dimgui Issa, a 56-year-old trader, said he escaped with three of his family members from the Cameroon village of Soueram that shares a boundary with lake Chad  to the Cameroon town of Kousseri after dozens of Boko Haram terrorists attacked their location shooting indiscriminately.

He said the terrorists killed so many, torched dozens of houses and food items, stole goats, sheep and money. He said many people are fleeing because the terrorists have shown that they can strike at any moment and escape through the porous borders.

Local media has reported that at least six soldiers were killed and nine wounded in the attacks on several Cameroon military border posts that started last Friday and ended in the early hours of Sunday. The attackers also left with huge amounts of ammunition and weapons. The military has confirmed there were attacks but did not say how many troops were killed. It said however the attackers suffered heavy casualties. 

The attacks took place just after General Rene Claude Meka, Cameroon’s chief of defense staff, visited the central African state’s northern border with Nigeria and said his troops had drastically reduced Boko Haram’s ability to regroup and organize large scale attacks on military posts as very few have been reported within the past two months.

Meka said after the fresh attacks, they have taken additional security measures to protect the population. He said troops have been redeployed.

He said the morale of Cameroon’s military fighting Boko Haram terrorists has not been dampened by the attacks as the troops are more than ever before determined not only to consolidate their achievements but to completely crush the fighters. He said his troops have been redeployed and the situation is under control.

Meka said the attacks on military bases show that that the terror group still  has access to weapons illegally circulating in the region.

Twenty-seven attacks targeting travelers and villagers were also reported within the past two weeks. The fighters seized money and food and held 6 people for ransom. Their whereabouts are not known.

Daouda Saidou, conflict resolution specialist at the University of Ndjamena in Chad, says insecurity is increasing in areas where Boko Haram attacks took place because many youths who joined the terrorists, but fled after promises of better living conditions were not met, are unemployed. He says it is imperative for states affected by Boko Haram terrorism  to create job opportunities for young people.

“Thousands of people, especially young men joined Boko Haram. It is may be time to think about how the states are going to cope with these young people,” he said.

The Boko Haram  jihadist group began its bloody insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, and it spread into neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military response. More than 27,000 people have been killed and two million others displaced, sparking a dire humanitarian crisis in the region. 

Small children usually flock to photographers as they snap pictures in refugee camps.  They make silly faces, flash victory signs and jostle to be in the front of the shot.

But nothing is usual about the children of Islamic State militants in Syria.  At the Ain Issa camp, some children of foreign IS fighters shun the camera while others flash their middle fingers or pretend-shoot the cameraman as if their hands were guns.

They are among the more than 50,000 children of militants now stuck in camps after the last IS stronghold in Syria fell in March.  Most are with their mothers, the wives and other female relatives of the fighters of the so-called “Caliphate.” Their fathers are almost all dead or in jail.

The international media have called these camps “incubators” for an IS resurgence.  But aid organizations say that despite their exposure to violence and extremism, children in these camps can be rescued, rehabilitated and reintegrated into the outside world.  However, action must be taken soon to be effective, they add, as the trauma deepens day by day.

The children are mostly under 12-years-old, according to UNICEF, and were born in IS-controlled areas or brought in by parents.  Some were coerced or forced into supporting the group.  Little boys were told they will grow up to be militants, and little girls wear veils for modesty, even when they are under 10 years old.

“All are victims of deeply tragic circumstances and egregious violations of their rights,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore in a statement.  “They must be treated and cared for as children.”

Isolation

The camps in Syria that house families of IS fighters look like other refugee camps in the region.  Tents stand in rows on isolated patches of land in the desert.  They are surrounded by fences and guarded by local security forces. 

But unlike many camps that have housed millions of other displaced Syrian people, these camps are locked. The residents are considered a threat, and they are not allowed to leave for their own safety and for the safety of the surrounding communities, according intelligence officers stationed at the camps.

