Two French charities pulled another 81 migrants from the waters off Libya Sunday, bringing the number of those it rescued at sea since Friday to 211.

Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranean jointly operate the Norwegian-flagged rescue ship Ocean Viking.

Most of those it picked up over the past three days are Sudanese men, including the 81 rescued from a flimsy rubber dinghy Sunday. Witnesses on the Ocean Viking say the men on the raft waved and cheered when they saw the ship approaching.

“We’re the only ones in the area, the Libyan coast guard doesn’t respond,” SOS Mediterranean rescue coordinator Nicholas Romaniuk told an AFP reporter.

He said he expects more migrants leaving Libya over the next few days because of good weather and the Eid al-Adha holiday reducing the number of police patrolling the beaches.

Meanwhile, a Spanish aid group, Open Arms, said it has 160 migrants aboard its rescue ship, including three who need “specialized medical attention.”

Open Arms founder Oscar Camps made another appeal Sunday to European governments for help, especially Italy, which is the closest safe port.

“Tenth day on board on a scorching Sunday in August. We have 160 reasons to carry on, 160 human beings who have the right to disembark at a safe port. Shame on you, Europe,” Camps tweeted.

Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Italy is not “legally bound nor disposed to take in clandestine unidentified migrants.”

Italy has complained it has done more than its share of allowing migrants to dock and wants other EU nations to do more to help.

Thousands of migrants from Africa try to reach EU shores from Libya every year. Those who are not rescued by charities are either left on unsafe boats to or picked up by the Libyan coast guard and returned to Libya, where they are housed in detention facilities.

Some of those facilities have been caught in the fighting between rival governments in Libya. A missile slammed into one detention building outside Tripoli in July, killing 53.

 

Gold medal fencer Race Imboden says he has no regrets about getting down on one knee instead of standing before the U.S. flag at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.

Imboden is one of two U.S. athletes facing sanctions from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee for their acts of protest at the medal ceremonies.

African American hammer thrower Gwen Berry raised a clenched fist while the “Star Spangled Banner” played during her team’s gold medal ceremony on Saturday.

Imboden told CNN television Sunday that the two mass shootings last week in El Paso and Dayton while he was in Peru were the catalyst for his protest during the medal ceremony on Friday.

Imboden said he represents what he calls “white privilege” and that it is time for a different face to be seen objecting to what is going on in the U.S. and the world.

“Racism, gun control, mistreatment of immigrants and a president who spreads hate” are more important to him at this time than a gold medal, he said.

Berry said she raised her clenched fist to protest injustice in the U.S. and what she described as a “president who’s making it worse.”

Trump has not commented on the protests. But U.S. Olympics officials said, “Every athlete competing at the 2019 Pan American Games commits to terms of eligibility, including to refrain from demonstrations that are political in nature. … We respect their (Imboden and Berry) rights to express their viewpoints, but are disappointed that they chose not to honor their commitment. Our leadership are reviewing what consequences may result.”

Imboden’s “taking a knee” came three years after National Football League quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem at his San Francisco 49ers games, setting off a nationwide debate. He said he was protesting police brutality against young black men.

The 49ers released Kaepernick and he has not been able to find another NFL job since.  

Berry’s raised fist hearkened back to the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, when U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists to protest violence and racism. A photo of their gesture has since become a symbol of dissent.

 

Once considered the Islamic State’s de facto capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa is slowly recovering, nearly two years after its liberation from the terror group.

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) liberated Raqqa from IS in October 2017. But during the 3-month-long battle, much of the city’s infrastructure was reduced to rubble.

Local officials complain the international coalition to defeat IS, which helped free the city, lost interest in rebuilding Raqqa as the focus has shifted to other areas recently liberated from IS.

“We used to meet second-tier coalition officials – sometimes from the first tier,” said Abdullah Aryan, head of the planning department at the Raqqa Civil Council, which has been largely responsible for reconstruction.

“But now we only get visits by an employee from the French ministry of defense or British ministry of agriculture or an employee responsible for civil society in the U.S. government,” he told VOA.

Emergency solutions

The lack of funding is forcing local officials to concentrate the limited money on restoring essential services, which will allow more displaced people to return.

For other restoration projects, they rely on low-cost efforts.

