U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that John Bolton, dismissed a day earlier as national security adviser, had been a “disaster” on North Korea policy, “out of line” on Venezuela, and did not get along with important administration officials.

Trump said Bolton had made mistakes, including offending North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un by demanding that he follow a “Libyan model” and hand over all his nuclear weapons.

“We were set back very badly when John Bolton talked about the Libyan model … what a disaster,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“He’s using that to make a deal with North Korea? And I don’t blame Kim Jong Un for what he said after that, and he wanted nothing to do with John Bolton. And that’s not a question of being tough. That’s a question of being not smart to say something like that.”

Trump also said he disagreed with Bolton on Venezuela but offered no specifics. “I thought he was way out of line and I think I’ve proven to be right,” the president said.

Trump said Bolton, with his abrasive, hardline approach, “wasn’t getting along with people in the administration that I consider very important.”

“John wasn’t in line with what we were doing,” he added.

Trump said he got along with Bolton and hoped they parted on good terms, but added: “Maybe we have and maybe we haven’t. I have to run the country the way we’re running the country.”

Trump had been growing more impatient with the failure to oust socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro through a U.S.-led campaign of sanctions and diplomacy in which Bolton was a driving force.

Bolton was also a chief architect of the Trump administration’s hardline policy on Iran.

Asked whether he would consider easing sanctions on Iran to secure a meeting with its leader President Hassan Rouhani at this month’s U.N. General Assembly, Trump replied: “We’ll see what happens.” Bolton had opposed such a step.

North Korea

North Korea has denounced Bolton as a “war maniac” and “human scum.” Last year, it threatened to call off a first summit between Kim and Trump after Bolton suggested the Libya model of unilateral disarmament. In the past, Bolton had proposed using military force to overthrow the country’s ruling dynasty.

Trump’s efforts to engage with North Korea nearly fell apart altogether in February after he followed Bolton’s advice at a second summit in Hanoi and handed Kim a piece of paper that called for the transfer of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States.

Trump announced he had fired Bolton a day after North Korea signaled a new willingness to resume stalled denuclearization talks, but it then proceeded with the latest in a spate of missile test launches.

Analysts say Bolton’s removal could help U.S. efforts to revive the talks, but will not make it easier for Washington to persuade Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons.

Washington has given no indication that it will soften its demand for North Korea’s ultimate denuclearization, even though with Bolton gone, the risky all-or-nothing gambit is unlikely to be repeated so bluntly.

“This change in personnel could carve out some space for new approaches or thinking about what defines success and how to achieve it,” said Jenny Town at 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea project. “Whether it actually does or whether Bolton’s view was more deeply entrenched in U.S. thinking on this matter is yet to be seen.”

A judge in the trial of Russian theater director Kirill Serebrennikov and his co-defendants wants to send the controversial embezzlement case back to prosecutors.

Judge Irina Akkuratova said at the trial on Wednesday that the texts of the official charges contained “inconsistent and controversial clauses” and therefore she was inclined to send the whole case back to the prosecutor’s office. She made no further comment.

The judge first ordered a new study of evidence in the case in April and then extended the deadline for such a study in June. In August, Akkuratova noted that experts had been unable to establish that state money allocated for Serebrennikov’s projects was misused.

The 50-year-old and his three co-defendants are accused of embezzling up to $2 million in state funds granted from 2011 to 2014 to Seventh Studio, a nonprofit organization established by Serebrennikov.

Serebrennikov’s August 2017 arrest drew international attention and prompted accusations that Russian authorities were targeting cultural figures who are at odds with President Vladimir Putin’s government.

Serebrennikov, who has taken part in anti-government protests and voiced concerns about the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, has denied wrongdoing and dismissed the charges against him as absurd.

Serebrennikov and two co-defendants – producer Yury Itin and former Culture Ministry employee Sofia Apfelbaum – were released from house arrest under an April 8 court decision, but ordered to remain in Moscow.

The other defendant, Aleksei Malobrodsky, is not under house arrest but is also barred from leaving Moscow.

ABUJA, NIGERIA — Damilola Ogunsi, 40, — popularly known by his stage name, the Gold Fish — is an albino on a mission.

As a teenager he suffered intense discrimination, but Ogunsi says acting gave him a voice.