Inside one camp last month, four security guards were attacked, six tents were burnt to the ground and two female residents were killed, presumably for violating “rules” enforced by women in the camps who have set up their own IS-styled morality police.

These groups, known as “Hisbah” force women to wear full face veils and forbid consorting with “infidels” such as local security forces.

The children have few or no memories outside of war zones populated with extremists.     

As dust storm turns the air brown in the Ain Issa camp, children and adults cover their faces and duck behind tents or water tanks.  When the storm passes, the children resume playing with the cameraman. 

They don’t make “bang, bang” sounds as they pretend to shoot him.  They hiss lightly like the sound of a bullet as it sails by your ear and imitate the mechanical cracking of automatic weapons.  These are sounds of real war.

Safety

The psychological damage from growing up around extreme violence can be devastating, according to doctors, but at the camps, providing mental health care—or even an education—for children is a distant dream.

“First we need to make them safe,” says a security guard as he drives through the al-Hol camp, a sprawling sea of tents housing more than 70,000 people including the families of some of IS’s most devoted fighters.  “Then we can start educating the children.”

Supplying safety is especially difficult as winter approaches, he says.  Al-Hol camp is desperately short of medical supplies and hundreds of children have died here, or on their way here, this year.  Food and clean water are scarce, and and the funding available is not nearly enough.

“Of course it’s harder to get funding for these camps,” the man explains. “Every one knows they are the families of IS.”

Solutions?

Finding a permanent solution for the families has become an urgent security issue, according to Mustafa Bali, the spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces securing northeastern Syria.

“We are tightening security,” he tells us in an interview in Kobane. “But this is a political problem for 50 countries, not ours alone.”

The majority of the families are Syrian or Iraqi and authorities say they are trying to negotiate with their local communities to return them to their homes.  But since the final battles with IS, the camps’ populations have not reduced significantly.

Thousands of the families are from outside the region and local authorities have repeatedly called on the international community to take back their citizens.  Inside the camps, many women say they are eager to go back to their countries, even if it means going to jail. 

“The military here told me I can go to Germany,” says Elina Frizler, a German national living in Ain Issa camp with her two children, both born in IS-controlled Syria.  “But how can I go if Germany won’t take us?  How can we live here?”

Repatriation?

Some countries have repatriated some of their nationals, particularly orphans. 

Repatriating all the children, however, would require also repatriating their mothers, according to Syrian authorities.  Some of the women are still vocal IS devotees, but others have renounced the group or claim to have been tricked into joining in the first place.

“It is not like we [could] speak out against [IS] or else we would be killed,” says one woman with a deep red veil over her face.  She is British, but her citizenship has been revoked, she says.  She is also of Sudanese origin, she adds, and hopes to be sent out of the camp and to Sudan.

But many countries are reluctant to take back adults—fighters or mothers that are here considered non-combatants—citing security concerns and the difficulty of prosecuting alleged crimes that took place in foreign lands then occupied by IS.  Kurdish authorities say they lack the capacity to hold trials and care for all the foreign fighters and their families. 

The woman in the red veil says, on one hand, joining IS was a mistake.  She was lead to believe she was moving to a truly Muslim land operating under Islamic Law.   What she found in Syria could be more accurately described as a militant group, she says.

On the other hand, she adds, any Muslim person that did not travel to IS-controlled areas when they heard of the new “Caliphate” probably lacked either faith or courage.

“Many people couldn’t come,” she explains, “They were scared.”

Recently, the Trump White House unveiled a new initiative that seeks to increase U.S. economic engagement in Africa to better compete against China’s growing influence. But more than two and a half years into his administration, some foreign policy experts say Africa does not appear to be a priority for President Trump. Jesusemen Oni has this report.

Carmakers unveiled self-driving vehicles and assurances of an eco-friendly future in transportation. Thousands of climate activists blocking the streets in Frankfurt are not buying it. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi looks at the future through a lens of the present.