“To repair roads and bridges, we had to use primitive methods. We basically brought rubble from elsewhere in the city and used it to backfill destroyed bridges and roads,” Abdullah al-Ali, an engineer with the Raqqa Reconstruction Committee, said.

“We have too little money for anything more than this emergency solution,” al-Ali added.

According to local officials, the battle against IS destroyed nine main bridges over the Euphrates River and nearby irrigation canals. So far only three bridges have been repaired.

City in ruins

Upon returning, Raqqa residents find much of the city still littered with wreckage.

“We found our properties were knocked to the ground,” said Abdulkarim Issa, 41, who returned to Raqqa five months after it was liberated.

Issa pointed to a nearby building, destroyed in fighting, but that recently had been rebuilt. “But the owners of another building were asked to pay 1 billion Syrian pounds (roughly US $2 million) to rebuild it. But they didn’t have that money, so they went to regime-controlled areas,” he told VOA.

The deteriorating local economy makes some returnees question their decision.  

“The economic situation is bad,” said Um Hassan, whose children chose not to return to Raqqa, citing a lack of job opportunities.

“The market movement is slow and prices are too high. And there is no electricity,” she added.

Return of extremism?

If some progress isn’t made soon in Raqqa, local officials warn, they worry extremism could rise again, here and in other areas liberated from IS.

“War on terror isn’t only military. If we don’t pay attention to agriculture, education and health care in the next 10 years, a new generation of terrorists will rise here,” Aryan, of the Raqqa Civil Council, said.

He said that during four years of IS rule, children, in particular, were educated with the most extremist curriculum.

“We need to act fast and amend the situation before it’s too late,” Aryan said.

US contribution

The United States last year cut about $230 million in funding for northeast Syria. Washington said other members of the anti-IS coalition, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, should increase financial contributions to the Syrian rebuilding effort.

Despite the cuts, the U.S. remains the largest single national humanitarian donor for the Syrian response, providing nearly $8.1 billion in humanitarian assistance since the start of the crisis for displaced people inside Syria and in the region.

The U.S. has also been a major contributor of mine-clearance efforts in Raqqa and other parts of Syria, where IS and other militant groups have left behind thousands of landmines and other improvised explosives.

From 2013 to 2018, the U.S. contributed more than $81 million to humanitarian mine action efforts in northeast Syria, according to a State Department annual report on U.S. mine removal efforts worldwide.

 

The issue of gun violence has been dominating U.S. political debate in the wake of mass shootings last weekend in Texas and Ohio.  While members of Congress are on their August recess, Democratic presidential candidates are calling for action and Republican President Donald Trump is promising more rigorous screening of gun buyers.  VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports.

Once considered Islamic State’s de facto capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa is slowly recovering, nearly two years after its liberation from the Islamic State terror group. Local officials and residents complain there is too little money to rebuild their city. VOA’s Sirwan Kajjo reports from Raqqa.

Former defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse formally launched his bid for Sri Lanka’s presidency Sunday, vowing to battle “extremist terrorism” in the wake of the deadly Easter Sunday suicide attacks.

The 70-year-old — and his ex-president brother, Mahinda — have been critical of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s handling of the bombings, which were blamed on a local Islamist jihadi group in the Buddhist-majority nation.

The attacks targeting three churches and three hotels claimed the lives of at least 258 people and left nearly 500 wounded. Since then, the country has been under a state of emergency.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse will stand for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or People’s Front) party, which was formed recently by his older brother, who ruled for a decade from 2005.

The SLPP is a breakaway faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which is nominally led by current President Maithripala Sirisena.

Highlighting frequent schisms in the country’s politics, the SLFP in turn broke away from a coalition with premier Wickremesinghe’s right-wing United National Party (UNP) earlier this year.

“I will not allow extremist terrorism under my presidency,” Gotabhaya Rajapakse said at the launch of his campaign for presidential elections, which are due later this year.

He was in charge of the defense ministry as its top bureaucrat when security forces crushed Tamil rebels and ended a 37-year separatist war in May 2009.

The no-holds-barred military campaign also triggered allegations of grave human rights abuses, including the killing of up to 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final months of fighting.

Gothabhaya Rajapakse is currently on bail facing prosecution for allegedly siphoning off millions of rupees of state cash to build a monument for his parents when his brother was president.

He also faces a civil suit in the United States for allegedly causing the death of a prominent anti-establishment newspaper editor in Sri Lanka in January 2009.