“My journey started when I was a young boy,” he said. “I remember that the first thing my parents told me when I was five years old, they took me to a party, and one way or the other while the party was going on they dropped the mic, and I found my way there, I picked up the mic and started talking and I entertained them a little bit.”

Before his acting career started, Ogunsi worked as a merchant banker for a nearly decade.

Now, he frequently appears on Nigerian movie screens, though Ogunsi says he’s got even bigger dreams.

“In my head, I’m James Bond, I’m Batman, I’m Iron Man,” he said. “Those are the kind of roles I’m dreaming about playing and I’m training myself and working. I’ve started hitting the gym, trying to build my Hollywood body because those are the things I want to do and places I want to go and, eventually, start producing my own films.”

Daily threats

Some two million Nigerians live with albinism, according to the Abuja-based Albino Foundation. Many face discrimination and marginalization on a daily basis.

Although a few like Ogunsi have risen above the societal bias against their condition, the situation is serious, says Demian Ivom of the Albino Foundation.

“There are villages and communities where persons with albinism or children with albinism, once the mother delivers the child with albinism, they’ll be killed. In Abuja here, there are about sixty communities where this is happening,” Ivom said.

Albinism is the partial or complete absence of melanin production in the body. The condition increases the risk of skin cancer.

Support

A foundation was set up in 2006 to combat the stigma and discrimination.

“The Albino Foundation was created to debunk the wrong information that people have about people with albinism and to create an equal opportunity for everybody with albinism to thrive in the society,” said Afam Kasim, spokesperson for the Albino Foundation.

The government adopted a national policy on albinism in 2012 to help albinos enter the Nigerian mainstream and improve their representation in various sectors.

As that effort continues, albinos like Ogunsi are getting ahead.

In Nigeria — where thousands of people living with albinism are discriminated against, body shamed, stigmatized or even killed — one albino is breaking the norm in the country’s movie industry. His popularity is a glimmer of hope to many others, as Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.

VOA’s Russian service and VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.

WHITE HOUSE — An Iranian government spokesman says the departure of National Security Adviser John Bolton could allow U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to deal with Iran in a “less biased manner.”

Ali Rabiei said Wednesday that Bolton was a “symbol of America’s hawkish policies” and animosity toward Iran. Officials, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, had repeatedly pointed to Bolton as a figure opposed to dialogue in resolving U.S.-Iran tensions.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that Trump’s firing of Bolton will not change the president’s foreign policy.

“I don’t think any leader around the world should make any assumption that because one of us departs that President Trump’s foreign policy will change in a material way,” Pompeo said less than two hours after Trump announced on Twitter that he had ousted Bolton.

Pompeo appeared on the White House podium along with U.S. Treasury Steven Mnuchin to discuss an executive order strengthening sanctions to combat terrorism.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend the U.K. Parliament less than two months before Britain is to leave the European Union was unlawful, a Scottish court ruled Wednesday, although it didn’t order the suspension to be overturned.

Judges at Scotland’s highest court in Edinburgh said Britain’s Supreme Court must make the final decision. A hearing there is to begin Tuesday.

A group of about 70 lawmakers is challenging the government’s decision to prorogue, or formally shut down, Parliament, for five weeks until Oct. 14, just more than two weeks before Britain is to leave the EU.

Johnson claims he took the action so that he can start afresh on his domestic agenda at a new session of Parliament next month. But the suspension also gives him a respite from rebellious lawmakers as he plots his next move to break the political deadlock and lead Britain out of the EU by Oct. 31.

Opponents argue that Johnson is trying to evade democratic scrutiny.

Last week, a court in Edinburgh rejected the lawmakers’ challenge, saying it was a matter for politicians, not the courts, to decide.

But that was overturned Wednesday on appeal.

Jolyon Maugham, a lawyer who is part of the claim, said: “We believe that the effect of the decision is that Parliament is no longer prorogued.”

“I have never been able to contemplate the possibility that the law could be that our sovereign Parliament might be treated as an inconvenience by the prime minister,” he said. 

China, despite its pressure against Taiwan’s military and foreign relations, is stocking up ways to charm the self-ruled island that it hopes someday to bring under its flag, experts believe.

The Communist government will fulfill a list of incentives announced last year to interest Taiwanese people in investment, work and study in China and may come up with more, scholars in Taipei say. Because incomes are too low to afford housing in some cities, some of Taiwan’s youth may go for China’s slightly higher pay and exposure to its more internationalized economy, they add.

