Puerto Ricans are breathing sighs of relief after Hurricane Dorian brushed by the U.S. territory, but now has its sights set on Florida.

Dorian caused some flooding and power outages on two Puerto Rican islands, but spared the entire territory from any major damage.

All hurricane and tropical storm watches and warnings for Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean have been discontinued.

Dorian is a Category 1 hurricane with top sustained winds of 130 kilometers per hour.

Parts of Puerto Rico are still not recovered from Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017, killing about 3,000 people.

Thousands of homes still have no roofs and kilometers of roads are still torn up.

Meanwhile, Governor Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency in Florida, which is bracing for what forecasters say will be a powerful and dangerous Hurricane Dorian.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami says the storm may hit as early as this weekend as a Category 3.

Officials up and down the coast are warning residents to be prepared with sandbags and plenty of food and bottled water.

“All Floridians on the East Coast should have seven days of supplies, prepare their homes and follow the track closely,” DeSantis tweeted Wednesday.
 

Chinese investment in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry has reached $16 billion, according to Nigeria’s state-run oil company. While Nigeria’s oil industry welcomes China’s interest, analysts worry about a lack of transparency in the sector and slow development of the country’s renewable energy market.

When a top official with China’s third-largest national oil company paid a visit to Abuja, Nigeria this month, he was recommended by a top official of Nigeria’s state-run oil company to increase investment in Nigeria’s petroleum industry.

Mele Kyari, the managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, or NNPC, thanked the China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, for its continued support of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector. Chinese investments in the sector have reached $16 billion. Kyari added that Nigeria needs partners like China.

The two countries need each other to reach their oil production targets. Africa’s largest oil producing nation pumps 2 million barrels a day and has a goal of producing 3 million barrels a day by 2023. China’s domestic oil production has been on a steady decline because of natural depletion and other geological challenges. So experts predict that up to 80 percent of China’s crude oil supply will be imported by 2030.

In comes Nigeria.

CNOOC started doing business in Nigeria in 2005 and is the largest Chinese entity investor in Nigeria. With a focus on overseas investment, it’s also China’s largest offshore oil and natural gas developer.

The company’s executive vice president, Lu Yan Ji, said during the meeting that Nigeria is one of the company’s largest investment destinations. He also said that CNOOC is producing 800,000 barrels per day, but it wants to reach 1.2 million. Ji hopes Nigeria can help with that.

But there’s skepticism.

Nigeria has had a hard time reaching its production targets. There’s sporadic militancy in the oil-producing region, as young people often take violent action to demand more access to the country’s oil wealth. There’s theft happening right at the pipelines. Fires often burn at rusted pipes, and oil operations in Nigeria are disrupted several times a year.

Also there’s a serious lack of transparency. The NNPC has a long history of scandals, with ongoing accusations of corruption.

Crude oil is Nigeria’s most lucrative export, and the NNPC has not been able to account for billions of dollars in revenue. President Muhammadu Buhari has not appointed anyone as the oil minister. He handles that highly sought after portfolio himself in his second term as president, just as he did in his first.

Corruption is also why some Nigerians aren’t applauding China for pouring money into Nigeria’s murky oil industry.

A host on Nigeria’s popular Wazobia TV network, Uvbi Ehigiamusoe, put it this way.

She says the Chinese oil company will not monitor how Nigeria will use $16 billion in investments. And it is known how it goes in Nigeria, she says.

Some say it’s high time Nigeria moves away from its dependence on oil. Revenue from the oil industry accounts for almost 75 percent of the federal budget, according to the Nigerian financial watchdog group BudgIT.

Dr. Nwoke Okala, an energy specialist at the Center for Research and Development at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, says Nigeria should follow the global trend of exploring renewable energy sources as oil becomes less attractive.

But for now, Nigeria will continue to set its ambitions on oil. Nigerian business mogul and the richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote, is building what will be Africa’s largest oil refinery in the Nigerian commercial city of Lagos.

With an expected annual refining capacity of 10.4 million tons of gasoline, the new refinery will double Nigeria’s refining capacity and help in meeting the increasing domestic demand for fuel.

The $9 billion mega-complex is expected to be complete at the end of 2020 and could take Nigeria from a fuel importer to a fuel exporter.
 

White House national security adviser John Bolton said Wednesday that he had discussed Washington’s concerns about the threat of “unfair Chinese trade practices” with Ukrainian officials during his trip to Kyiv. 
 