Wickremesinghe has indicated he too wants to run for president, but his party is yet to nominate an official candidate amid major internal clashes over his leadership.

Incumbent Sirisena also plans to run again.

 

Myanmar troops and emergency responders scrambled to provide aid in flood-hit parts of the country Sunday after rising waters forced residents to flee by boat and a landslide killed at least 52 people.

Every year monsoon rains hammer Myanmar and other countries across Southeast Asia, submerging homes, displacing residents and triggering landslides.

But this season’s deluge has tested disaster response after a fatal landslide on Friday in southeastern Mon state was followed by heavy flooding that reached the roofs of houses and treetops in nearby towns.

Hundreds of soldiers, firefighters and local rescue workers were still pulling bodies and vehicles out of the muddy wreckage of Paung township on Sunday.

“The latest death toll we have from the landslide in Mon state was 52,” Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told AFP.

As the rainy season reaches its peak, the country’s armed forces are pitching in and have readied helicopters to deliver supplies.

“Access to affected regions is still good. Our ground forces can reach the areas so far,” Zaw Min Tun said.

Heavy rains pounded other parts of Mon, Karen and Kachin states, flooding roads and destroying bridges that crumbled under the weight of the downpour.

But the bulk of the relief effort is focused on hard-hit Mon, which sits on the coast of the Andaman sea.

About two-thirds of the state’s Ye township remained flooded, an administrator said, as drone footage showed only the tops of houses, tree branches and satellite dishes poking above the waters.

‘We thought we were dead’

Families realized they had to leave in the early hours Sunday, packing possessions into boats, rowing towards higher ground or swimming away.

Than Htay, a 40-year-old from Ye town, told AFP that water rose to their waists around 02:00 am and she and her family members started shouting for help.

The heavy rains muffled their pleas but a boat happened to pass by and gave them a ride.

“That’s why we survived. We thought we were dead,” she said.

Another resident said this year’s flooding was the worst they had experienced.

Floodwaters have submerged more than 4,000 houses in the state and displaced more than 25,000 residents who have sought shelter in monasteries and pagodas, according to state-owned Global New Light of Myanmar.

Vice President Henry Van Thio visited landslide survivors in a Paung township village on Saturday and “spoke of his sorrow” while promising relief, the paper reported.

The search for victims continued later Sunday though the rain has made the process more difficult.

“We are still working. We will continue searching in the coming days as well,” Paung township administrator Zaw Moe Aung said.

Climate scientists in 2015 ranked Myanmar at the top of a global list of nations hardest hit by extreme weather.

That year more than 100 people died in floods that also displaced hundreds of thousands.

 

Syrian government forces captured an important village in the northwestern province of Idlib on Sunday, drawing close to a major town in the last rebel stronghold in the country, state media and opposition activists said.

 The capture of Habeet opens up an approach to southern regions of Idlib, which is home to some 3 million people, many of them displaced by fighting in other parts of the country. Habeet is also close to the town of Khan Sheikhoun, which has been held by rebels since 2012, and to parts of the highway linking the capital, Damascus, with the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest.
 
Syrian troops have been trying to secure the M5 highway, which has been closed since 2012. Idlib is a stronghold for al-Qaida-linked militants and other armed groups.
 
Syrian troops have been attacking Idlib and a stretch of land around it since April 30. The three-month campaign of airstrikes and shelling has killed more than 2,000 people on both sides and displaced some 400,000.
 
The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said the Syrian army captured the village after fierce fighting with al-Qaida-linked militants.
 
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitor, described the capture of Habeet as “the most important advance” by government forces since April 30. It said the overnight fighting left 18 insurgents and nine pro-government gunmen dead.
 
Syrian troops have been pushing their way into Idlib and rebel-held northern parts of Hama province in recent weeks under the cover of intense airstrikes and shelling.
 
In Damascus, meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad attended Eid al-Adha prayers in a mosque.
 
State news agency SANA showed Assad attending the Muslim prayers early Sunday at Afram Mosque along with top officials, including the prime minister and the country’s grand mufti.
 
Over the past few years, Assad’s forces have been able to capture most areas controlled by rebels in other parts of the country, including the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
 
Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, marks the willingness of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham to Christians and Jews) to sacrifice his son.