On Sunday, five cities in Fujian province, the part of China geographically closest to Taiwan, announced they would increase the opportunities for Taiwanese youth to come over and start businesses, a channel they described as a “talent exchange,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

“Because of the very large size of mainland China’s economy, and because its economy is actually still growing, plus its internationalization is better than Taiwan’s, these major aspects will attract more Taiwanese to go over to try it out,” said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei.

Extension of 2018 offers

After the Fujian province case, other government agencies in China may offer incentives to the Taiwanese, said Chao Chien-min, dean of social sciences at Chinese Cultural University in Taipei.

China’s central government announced early last year 31 incentives aimed at drawing people over to work, study and invest. Proposals included tax breaks and special land-use rights. Taiwanese citizens on long stays on the mainland can move in without work visas. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in March this year more incentives were on the way.

Younger Taiwanese will go for it, Chao expects, if economic problems persist at home.

“The impact of course we need to review in the context of Taiwan’s environment because in the recent past the econ situation isn’t quite so good,” Chao said. “Finding work, especially for Ph.D. students, it’s gotten extremely difficult.”

China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s and threatened to take it by force if needed. More than 8 in 10 Taiwanese oppose unification, the Taiwan government’s Mainland Affairs Council found in a survey in January. The council sees China’s incentives as a soft approach to bring the two sides together without the use of force.

Economic benefits

Wages in China average 1.2 to 1.3 times higher than in Taiwan for skilled, non-entry level jobs, a ManpowerGroup Experis official estimated last year. China’s gross domestic product (GDP), the total value of goods and services provided in the country during a given year, grew 6.6% last year compared to the Taiwan’s economy’s 2.8%.

Investments by some of the world’s top multinationals have helped fuel that growth in the much larger China, and Taiwanese employees can get more “exposure” to them in China than at home, Huang said.

Risks for outsiders in China include impacts of Sino-U.S. trade friction on manufacturing along with gaps in China’s legal system, especially protection of copyrights and trademarks.

Unintended soft power

China’s formal incentives will ultimately run out, and there’s no sign Beijing will offer a new batch then, said Joanna Lei, chief executive officer of the Chunghua 21st Century Think Tank in Taiwan.

To pressure Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s government, which opposes unification with China, since 2016 officials in Beijing have passed military jets and ships near the island and scaled back Taiwan-bound tourism, tactics that analysts call “hard power” compared to the economic incentives.

China still has more “soft power” in reserve, Chao said, though it may never use it intentionally.

A growing number of blockbuster films come from China, he said, and Taiwanese cinemagoers will inevitably watch them. Operation Red Sea, a Chinese military film about an evacuation in Yemen, for example found an audience outside China last year.

Universities in China, including some in the international rankings, keep adding students, Chao said. In that way, he said, China has “already raised its soft power by a lot.”

“Taiwan needs to speed up a bit,” said Liang Kuo-yuan, president of the Taipei research organization Polaris Research Institute. Chinese universities have lapped top schools in Taiwan, he said.

“National Taiwan University used to be well ahead of Peking University and National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu (Taiwan) was also well ahead of the Tsinghua University in Beijing,” Liang said, naming flagship campuses on both sides.

Peking University ranks No. 68 and Tsinghua University, in Beijing, at No. 50 on the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

China boasts better R&D “capacity” and a boom in medical research, both with possible appeal to Taiwanese, Liang added.

The Trump administration is ready to open a tent court on the border to help handle tens of thousands of cases of asylum-seekers forced to wait in Mexico, with hearings held entirely by videoconference.

The court, or “soft-sided” facility as U.S. officials call it, is scheduled to begin operations Monday in Laredo, Texas. Another is expected to open soon in Brownsville in the Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings.

The administration introduced its “Remain in Mexico” policy in San Diego in January and later expanded it to El Paso, but hearings there are conducted inside large buildings with normal courtrooms, and the judge usually appears in person.

The policy, assailed by critics for making families and young children wait in violent Mexico border cities, has become a key piece of the U.S. response to a large increase in asylum-seeking families, especially from Central America.

Mexico allowed for its rapid expansion in a June 7 pact that spared it, at least temporarily, from threats of tariff increases by President Donald Trump.

Expanding the policy

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence agreed Tuesday to expand the policy “to the fullest extent possible,” according to a summary of their meeting provided by the White House.

