Syrian war observers say five people were killed in a government raid in Idlib province on Sunday, adding to the toll of more than a 100 killed in the past days. The government of President Bashar al-Assad has resumed its deadly campaign to retake control of the remaining rebel-held areas in Syria, not sparing schools or hospitals. The United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet opined what she called the “international indifference” to the plight of Syrian civilians. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

In the world of combat sports, only one emerges with a consensus thumbs-up vote.  This weekend in Britain, judges crowned the strongest digits in this year’s men’s, women’s and children’s World Thumb Wrestling Championships.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi points the way to victory.

U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators shift to Shanghai this week for their first in-person talks since a G20 truce last month, a change of scenery for two sides struggling to resolve deep differences on how to end a year-long trade war.

Expectations for progress during the two-day Shanghai meeting are low, so officials and businesses are hoping Washington and Beijing can at least detail commitments for “goodwill” gestures and clear the path for future negotiations.

These include Chinese purchases of U.S. farm commodities and the United States allowing firms to resume some sales to China’s tech giant Huawei Technologies.

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he thinks China may not want to sign a trade deal until after the 2020 election in the hope that they could then negotiate more favorable terms with a different U.S. president.

“I think probably China will say “Let’s wait,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Let’s wait and see if one of these people who gives the United States away, let’s see if one of them could get elected.”

For more than a year, the world’s two largest economies have slapped billions of dollars of tariffs on each other’s imports, disrupting global supply chains and shaking financial markets in their dispute over China’s “state capitalism” mode of doing business with the world. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at last month’s G20 summit in Osaka, Japan to restart trade talks that stalled in May, after Washington accused Beijing of reneging on major portions of a draft agreement — a collapse in the talks that prompted a steep U.S. tariff hike on $200 billion of Chinese goods.

Trump said after the Osaka meeting that he would not impose new tariffs on a final $300 billion of Chinese imports and would ease some U.S. restrictions on Huawei if China agreed to make purchases of U.S. agricultural products.

Chips and commodities

Since then, China has signaled that it would allow Chinese firms to make some tariff-free purchases of U.S. farm goods. Washington has encouraged companies to apply for waivers to a national security ban on sales to Huawei, and said it would respond to them in the next few weeks. 

But going into next week’s talks, neither side has implemented the measures that were intended to show their goodwill. That bodes ill for their chances of resolving core issues in the trade dispute, such as U.S. complaints about Chinese state subsidies, forced technology transfers and intellectual property violations.

U.S. officials have stressed that relief on U.S. sales to Huawei would apply only to products with no implications for national security, and industry watchers expect those waivers will only allow the Chinese technology giant to buy the most commoditized U.S. components.

Reuters reported last week that despite the carrot of a potential exemption from import tariffs, Chinese soybean crushers are unlikely to buy in bulk from the United States any time soon as they grapple with poor margins and longer-term doubts about Sino-U.S. trade relations. Soybeans are the largest U.S. agricultural export to China.

“They are doing this little dance with Huawei and Ag purchases,” said one source recently briefed by senior Chinese negotiators.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Friday said he “wouldn’t expect any grand deal,” at the meeting and negotiators would try to “reset the stage” to bring the talks back to where they were before the May blow-up. “We anticipate, we strongly expect the Chinese to follow through (on) goodwill and just helping the trade balance with large-scale purchases of U.S. agriculture products and services.” Kudlow said on CNBC television.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He for two days of talks in Shanghai starting on Tuesday, both sides said.

“Less politics, more business,” Tu Xinquan, a trade expert at Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics, who closely follows the trade talks, said of the possible reason Shanghai was chosen as the site for talks. “Each side can take a small step first to build some trust, followed by more actions,” Tu said of the potential goodwill gestures.

‘Do the Deal’

A delegation of U.S. company executives traveled to Beijing last week to stress to Chinese officials the urgency of a trade deal, according to three sources who asked to not be named. They cautioned Chinese negotiators in meetings that if a deal is not reached in the coming months the political calendar in China and the impending U.S. presidential election will make reaching an agreement extremely difficult.