 

 

Tanzania was in mourning Sunday, preparing to bury 69 people who perished when a crashed fuel tanker exploded as crowds rushed to syphon off leaking petrol.

President John Magufuli declared a period of mourning through Monday following the deadly blast near the town of Morogoro, west of Dar es Salaam.

He will be represented at the funerals by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, an official statement said.

“We’re currently mourning the loss of 69 people, the last of whom died while being transferred by helicopter to the national hospital in Dar es Salaam,” Majaliwa told residents in comments broadcast on Tanzanian television.

The number of injured stood at 66, he said.

The burials will start Sunday afternoon, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Jenista Mhagama announced during the morning after relatives identified the dead.

“The preparations for the burials have been completed. Individual graves have been dug and the coffins are ready,” Mhagama said, adding that experts would be available to offer psychological counselling to the victims’ relatives.

DNA tests would be carried out on bodies that were no longer recognizable, Mhagama said, adding that families could take the remains of their loved ones and organize their own burials if they preferred.

In the latest in a series of similar disasters in Africa, 39 seriously hurt patients had been taken to hospital in Dar es Salaam while 17 others were being treated in Morogoro, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of the economic capital of Tanzania.

Footage from the scene showed the truck engulfed in flames and huge clouds of black smoke, with charred bodies. The burnt-out remains of motorcycle taxis lie scattered on the ground among scorched trees.

A video posted on social media showed dozens of people carrying yellow jerricans around the truck.

‘No-one wanted to listen’

“We arrived at the scene with two neighbors just after the truck was overturned. While some good Samaritans were trying to get the driver and the other two people out of the truck, others were jostling each other, equipped with jerricans, to collect petrol,” teacher January Michael told AFP.

“At the same time, someone was trying to pull the battery out of the vehicle. We warned that the truck could explode at any moment but no one wanted to listen, so we went on our way, but we had barely turned on our heels when we heard the explosion.”

President Magufuli called Saturday for people to stop the dangerous practice of stealing fuel in such a way, a common event in many poor parts of Africa.

He issued a statement saying he was “very shocked” by the looting of fuel from damaged vehicles.

“There are vehicles that carry dangerous fuel oil, as in this case in Morogoro, there are others that carry toxic chemicals or explosives, let’s stop this practice, please,” Magufuli said.

Last month, 45 people were killed and more than 100 injured in central Nigeria when a petrol tanker crashed and then exploded as people tried to take the fuel.

Among the deadliest such disasters, 292 people lost their lives in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in July 2010, and in September 2015 at least 203 people died the South Sudan town of Maridi.

 

 

Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir said that they eased restrictions Sunday in most parts of Srinagar, the main city, ahead of an Islamic festival following India’s decision to strip the region of its constitutional autonomy.

Magistrate Shahid Choudhary in a tweet said that more than 250 ATMs have been made functional and bank branches opened for people to withdraw money ahead of Monday’s Eid al-Adha festival.

There was no immediate independent confirmation of reports by authorities that people were visiting shopping areas for festival purchases because all communications and the internet remain cut off for a seventh day.

Authorities appear to be acting with utmost caution because of a fear of a backlash from residents who have been forced to stay indoors since last Monday.

India’s main opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said there are reports of violence and “people dying” in the region. Talking to reporters in New Delhi, Gandhi said “things are going very wrong there,” and called for the Indian government to make clear what is happening.

Authorities in Srinagar said there have been instances of stone pelting by protesters but no gun firing by security forces in the past six days. Television images showed movement of cars and people in some parts of Kashmir.

State-run All India Radio quoted the region’s top bureaucrat, Chief Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, as saying that people were coming out of their homes for Eid shopping. He also said that Srinagar and other towns witnessed good road traffic Saturday.

Modi promises normalcy

On Thursday, Modi assured the people of Jammu and Kashmir that normalcy would gradually return and that the government was ensuring that the current restrictions do not dampen the Islamic festival.

New Delhi rushed tens of thousands of additional soldiers to one of the world’s most militarized regions to prevent unrest and protests after Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government revoked Kashmir’s special constitutional status and downgrading its statehood. Modi said the move was necessary to free the region of “terrorism and separatism.”

On Saturday, Pakistan said that with the support of China, it will take up India’s unilateral actions in Kashmir with the U.N. Security Council and may approach the U.N. Human Rights Commission over what it says is the “genocide” of the Kashmiri people.