About 40,000 non-Mexican asylum-seekers have been forced to wait in Mexico while their cases wind through clogged U.S. immigration courts, according to the Mexican government. The number soared after the June agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, and the policy was expanded to Laredo and Brownsville.

The Laredo court will manage as many as 300 cases a day, said Alberto Flores, port director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said during a tour for journalists on Tuesday that was streamed by reporter Brenda Camacho of KGNS-TV.

Asylum-seekers have been told to report to Nuevo Laredo on the Mexico side of the border at least four hours before their court times, Flores said during a media tour of the 30,000-square foot (2,787-square-meter) facility.

Few details

Details of how the tent courts will operate have been scarce. Attorneys are still trying to determine how much access they will have and if they will be able to meet privately with clients before a hearing — even though journalists were shown 14 rooms for attorney-client discussions.

There are four courtrooms for initial scheduling hearings, each one designed to seat 50 migrants at a time in rows of benches, with folding tables available if they need to approach the video camera that feeds images to a judge, who will appear on a large screen from another city.

“Everything is going to be virtual,” Flores said.

For substantive hearings that address the merits of an asylum claim and typically last hours, there are 18 small rooms in adjoining shipping containers, each equipped with two chairs, table and screen for the judge to appear remotely.

There’s a children’s waiting area with brightly colored, kid-sized chairs and baby-changing tables near an area with portable toilets.

Migrants who fear persecution in Mexico, in addition to their home country, can make their case to an asylum officer who will interview them from an office in Houston.

Many other migrants are waiting in Mexican border cities just to make their initial claims for asylum at a U.S. border crossing. The Associated Press found about 19,000 names on waiting lists in four cities visited in late July.

The U.S. government does not manage the lists, so there’s no uniform system to prioritize asylum-seekers who may be at a higher risk for extortion, persecution or medical problems. Lawyers along the border say many of their clients have been kidnapped, robbed, or sexually assaulted while they waited for their court date.

Illegal crossings down

Mexico’s immigration crackdown, which includes sending thousands of troops to its borders, has contributed to a sharp drop in illegal crossings. U.S. Border Patrol arrests along the Mexico border in August fell to their lowest level since January, though they are still relatively high.

Pence highlighted the “Remain in Mexico” policy, called “Migrant Protection Protocols” by U.S. officials, during his meeting Tuesday with Mexico’s top diplomat at the White House. He commended Mexico’s “meaningful and unprecedented steps to help curb the flow of illegal immigration.”

“The leaders agreed that while progress has been made, more work remains in order to further reduce the flow of illegal migrants to the United States,” according to the White House summary of the meeting.

Venezuela’s embattled socialist government expressed delight Tuesday over the firing of U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, whose hawkish views and tough rhetoric were constant irritants for the region’s leftist leaders.

Industry Minister Tareck El Aissami, who was a special target of Bolton for his alleged drug involvement in cocaine trafficking, called Bolton the “biggest liar” who caused untold damage to the Venezuelan people.

“The historical truth has vanquished the demons of war!” El Aissami celebrated on Twitter. “The future is ours!”

Another official, referring to the late President Hugo Chavez’s preference for a traditional Venezuelan dessert, was similarly jubilant.

“On days like this, the Comandate would treat himself to some sweet papaya,” said the official, who agreed to discuss Bolton only if not quoted by name because relations between Venezuela and the United States are already tense.

But it wasn’t clear if the U.S. stance on Venezuela might change without Bolton. Some analysts even said Maduro has more to lose from a more diplomatic, less polarizing replacement as the U.S. supports opposition efforts to remove him as president.

“Maduro is likely thinking ‘good riddance’ and that this is sweet revenge for all the macho posturing,” said Chris Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House in London. “But that would be a mistake. Bolton’s strategy was flawed from the beginning and his departure may pave the way to bring in a more professional, effective diplomat that could be a greater threat to Maduro’s autocracy.”

Cuba and Nicaragua also had little liking for Bolton.

In November, Bolton said during an address to veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 that the communist-ruled island is part of a “troika of tyranny” along with Venezuela and Nicaragua. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez responded by calling Bolton a “pathological liar.”

The tough rhetoric was matched by intense policy pressure.

In the bid to ramp up pressure on Maduro, the U.S. has imposed crippling sanctions on Venezuela’s crucial oil industry as well as threatened to punish companies from third countries that continue to do business with Maduro.