“Do the deal. It’s going to be a slog, but if this goes past Dec. 31, it’s not going to happen,” one American executive told Reuters, citing the U.S. 2020 election campaign. Others said the timeline was even shorter.

Two sources briefed by senior-level Chinese negotiators ahead of next week’s talks said China was still demanding that all U.S. tariffs be removed as one of the conditions for a deal. Beijing is opposed to a phased withdrawal of duties, while U.S. trade officials see tariff removal — and the threat of reinstating them — as leverage for enforcing any agreement. China also is adamant that any purchase agreement for U.S. goods be at a reasonable level, and that the deal is balanced and respects Chinese legal sovereignty.

U.S. negotiators have demanded that China make changes to its laws as assurances for safeguarding U.S. companies’ know-how, an insistence that Beijing has vehemently rejected. If U.S. negotiators want progress in this area, they might be satisfied with directives issued by China’s State Council instead, one of the sources said.

One U.S.-based industry source said expectations for any kind of breakthrough during the Shanghai talks were low, and that the main objective was for each side to get clarity on the “goodwill” measures associated with the Osaka summit.

There is little clarity on which negotiating text the two sides will rely on, with Washington wanting to adhere to the pre-May draft, and China wanting to start anew with the copy it sent back to U.S. officials with numerous edits and redactions, precipitating the collapse in talks in May.

Zhang Huanbo, senior researcher at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), said he could not verify U.S. officials’ complaints that 90 percent of the deal had been agreed before the May breakdown. “We can only say there may be an initial draft. There is only zero and 100% – deal or no deal,” Zhang said.

At least five people were shot Sunday at an annual food festival in Northern California, a hospital spokeswoman says. 

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center spokeswoman Joy Alexiou says the hospital has received two victims from the shooting and expects three more. She had no information on their conditions.

Video first posted on social media sites showed people running for safety at the festival.

The festival is a nationally known three-day event that attracts thousands of garlic lovers. Sunday was the final day of the festival.

In a series of tweets over the weekend, U.S. President Trump lashed out against one of his most vocal Democratic critics, attacking Congressman Elijah Cummings and calling the Maryland lawmaker’s district “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” The comments sparked backlash from critics calling the language racist and unacceptable. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more.

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra suggested Sunday cutting short his term in office for early elections to end what he called an institutional crisis.

He said in a speech to Congress this would also involve cutting short the term of the legislature. As it stands, general elections are scheduled for July of next year.

Vizcarra’s proposal comes with Peru’s executive and legislative branches locked in a power struggle.

The president said his idea would need to be passed by the opposition-controlled legislature, and then approved in a referendum.

“The voice of the people must be heard,” Vizcarra told lawmakers, as some cheered him and others yelled insults.

“Peru is screaming for a new beginning,” Vizcarra said.

Iran and the remaining world powers in the 2015 agreement to restrain Tehran’s nuclear weapons development signaled new commitment Sunday to staying in the accord, even as Iran said it would diminish its compliance if European countries do not help alleviate the effects of U.S. economic sanctions.

Iranian diplomats met with their counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, China and Russia in Vienna. Iranian and Chinese envoys voiced their satisfaction as the meeting ended.

“The atmosphere was constructive, and the discussions were good,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters. “I cannot say that we resolved everything,” but all the parties are still “determined to save this deal.”

The head of the Chinese delegation, Fu Cong, said that there were “some tense moments” during the meeting, but “on the whole the atmosphere was very good. Friendly. And it was very professional.”

The parties met after tensions have heightened in the Middle East in recent weeks, with the U.S. and Iran both announcing they have shot down each other’s unmanned drones near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime passage through which international tankers transport at least a fifth of the world’s crude oil supply.

In addition, Britain seized an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar that London believed was shipping oil to Syria, with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard responding by taking over the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz. Britain is calling for a European-led naval mission to ensure safe shipping passage through the Strait of Hormuz, but Iran said Sunday such a mission would be send a “hostile message.”