Kashmir is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan and is divided between the archrivals. Rebels have been fighting New Delhi’s rule for decades in the Indian-controlled portion, and most Kashmiri residents want either independence or a merger with Pakistan.

Pakistan: Move toward genocide

“When a demographic change is made through force, it’s called genocide, and you are moving toward genocide,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters in Islamabad after returning from Beijing.

With India moving to erase the constitutional provision that prohibited outsiders from buying property in Jammu and Kashmir state, Indians from the rest of the country can now purchase real estate and apply for government jobs there. Some fear this may lead to a demographic and cultural change in the Muslim-majority region.

Qureshi also said that while Pakistan is not planning to take any military action, it is ready to counter any potential aggression by India.

The Indian ambassador to Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria, left Islamabad on Saturday night after Pakistan retaliated against India by lowering diplomatic ties. Fourteen other Indian mission officials and their families also left Islamabad, airport official Mohammad Wasim Ahmed said.

A regional political party from Kashmir petitioned the Supreme Court to strike down the government’s move to scrap the region’s special status and divide the state into two federal territories. An opposition Congress party activist has already filed a petition challenging the communications blockade and the detentions of Kashmiri leaders.

Pilgrims on the annual Hajj in Saudi Arabia threw stones Sunday at pillars representing the devil, a symbolic casting away of evil.

More than 2 million Muslims have gathered in Saudi Arabia for the annual, five-day-long pilgrimage.

Worshippers spent the night Saturday at a large encampment around the hill where Islam holds that God tested Abraham’s faith by commanding him to sacrifice his son Ismail. It is also where Prophet Muhammad gave his last sermon.

The end of the Hajj coincides with Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, celebrated by Muslims around the world.

Riyadh is using tens of thousands of stewards, who help marshal the crowds to prevent stampedes that have occurred in previous years’ events, such as in 2015 when about 2,300 pilgrims were killed.

The Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is required of every Muslim at least once in their lifetime, as long as they are healthy enough and have the means to do so.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Aden Sunday in support of the Yemeni government after southern separatists effectively took over the port city, fracturing the alliance that had been focused on battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

The Sunni Muslim coalition said it attacked an area that posed a “direct threat” to the Saudi-backed government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is temporarily based in Aden.

It did not specify the site, but a local official told Reuters it had targeted separatist forces surrounding the nearly empty presidential palace in the Crater district. Hadi is based in Riyadh.

“This is only the first operation and will be followed by others … the Southern Transitional Council (STC) still has a chance to withdraw,” Saudi state TV quoted it as saying.

A rival agenda

The alliance had threatened military action if the separatists did not quit government military camps they seized in the city Saturday, after four days of clashes that killed at least nine civilians, and halt fighting.

STC Vice-President Hani Ali Brik, writing in a Twitter post marking a Muslim holiday that began Sunday, said that while the Council remained committed to the coalition it would “not negotiate under duress.” It had earlier agreed to a truce.

The United Arab Emirates-backed separatists have a rival agenda to Hadi’s government over the future of Yemen, but they have been a key part of the coalition that intervened in the Arabian Peninsula nation in 2015 against the Houthis after the group ousted Hadi from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014.

The violence complicates United Nations’ efforts to end the war that has killed tens of thousands and pushed the long-impoverished country to the brink of famine.

The fighting trapped civilians in their homes with limited water supplies in Aden, the port of which handles some commercial and aid imports. Residents said clashes had ceased Saturday night.

Coalition member the UAE, which has armed and trained thousands of southern separatists, urged calm. Riyadh said it would host an emergency meeting aimed at restoring order. Hadi’s government has asked Abu Dhabi to stop backing southern forces.

Setback for coalition

The infighting is a serious setback for the coalition in its more than four-year campaign to break the grip of the Houthis, who control Sanaa and most urban centers.

The Aden clashes began Wednesday after the separatists accused an Islamist party allied to Hadi of complicity in a missile attack on a southern forces military parade in Aden.

Analysts said that Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, Sunni Muslim allies united against Shiite foe Iran, would work together to contain the crisis even though the UAE in June scaled down its military presence in Yemen as Western pressure mounted to end the war.

“The UAE and Saudi Arabia have allied with distinct Yemeni partners. … Yet to this point in the conflict, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh have worked to maintain a relative detente between competing interests in the south,” Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst at International Crisis Group, told Reuters.