Tunisians voted Sunday to select their next president among some two dozen candidates with unofficial results suggesting two outsider candidates are ahead. 

More than seven million people were eligible to cast their ballot in what is only the North African country’s second free presidential election, eight years after its so-called Jasmine Revolution.

A steady stream of people filed into this primary school, lining up under posters offering instructions on how to vote. Nineteen-year-old college student Yomna El Benna is excited to be voting for the first time.

“I’m going to vote for Mourou…for many reasons….when I was deciding, I eliminated the persons who I’m not convinced with…they cannot lead Tunisia,” El Benna said.

That’s Abdelfattah Mourou from the moderate Islamist Ennahdha party, running to replace 92-year-old president Beji Caid Essebsi who died in July. Mourou’s part of a dizzying lineup of presidential hopefuls, including two women. Among them: government ministers, far left politicians and jailed media tycoon Nabil Karoui. A runoff vote is expected, following next month’s legislative elections.

Zohra Goummid voted for Prime Minister Youssef Chahed. “He’s got experience, he’s young,’ she says. ‘We Tunisians know him well. The other candidates are just upstarts.”

But with Tunisia’s economy sputtering and unemployment high, others are looking for new faces, outside the political establishment.

Retired professor Mohammed Sami Neffati voted for a friend of his — 61-year-old law expert Kais Saied, who opted for door-to-door campaigning instead of large rallies. He isn’t eloquent, Neffati says, but he’s got a chance, because he’s honest.

But other Tunisians stayed home, disappointed about the state of their country—and skeptical that any of the candidates can turn things around.

Visiting a black church bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in the civil rights era, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Sunday the country hasn’t “relegated racism and white supremacy to the pages of history” as he framed current tensions in the context of the movement’s historic struggle for equality.

He spoke to parishioners at 16th Street Baptist Church in downtown Birmingham as they commemorated the 56th anniversary of the bombing that killed four black girls in 1963. “It’s in the wake of these before-and-after moments when the choice between good and evil is starkest,” he said.

The former vice president called out the names of the victims — Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. He drew nods of affirmation as he warned that “the same poisonous ideology that lit the fuse on 16th street” has yielded more recent tragedies including in 2015 at a black church in South Carolina, in 2018 at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh and in August at an El Paso, Texas , Wal-Mart frequented by Latino immigrants.

He condemned institutional racism as the direct legacy of slavery and lamented that the nation has “never lived up to” the ideals of equality written into its founding documents. But then he added a more personal note. “Those who are white try,” Biden said, “but we can never fully understand.”

Biden praised the congregation for offering an example of “rebirth and renewal” to those communities and to a nation he said must recommit itself to “giving hate no safe harbor — demonizing no one, not the poor, the powerless, the immigrant or the ‘other.’”

Biden’s appearance in Birmingham comes at a political inflection point for the Democrats’ 2020 polling leader. He is trying to capitalize on his strength among older black voters even as some African American and other nonwhite leaders, particularly younger ones, view Biden more skeptically.

From his long time in government, as a senator and vice president, the 76-year-old Biden has deep ties in the black community. Though Biden didn’t mention President Donald Trump in his remarks, he has made withering critiques of the president’s rhetoric and policies on race and immigration a central feature of his candidacy.

Yet Biden also draws critical, even caustic appraisals from younger nonwhite activists who take issue with his record. That includes his references to working productively alongside segregationist senators in the 1970s to distrust over his lead role in a 1994 crime law that critics frame as partially responsible for mass incarceration, especially black men.

The dynamics flared up again Thursday after Biden, during a Democratic debate, offered a sometimes incoherent answer when asked how the nation should confront the legacy of slavery. At one point, Biden suggested nonwhite parents use a play a record player to help their children with verbal and cognitive development. That led to a social media firestorm and commentary that Biden takes a paternalistic view of black and brown America even as he hammers Trump for emboldening more obvious forms of racism.