Meanwhile, Iran has breached the size of the stockpile of enriched uranium it agreed to in the 2015 international accord and now is enriching it at 4.5% purity, marginally above the 3.67% level called for in the agreement.

Iran has warned the European signatories to the nuclear deal that they are not doing enough to alleviate the hobbling effects of U.S. economic sanctions President Donald Trump reimposed when he pulled the United States out of the pact last year on grounds that it was not restrictive enough to keep Iran from manufacturing nuclear weapons.

“As we have said, we will continue to reduce our commitments to the deal until Europeans secure Iran’s interests under the deal,” Araghchi said.

The Chinese and Iranian diplomats said a higher-level meeting of foreign ministers could be arranged soon to continue talks about the Iranian nuclear deal.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who has clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump over assessments involving Russia, Iran and North Korea, is expected to step down in the coming days, the New York Times reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

 Trump is seriously considering tapping U.S. Representative John Ratcliffe, a fellow Republican, to replace Coats in the job, a source told Reuters. 

Afghan authorities say a car-bomb-and-gun attack in Kabul has killed at least two people and injured 25 others.

Officials and witnesses said several heavily armed suicide bombers stormed a compound housing the office of Afghanistan Green Trend (AGT), a political movement headed by the country’s former spy chief, Amrullah Saleh.  Saleh is also a vice-presidential candidate of incumbent President Ashraf Ghani’s electoral team for the country’s upcoming election.  

The incident occurred just hours after Ghani and Saleh attended an election rally in Kabul as the official campaign to elect news president of Afghanistan kicked off Sunday.

The attack began with one of the assailants detonating a car packed with explosives, enabling others to enter the facility. Afghan commando forces quickly surrounded the area in their bid to neutralize the attackers.

Afghan Public Health Ministry spokesman said rescue teams have taken 25 injured people to nearby hospitals along with the two bodies.

There were no immediate claims of responsibly for the attack. Kabul has been rocked by repeated attacks in recent days, claimed both by the Taliban and loyalists of Islamic State.

Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said that Afghan forces rescued 40 people to safety and a clearing operation was underway.

Saleh is an outspoken critic of the Taliban insurgency.

President Ghani tweeted that the former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) “has survived a complex attack by enemies of the state.”

Twenty-two year old Egan Bernal was set to make history Sunday, as the first Colombian to win the Tour de France—and the youngest cyclist to place first in more than a century.

The 2019 edition of the Tour de France was marked by high drama, including sharp weather swings and a crushing defeat for the French.

Only towards the end did a clear winner emerge in Colombia’s Egan Bernal.

Interviewed on French TV ahead Sunday’s final sprint from the town of Rambouillet to Paris, Bernal said he was still trying to digest the events. He said he felt good as he raced, but was counting each kilometer that passed. Only when he crossed the line on the next-to-last stage of the race, did he realize he would win.

This year’s edition marked the highest route in the Tour’s history, including five summit finishes. That was a plus for Bernal, who is strong on hills.

The race started July 6 in Brussels. It wound its way through champagne and wine country, passed through ancient villages and towns and scaled the Alps and Pyrenees. It has always been a social as well as a sporting event; local residents and diehard fans line roads at every stage, cheering the riders on.

It seemed like this Tour would finally bring France its first victory in more than three decades. But late last week, French favorite Julian Alaphilippe slid behind.

The riders endured some extreme weather this year, including soaring temperatures and a massive hailstorm that triggered mudslides.

Four Turkish citizens have been freed a week after they were kidnapped at gunpoint in Nigeria, the police said.  

Police said they had “successfully secured the release” of the men on Friday and that no ransom was paid to the kidnappers.

Spokesman Frank Mba told AFP on Sunday that the four were in “good health.”

“We have three suspects in custody and recovered one AK-47 rifle. We are now intensifying our search for others involved,” Mba said.

The gunmen snatched the four men after storming a bar in a village in the western Kwara state last Saturday.

Local media said the Turks were working for a construction firm in the state.

Kidnapping for ransom is common in Nigeria, especially in the oil-rich south and the northwest.

Gangs have often targeted foreign workers, and victims are usually released after a ransom is paid.