Asked about a possible acquisition by China of Ukrainian defense company Motor Sich, Bolton said he did not want to discuss specific companies and that such deals were a sovereign matter for Ukraine, according to Reuters. 
 
But he made clear that the U.S. administration disapproved of the transaction, telling reporters: “We laid out our concerns about … unfair Chinese trade practices, threats to national security we’ve seen in the United States.” 
 
Speaking to RFE/RL in Kyiv on Tuesday, Bolton said the possible sale of Motor Sich — a maker of engines for missiles, helicopters and jets — to the Chinese “is an issue that I think is significant for Ukraine, but [also] significant for the U.S., for Europe, for Japan, for Australia, Canada, other countries.” 
 
He accused Beijing of using its “trade surpluses to gain economic leverage in countries around the world, to profit from defense technologies that others have developed.” 
 
Earlier this month, Ukrainian media reported that two Chinese companies had reached an agreement with state-owned military concern Ukroboronprom to jointly purchase Motor Sich. 
 
The Chinese firms, which are believed to be close to the government in Beijing, would receive a controlling stake, while Ukroboronprom would receive a blocking stake. 
 
Motor Sich employs more than 20,000 people in the southwestern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya. 
 
A possible sale to the Chinese provoked a raid of its headquarters by Ukraine’s Security Service in April 2018 and the seizure of its shares. At the time, the company was valued at nearly $500 million. 

Pinterest said it would try to combat misinformation about vaccines by showing only information from health organizations when people search. 
 
Social media sites have been trying to combat the spread of misinformation about vaccines. Pinterest previously tried blocking all searches for vaccines, with mixed results. 
 
Now searches for “measles,” “vaccine safety” and related terms will bring up results from such groups as the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the WHO-established Vaccine Safety Net. 
 
Pinterest won’t show ads or other users’ posts, as they may contain misinformation.  
  
“We’re taking this approach because we believe that showing vaccine misinformation alongside resources from public health experts isn’t responsible,” Pinterest said Wednesday in a blog post. 
 
Though anti-vaccine sentiments have been around for as long as vaccines have existed, health experts worry that anti-vaccine propaganda can spread more quickly on social media. The misinformation includes soundly debunked notions that vaccines cause autism or that mercury preservatives and other substances in them can harm people. 
 
Experts say the spread of such information can push parents who are worried about vaccines toward refusing to inoculate their children, leading to a comeback of various diseases. 

Spike in measles cases
 
Measles outbreaks have spiked in the U.S. this year to their highest number in more than 25 years.  
  
In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson blamed people “listening to that superstitious mumbo jumbo on the internet” for a rising incidence of measles in that country. The government plans to call a summit of social media companies to discuss what more they can do to fight online misinformation, though details are still being worked out. 
 
Facebook said in March that it would no longer recommend groups and pages that spread hoaxes about vaccines and that it would reject ads that do this. But anti-vax information still slips through. 
 
The WHO praised Pinterest’s move and encouraged other social media companies to follow. 
 
“Misinformation about vaccination has spread far and fast on social media platforms in many different countries,” the statement said. “We see this as a critical issue and one that needs our collective effort to protect people’s health and lives.” 

After celebrating her two-decade-plus career at the MTV Video Music Awards with a performance featuring a slew of her hits, Missy Elliott knew she did a great job when the first text she received after the performance was from another musical icon and longtime friend: Janet Jackson.

“She was like, ‘You shut that [expletive] down,’” Elliott said, laughing in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, a day after the VMAs. “And just to know that Janet even said that word was amazing. And I was like, ‘OK, I must have done good for her to use that [word].’”

Elliott, who has collaborated musically with Jackson in the past, received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award on Monday night for the eccentric and vibrant music videos that helped establish her as a trailblazer on the music scene.

The 48-year-old Grammy winner said the road to creating iconic videos was not easy. She said in the “She’s a B—h” clip, which includes a scene where she and others are submerged, two of the dancers “had asthma attacks just from being underwater.”

For “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” — her 1997 debut single where she wore an inflated trash bag — she recalls walking “to the gas station to use the air pump … in Brooklyn to pump up the suit, and then realized I was too big to fit in the car, so we had to walk … on the main street in this outfit all the way to set, and it had deflated.”