“That is the approach again today,” she said, but added that there was real concern that the situation could deteriorate into “a civil war within a civil war.”

The war has revived old strains between north and south Yemen, formerly separate countries that united into a single state in 1990 under slain former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Houthis’ deputy foreign minister on Saturday said that the Aden events proved Hadi’s government was unfit to rule and called for a dialogue with other main powers in Yemen to establish a federation under a “unified national framework.”

The U.N. is trying to salvage a stalled peace deal in the main port city of Hodeidah, north of Aden, to pave the way for peace talks at a time of heightened tensions after the Houthis stepped up missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities.

The Yemen conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthis deny being puppets of Iran and say their revolution is against corruption.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said for weeks he has “no problem” with North Korea testing short-range missiles, insisting they are not a threat to the United States. It seems Pyongyang got the message.

North Korean state media on Sunday cited Trump’s comments, hours after rolling out what appears to be yet another new short-range missile system that threatens U.S. allies in the region.

In an article from the official Korean Central News Agency, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson blasted South Korea for criticizing its recent launches.

“Even the U.S. president made a remark which in effect recognized the self-defensive rights of a sovereign state, saying that it is a small missile test that a lot of countries do,” the spokesperson said.

Multiple missile tests

North Korea on Saturday conducted its fifth ballistic missile launch in just more than two weeks, and seventh in the past two months. In total, North Korea has unveiled three new short-range missile systems during that period, all of which appear to be designed to evade or overwhelm U.S.-South Korean missile defenses.

On Saturday, Trump said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently offered a “small apology” for the tests and vowed to stop the launches as soon as the current round of U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises end.

Trump says Kim sent the apology in a personal letter that blasted the U.S.-South Korean military drills.

“It was a long letter, much of it complaining about the ridiculous and expensive exercises,” Trump said in the tweet. “It was also a small apology for testing the short range missiles, and that this testing would stop when the exercises end.”

The tests violate United Nations Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from any ballistic missile activity. But Trump, who wants to continue talks with North Korea, has shrugged off the tests.

“Kim knows that he can continue to launch these short-range missiles without consequences. He can continue to provoke, so long as he keeps emitting signals of hope to President Trump directly,” said Soo Kim, a former CIA analyst who now works at the U.S.-based Rand Corp.

“Kim’s plodding along faithfully according to plan. He’s dialing up the optempo (operational tempo) of his engagement with President Trump — remaining on our radar through these launches and friendly missives — to put the U.S. in a tighter bind,” she adds.

Military drills

The U.S. and South Korea began their latest round of military exercises Monday. They are scheduled to last until Aug. 20.

The drills have been scaled back to help pave the way for talks with North Korea, which views the exercises as preparation to invade. But that has satisfied neither Trump nor Kim, who have found common ground in their dislike of the drills.

“I’ve never been a fan” of the drills, Trump said Friday. “You know why? I don’t like paying for it. We should be reimbursed for it.” Trump added that he only approved the latest exercise because it helped prepare for “a turnover of various areas to South Korea.”

“I like that because it should happen,” Trump added.

The latest U.S.-South Korean drills are aimed in part at testing South Korea’s ability to retake operational control from the U.S. during wartime. The U.S. has about 28,500 troops in South Korea.

Trump has for decades complained that U.S. allies such as South Korea, Japan and others are not paying enough for U.S. military protection. North Korea appears to be exploiting those complaints in an attempt to split the alliance between Washington and Seoul.

“Breaking the alliance is exactly what Pyongyang wants, which is why it makes all this noise and tries to blame U.S.-South Korea drills for its lack of cooperation,” says Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

“Pyongyang looks to exploit Trump’s preoccupation with alliance cost-sharing as well as South Korea’s deteriorating relations with Japan. Kim appeals to Trump directly about the exercises, trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul,” Easley said.

Cost-sharing dispute

Trump earlier this week announced in a tweet that South Korea had agreed to pay “substantially” more for the U.S. troop presence. South Korea refuted that allegation, saying cost-sharing negotiations with the United States have not yet begun.

The administration of South Korean President Moon Jae-in has responded cautiously to Trump’s comments and shrugged off North Korea’s latest provocations. Moon has made talks with North Korea a top priority.