Author Anand Giridharadas called Biden’s answer “appalling — and disqualifying” for “implying that black parents don’t know how to raise their own children.”

Biden gave only slightest of nods to some of those critiques Sunday.

Biden’s audience seemed to reflect his relative popularity with black voters more than the fierceness of his critics.

Parishioners wielded their cellphones when he arrived with Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, a white politician beloved in the church for his role as the lead prosecutor who secured convictions in the bombing case decades after it occurred. The congregation gave Biden a standing ovation as he concluded his 20-minute remarks.

Alvin Lewis, a 67-year-old usher at 16th Street Baptist, said the welcome doesn’t necessarily translate to votes. But as Lewis and other congregants offered their assessment of race relations in the United States under Trump, they tracked almost flawlessly the arguments Biden has used to anchor his campaign.

“Racism has reared its head in a way that’s frightening for those of us who lived through it before,” Lewis said, who said he was at home, about “20 blocks from here” when the Klan bomb went off at 10:22 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1963. “No matter what anyone says, what comes out of the president of the United States’ mouth means more than anything,” Lewis added, saying Trump “has brought out some nastier times in this country’s history.”

Antoinette Plump, a 60-year-old who took in the service alongside lifelong member Doris Coke, 92, said racism “was on the back burner” until Trump “brought out all the people who are so angry.”

Coke, who was at the church on that Sunday in 1963, said, “We’ve come a long way.” But she nodded her head as Plump denounced Trump.

Nearby sat Fay Gaines, a Birmingham resident who was in elementary school in 1963 — just a few years younger than the girls who died.

Gaines said she’s heard and read criticisms about Biden. Asked whether she’d seen his “record players” answer in the debate, she laughed and said she did. But he remains on her “short list” of preferred candidates.

“I think there may just be a generational divide,” she said of the reaction. “People who lived through all these struggles maybe can understand how to deal with the current situation a little better.”

That means, she said, recognizing a politician’s core values.

“I trust Joe Biden,” she said. “History matters. His history matters.”

Several Democratic presidential candidates on Sunday lined up to call for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the face of a new, uninvestigated, allegation of sexual impropriety when he was in college.

Kavanaugh was confirmed last October after emotional hearings in the Senate over a sexual assault allegation from his high school years. The New York Times now reports that Kavanaugh faced a separate allegation from his time at Yale University and that the FBI did not investigate the claim. The latest claim mirrors one offered during his confirmation process by Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate who claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drunken party.

When he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Kavanaugh denied all allegations of impropriety .

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said after the new report that “Brett Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people.” She tweeted: “He must be impeached.”

A 2020 rival, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, tweeted that “Confirmation is not exoneration, and these newest revelations are disturbing. Like the man who appointed him, Kavanaugh should be impeached.”

Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke asserted in a tweeted, “We know he lied under oath. He should be impeached.” He accused the GOP-run Senate of forcing the FBI “to rush its investigation to save his nomination.”

Their comments followed similar ones from Julian Castro, a former U.S. housing secretary, on Saturday night. “It’s more clear than ever that Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath,” he tweeted. “He should be impeached and Congress should review the failure of the Department of Justice to properly investigate the matter.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont didn’t refer to impeachment by name in a tweet Sunday, but said he would “support any appropriate constitutional mechanism” to hold Kavanaugh “accountable.”

Later Sunday, Sen. Cory Booker tweeted: “This new allegation and additional corroborating evidence adds to a long list of reasons why Brett Kavanaugh should not be a Supreme Court justice. I stand with survivors and countless other Americans in calling for impeachment proceedings to begin.”

Democrats control the House, which holds the power of impeachment. If the House took that route, a trial would take place in the Senate, where Republicans now have a majority, making it unlikely that Kavanaugh would be removed from office.

Trump, who fiercely defended Kavanaugh during his contentious confirmation process, dismissed the latest allegation as “lies.”