Bolton adopted a similar tack against Nicaragua, where security forces violently repressed anti-government protests that erupted just days after Bolton became national security adviser in April 2018.

The U.S. government targeted key allies of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and pushed its allies to isolate the government from international and regional organizations. At least a half-dozen Nicaraguan officials were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for corruption and human rights violations.

On Cuba, Bolton worked aggressively to roll back the Obama administration’s opening to the island. In a move that shocked even some anti-Castro hardliners, he was instrumental in lifting a two-decade ban on lawsuits against companies that profit from U.S.-linked properties confiscated after Cuba’s 1959 revolution.

There was no immediate official comment in Cuba on Bolton’s departure. But in reporting the firing, state-run TV said his removal was further proof of the “dysfunction” and “contradictions” plaguing the Trump administration.

Fernando Cutz, who worked on Latin American issues at the National Security Council in both the Obama and Trump administrations, said he expects the Trump administration now to focus more on the way Cuba and the U.S. interact and less on actions that hurt the Cuban people.

But he expects more continuity on Venezuela.

“The pressure on Maduro won’t change, though the tactics likely will,” Cutz said. “Depending on who comes in, we’ll likely stop seeing the military intervention rhetoric and start seeing more responsible rhetoric, with a greater focus on a potential solution through dialogue.”

Republican Dan Bishop has won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after a narrow victory in a special election that was watched closely by the country’s major parties for potential signals ahead of next year’s national elections.

Bishop defeated Democratic candidate Dan McCready by a margin of 51 percent to 49 percent.

In a sign of the importance of the election, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both visited North Carolina on the eve of the election to rally support for Bishop.

Trump celebrated the victory Tuesday, along with a Republican win in another special election in North Carolina.

BIG NIGHT FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2019

McCready was the Democratic candidate during the 2018 election when he went up against then-Republican candidate Mark Harris. But the results of that vote were thrown out and a special election ordered after state officials ruled there was an absentee-ballot fraud scheme that benefited Harris.

Democrats made big gains in the 2018 election cycle and retook control of the House of Representatives. The entire House and about one-third of the U.S. Senate will be up for election when the nation also votes for president in 2020.

The recent surge of deadly xenophobic attacks in South Africa is triggering concern in several African countries.  In Nigeria, the deaths have sparked reprisal attacks and calls for an end to the operation of South African businesses in the country. But as Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja, tens of thousands of Nigerian jobs could be at stake

Bulgarian prosecutors charged the head of a non-governmental organization (NGO) on Tuesday with spying for Russia as part of a scheme they said aimed to draw Bulgaria away from its Western allies and toward Moscow.

Bulgaria, Moscow’s most loyal satellite in Soviet times, is now a member of NATO and the European Union but has close cultural and historic ties to Russia, which remains its biggest energy supplier.

The prosecutors said Nikolai Malinov, 50, head of the National Russophile Movement, had worked for the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, run mainly by former foreign intelligence officials, and also for a Russian NGO, the Double-Headed Eagle, since 2010.

Reuters was not able to immediately reach Malinov for comment on the charges as his phone was switched off. The Russian embassy in Sofia has not issued a public statement on the charges.

“Nikolai Malinov has been charged with putting himself in the service of foreign organizations to work for them as a spy,” Deputy Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev told reporters.

Malinov has been released on bail but is barred from leaving the country, Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov said.

Russian-language document 

Prosecutors said they had found a Russian-language document prepared by Malinov that spoke of “the necessary geopolitical re-orientation of Bulgaria.”

“The document outlines the steps needed to be taken to completely overhaul the geopolitical orientation of Bulgaria away from the West toward Russia,” Geshev said.

The prosecutors did not say when the document was written.

The document, which prosecutors did not date, showed Malinov planned to create internet sites, a TV channel, an influential think-tank and a political party to encourage Bulgarians to form more positive views of Russia based on their shared Slavic traditions and Orthodox Christianity.

‘Very serious’ charges

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, who is friendly toward Russia, said the charges against Malinov were “very serious” and that prosecutors needed to come up with indisputable evidence of wrongdoing.

The U.S. embassy in Sofia said in a statement it was aware of the investigation into an alleged case of espionage and fully supported “Bulgaria’s efforts to defend its sovereignty from malign influence.”