But Moon now finds himself in an increasingly awkward position, with both Trump and Kim openly playing off each other in order to bash Seoul.

Meanwhile, Trump has given few signs that he will loosen the pressure on South Korea.

At a fundraiser in New York Friday, Trump made fun of Moon’s accent “while describing how he caved in to Trump’s tough negotiations,” according to a report in the New York Post.

“So why are we paying for their defense,” Trump said, according to the report. “They’ve got to pay.”

Five years ago, the town of Ferguson, Missouri, made international headlines when a local white officer shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, triggering waves of riots. Masood Farivar recently visited to see what has changed in a town that has become a flashpoint for America’s struggles with poverty and race.

In 1988, sensing a need, religious leaders began delivering meals to people with HIV and AIDS who couldn’t leave their homes. From that simple idea, the nonprofit Food and Friends has grown into a Washington institution, bringing thousands of meals a day to the sick and those in need. VOA’s Unshin Lee reports.

A cease-fire agreement has been reached to end fighting in the Libyan capital of Tripoli during the upcoming Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Libyan National Army (LNA) chief Khalifa Haftar agreed to the United Nation’s-proposed cease-fire Saturday, his spokesman, Ahmad al-Mesmari, said at a news conference in Benghazi.

Libya’s U.N.-supported government said earlier Saturday it had accepted the proposed cease-fire for the holiday, which begins Sunday.

Militias allied with the government have been fighting since April against an LNA campaign to seize the capital.  

More than 1,000 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the World Health Organization. More than 120,000 others have been displaced.

 

The second season of an AMC-TV drama series follows the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and a number of bizarre deaths haunting a community.

“The Terror: Infamy” is set to premiere Monday and stars Derek Mio and original “Star Trek” cast member George Takei as they navigate the forced internment and supernatural spirits that surround them.

It’s the first television series depicting the internment of Japanese Americans on such a massive scale and camps were recreated with detail to illustrate the conditions and racism internees faced.

The show’s new season is part of the Ridley Scott-produced anthology series.

Mio, who is fourth-generation Japanese American and plays Chester Nakayama, said he liked the idea of adding a supernatural element to a historical event such as Japanese American internment. He says he had relatives who lived on Terminal Island outside of Los Angeles and were taken to camps.

Residents there were some of the first forced into internment camps after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

“If you add the supernatural element, it’s a little more accessible and now it’s like a mainstream subject and it can open up more discussion about what really happened and what’s going on right now,” Mio said.

It was a role personal to him as well. “It’s not just another kind of acting job for me,” Mio said. “I really do feel a responsibility to tell this story that my ancestors actually went through.”

From 1942 to 1945, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were ordered to camps in California, Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and other sites.

Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, forced Japanese Americans, regardless of loyalty or citizenship, to leave the West Coast and other areas for the camps surrounded by barbed wire and military police. Half of those detainees were children.

Takei, who was interned in a camp as a child, said he was impressed with the show’s research into recreating the camp.

“The barracks reminded me again – mentally, I was able to go back to my childhood. That’s exactly the way it was,” Takei said. “So for me, it was both fulfilling to raise the awareness to this extent of the terror. But also to make the storytelling that much more compelling.”

The series also involves others who are connected to historic World War II events. Josef Kubota Wladyka, one of the show’s directors, had a grandfather who was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb dropped and managed to survive.

Max Borenstein, one of the show’s executive producers who lost relatives at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, said the show’s horror genre still doesn’t compare to the horror of the internment camp.

“It was important to do the research, the lived reality that people faced,” Borenstein said. “The fact of taking people who are citizens of the country and (putting them in camps) is a great stain of our country.”

Co-creator Alexander Woo, who is Chinese American, said he believes the series is especially relevant now given the debate over immigration in the U.S. and Europe.

“The struggle that immigrants go through of embracing a country that doesn’t embrace you back is a story, unfortunately, that keeps repeating,” Woo said. “There’s going to be some people who likely didn’t know of the internment. There will be some people who had relatives in camps. We have a responsibility to be accurate.”

Yemeni separatists have seized control of much of the city of Aden, inflicting a blow to the Saudi-led coalition that is trying to dismantle the country’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement. 
 
Yemeni security officials said Saturday that the separatists also had taken control of the presidential palace, a development confirmed by a spokesman from the Security Belt force, which is dominated by the separatists. 
 