In a tweet Sunday, Trump said Kavanaugh “should start suing people for libel, or the Justice Department should come to his rescue.” It wasn’t immediately clear how the Justice Department could come to the justice’s defense.

Trump added that they were “False Accusations without recrimination,” and claimed his accusers were seeking to influence Kavanaugh’s opinions on the bench.

Tunisians voted Sunday to select their next president among some two dozen candidates. More than seven million people were eligible to cast their ballot in what is only the North African country’s second free presidential election, eight years after its so-called Jasmine Revolution.

A steady stream of people filed into this primary school in the working class Tunis suburb of Ariana, lining up under posters offering instructions on how to vote. Nineteen-year-old college student Yomna El-Benna is excited to be voting for the first time.

“I’m going to vote for Mourou… for many reasons…. when I was deciding, I eliminated the persons who I’m not convinced with… they cannot lead Tunisia,” said El-Benna.

That’s Abdelfattah Mourou from the moderate Islamist Ennahdha party, running to replace 92-year-old president Beji Caid Essebsi who died in July. Mourou’s part of a dizzying lineup of presidential hopefuls, including two women. Among them: government ministers, far left politicians and jailed media tycoon Nabil Karoui. A runoff vote is expected, following next month’s legislative elections.

Zohra Goummid voted for Prime Minister Youssef Chahed. “He’s got experience, he’s young,’ she says. ‘We Tunisians know him well. The other candidates are just upstarts,” she said.

But with Tunisia’s economy sputtering and unemployment high, others are looking for new faces, outside the political establishment.

Retired professor Mohammed Sami Neffati voted for a friend of his: 61-year-old law expert Kais Saied, who opted for door-to-door campaigning instead of large rallies. He isn’t eloquent, Neffati says, but he’s got a chance, because he’s honest.

But other Tunisians stayed home, disappointed about the state of their country — and skeptical that any of the candidates can turn things around.

An angry mob in southern Pakistan has vandalized several Hindu temples and property over allegations a local school principal belonging to the minority community had committed blasphemy.

Police said Sunday the riots in Ghotki in the province of Sindh broke out the previous day and quickly spread across the entire city, with an estimated 40% Hindu population, and surrounding towns.

Residents and the community leaders confirmed protesters had stormed three temples, vandalizing statues and other sacred material inside the places of worship.

They also assaulted and destroyed multiple houses belonging Hindus, including the school being run by the alleged blasphemer, prompting the district administration to call in paramilitary forces to assist in bringing the situation under control. Ghotki was completely closed Sunday amid tensions and fears of more protests.

Area police confirmed Sunday they have arrested the school principal and an investigation was underway into the accusations he made derogatory remarks regarding the Prophet Muhammad.

Videos shared via social media showed stick-wielding angry mobs roaming the streets and destroying infrastructure.

The non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan also shared a video of the violent protests , denouncing them and demanding authorities quickly take action to ensure safety of the Hindu community.

“The video circulated earlier is chilling: mob violence against a member of a religious minority is barbaric, unacceptable,” the commission said.

#Hindus living in #Ghotki are under seige as miscreants are vandalizing properties of Hindus & temples after a teacher Notan Das was accused of blasphamy. Mr Das has been teaching since 30 years, but some vested interests are distorting peace & interfaith harmony in #Sindh. pic.twitter.com/VQREltuz4E

— Kapil Dev (@KDSindhi) September 15, 2019

A prominent Hindu rights activist in Pakistan, Kapil Dev, said Hindus living in Ghotki are under siege and posed the question “Aren’t We Pakistani.”

Aren’t we Pakistani?

We #Pakistani#Hindus are only 2% of the total population. I just want to know what danger do we pose to 98% population. Just visit my timeline & see how we observed Muhrram a few days ago, but yet we suffer incidents like #Ghotki.

— Kapil Dev (@KDSindhi) September 15, 2019

Insulting Islam and the prophet is an extremely sensitive issue in Pakistan where mere allegations of blasphemy have led to mob lynching of suspects.