Ten Turkish sailors were kidnapped by armed men from a cargo ship off the Nigerian coast earlier this month.

The Nigerian navy has said it is searching for the men in the Niger delta area.

“Hostile” and “provocative” is how Iran labeled a proposal to form a European coalition to escort tankers through the Persian Gulf.

“We heard that they intend to send a European fleet to the Persian Gulf, which naturally carries a hostile message, is provocative and will increase tensions,” government spokesman Ali Rabiel said Sunday, according to state media.

Tensions have been mounting as Iran has become increasingly aggressive in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane that passes by Iranian territorial waters.

Earlier this month, Iranian Revolutionary Guard commandos descending from helicopters, with several small boats in support, took control of a British-flagged oil tanker, the Stena Impero, transiting the strait.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt labeled Tehran’s actions an “act of state piracy” and said Britain was working to create a European-led naval mission to protect ships trying to navigate the strait.

The United States has proposed building and leading a similar naval coalition in recent weeks.

Tensions between Iran and the West have risen steadily in the year since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 international accord aimed at restraining Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and reimposed economic sanctions against Iran to curb its international oil trade.

In addition to seizing the British oil tanker, Iran has also targeted U.S. assets in recent weeks.

In late June, Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance drone after alleging it violated Iranian airspace, a claim the U.S. denied.

The Pentagon said recently that forces aboard the USS Boxer downed an Iranian drone after it “closed within a threatening range” while the ship was in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz.

While numerous U.S. officials have stated that Washington does not want war with Iran, U.S. military officials have warned the risk for a miscalculation has been increasing.
 

Two South Koreans and 15 Russians returned to South Korea Sunday, about 10 days after their boat drifted into North Korean waters, Seoul officials said.

The crew members were aboard a Russia-flagged fishing boat when it was detained by North Korea July 17. The ship had been on its way to Russia after leaving South Korea’s eastern Sokcho port.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry said in a statement the crew arrived aboard the same boat at Sokcho port Sunday, a day after they left the North’s Wonsan port. Details of how they were detained, treated and repatriated were still unclear as the ministry said North Korea hasn’t informed South Korea of its decision to release the crew. The ministry said it learned of the boat’s departure from Wonsan on Saturday through various channels that it refused to disclose.

The ministry statement said it “positively” assessed the North’s repatriation of the crew members.

Ties between the Koreas remain cool amid a lack of progress in U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear program.

Seoul said North Korea is holding six other South Koreans it has arrested in recent years on anti-state and other charges.

Fishing boats drift across the Koreas’ eastern sea border in both directions. Earlier Sunday, South Korea’s military said a North Korean wooden fishing boat carrying three people crossed the maritime border Saturday night, prompting a South Korean navy ship to tow it to a South Korean port.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North Koreans were under an investigation. South Korea typically returns North Korean fishermen unless they are suspected of espionage. But it also lets them resettle in the South if they want, often triggering angry response from the North.

When Ugnius Zilinskas came to Kenyon College in Ohio to play on the basketball team, he was welcomed with open arms.

“They kind of take you as a family member,” said the student from Kedainiai, Lithuania.

Zilinskas, a junior, is one of roughly 27,000 foreign students who play on U.S. college sports teams, out of more than 1 million foreign students who attend school in the U.S. Stars like basketball player Hakeem Olajuwon of Nigeria and soccer player Christine Sinclair of Canada began as

As Europe’s record-breaking heat wave drifts toward the Arctic, it threatens to accelerate the melting of ice in Greenland, which already started earlier than normal this year, climate scientists warned Saturday.

After breaking records over Europe, the heat wave has swept over Scandinavia and is predicted to move toward Greenland, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

“As it is forecast to move over the Arctic it will potentially bring a large amount of energy that will melt ice, both sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and the ice sheet surface over the next 3 to 5 days,” Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), told AFP.

Early, warm melting season

That heat will add to a summer where the melting season started early and “persistent warm conditions have led to a very large loss of ice.”

According to DMI’s models an estimated 170 metric gigatons of water have been added to the world’s oceans from melted ice and snow between July 1 to July 26.