Officials said all military camps in the southern port city also had been seized. 
 
The development complicated U.N. efforts to end the four-year war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and forced the poorest residents to the brink of famine. 
 
The latest fighting erupted Wednesday when separatists tried to break into the presidential palace after Hani Bin Braik, an ex-cabinet minister and deputy head of the so-called Southern Transitional Council, called on forces to “topple” President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi’s government.  
 
Braik accused the president and his forces of being loyal to the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the United Arab Emirates and some other countries consider a terrorist group. 
 
The internationally recognized Yemeni government has accused Braik of provocations and has called on the Saudi and UAE governments to force the separatists to stop their attacks. 
 
Aden is the seat of power for Hadi, who has been residing in Saudi Arabia since the rebels took over the capital of Sanaa in 2014. 

The U.N. refugee agency reports more than half-a-million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh have received identity documents that will give them better access to aid. 

An estimated 900,000 Rohingya refugees are living in overcrowded, squalid camps in the town of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.  Most of them fled there two years ago to escape persecution and violence in Myanmar.

A joint registration project by Bangladeshi authorities and the U.N. refugee agency will give identity documents to more than 500,000 of the refugees, many for the first time.  

The data on these fraud-proof, biometric cards will give national authorities and humanitarian partners a better understanding of the population and its needs.  UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic tells VOA the data collected will allow aid agencies to better help people with specific needs. 

“The point of the verification exercise, of conducting a biometric data registration is first and foremost to protect the right of the Rohingya refugees to return to their homes… It is meant to ensure far better planning and far better targeting of the assistance, of very specific types of assistance, that, for example, women would need, that children would need,” said Mahecic.

Mahecic explains the new registration cards indicate Myanmar is the country of origin.  He says that information is critical in establishing and safeguarding the right of Rohingya refugees to return to their homes in Myanmar, if and when they decide to do so.

The UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies say they do not believe conditions in Myanmar currently are safe enough for the refugees to return home.

The registration process began in June 2018.   On average, some 5,000 refugees are being registered every day.  The UNHCR says it aims to complete biometric registrations and provide identification documents for the remaining 400,000 people in Cox’s Bazar by the end of the year.

Over 2 million pilgrims are climbing Mount Arafat in Saudi Arabia Saturday at the high point of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Rain, thunder and strong wind disrupted the ritual, but most pilgrims appear to have weathered the ordeal.

Rituals on Mount Arafat, where Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was reputed to have delivered his final sermon almost 1,400 years ago, is part of the final leg of the annual hajj.

Sheikh Mohammed bin-Hassan al-Sheikh delivered the ritual sermon at the Numeira Mosque on Mount Arafat, telling the crowd gathered both inside and outside the building that mercy is the single most important attribute in life.

He says that God will have mercy on those who have mercy on others and mercy should be the basis of society and all social relations, between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, mothers and other family.

Mohammed Salah Bintan, the minister in charge of the pilgrimage, told journalists that the Saudi Arabian government has spent a great deal of money to improve infrastructure used by pilgrims.

He says that major projects have been carried out during the past year, including rail transport, in order to take hajjis from one place to another and that the government is planning to spend $26 million in the future as part of (Crown Prince Mohammed bin-Salman’s) Vision 2030 infrastructure program.

Bassem Omar al-Qadi, a researcher at a Saudi religious institute, told state TV that the lot of pilgrims has improved considerably during the past 20 years.

He says that the main artery leading to the Numeira Mosque was a chaotic scene 20 years ago, with everyone scrambling to find a place to park, amid anger and frayed nerves, whereas today things are orderly and buses bring people on schedule as pilgrims enjoy their comfortable tent camps.

Arab media noted that Saudi authorities were allowing a number of prisoners to perform their pilgrimage this year, while they are permitted a brief furlough to attend. Mohammed, a prisoner dressed in the ritual white pilgrim’s garb described his experience.

He says that he was allowed to bring his wife with him to the pilgrimage and that he is still trying to absorb everything, since he finds it hard to believe that he is able to carry out his hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, without any restrictions and in total tranquility. 

After pilgrims descend Mount Arafat Saturday afternoon, they will spend the night in the Valley of Muzdalifa in preparation for the conclusion of the annual hajj Sunday, with the ritual sacrifice of an animal to feed the poor.