The country’s laws carry a compulsory death sentence for anyone found guilty of blasphemy, though critics say the laws are often used to settle personal feuds and persecute Pakistani religious minorities.

US President Donald Trump mounted an angry defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday as the controversial judge faced calls for an investigation over fresh allegations of sexual misconduct.

Trump blasted the media and “Radical Left Democrats” after a former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh alleged that the jurist — one of the most senior judges in the land  — exposed himself at a freshman year party before other students pushed his genitals into the hand of a female student.

The latest allegation in The New York Times came after Kavanaugh denied sexual misconduct accusations leveled against him by two women during his confirmation to the Supreme Court last October.

“Now the Radical Left Democrats and their Partner, the LameStream Media, are after Brett Kavanaugh again, talking loudly of their favorite word, impeachment,” Trump tweeted.

“He is an innocent man who has been treated HORRIBLY. Such lies about him. They want to scare him into turning Liberal!”

Now the Radical Left Democrats and their Partner, the LameStream Media, are after Brett Kavanaugh again, talking loudly of their favorite word, impeachment. He is an innocent man who has been treated HORRIBLY. Such lies about him. They want to scare him into turning Liberal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Saudi Arabia scrambled Sunday to restore operations at its key oil fields after drone attacks cut the kingdom’s production in half, while also saying it would tap its vast reserves to shore up exports to the world market.

Meanwhile, there was widespread uncertainty about responsibility for the attacks that cut the Saudi oil production by 5.7 million barrels of oil a day — nearly 6% of the world’s crude supply — and where the early Saturday missile attacks were launched.

Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militia claimed responsibility for the attacks, but U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran and ruled out Houthi involvement.

“Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy,” Pompeo said on social media, referring to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.

Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo)

The U.S.-led coalition said Sunday that “good progress” was being made in implementing a buffer zone in northern Syria along the Turkish border.

Turkey and the United States last month agreed on the so-called “security mechanism” to create a buffer between the Turkish border and Syrian areas controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The YPG led the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in battle against the Islamic State group in Syria, but Ankara views the Kurdish fighters as “terrorists”.

The United States and Turkey launched their first joint patrol of the border areas on September 8, but Ankara has accused Washington of stalling in the week since.

A coalition delegation on Sunday visited a military council in the northern town of Tal Abyad, from which Kurdish forces started withdrawing late last month.

“We are seeing good progress for the initial phase of security mechanism activities,” the coalition said in a statement handed out to journalists.

“The coalition and SDF have conducted multiple patrols to identify and remove fortifications to address concerns from Turkey,” the statement said.

“Four joint US and Turkish military overflights” were also carried out, it said.

Little is known about the buffer zone’s size or how it will work, although Ankara has said there would be observation posts and joint patrols.

“We will continue our talks and close coordination with Turkey to work out additional details for security mechanism activities,” the coalition statement said.

“We will continue the removal of certain fortifications in the security mechanism area of concern to Turkey,” it said.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to go his “own way” if the buffer zone was not set up by the end of September “with our own soldiers”.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday belittled efforts to create the safe zone as largely “cosmetic”.

Syria’s Kurds have established a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Syria during the country’s eight-year war.

Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to attack Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria, and the prospect of a US withdrawal after the territorial defeat of IS in March again stoked fears of an incursion.

Damascus labelled the first patrol last week as a flagrant “aggression” that seeks to prolong Syria’s war.

Turkey has already carried out two cross-border incursions into Syria, the latest of which saw Turkish troops and Ankara’s Syrian rebel proxies seize the northwestern enclave of Afrin last year.

Promised talks this month between the United States and North Korea will give President Donald Trump yet another chance to conclude a deal with the reclusive nation, something that has eluded several of his predecessors.

But after three summits and more than two years of on-and-off talks, some analysts are asking just how well Trump’s self-proclaimed prowess as a dealmaker translates to the world of diplomacy.