100 metric gigatons contribute to about 0.28 millimeters (0.01 inches) of global sea level rise.

The expected average would be about 60 to 80 metric gigatons of ice over the same period.

“So we’re well over what we would normally have,” Mottram said, emphasizing that the rate of melting can vary greatly from one year to the next.

Summer 2012 set record

There are fears that this year’s ice melt in Greenland could approach the record level set in 2012.

In “2012 summer conditions were even more extreme and for several days there was quite intense melt all the way to the summit of the ice sheet at 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) above sea level,” Mottram said.

A similar melting event has not been observed this year so far, but with the heat wave approaching Greenland there could be a repeat.

Although the melting has been persistent this year, with relatively high temperatures day after day, “though within the normal range,” it is still unlike 2012 when melting was much more driven by “several very extreme melting days,” according to Mottram.

But Mottram also noted that higher than average melting coincides with a trend of “increasing melt rates over the last two decades.”

Melting ice in Greenland is also quite closely linked to global temperatures, meaning that as global temperatures rise, “we expect more melting to occur.”
 

France wants to reach a deal with the U.S. on taxing tech giants by a Group of 7 meeting in late August, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said Saturday.

He was responding to U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Friday vowed “substantial” retaliation against France for a law passed this month on taxing digital companies even if their headquarters are elsewhere.

The law would affect U.S.-based global giants like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, among others.

Trump denounced French President Emmanuel Macron’s “foolishness,” though they discussed the issue by phone Friday, according to the White House.

Macron confirmed that he had a long conversation with Trump, stressing the pair would “continue to work together in view of the G-7.”

“We will discuss international taxation, trade and collective security,” he said Saturday.

US companies not the target

His office earlier said Macron had told Trump that the tax on the tech giants was not just in France’s interest but was something they both had a stake in.

Neither side revealed if they had also discussed Trump’s threat to tax French wines in retaliation.

Le Maire took the same line at a news conference Saturday: “We wish to work closely with our American friends on a universal tax on digital activities. We hope between now and the end of August — the G-7 heads of state meeting in Biarritz — to reach an agreement.”

Leaders of the Group of Seven highly industrialized countries are to meet in the southwestern French city Aug. 24-26.

Le Maire emphasized, “There is no desire to specifically target American companies,” since the 3% tax would be levied on revenues generated from services to French consumers by all of the world’s largest tech firms, including Chinese and European ones.

US trade investigation

But Deputy White House spokesman Judd Deere noted earlier that France’s digital services tax was already the subject of an investigation at the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, potentially opening the door to economic sanctions.

“The Trump administration has consistently stated that it will not sit idly by and tolerate discrimination against U.S.-based firms,” Deere said in a statement.

The French law aims to plug a taxation gap that has seen some internet heavyweights paying next to nothing in European countries where they make huge profits, because their legal base is in smaller EU states.

France has said it would withdraw the tax if an international agreement was reached, and Paris hopes to include all OECD countries by the end of 2020.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is a Paris-based forum that advises the world’s advanced economies.
 

Residents signing up for food stamps in Minnesota are provided a brochure about domestic violence, but it doesn’t matter if they read it. The fact it was made available could allow them to qualify for government food aid if their earnings or savings exceed federal limits. 
 
As odd as that might sound, it’s not unusual.  
 
Thirty-eight other states also have gotten around federal income or asset limits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by using federal welfare grants to produce materials informing food stamp applicants about other available social services. Illinois, for example, produced a flyer briefly listing 21 services, a website and email address, and a telephone number for more information.  
 
Former President Barack Obama’s administration encouraged the tactic as a way for states to route federal food aid to households that might not otherwise qualify under a strict enforcement of federal guidelines. Now President Donald Trump’s administration is proposing to end the practice — potentially eliminating food stamps for more than 3 million of the nation’s 36 million recipients.  

Ideological clash
 
The proposed rule change, outlined this past week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has highlighted the ideological clash between Trump’s attempts to tighten government entitlement programs and efforts in some states to widen the social safety net.  
 