She confirmed that the bees in the “Work It” video were in fact real. And in the “Pass that Dutch” clip when she was lifted up and rapping from a cornfield, “they dropped me on my knees; I thought my kneecaps had broken.”

“I was just doing these videos and … it wasn’t like I was doing them and trying to make a point for later down the line. I was just doing it,” she said. “A lot of people say, ‘Hey you should have gotten [this award] a long time ago and I realize that I’m a spiritual person and so I always say, ‘I’m on God’s time.’ And so whenever God says it was time for me to have it is the correct time.”

Elliott’s VMA performance also included the well-known hits “Lose Control” and “Get Ur Freak On,” as well as “Throw It Back,” the first single from her new EP “Iconology,” released last week. Her performance also featured dancer and actress Alyson Stoner, who first gained fame as the young child who danced with skill in the “Work It” video.

“It’s been 17 years since we shot that video,” Elliott said. “I couldn’t have done it without [Alyson]. I was like, ‘I’ve got to have Alyson in here because everywhere I went since then people have always been like, ‘What happened to that little girl that used to be in your ‘Work It’ video?’”

At the VMAs, Elliott also honored late R&B singer Aaliyah when she gave her acceptance speech. Elliott and Timbaland wrote and produced a number of hits for Aaliyah, from “One In a Million” to “4 Page Letter.” 
 
“I always pay tribute to her. And I’m always in contact with her brother, you know, checking on them. Even though each year makes it a year longer, it always still feels like it was yesterday,” Elliott said of Aaliyah, who was killed in a plane crash 18 years ago last Sunday. 
 
“I could still hear her laughter and I could see her smile and almost kind of could sense what she would be like today. She’s always been a risk taker and never a follower because when she chose to work with Timbaland and myself, we had style that was so different; she could have picked any other producer and writer that was already hot and popping,” she continued. “We hadn’t had anything out but she heard something in us and so I know that she would have just been setting the bar high.”

The United States said Wednesday it has opened a diplomatic mission for Venezuela in Colombia, months after suspending its embassy in Caracas as Washington seeks to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

The Venezuela Affairs Unit, located inside the US embassy in Bogota, will focus on supporting Juan Guaido, the opposition leader whom the United States and most other Western and Latin American countries consider the interim president.

The unit “will continue to work for the restoration of democracy and the constitutional order in that country, and the security and well-being of the Venezuelan people,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

The US diplomatic presence in Venezuela will still be sharply curtailed. A US official said the unit in Bogota would not provide consular services such as issuing visas.

The United States suspended operations at its embassy in Caracas in March and pulled out all remaining staff as the political crisis intensified following years of severe deterioration of the economy.

President Donald Trump has vowed to oust Maduro as part of what he calls a campaign to rid the Americas of socialism.

But a half year of US pressure including sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s key export of oil has failed to remove Maduro, who enjoys the support of the military leadership as well as Russia, China and Cuba.

Wildlife advocates have scored a big win in their efforts to protect the African giraffe by having the animal placed on the international endangered species list.   Non-profit groups and some African nations successfully teamed-up in Geneva to lobby on behalf of the African giraffe as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports

Self-driving cars may be years from becoming reality on the road, but some of the technology going into autonomous vehicles is being used to make driving safer today. Michelle Quinn visited one company that is using computer vision and artificial intelligence to help solve one of the biggest problems for motorists — distracted driving

Just across the East River from Manhattan, Brooklyn has a thriving local art scene. One of the borough’s most interesting artists is Misha Tyutyunik, known as MDot, who has found some interesting places to display his work. Nina Vishneva met with the artist. Anna Rice narrates her story.

In a remote part of Jordan, a first-of-its-kind solar energy plant is powering a Syrian refugee camp and is making a difference in the lives of 40,000 residents, while benefiting the host country and the environment. The project is the innovation of the U.N. Refugee Agency and Sweden’s IKEA Foundation. VOA’s Margaret Besheer visited the plant at Azraq camp.

Nigeria’s government for years has been seeking a lasting solution to the conflict between farmers and herders over grazing lands, a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.  The country’s middle belt region is most affected by the dispute but recently the government introduced a settlement plan for herders aimed at ending the clashes.  But the settlements, known as RUGA in Hausa, are meeting some resistance – as Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja. 

U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall is expanding.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper recently approved another 32 kilometers (20 miles) of barriers for the United States’ southern border with Mexico, a defense official has confirmed to VOA.