Some opposition politicians saw the case as an attempt to influence public opinion ahead of local elections on Oct. 27.

The prosecutors also said on Tuesday they had banned a veteran Russian foreign intelligence official, Leonid Reshetnikov, from entering Bulgaria for 10 years. Reshetnikov is deputy chair of the Double-Headed Eagle and the former head of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.

Malinov had traveled regularly to Russia to meet with Reshetnikov and Konstantin Malofeev, an influential Russian financier and head of the Double-Headed Eagle, where he was given funds and assigned tasks, Geshev said.

Chad’s parliament voted on Tuesday to extend a state of emergency by four months in three provinces where fighting between rival ethnic groups have surged in recent weeks.

The state of emergency is in place in the western Tibesti region bordering Niger and the eastern Sila and Ouaddai regions bordering Sudan. It was first declared by Chad’s Council of Ministers on Aug. 19.

At least 50 people were killed in clashes between semi-nomadic cattle herders of President Idriss Deby’s Zaghawa ethnic group and settled farmers mostly from the Ouaddian community last month.

“The next four months will allow the government to roll out enough armed forces to re-establish order and achieve disarmament,” said Ismael Chaibo, minister of territorial administration.

Chadian armed forces already face security threats on multiple fronts, including a Boko Haram Islamist insurgency in its southwest, near Lake Chad, and a northern rebellion based in neighboring Libya that French warplanes in February intervened to halt.

Deby’s fight against Islamist militants — he has deployed troops to counter groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State in the Sahel and Lake Chad region — has strained the military, leaving it ill-equipped to tackle a new source of insecurity.

President Donald Trump has fired his National Security Adviser John Bolton.  

“I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore….
….I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning,” Trump said on Twitter Tuesday.

I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2019

He thanked Bolton for his service and said he would be naming a replacement next week.

An Israeli spyware company that has been accused of helping authoritarian governments stifle dissent says it has adopted “a new human rights policy” to ensure its software is not misused.
 
The NSO Group said Tuesday it would institute a series of oversight measures to ensure adherence and would henceforth evaluate potential clients’ “past human rights performance.”

NSO has come under fire in the past year for selling its surveillance software to repressive governments who use it against dissidents. It does not disclose clients, but they are believed to include Middle Eastern and Latin American states. A Saudi dissident has accused NSO of involvement in Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing last year.
 
The company says its product is used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies to fight “crime and terrorism.”

President Donald Trump’s administration is stepping up its campaign to get other nations to boost pressure on Iran as world leaders prepare to meet at the United Nations this month.

The administration says the world should take note of and act on admitted Iranian noncompliance with the 2015 nuclear deal and new questions about Iran’s activities raised by the U.N. atomic watchdog. The U.S. has been ratcheting up its own sanctions on Iran since Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal last year.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (pahm-PAY’-oh) said Tuesday that Iran is trying to deceive the world by refusing to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency’s head said Monday he’d stressed the importance of “full” cooperation with it.

Iran says it has begun using advanced centrifuges in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Malawians have crowned a Mr. and Ms. Albinism during the country’s first ever beauty pageant for albinos, held in the capital Lilongwe. The Association of People with Albinism organized the event as part of efforts to destroy myths which have led to attacks on albinos in Malawi and other African countries.

There were cheers and ululations when beauty contestants with albinism strutted their stuff at a first-ever competition in Malawi.

In a country where they face stigma and the threat of attack because of how they look, some 20 contestants demonstrated that albinism can be beautiful.

Patience Phiri was among them.

“I am here because I have ever experienced the threat. Even my real friends I chat with, they have even said I am money. This has really affected my family because they are there, just to protect me,” Phiri said.

People with albinism in Malawi have been attacked because of false beliefs that their body parts, if used in magical potions, can bring good luck and wealth.

More than two dozen have been killed since 2014 and more than 100 are missing.

Twenty-three-year-old Chikondi Kadzanja won the Ms. Albinism Malawi title.

She told VOA that she will use her position to help end the attacks.

“What I am going to do now is firstly to bring awareness to communities, especially the rural communities that hold negative attitudes, myths and misconceptions about persons with albinism,” Kanjadza said.

Twenty-four-year-old Burnet Phunyanya won the Mr. Albinism Malawi title.

He says his task will be to motivate albinos to be self-reliant. 