It’s also stirred outrage and uncertainty among some who stand to be affected.  
 
“I think it’s pretty rotten,” said Lisa Vega, a single mother of two teenage boys in suburban Chicago who applied for food stamps last month after losing her job. Because she receives regular support payments from her ex-husband, Vega said, her eligibility for food stamps likely hinges on the income eligibility exceptions that Trump’s administration is trying to end.  
 
“A lot of these politicians don’t realize that us Americans out here are living paycheck to paycheck, one crisis away from being homeless,” Vega said. “You’re just going to take this kind of stuff away from us when we need it the most?” 
 

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the proposed rule change is intended to close a “loophole” that states have misused to “effectively bypass important eligibility guidelines.” 
 
Current federal guidelines forbid people who make more than 130 percent of the poverty level from getting food stamps. But many states believe the cap is too restrictive, especially in cities with a high cost of living, prompting them to bypass the limits. 
 
At issue is a federal policy that allows people who receive benefits through other government programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, to automatically qualify for the food aid program known as SNAP. The practice, called categorical eligibility, is intended partly to reduce duplicative paperwork. It has also allowed states to grant food stamps to more people. 
 
In 2009, Obama’s Agriculture Department sent a memo to its regional directors encouraging states to adopt what it termed as “broad-based categorical eligibility” for food stamps by providing applicants with a minimal TANF-funded benefit such as an informational pamphlet or telephone hotline. Among other things, Obama’s administration said the expanded eligibility could help families stung by a weak economy and promote savings among low-income households. 
 
Most states adopted the strategy. Thirty states and the District of Columbia are using income limits higher than the federal standard of $1,316 monthly for an individual or $2,252 for a family of three. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have either waived asset limits entirely or set them above federal thresholds, according to the Agriculture Department. 

Millionaire’s testimony
 
The department’s inspector general has raised concerns about the tactic. It also came under public scrutiny last year after self-described millionaire Rob Undersander testified before the Minnesota legislature that he and his wife had legally received about $6,000 in food stamps over 19 months because his considerable assets and Individual Retirement Account withdrawals didn’t count against his eligibility. 

Undersander, who is a Trump supporter, told The Associated Press this week that he had been trying to make a point — not game the system — and praised Trump’s administration for proposing to tighten eligibility standards.  
 
“I think that states just found this loophole, and then I think they’ve been abusing a loophole,” Undersander said.  
 
Although Undersander failed to persuade Minnesota to change its policy, critics were more successful in Mississippi. On July 1, Mississippi implemented a state law prohibiting its Department of Human Services from using noncash benefits in other programs to trigger food stamp eligibility.  
 
Under the Trump administration’s proposed rule change, residents in all states would need to be authorized to receive at least $50 a month in TANF benefits for a minimum of six months in order to automatically qualify for food stamps. Subsidies for child care, employment and work-related transportation would still count. But the proposal would stop states from linking eligibility to the receipt of an informational brochure.   
 
The Minnesota Department of Human Services has estimated that 12,000 of its roughly 400,000 food stamp recipients could be cut off if the federal government eliminates its ability to use a brochure as justification for offering food stamps to those earning up to 165% of the federal poverty level instead of the federal threshold of 130% of the poverty mark.  
 
Similar estimates aren’t available for all states.  
 
Advocates for the poor say states’ exceptions to federal guidelines have helped people gradually transition off food stamps when they get modest raises at work and have enabled seniors and the disabled to save money without going hungry. Advocates also say the eligibility exceptions have helped people such as Vega, whose income may be slightly above the federal threshold yet have little money left over after paying high housing and utility bills.  
 
“I think the Trump administration is trying to make a lot of hay out of how this policy option functions in practice to draw a lot of skepticism about it,” said Nolan Downey, an attorney at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, who helped Vega apply for food stamps. “But I think if people have an understanding of what the outcome really was meant to be, it’s something that seems a lot less dubious.” 

Amid the bombed-out wreckage of a site that once hosted dozens of Mosul’s traditional maqam players, Iraqi musician Saad Rajab Bacha plays his ney flute to remember the city’s glorious days before it came under the control of Islamic State (IS).