The official said Esper is using an expected surplus to build the additional barrier. To date, nearly 250 kilometers of the barrier wall have been funded by shifting military funds originally marked for other purposes.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court in July allowed the administration to start using disputed Pentagon funds to construct more than 100 miles of fencing along the border.

The justices lifted a lower court freeze that was designed to block $2.5 billion in spending while lawsuits by the Sierra Club and another advocacy group went forward. Those cases may still go trial.

The Pentagon had previously approved the reprogramming of funds into its counter-drug account, which is authorized to spend money on border barrier construction in order to block potential drug smuggling corridors.

In May, Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan confirmed the transferred Pentagon funds included money the Pentagon was saving for training Afghanistan security forces. At the time, he added he would not reprogram any more money for the border wall.

A defense official told VOA Tuesday that in addition to the Afghan training money, funds were also reprogramed to the border wall from personnel and recruiting, upgrades to the E-3 aircraft and Minuteman III, and from lower-than-negotiated contract savings for air launch cruise missiles and Predator Hellfire missiles.

Racism in America is an institutional “white man’s problem visited on people of color,” Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday, arguing that the way to attack the issue is to defeat President Donald Trump and hold him responsible for deepening the nation’s racial divide.

Taking aim at incendiary racial appeals by Trump, Biden said in an interview with a small group of reporters that a president’s words can “appeal to the worst damn instincts of human nature,” just as they can move markets or take a nation into war.

Biden is leading his Democratic challengers for the presidential nomination in almost all polls, largely because of the support of black voters. He has made appealing to them central to his candidacy and vowed to make maximizing black and Latino turnout an “overwhelming focus” of his effort. The interview, more than an hour long, focused largely on racial issues.

“White folks are the reason we have institutional racism,” Biden said. “There has always been racism in America. White supremacists have always existed, they still exist.” He added later that in his administration, it would “not be tolerated.”

By highlighting the nation’s racial tensions and placing blame on Trump, Biden is showing that he, too, is willing to make race a core campaign issue, but from the opposite perspective of the president. Turnout and enthusiasm among black voters will be critical for the Democratic nominee, notably to try to reclaim states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. He also emphasized a crossover appeal to both black voters and non-college-educated white voters.

To accentuate his appeal to black voters, Biden said that he will advertise in black publications and engage with cultural institutions like the black church, black fraternities and sororities, and historically black colleges.

“The bad news is I have a long record. The good news is I have a long record,” Biden said when asked about his enduring support among black voters. “People know me — at least they think they know me. I think after all this time, I think they have a sense of what my character is, who I am.”

“I’ve never, ever, ever in my entire life been in a circumstance where I’ve ever felt uncomfortable being in the black community,” he added, suggesting that his familiarity was not matched by many of his competitors.

While he did not specify to whom he was referring, Biden said he believes there are “assertions and assumptions” made about black voters that he believes are inaccurate, and he said that “a lot of people haven’t spent much time in the community.”

Without mentioning her by name, Biden also referenced California Sen. Kamala Harris’ attack on him during the first presidential debate on the issue of busing as a solution to school desegregation.

“All I know is I don’t think anybody in the community thinks I am — what’s the phrase?” Biden asked, paraphrasing Harris’ comment that “I know you’re not a racist, Joe.”

“I don’t think anyone thinks that about me,” Biden said.

Biden was also asked whether he would select a woman or person of color as his running mate should he become the nominee. He said that while he would “preferably” do so, he is ultimately seeking a partner on the ticket who is “simpatico with what I stand for and what I want to get done.”

“Whomever I pick would be preferably someone who was of color and who was of a different gender, but I’m not making that commitment until I know that the person I’m dealing with I can completely, thoroughly trust, is authentic, and is on the same page.”

Looking ahead to the next Democratic debate in Houston in September, he said that he understands why he has a target on his back but cautioned that Democrats “shouldn’t be forming a circular firing squad and shooting” because it only helps Trump.

Trump’s reelection campaign dismissed Biden’s accusation that Trump had inflamed racial tensions in the country.

“Having moved on from the Russia Hoax, Democrats are now employing the oldest play in the Democrat playbook: falsely accusing their opponent of racism, extending it even to the President’s supporters. Calling half the country racist is not a winning strategy,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director.