“I am going to stand still and help persons with albinism. First of all making them to trust in themselves, trust their ideas, and believe in themselves,” Phunyanya said.

Pageant organizers plan to hold the event every year.

Hundreds of Australians have fled their homes in the eastern states as 140 fires ravaged parts of Queensland and New South Wales (NSW), officials said on Tuesday.

Strong winds have fanned bushfires in the two Australian states since Monday, with flames out of control in some areas, ravaging thousands of hectares of land.

At least eight of those fires are suspicious and will be investigated, Queensland Police Commissioner Katrina Carroll told reporters.

“Some of the fires have involved children playing and obviously the consequences are dire as a result of that and … some of them have been purposeful and malicious,” she said. “The consequences of some of these fires are dire. People can die. Buildings and residences are being destroyed.”

In the northeastern state of Queensland alone, low humidity levels, high winds and dried out vegetation have fueled 85 fires that have destroyed or damaged 84 houses across the state, fire service officials said.

There were more than 400 people in evacuation centers, acting Queensland premier Jackie Trad told reporters. She added that there are none dead or missing.

“Apart from Sunshine Coast, we are still seeing fires right throughout the state,” she said.

In neighboring New South Wales, firefighters were battling about 55 fires and about five properties had been confirmed destroyed, the NSW Rural Fire Service said on Monday.

Bushfires have started earlier than normal in the southern hemisphere spring. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said winds would intensify throughout the day on Tuesday, but fire threats should abate on Wednesday.

India’s space agency says it has located the lunar probe that was feared lost as it was making its final approach towards the surface last weekend.

The Vikram lander was just two kilometers above the moon’s South Pole Saturday when ground controllers lost contact with the spacecraft. The Indian Space Research Organization said Tuesday the Chandrayaan-2 probe has discovered the lander on the surface, but had not yet established communications with Vikram, named after Vikram Sarabhai, the scientist regarded as the “father” of India’s space program.

If the probe landed intact, India will join the United States, Russia and China as the only nations to achieve a soft landing of a spacecraft on the moon. It will also become the first nation to attempt a controlled landing on the moon’s South Pole.

The $141 million Chandrayaan-2 mothership entered lunar orbit nearly a month after it was launched aboard India’s powerful Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark Three rocket.  The Vikram lander was designed to release a small rover that will roam the moon’s surface in search for signs of water, and to assess its topography and geology. 

Chandrayaan-2 was a huge step up from India’s previous space explorations, such as its first moon mission in 2008 and a mission to Mars in 2013 that involved sending a spacecraft to the Red Planet.  

Hundreds of Guatemalan soldiers were deployed on Monday to an area near the border with Honduras and Mexico, home to long-standing social conflicts, in a bid to improve security after three soldiers were gunned down by suspected drug runners.

Defense Minister Luis Miguel Ralda told reporters that 2,000 soldiers had been sent as part of the mission following a declaration of emergency powers granted by the Congress two days ago.

“We expect them to bring calm, security and peace to the people of this region,” he said, acknowledging that the area was marked by lawlessness due to extortion and other drug-related crime.

The area has played host over decades to a range of conflicts among locals and land owners, miners and palm oil plantations, including indigenous communities.

Guatemala’s army said last week a group of suspected drug traffickers ambushed a patrol of nine soldiers in Izabal province who were sent to detain an aircraft allegedly transporting drugs. Three of the soldiers were killed.

While some community members dispute parts of the army’s account, officials say they identified nearly 50 illegal runways that they say are used to transport drugs.

The attack on the soldiers, one of the worst incidents of violence perpetrated against the army in years, prompted lawmakers to authorize a 30-day emergency decree on Saturday that imposes a night-time curfew in the northeastern provinces of Alta Verapaz, El Progreso, Izabal, Peten, Zacapa and Baja Verapaz.

The six provinces make up a drug-trafficking corridor that runs from Honduras to Mexican border.

The decree also gives the military new powers to arrest and interrogate suspects and prohibits organized protests in the targeted areas.

Soldiers could be seen in the lush Izabal countryside on Monday stopping and inspecting passing vehicles and setting up new bases.

A school in the town of Semuy II, where the soldiers were attacked, was empty on Monday because classes have been suspended indefinitely.

Guatemala, like neighbors El Salvador and Honduras, is a hub for the trafficking of drugs from South America to the United States.