Bacha, 65, fled Mosul in June 2014 after IS fighters overran the city and established a hard-line rule that deemed all musical instruments, including his ney, a violation of Islamic law.

When he returned home two years later, he found that much of his beloved city had been reduced to rubble in the Iraqi fight against IS.

The sad melodies that emerge from his ney come as Iraq this month celebrates the second anniversary of recapturing the city from IS.

City in ruins

Bacha says that despite the initial optimism for a new life after the jihadists’ defeat, much of the city still lies in ruins and its artists, among thousands of residents, are unable to return because of lack of essential services.

“I feel like art has been slayed,” Bacha told VOA, adding that Mosul’s artists were either killed or had to flee because of charges of blasphemy by IS.

“The effort of artists in Mosul has been lost due to those extremists who hate life, music and art,” he added.

Bacha now resides in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s capital, Irbil, but frequently visits his hometown, Mosul, to help arrange musical events in the city. He has been playing the Iraqi-style ney flute for more than 30 years, establishing a name among Mosul residents for his contribution to Iraqi traditional maqam music.

Before IS attacked the city and banned music from its residents, Bacha helped organize musical events at Maqam House, which was built 25 years ago in western Mosul’s district known as the Old City.

“This place is now a big wound in my heart,” Bacha told VOA, sitting by the remnants of Maqam House, which was destroyed by an airstrike in 2017. “A few years ago we were all present here, working together, enjoying our times, and playing together. Now this is all a mere memory.”

Mosul is Iraq’s second-largest city with a population of more than 1 million that stayed in IS’s grip for three years. Then-Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi officially declared victory in the city in July 2017.

The jihadist group has since lost control of all territories it once ruled as part of its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and eastern Syria.

The road ahead

Following the IS defeat, the U.N. warned that the road ahead was “extremely challenging” because of the degree of destruction the war left behind. It estimated that more than $700 million was needed to stabilize the city and make it livable again.

Two years after the military operation, local and international organizations say large parts of the city remain unrecovered, particularly in the western part of the city where fierce fighting between IS and Iraqi forces took place.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, more than 300,000 residents of the city are still displaced with no homes to return to. The organization found that 138,000 houses were damaged or destroyed during the conflict.  In West Mosul alone, it estimated that there are still more than 53,000 houses flattened and thousands more damaged.

“For them, the suffering of the war that ended two years ago remains a daily battle for survival,” Rishana Haniffa, the Iraq country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said on the anniversary of Mosul’s recapture this month.

“It’s a disgrace that after two years, thousands of families and children still have to live in displacement camps and in abysmal conditions because their neighborhoods are still in ruins,” Haniffa added.

Bodies under rubble

People who have returned to the city say many bodies of civilians and IS militants who were killed in the battle still remain under the rubble of the Old City.

Residents who were interviewed by VOA expressed disappointment at the government’s failure to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure and compensate the victims, particularly those who were incapacitated by the conflict.

Raad Ahmed is one of the victims who lost both his feet during clashes between Iraqi forces and IS. Having also lost his younger brother in the war, Ahmed needs to work as a vegetable seller to provide bread for his family as well as his brother’s.

“I went to the disabled office and asked them to give me a wheelchair because I work. The manager of the office told me, ‘You don’t deserve it,’ ” Ahmed told VOA, adding that the money he made as a vendor was not enough to provide for his family and obtain his special needs.

He asked rhetorically, “If I don’t deserve this basic right, then what do I deserve? What do we deserve from this country? All we have gained from it is pain, the destruction of homes, and the death of our youth.”

Iraqi officials have publicly announced that recovering from damage caused by IS in the war is beyond their means and that they need generous international aid to enable them to restore the nation.

An international conference in Kuwait in early 2018 collected about $30 billion, mostly in credit and investments, to help rebuild Iraq’s economy and infrastructure. However, that amount fell far short of Iraq’s expectation of $90 billion for post-IS recovery.

President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran is at a crossroads.