Biden also said that the Democratic field would narrow and allow for more meaningful exchanges. In the current crowded field, he said it’s difficult to have any meaningful debate at all, calling it a “non-debate debate.”

Biden, who has been attacked most forcefully by Harris, said that he believed “those who made the most direct attacks on one another haven’t really benefited much by it at the end of the day.”

What is Labor Day?

 

Republican and Democratic U.S. senators said Russia refused to grant them visas for a visit to Moscow next week, amid disagreement within Washington and among U.S. allies over whether the country should be readmitted to the Group of Seven.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said on Tuesday that Russia denied him a visa. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, said on Monday that his visa request had been denied, which he called “a petty affront.”

President Donald Trump said last week it would be appropriate to let Russia return to the G-7 group of advanced industrialized countries, telling reporters that former Democratic President Barack Obama had wanted Russia out of what used to be the G-8 but he thought it was “much more appropriate” to include the country.

Other G-7 countries have objected.

Murphy and Johnson are Senate Foreign Relations Committee members and have pushed for sanctions. Another Republican, Senator Mike Lee, was issued a visa and intended to visit Russia, a spokesman for Lee said.

“With the collapse of recent arms control agreements and significant domestic opposition to Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule, this is potentially a perilous moment for our two nations’ fragile relationship, and it’s a shame that Russia isn’t interested in dialogue,” Murphy said in a statement.

The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. But it tweeted a statement saying Johnson had not applied for a visa at the embassy. The tweet also called Johnson “russophobic” and scoffed at his saying he wanted to restore direct dialogue with Russian parliamentarians.

While it had been unusual for U.S. lawmakers to be denied travel visas, Russia has done so several times in recent years, especially those who have pushed for sanctions against Moscow over its aggression toward Ukraine and interference in U.S. elections.

And Israel this month barred two Democratic lawmakers, U.S. Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, shortly after Trump called on his ally not to let them in.

Separately, senior Democratic senators said on Tuesday they had written to Trump expressing strong opposition to readmitting Russia to the G-7, citing its invasion of Crimea.

The letter was signed by Senators Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, as well as Jack Reed, Bob Menendez and Mark Warner, the top Democrats on the Armed Services, Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, respectively.

Norway, until recently the main donor to a fund to curb Amazonian deforestation, on Tuesday called on Norwegian companies active in Brazil to ensure they do not contribute to the destruction of the rainforest.

Representatives of oil firm Equinor, fertilizer-maker Yara and aluminium producer Norsk Hydro attended a meeting on Tuesday with Climate and Environment Minister Ola Elvestuen to discuss the fires in the Amazon.

“They must be conscious about their supply chains and ensure that they do not help contribute to deforestation,” Elvestuen told reporters after the meeting, called on Monday in response to the blazes afflicting the vast Amazon region.

The Norwegian state is the top owner of all three firms.

Tuesday’s meeting was also attended by pension fund KLP and environmental non-governmental organizations to discuss the issue and what could be done to solve it.

The number of fires recorded across the Brazilian Amazon has risen 79% this year through Aug. 25, according to Brazil’s space research agency.

Earlier on Tuesday, Brasilia said it would not consider an offer of at least $20 million from the Group of Seven nations to fight the fires until French President Emmanuel Macron retracted “insults” against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Amazon fund 

In August, Oslo suspended donations to the Amazon Fund after Brasilia blocked operations of a fund receiving the aid.

Norway has worked closely with Brazil to protect the Amazon rainforest for more than a decade, and has paid some $1.2 billion into the Amazon Fund, to which it is by far the biggest donor.

Asked on Tuesday what Norway would do with the money it was not disbursing to Brasilia, Elvestuen told Reuters: “It has not been decided yet.”

Equinor is a top oil producer in the South American country and is developing Brazil into its main production country outside its homebase. The company’s representative at the meeting declined to comment.

The oil firm later said it was important that the rainforest is protected and that it was not engaged in activity there, but was limited to offshore oil exploration and a solar farm.

“We ensure that our supply chain does not have a negative impact on the rainforest,” a company spokesman said.

Hydro has a bauxite mine and a refinery, Alunorte, located in the northern state of Para that turns bauxite into alumina, the white powder used to produce aluminium at smelters.

The company said it was working on reducing its climate and environmental footprint throughout its business and supported efforts to reduce Amazon deforestation with, for instance, research collaboration between universities in Oslo and in Para state.