This week,

A group of Native American women from several tribes in Oklahoma have launched a nonprofit organization they’re calling the “

LAREDO, TEXAS/NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO — Editor’s note: VOA is withholding some identifying information and images when requested by the migrant or asylum-seeker, to limit risks to their safety, as criminals in northern Mexico are targeting migrants for kidnapping, assault and ransom. Only first names are included in this report from the border, which contains personal accounts as told by migrants that have not been verified by VOA but are consistent with reports from a wide range of news outlets and sources.

The U.S. Border Patrol reports it has intercepted more than 800,000 migrants and asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border so far in the 2019 fiscal year.

In recent months, the Trump administration has returned tens of thousands of mostly Central American migrants to Mexico to await U.S. immigration hearings under the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program.

This past Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the administration to deny asylum to all recent non-Mexican claimants who hadn’t already been denied asylum in a third country before reaching the U.S. border. Even before the Supreme Court decision, U.S. officials reported nine of 10 asylum claims were being rejected.

Despite such statistics, and amid rapidly shifting U.S. policies, migrants and asylum-seekers from the Americas, Africa and beyond await a determination of their fates while biding their time on both sides of America’s southern border.

VOA reporters Victoria Macchi and Ramon Taylor spoke with a broad sampling of migrants and asylum-seekers in early August. Many departed their home countries months before U.S. policy changes went into effect, under assumptions that no long apply. All are awaiting immigration court hearings. These are their stories.

Melissa, 25: ‘It’s only been an American nightmare’
Country of Origin: Venezuela
Status: Returned to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, under MPP

Melissa fled Venezuela in late July seeking asylum in the United States. As a critic of Venezuela’s disputed President Nicolás Maduro, she feared retribution from the government. Along her route, she says she was kidnapped and extorted by smugglers in Reynosa, Mexico, who forced her to cross into the U.S. between ports of entry, where she was detained. Melissa was returned to the International Bridge spanning the Rio Grande river to Nuevo Laredo, Puente 1, lacking laces in her shoes, a change of clothes, food or shelter. Her pleas to remain in the U.S. to await her Oct. 22 court hearing were denied. “I thought this would be, as they say, the American dream. But for me, it’s only been an American nightmare.”

Victor, 26: ‘My baby was shaking from the cold’
Country of Origin: El Salvador
Status: Released to temporary nonprofit migrant facility in Laredo, Texas

After spending three days at a crowded U.S. detention facility in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Victor and son Daniel, 2, were transferred to a migrant shelter in Laredo. They were the only ones in his detention group who were not returned to Mexico under MPP, he said. He’ll await his court date in the U.S. Victor describes their brief time in detention as a test of physical and mental endurance. At night, the air conditioning made the facility dangerously cold, he says, and Daniel caught the flu. “My baby was shaking from the cold, so I wrapped him tighter.” Victor said Daniel received prompt medical attention. Since their release, Victor’s goal is to provide “security” for his son, free of violence.

Keiny, 27: ‘Faith in God and the truth’
Country of Origin: Cuba
Status: Returned to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, under MPP

In a barren shelter in Nuevo Laredo, Keiny and his seven-months-pregnant wife are counting the days until their immigration court date later this month. They are among Laredo’s first scheduled MPP hearings and have been in the border city since July with no lawyer and no money, only “faith in God and the truth.” With the savings from a food cart he ran in Cuba, the couple paid about $475 each for a flight to Nicaragua. From there, they went by bus to Honduras, Guatemala and into Mexico. Frustrated by the long waits and dangers asylum-seekers face on Nuevo Laredo’s streets, Keiny insists returning to Cuba is not possible for him and his wife. It’s his fourth attempt to leave Cuba for good. The first three were by boat. When he was returned, he was forced to pay hefty fines and says his family was surveilled. If his asylum bid fails and he is sent back again, he fears punishment in the form of jail, or even torture. “I don’t feel safe in my country. The police and government do what they want.”