His administration is trying to decide whether to risk stoking international tensions even more by ending one of the last remaining components of the 2015 nuclear deal. The U.S. faces a Thursday deadline to decide whether to extend or cancel sanctions waivers to foreign companies working on Iran’s civilian nuclear program as permitted under the deal.

Ending the waivers would be the next logical step in the campaign and it’s a move favored by Trump’s allies in Congress who endorse a tough approach to Iran. But it also would escalate tensions with Iran and with some European allies, and two officials say a divided administration is likely to keep the waivers afloat with temporary extensions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The mere fact that the administration is divided on the issue — it’s already postponed an announcement twice, according to the officials — is the latest in a series of confusing signals that Trump has sent over Iran, causing confusion among supporters and critics of the president about just what he hopes to achieve in the standoff with the Islamic Republic.

Some fear the mixed messages could trigger open conflict amid a buildup of U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf region.

“It’s always a problem when you don’t have a coherent policy because you are vulnerable to manipulation and the mixed messages have created the environment for dangerous miscalculation,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Trump has simultaneously provoked an escalatory cycle with Iran while also making clear to Iran that he is averse to conflict.”

The public face of the pressure campaign is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he rejects suggestions the strategy is less than clear cut.

“America has a strategy which we are convinced will work,” he said this past week. “We will deny Iran the wealth to foment terror around the world and build out their nuclear program.”

Yet the administration’s recent actions — which included an unusual mediation effort by Kentucky’s anti-interventionist Sen. Rand Paul — have frustrated some of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Those actions also have led to unease in Europe and Asia, where the administration’s attempt to rally support for a coalition to protect ships transiting the Gulf has drawn only lukewarm responses.

Trump withdrew last year from the 2015 deal that Iran signed with the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China. The agreement lifted punishing economic sanctions in exchange for limits on the Iranian nuclear program. Critics in the United States believed it didn’t do enough to thwart Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons and enabled Iran to rebuild its economy and continue funding militants throughout the Middle East.

Trump, who called it “the worst deal in history,” began reinstating sanctions, and they have hobbled an already weak Iranian economy.

Iran responded by blowing through limits on its low-enriched uranium stockpiles and announcing plans to enrich uranium beyond levels permitted under the deal. Iran has taken increasingly provocative actions against ships in the Gulf, including the seizure of a British vessel, and the downing of a U.S. drone.

Sometime before Thursday, the administration will have to either cancel or extend waivers that allow European, Russian and Chinese companies to work in Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The officials familiar with the “civil nuclear cooperation waivers” say a decision in principle has been made to let them expire but that they are likely to be extended for 90 more days to allow companies time to wind down their operations.

At the same time, Trump gave his blessing to Paul to meet last week with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in New York to attend a U.N. meeting. Officials familiar with the development said Paul raised the idea with Trump at a golf outing and the president nodded his assent.

Deal critics, including Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, say the waivers should be revoked because they give Iran access to technology that could be used for weapons. In particular, they have targeted a waiver that allows conversion work at the once-secret Fordow site. The other facilities are the Bushehr nuclear power station, the Arak heavy water plant and the Tehran Research Reactor.

Deal supporters say the waivers give international experts a valuable window into Iran’s atomic program that might otherwise not exist. They also say some of the work, particularly on nuclear isotopes that can be used in medicine at the Tehran reactor, is humanitarian in nature.

Trump has been coy about his plans. He said this past week that “it could go either way very easily. Very easily. And I’m OK either way it goes.”

That vacillation has left administration hawks such as Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton in a quandary.

Bolton has long advocated military action against Iran with the goal of changing the Tehran government and, while Pompeo may agree, he is more sensitive to Trump’s reluctance to military intervention, according to the officials.

“Pompeo is trying to reconcile contradictory impulses by focusing on the means rather than ends, which is sanctions,” said Sadjadpour. “But rather than bringing clarity, Trump has brought further confusion by promoting the idea of Rand Paul as an envoy.”

This has given Iran an opening that it is trying to exploit, he said.

“For years, the U.S. has tried to create fissures between hard-liners and moderates in Tehran and now Iran is trying to do the exact same thing in Washington.”

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