“Hydro has a bauxite mine in Para that respects environmental regulations. We use significant resources to replant and rehabilitate mining areas and we have a goal to conduct one-to-one reforestation of available areas,” a company spokesman said.

“Hydro is focused on maintaining a good dialogue and good bilateral relations between Norway and Brazil.”

Yara, which makes fertilizers in Brazil and supplies Brazilian farmers with products, said that it was “very important to safeguard the rainforest.”

“This has high priority in Yara and we do our utmost to ensure compliance across the supply chain to prevent the illegal clearing of land,” said a company spokeswoman.

Separately KLP, a Norwegian pension fund with over $80 billion in assets under management, said it was contacting U.S. firms in which it was invested that did significant business with agricultural producers in Brazil to ask for “concrete actions.”

KLP had contacted U.S. firms Bunge, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, in which KLP has invested 453 million crowns ($50.58 million) in stocks and bonds.

Opposition parties said they would try to pass a law which would force Prime Minister Boris Johnson to seek a delay to Britain’s departure from the European Union and prevent a potentially chaotic no-deal exit at the end of October.

The United Kingdom is heading toward a constitutional crisis at home and a showdown with the EU as Johnson has pledged to leave the bloc in 66 days without a deal unless Brussels agrees to renegotiate the Brexit divorce.

The sticking point is the backstop, an insurance policy to prevent the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Johnson told European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Tuesday there was no prospect of a deal unless the backstop was abolished.

Parliament returns from its summer break next week and is preparing for a battle with Johnson, who has promised to take Britain out of the European Union at the end of October with or without an exit agreement.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn hosted talks with opposition parties on Tuesday, where they agreed that passing a law to force the government to seek a delay to Britain’s EU departure would probably have the most support.

“We are going to come together and do the right thing by our country,” said Anna Soubry, leader of The Independent Group for Change party. “We are up against a prime minister who has no mandate for this and I think he has no regard for parliament.”

The opposition parties are seeking to repeat what they did earlier this year when lawmakers seized control of the parliamentary agenda to pass a law forcing Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May to seek an extension to Britain’s EU membership.

They also managed to change legislation to require parliament to be sitting for several days in September and October, making it harder for Johnson to shut down parliament to pursue a no-deal, something he has not ruled out doing.

The pound hit its strongest since July 29 against the dollar and euro after the parties presented a united front Tuesday.

Call with Juncker

Britain is on course for a no-deal exit on Oct. 31 unless parliament can stop it or a new deal is reached with the EU.

The British parliament has rejected three times the withdrawal deal agreed between the last government and the EU, deepening a three-year crisis that threatens Britain’s status as one of the world’s pre-eminent financial centers and a stable destination for foreign investors.

Johnson wants the backstop removed from the deal.

He discussed his demands with Juncker in a “positive and substantive” 20-minute phone call on Tuesday following talks last week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Donald Tusk.

Juncker said he was willing to look at any concrete proposals on alternatives to the backstop, as long as they were compatible with the Withdrawal Agreement, according to a readout of the call from the European Commission.

Britain said it was working “at pace to find a wide range of flexible and creative solutions” for the border with Ireland after Brexit, but it said the border discussion should be separate to the withdrawal deal.

“We are ready to negotiate in good faith an alternative to the backstop with provisions to ensure the Irish border issues are dealt with where they should always have been: in the negotiations on the future agreement between the U.K. and EU,” a government spokeswoman said.

Upcoming meeting

Johnson’s Brexit adviser David Frost is due in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the backstop with the Commission.

EU officials say they are listening to Johnson’s arguments to replace one of the most hotly contested elements of the divorce agreement, something the bloc has previously said it will not agree to. A British official said it was felt there had been a softening in the EU’s rhetoric around the backstop.

“It’s good that there is a vibrant discussion, ideas are put forward but it’s up to the UK government to come up with concrete proposals that would be compatible with the Withdrawal Agreement,” European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said.

Juncker underlined to Johnson that the EU’s support for Ireland was steadfast and it was very attentive to the country’s interests.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Britain’s proposals did not yet come close to what was needed.

“I think we need to be honest here, that the alternative arrangements that have been discussed to date do not do the same job as the backstop, not even close,” Coveney said in Prague following a meeting with Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek. “So let’s not pretend that solutions exist when they might not.”

In Malawi, a report by the office of the public protector, or Ombudsman, has shown that poor conditions in public hospitals are resulting in many expectant mothers having their uteruses removed during child birth. The report faulted the Ministry of Health for failing to provide sufficient staff for Obstetrics and Gynecology departments. But health authorities say efforts are being made to address the matter.
 
The report, Woes of the Womb, released last week, says more than 100 expectant mothers received care in the country’s referral hospitals and had their uteruses removed during a six-month period last year.

“Between January and July 2018, 160 uteruses were removed in the Central hospitals only.  There are some patients who we picked up because they could substantiate their cases. We will refer them to legal aid actual claim for compensation,” said Martha Chizuma, the country’s ombudswoman.

The 37-page report follows a news article published by the privately-owned weekly Malawi News in 2018 and later a documentary aired by local radio station Zodiak Radio, in which women who had their uteruses removed at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital recounted their ordeal.   
 
Victims’ stories

An alleged victim said, “When I arrived here I was told to go for a caesarian section operation because nurses said the baby inside my womb had difficulties breathing. But a day after delivery, I was referred to another operation where they removed my uterus because they said it had gone bad.”

Other women recounted similar experiences.

A second alleged victim said “I came here on the 14th and the baby was born on the 15th through an operation. But when I returned home I came back because I was feeling dizzy. Once there, they told me that my uterus was full of puss and that they had to remove it.”

The Ombudwoman report says that it is largely because of the government’s failure “to provide sufficient staff to cater for the needs for Obstetrics and Gynecology Departments in all health facilities that there are instances of compromised quality service delivery in the country.”

“Most of the time they find themselves in situations where they are simply attending to [an] emergency. So you just go the hospital, you are ok, you just waiting for delivery. But until you become an emergency yourself, that’s when you get an assistance,” said Chizuma the ombudswoman.

The report recommends health workers who are negligent in their work face disciplinary action, a view that health rights campaigners support.  

Awaiting government response

George Jobe, the executive director for Malawi Heath Equity Network, said “Our expectation is those in authority will act on the report. Punishment should be done. But not only that, it should be timely because justice delayed is almost justice denied.”

Andrew Likaka, director of quality management of digital health for the Malawi Ministry of Health, said the report’s findings are of great concern to the government. But he added disciplinary action does not happen overnight.

“When we are talking about discipline in [the] health sector, it has to be noted that there are so many agencies that are responsible for discipline, and discipline is also taken on fairness principals. It has something to do with normal disciplinary issues; we have authorities at any level of health care that address those disciplinary [issues].”

The country’s medical regulatory body, the Medical Council of Malawi, says it has so far confirmed 20 cases of women who had their uterus removed, and has warned it will bar all medical workers implicated in cases of malpractice.

 

Utah health officials say they are investigating 21 cases of a severe lung disease linked to vaping.
 
The state Department of Health announced the new number Monday, a jump from the five cases in teenagers and young adults reported last week.
 

The department says the cases stem from the use of a mix of nicotine and marijuana electronic cigarette products.
 
The symptoms of the disease include coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue, nausea and vomiting.
 
The department advises that people who vape experience any of the symptoms that they should visit doctors.
 
Health officials say the first five people found with the disease were hospitalized.
 
Their conditions have improved after treatment.

A third Georgia Democrat jumped into the race to challenge Republican Sen. David Perdue on Tuesday for a seat that could help dictate the fate of the Senate in 2020.

Business executive and 2018 candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor Sarah Riggs Amico announced her candidacy with a campaign video taking aim at Perdue’s close ties to President Donald Trump.

“Senator David Perdue and Republican leaders in Washington have failed Georgia families and communities: from farmers suffering under the GOP-led trade war, to the families at risk of losing their healthcare as Republicans try to dismantle the Affordable Care Act,” Amico said in a statement.

Perdue, a former business executive, has emerged as a close ally of President Donald Trump since his election in 2014.

Amico joins former Columbus mayor Teresa Tomlinson and Clarkston mayor Ted Terry seeking the Democratic nomination.

Her announcement comes just weeks after the auto transportation company she is executive chairwoman of filed for bankruptcy, citing unsustainable labor costs compared to its non-unionized competitors.

National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Nathan Brand called Amico a “failed business executive” in an emailed statement and touted Perdue’s “positive record of delivering results for all of Georgia.”