Julia, 34: ‘I don’t want that anymore for my children’
Country of Origin: Democratic Republic of Congo
Status: Released to temporary nonprofit migrant facility in San Antonio, Texas

Julia and her two daughters, ages 15 and 9, left the DRC in 2014 after her eldest son was killed. They spent four years in Angola, but security concerns there prompted them to leave Africa entirely. Last year, they flew to Ecuador. On foot and by bus and boat, they made their way through South and Central America, into Mexico, and finally to the U.S.-Mexico border. They crossed the Rio Grande alone and reached out to border agents waiting on the other side. They were allowed to remain in the U.S. pending their first court hearing, scheduled for the first week of August. “I told them when we left Angola that we were headed for America. We’re going to have a better life. … We suffered a lot. I don’t want that anymore for my children.”

Lilian, 30s: ‘They treat us like delinquents’
Country of Origin: Honduras
Status: Returned to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, under MPP

Hours after being dropped off on the Mexican side of Puente 1 by U.S. border agents, Lilian says her group of migrants was told if they didn’t get on the buses to Mexico’s southern Chiapas state, nearly 2,000 kilometers away, they would be left to fend for themselves. A diabetic, traveling with her 9-year-old son, she said she was forced to dump all of her belongings when a smuggler took the group across the river, and she hasn’t had access to insulin since then. She says it’s cruel to make people wait three months for their November court date in Laredo, if they are just going to be rejected for asylum in the U.S. Her son’s father, who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, has yet to find an attorney they can afford — and she’s not alone. In June, only 1.3% of the nearly 13,000 MPP cases had legal representation. “We’re coming to this country for a better life,” Lilian says. “They treat us like delinquents, both in the U.S. and in Mexico.”

Marvin, 38: ‘The journey could have cost me my life’
Country of Origin: Honduras
Status: Released to temporary nonprofit migrant facility in San Antonio, Texas

When they set out northward in February, Marvin and the group he traveled with decided to avoid trains to minimize risks to the children. By the time the group — including his teenage son, Kevin, colleagues, and extended family members — got to the border, they knew they didn’t want to pay fees to cartels to cross the river. He bided his time for a few days in Piedras Negras, visiting the river daily to determine where and when it would be safest to cross. “I prayed to God in that moment to clear the way for us,” says Marvin, sitting beside his son in a San Antonio shelter waiting for their bus. They were allowed to remain in the U.S. pending their court hearing. “I know that the journey could have cost me my life along the way. … If doing nothing means you’ll die, or that something will happen to you (in your home country), you’ll do whatever it takes — risk illness and everything.”

VOA Spanish Service reporters Jorge Agobian contributed reporting from Laredo, Texas, and Celia Mendoza from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Read their reports in Spanish.
 

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said Saturday that drone attacks on two Aramco oil facilities by a Yemen Houthi militia group have cut the kingdom’s oil production in half.

Amateur video of the early morning attack in Abqaiq, in eastern Saudi Arabia, showed several blazes raging. By afternoon, video showed huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky. Saudi officials said no workers were killed or injured in the attacks.

A military spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi militia, Col. Yahya Saree, claimed responsibility Saturday for the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities and vowed to increase them if Saudi-coalition forces continued their strikes on targets inside Yemen. It was not clear, however, if the drones originated in Yemen.

Saree said 10 (Houthi) drones hit the two oil facilities run by Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant. He said the attacks are being dubbed “Operation Balance of Terror” and are a response to what he called the “ongoing crimes of blockade and aggression on Yemen” (since the Saudi-led coalition began battling the Houthis five years ago).

Saree claimed the attack was the “largest to date” and that it “required extensive intelligence preparations,” including information from sources inside Saudi Arabia.

Later Saturday, however, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for the attacks on the Saudi oil plants, and ruled out involvement by Yemen’s Houthis.

“Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy,” Pompeo said on social media, referring to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.

Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo)