Nematullah Bakhtyar, a member of the Afghan National Army (ANA), was thought to have been killed while fighting the Afghan insurgents in southern Afghanistan in 2018. A body was returned to the family, who held a funeral and buried the body they believed to be their son’s. Almost a year later, Bakhtyar makes contact and returns home, where he was recently married. VOA’s Zabihullah Ghazi reports from Kunar, Afghanistan, about this sad war story with a happy ending.  

Turkish media freedom advocates are raising alarms about newly announced government powers to license, inspect and possibly censor online broadcasts in the country. 
 
The new regulations for the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), the government’s media regulator, were published this week in Turkey’s Official Gazette. 
 
Among other things, the rules would impose licensing requirements and fees and allow the RTÜK to suspend programs and cancel licenses as sanctions for not complying with the rules.  
 
The regulations were drafted a year ago, said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University whose expertise is online censorship.  
 
The move has potentially broad implications, he said, because anyone can transmit content on the internet these days. About 2 in 5 people in Turkey say they get most of their news online, a Reuters Institute report found.

‘Censorship regime’
 
Considering the country’s history of blocking or punishing journalists and dissidents online, the new rules are “not a licensing regime, it’s a censorship regime,” Akdeniz said. 
 
“This is what happens in Turkey. We are talking about the country which blocks access to the Wikipedia platform for over two years,” he said. 
 
One uncertainty about the regulations is how they will affect Netflix, the BBC, the Voice of America and other news and entertainment organizations that broadcast internet and mobile content in Turkey. 
 
A summary of the regulations published by the global law firm Baker McKenzie said the rules cover foreign service providers that “broadcast internet content in Turkish aimed at persons in Turkey.”
 
Netflix released a statement saying the company was watching developments. “Netflix has a loyal and growing fan base in Turkey, which values the diversity of content on our service,” the statement said. 
 

The Media and Law Studies Association, a Turkish nonprofit group, said it would challenge the directive. The group said the new rules violate the rights to free expression and dissemination of news. 
 
Veysel Ok, the nonprofit’s co-director, said requiring licenses and fees could hurt journalists who have established their own online news platforms. Ok also flagged a lack of clarity in the regulations. 
 
“There are also no standards as to what constitutes a news platform and what doesn’t, as the language used in the text is too ambiguous,” Ok said. “Many extremely qualified journalists have turned towards internet media. This new directive aims to attack and control these platforms.” 

Akdeniz, the law professor, said it’s possible authorities could require Netflix to censor its content offerings.  
 
“They can say there’s too much nudity, there’s too much obscenity, there’s smoking or drinking,” he said. “They might say this program promotes homosexuality or such possibility now.”  

Enforcement question
 
However, it remains to be seen how authorities enforce the regulations.  
 
“We’ll find out within the next months,” Akdeniz said.  
 
Turkey is the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders, which ranks the country toward the bottom in its annual press freedom index. The Journalists Union of Turkey said there currently are 134 journalists and media workers imprisoned in the country. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper says he wants to see American ground-based intermediate-range conventional missiles deployed to Asia.

Speaking to reporters on his first international trip as head of the Defense Department, Esper said the weapons were important due to the “the great distances” covered in the Indo-Pacific region.

The United States previously was unable to pursue ground-based missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers because of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a decades-old arms control pact with Russia. Washington withdrew from that pact on Friday, citing years of Russian violations.

“It’s about time that we were unburdened by the treaty and kind of allowed to pursue our own interests, and our NATO allies share that view as well,” Esper said.

He declined to discuss when or where in Asia they could be deployed until the weapons were ready, but said he hoped the deployments come within months.

While analysts have primarily focused on what the INF treaty withdrawal means for signatory nations Russia and the United States, the change also allows the United States to strengthen its position against China. Esper said China has more than 80% of its missile inventory with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers.

“So it should not surprise them [China] that we would want to have a like capability,” he added.

China is the top priority of the Pentagon under the Defense Department’s National Defense Strategy. Beijing and Washington also have been embroiled for months in a trade dispute, with U.S. President Donald Trump announcing Thursday on Twitter that he would impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods starting September 1.

“China is certainly the center of the dialogue right now. It’s a competition, they’re not an enemy, but certainly they are pressing their power in every corner,” Rudy deLeon, a defense policy expert with the Center for American Progress, and a former deputy secretary of defense, told VOA.

In the event of a conflict with China, the United States needs to have various capabilities in place ahead of time in order to prevent sabotage during transport from China’s advanced sensors and artificial intelligence, according to Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“We need to distribute our assets, and we need to have them in the region when the conflict starts. The idea that we’re going to spend like we did in the first Gulf War, weeks or months, sending large cargo aircraft and cargo vessels across the ocean to get into conflict, they’ll never arrive,” Bowman told VOA.

Esper began his trip Friday with a stop at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii to visit the head of the command, Admiral Philip Davidson. Esper arrived Saturday in Australia for a two-plus-two meeting on Sunday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and their Australian counterparts.

Esper also will visit New Zealand, Japan, Mongolia and South Korea before returning to Washington.

Defense officials have for years referred to the Asia-Pacific as the “priority” theater.

Former secretary of defense Jim Mattis, Esper’s predecessor in the Trump administration, also started his time in office with a trip to Asia, visiting Japan and South Korea in February 2017.

Russian police detained nearly 200 people Saturday at a Moscow protest against unfair elections, a monitoring group said.

The non-governmental group OVD-Info, which monitors arrests, said 194 people were arrested along thoroughfares in the city center, where Russian officials said unauthorized opposition protests were held.

Prominent activist Lyubov Sobol was among those who were detained, as were six journalists, according to the French news agency. Police took Sobol into custody from a taxi minutes before the protest began.

Activists called for the demonstration after a number of opposition candidates were prohibited from participating in Moscow’s city council election being held in September.

Authorities contend the candidates failed to collect enough authentic signatures to register for the election, which is seen as a dry run for the country’s 2021 national parliamentary election.

Some of the opposition candidates have been jailed along with opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

At a demonstration for the same cause last week during which there were violent outbreaks, police arrested more than 1,000 people, sparking widespread global condemnation.

Russian investigators said Saturday they launched a criminal investigation into Navalny’s alleged laundering of more than $15 million through and anti-corruption foundation he established. 

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that things are going well with China, insisting U.S. consumers are not paying for import taxes he has imposed on goods from that country although economists say Americans are footing the bill.

“Things are going along very well with China. They are paying us Tens of Billions of Dollars, made possible by their monetary devaluations and pumping in massive amounts of cash to
keep their system going. So far our consumer is paying nothing – and no inflation. No help from Fed!” Trump said on Twitter.

He also said – without presenting evidence – that countries are asking to negotiate “REAL trade deals,” saying on Twitter, “They don’t want to be targeted for Tariffs by the U.S.”

Trump abruptly decided on Thursday to slap 10% tariffs $300 billion in Chinese imports, stunning financial markets and ending a month-long trade truce.

China vowed on Friday to fight back.

Tariffs are intended to make foreign goods more expensive to boost domestic producers, unless international exporters reduce prices. But there has been no evidence that China is cutting
prices to accommodate Trump’s tariffs.

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic research in March found that all of the cost of tariffs imposed in 2018 were passed on to U.S. consumers.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)

 

The African Union envoy to Sudan said Saturday the pro-democracy movement and the ruling military council have finalized a power-sharing agreement.

Mohammed el-Hassan Lebatt told reporters that the two sides “fully agreed” on a constitutional declaration outlining the division of power for a three-year transition to elections. He did not provide further details, but said both sides would meet later Saturday to prepare for a signing ceremony.

The pro-democracy coalition issued a statement saying they would sign the document Sunday.

Mass protests, then coup

The military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir in April following months of mass protests against his three-decade-long authoritarian rule. The protesters remained in the streets, demanding a rapid transition to a civilian government. They have been locked in tense negotiations with the military for weeks while holding mass protests.

The two sides reached a preliminary agreement last month following pressure from the United States and its Arab allies, amid growing concerns the political crisis could ignite civil war.

That document provided for the establishment of a joint civilian-military sovereign council that would rule Sudan for a little more than three years while elections are organized. A military leader would head the 11-member council for the first 21 months, followed by a civilian leader for the next 18. There would also be a Cabinet made up of technocrats chosen by the protesters, as well as a legislative council, the makeup of which would be decided within three months.

But the two sides remained divided on a number of issues, including whether military leaders would be immune from prosecution over recent violence against protesters. It was not immediately clear whether they had resolved that dispute.

Troops kill protesters

The two sides came under renewed pressure this week after security forces opened fire on student protesters in the city of Obeid, leaving six people dead. At least nine troops from the paramilitary Rapid Support forces were arrested over the killings.

In June, security forces violently dispersed the protesters’ main sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum, killing dozens of people and plunging the fragile transition into crisis.

Protest leader Omar al-Dagir said the agreement announced Saturday would pave the way for appointments to the transitional bodies.

“The government will prioritize peace (with rebel groups) and an independent and fair investigation to reveal those who killed the martyrs and hold them accountable,” he said.

Sudan has been convulsed by rebellions in its far-flung provinces for decades. Al-Bashir, who was jailed after being removed from power, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide stemming from the Darfur conflict in the early 2000s. The military has said he will not be extradited. Sudanese prosecutors have charged him with involvement in violence against protesters.

Forty-eight insects are currently included on the U.S. Endangered Species List, and the only way any insect has ever come off the list is through extinction. This is especially troubling for the world’s butterfly populations, which have declined by 20% over the last decades. 

This time of year, Nate Fuller can often be found counting butterflies. The director of the Sarett Nature Center in Benton Harbor, Michigan, needs an accurate count of Mitchell’s satyr butterflies, to help preserve one of their last known habitats.

“They’re very particular in the kind of habitat where they can live, which is part of what makes them so rare and amazing indicators for our water quality,” he said.

Hard to spot

Emerging into a vast wetland of soupy ground covered in shoulder-high grasses and sedges, dotted with poisonous sumac trees, it’s slow going, but a cell phone app helps keep track of where butterflies have been spotted as well as when and how many, all important data for better understanding Mitchell’s satyr populations.

Finding the small brown butterflies with golden-ringed eyespots on their wings can be difficult. There just aren’t many around. They also rest with their wings closed to blend in with their surroundings.

“We can step over this way, there’s a chance we might stir up a Mitchell’s satyr,” Fuller said.

The Mitchell’s satyr was placed on the Endangered Species List in 1991. Initially it was thought that the loss of wetlands contributed to their decline.

Why the decline?

“We knew them to be where spring fed wetlands were,” Fuller said. “The assumption was it was a case of invasive plant species, humans destroying wetlands, draining them, dredging them.”

But, as habitats were restored, the Mitchell’s satyr continued to decline. Fuller says environmentalists realized something more complicated was at work.

“The clues seem to suggest that it’s not just habitat availability,” Fuller said. “It’s ground water and the amount and the quality of ground water coming into these wetlands seemed to be a challenge for the butterflies.”

While the decline is likely the result of a combination of factors, the fact that water quality might contribute is unsettling because the wetlands are the headwaters for the Midwest’s rivers and streams.

Toledo Zoo breeding program

A captive breeding program was started four years ago at the Toledo Zoo to get to the bottom of the mystery. Ryan Walsh is its director.

“We’re actually doing two things with these guys,” Walsh said. “We’re starting a captive colony. We’ll occasionally collect them to add new genetics to the captive population. We can really breed a large number of the butterflies. The rest of them, the ones that won’t be left back for captive breeding will be released out into the wild.”

The caterpillars spend the winter in a special weather-controlled chamber. That helped determine the Mitchell’s satyrs don’t do well below 4.4 degrees Celsius, the temperature at which hard freezes in the fen wetlands will kill the insects.

With that knowledge, the program produced 1,300 new eggs this year, something that may go a long way toward restoring the population. And may, one day, earn the butterflies a ticket off the Endangered Species List.

Meanwhile, back at the Nature Center, our luck isn’t so great. In two hours, we’ve spotted only three Mitchell’s satyrs. But Fuller says if anything, that’s a good reason to continue to build the breeding program.

“We should care because they’re indicators that there’s something wrong with our landscape, whether it’s water quality, water quantity or habitat? But sort of the bigger picture, do we care about creation? Do we care about the world we live in? It’s the idea of caring about the land, so that the land can care for us in return,” he said.

The United States has pulled out of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in order to develop its own new missiles, after the Russians refused to destroy new missiles that NATO says violate the pact. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise” because Moscow failed to return to compliance despite repeated warnings.  VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington on the end of a landmark treaty.
 

NAIROBI, KENYA — Many merchants in Nairobi’s bustling Toi market are busy selling secondhand clothes — a big business in Kenya, which

Hopes by small aviation museum in southwestern Iowa that a stamp in its possession was rare enough to parlay into a fortune crashed Friday when experts told them it wasn’t real, and likely not even worth the paper it was glued upon.

The Iowa Aviation Museum in Greenfield, Iowa, has had what it thought was a 1918 “Inverted Jenny” stamp on public display for some 20 years, dating back to when it was donated to the museum, glued to a board along with several other stamps. A notation from the donor attached to the board speculated then that it was worth about $73,000.

Experts at the national stamp convention meeting in Omaha knew immediately the stamp wasn’t authentic, said Ken Martin with the American Philatelic Society that’s holding the show through Sunday.

Likely cut from a catalog

“It wasn’t the right size. It was too small,” Martin said. “This version was likely cut out of a postage stamp auction catalog.”

An examination under a microscope confirmed experts’ initial doubt. A 100-year-old stamp would have been printed from an artist’s engraving, so the image under a microscope would appear as a series of lines. A reproduction for printed material decades later would have been comprised of a series of tiny dots, which is what appeared under the scope, Martin said.

The news was disappointing for those at the museum, which also serves as the home of the Iowa Aviation Hall of Fame and had hoped to auction the stamp for hundreds of thousands of dollars and build a new museum hangar.

“We really didn’t know what we had,” Larry Konz, a tour guide at the museum, said Friday. “When we were told that we might have the real deal, I thought, ‘My God, we might have something quite valuable here, and we’ve had it hanging on a wall all this time.”

Had it been real, it would be worth between $300,000 and $400,000 at auction, Martin said. There were only 100 of the stamps printed in 1918, with the image of a JN-4-H “Jenny” biplane accidentally displayed upside-down on a 24-cent stamp.

A slim chance

Norma Nielson, of Eugene, Oregon, was at the convention Friday to see for herself if the museum was in possession of one of the few rare and unaccounted stamps. Nielson is a stamp collector who grew up in the museum’s hometown of Greenfield, and had put museum officials in touch with the American Philatelic Society to check the stamp’s authenticity.

“I knew it was probably a slim chance of it being genuine, given how rare that stamp is,” she said. “But, boy, it sure would have been exciting if it had been.”
 

MEXICO CITY — A Mexican reporter in Guerrero state who also served as a municipal official was shot and killed Friday in a beachside resort, authorities said, the second journalist from the state slain in less than a week as Mexico’s endemic bloodletting reaches new heights. 
 
Edgar Alberto Nava, who published news stories about the coastal resort city of Zihuatanejo on a Facebook page called La Verdad de Zihuatanejo, died after being shot several times, the Guerrero prosecutor’s office said. 
 
Nava also worked as Zijuatanejo’s regulations director. It was not clear if the attack, in a Zihuatanejo restaurant, was related to Nava’s journalism work. 
 
Homicides in Mexico jumped in the first half of the year to the highest on record, according to official data, underscoring the challenges President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has faced since taking office in December with a vow to reduce violence in the country ravaged by notorious drug cartels. 
 
“This is a great loss for our government and for the journalism industry where he also worked,” Zihuatanejo Mayor Jorge Sanchez said in a statement lamenting Nava’s death. 
 
Six other journalists in Mexico have been killed so far this year, according to free-speech advocacy group Article 19, compared with nine last year. 
 
Earlier this week, a Mexican journalist who covered the police in Guerrero was found dead in the trunk of a vehicle with signs he had been shot and tortured. 
 
Guerrero, where opium poppies are grown for heroin production, has seen some of the highest rates of violence in Mexico in recent years. 

 The U.S. Navy has identified the pilot killed in the crash of a fighter jet in the California desert.

A Navy statement Friday says the pilot was 33-year-old Lt. Charles Z. Walker.  

The Navy released a photo of Walker but provided no additional information, such as his hometown.

Walker’s F/A-18E Super Hornet crashed July 31 in Death Valley National Park while flying through a canyon where military pilots routinely conduct low-level training missions.

Seven park visitors on a canyon overlook suffered minor injuries caused by debris from the crash.

The Super Hornet was assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-151 based at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California’s Central Valley.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a deal on Friday to sell more American beef to Europe in what was a modest win for an administration that remains mired in a trade war with China.

Trump gathered European Union officials and cowboy-hatted American ranchers in the White House Roosevelt Room to announce the pact.

“The agreement that we sign today will lower trade barriers in Europe and expand access for American farmers and ranchers,” Trump said.

He spoke shortly before the agreement was signed by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Stavros Lambrinidis, the European Union’s ambassador to the United States and EU representative Jani Raappana.

The European Commission has stressed that any beef deal will not increase overall beef imports and that all the beef coming in would be hormone-free, in line with EU food safety rules. An agreement would need to be approved by the European parliament.

After the agreement was signed, Trump joked at the podium that his administration was working with the EU “on a 25% tariff on all Mercedes-Benz and BMWs coming into our nation.” “So, we appreciate — I’m only kidding,” he said to laughter.

The beef deal could help alleviate some of the damage to the domestic agricultural industry due to tariffs Beijing has imposed on U.S products in retaliation for U.S. levies on China.

Trump said in the first year duty-free U.S. beef exports to the EU will increase by 46% and over seven years will rise another 90%. “In total the duty-free exports will rise from $150 million to $420 million, an increase of over 180%,” he said.

Without mentioning China by name, Lambrinidis said the United States and Europe could work together to stand against countries that did not compete fairly in the global market.

“The agreement shows us that as partners we can solve problems,” he said.

EU sources and diplomats in June said a deal had been reached to allow the United States a guaranteed share of a 45,000 ton European Union quota.

The announcement coincides with Trump ratcheting up Washington’s trade dispute with China. On Thursday, he said he would impose a 10% tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imports from Sept. 1 and threatened to raise tariffs further if Chinese President Xi Jinping failed to move faster on striking a trade deal.

The dispute between the world’s two top economies has hurt world growth, including in Europe, as it enters its second year.

U.S. and European officials have sought to lay the groundwork for talks on their own trade agreement but have been stymied over an impasse on agriculture. European officials last month said trade talks had produced mixed results.

The agreement on beef could, however, ease tensions between the two sides, which are each other’s largest trading partners.

The Trump administration has been pursuing a host of new trade deals with Europe, China and others as part of the Republican president’s “America First” agenda as he seeks a second term in office, but difficulties in securing final pacts have roiled financial markets.

European stocks on Friday were battered by Trump’s latest salvo against China and Wall Street also took a hit.

Lingering issues remain in other areas of U.S.-EU trade, including import duties on industrial goods that Europe wants removed, and the threat of tariffs on European cars imported to the United States. EU governments cleared the agreement on July 15, but it still needs European Parliament approval.

CHICAGO — An Illinois state senator has been indicted on federal charges that he took more than $250,000 in salary and benefits over a three-year period from the Teamsters while doing little or no work, prosecutors said Friday. 
 
In a news release, the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago said Thomas E. Cullerton of Villa Park was indicted by a federal grand jury on 39 counts of embezzlement from a labor union, one count of conspiracy to embezzle from a labor union and employee benefit plans, and one count of making false statements in a health care matter.  
  
According to the release, Cullerton, 49, a member of the Teamsters before he took office, was hired as a “purported union organizer” for Teamsters Joint Council 25 in March 2013. Prosecutors said that over the next three years he was paid nearly $190,000 in salary, bonuses, and vehicle and cellphone allowances, and another $64,000 in health and pension contributions, despite the fact that he “did little or no work as a union organizer.” According to the release, when the Joint Council did ask him to perform his job duties, “Cullerton routinely ignored them.” 
 
Cullerton also was reimbursed for almost $22,000 in medical claims from a union local’s Health and Welfare Fund after falsely providing information that he was a “route salesman,” according to the indictment, a claim that concealed the fact that he wasn’t eligible to participate in the fund.  
  
The indictment of Cullerton, a cousin of Senate President John Cullerton, came just days after former Teamsters Joint Council 25 President John T. Coli Sr. pleaded guilty of shaking down a Chicago film studio and agreed to cooperate with investigators.  
  
And even before Coli’s plea agreement was announced, it became clear that federal officials were investigating ties between the two men when it was reported earlier this year that they had subpoenaed records related to Cullerton in their probe of the powerful former union leader.  
  
But in a written statement, Cullerton’s attorney, John Theis, said Cullerton was innocent and suggested he was being framed by Coli.  
  
“The action by the U.S. Department of Justice has nothing to do with Mr. Cullerton’s work in the Illinois State Senate but is the result of false claims by disgraced Teamsters boss John Coli in an apparent attempt to avoid penalties for his wrongdoing,” he said.  
  
The U.S. attorney’s office said an arraignment in federal court had not yet been scheduled. 

Indonesian authorities lifted a tsunami alert issued after a strong earthquake that hit off the coast of Java island Friday, swaying buildings as far away as the capital and rattling nerves in coastal areas but not causing widespread damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the magnitude 6.8 quake was centered 151 kilometers (94 miles) from Banten province off the island’s southwest coast. It said it hit at a depth of 42.8 kilometers (26.5 miles).

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a tsunami warning, watch or advisory after the quake. Indonesian authorities, however, issued their own before lifting it two hours later when no wave materialized.

Authorities had called on people living in coastal areas to move to higher ground but not to panic.

Buildings in Jakarta swayed for nearly a minute during the evening quake. Television footage showed workers and residents running out of high-rise buildings.

Radio and television reports said people felt a strong quake in Banten province and in Lampung province along the southern part of Sumatra island. The temblor caused a panic among residents in several cities and villages.

The quake brought back bad memories in Banten’s Pandeglang region, which encompasses Unjung Kulon National Park and popular beaches, and is where a deadly tsunami struck in the dark without warning last December.

That tsunami followed an eruption and a possible landslide on Anaka Krakatau, one of the world’s most famous volcanic islands, about 112 kilometers (69.5 miles) southwest of Jakarta. The waves killed at least 222 people as they smashed into houses, hotels and other beachside buildings along the Sunda Strait.

Irna Narulita, the Pandeglang district chief, said at least 22 houses collapsed in the region after Friday’s quake, and most people remained outside due to fear of aftershocks.  She said villagers in Sumur, the village hardest hit by the tsunami in December, chose to stay on a hill even after the tsunami alert was lifted.

She said no serious injuries were reported so far.

The National Disaster Agency spokesman, Agus Wibowo, said they were still gathering information of the damage and injuries. Local television footage and online video showed several houses and buildings in Banten, including a sport stadium and hospitals, suffered minor damage.

After the quake hospitals in West Java’s cities of Bogor, Ciamis and Cianjur evacuated patients, some attached to intravenous drips, to the hospital grounds, television footage showed.

R&B singer R. Kelly pleaded guilty Friday in New York to federal charges he sexually abused women and girls.

The 52-year-old Kelly was denied bail in a Brooklyn courtroom packed with his supporters.

He appeared sullen as prosecutors told Magistrate Judge Steven Tiscione he posed a flight risk and a danger to public safety.

Kelly’s defense attorneys requested his release so he could better fight charges they have dismissed as “groupie remorse.”

Kelly, whose full name is Robert Kelly, is accused of using his fame to recruit young women and girls into having illegal sexual activity. Prosecutors say he isolated them from friends and family and demanded they call him “Daddy.”

Friday’s hearing followed Kelly’s arrest last month in a separate Chicago case accusing him of engaging in child pornography.

Kelly is charged in New York with exploiting five victims, identified only as “Jane Does.” According to court papers, they include one he met at one of his concerts and another at a radio station where she was an intern.

Prosecutors allege Kelly arranged for some victims to meet him on the road for illegal sex. He had one victim travel in 2017 to a show on Long Island, New York, where he had unprotected sex with her without telling her “he had contracted an infectious venereal disease” in violation of New York law, they say.

Kelly’s attorneys said in court filings the alleged victims sought out Kelly’s attention, came to his shows and “pined to be with him.”

Kelly “would spend his time and even become friends with and care about these groupies and fans who were dying to be with him,” they added.

A Ugandan academic who once called the president “a pair of buttocks” has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after being found guilty of cyber harassment.

Stella Nyanzi on Friday flashed her bare breasts in protest while appearing in court via video link from prison. Amnesty International has called her conviction “outrageous.”

Nyanzi had attracted the attention of authorities with bold, often profane descriptions of alleged shortcomings of the government of longtime President Yoweri Museveni.

Some of her Facebook posts criticized Museveni for not providing sanitary napkins for schoolgirls.

Nyanzi was found guilty on Thursday of cyber harassment but acquitted of offensive communication. She is expected to serve nine months in prison after already spending nine months behind bars.

A television documentary has made allegations linking Australia’s gambling giant, Crown Casino, to organized crime, money laundering and human trafficking. The company has taken out newspaper ads denying the allegations. 

The investigation into Crown Casino was carried out by Australia’s Channel Nine television network and two newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. The story was based on tens of thousands of documents apparently leaked from the company that owns casinos in the cities of Melbourne and Perth, and is planning another in Sydney.

The documentary alleged links between Crown and organized crime and claims the company turned a “blind eye” to money laundering and exploited weaknesses in Australia’s immigration processes to fly wealthy Chinese gamblers into the country without proper checks. There are also claims it had business links with an Australian brothel that has been investigated over human trafficking.

MP seeks investigation

Independent Member of Parliament Andrew Wilkie told the Australian parliament that Crown has operated above the law in the state of Victoria.

“I now know of three police officers — two currently serving — who have openly said to my staff that in Victoria, Crown is regarded as the Vatican, an independent sovereign state all to its own where the laws of Victoria, the laws of the Commonwealth (of Australia) do not apply.”

Wilkie has failed in his bid to have the claims investigated by the Australian parliament. But federal Attorney-General Christian Porter has referred the allegations to the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. It can only investigate the behavior of federal law enforcement officials, and not Crown employees.

The state of Victoria has ordered the state’s gambling office to examine the claims against Crown Casino “as a matter of priority.”

Experts have also demanded Australia’s anti-money laundering regulator AUSTRAC examine claims that criminals have passed money through Crown Casino.

Company denies accusations

The company has strongly denied the allegations. 

In a series of newspaper advertisements, the company said it wanted to set the “record straight in the face of a deceitful campaign against Crown.” Crown Casino accused the TV documentary of unfairly attempting to damage its reputation. It also said it takes its regulatory obligations very seriously.

Life can have its obstacles, but facing those obstacles with a disability is even more challenging. Saba Shah Khan introduces us to a lawyer in Parkland, Florida, who is defying the stereotypes associated with autism.

VOA’s Margaret Besheer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

The United States on Friday pulled out of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty to develop its own new warheads after the Russians refused to destroy their new missiles NATO says violate the pact.

“Russia failed to return to full and verified compliance through the destruction of its noncompliant missile system, the SSC-8 or 9M729 ground-launched, intermediate-range cruise missile,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise.”

Pompeo, in a statement, added the United States “will not remain party to a treaty that is deliberately violated by Russia. Russia’s noncompliance under the treaty jeopardizes U.S. supreme interests as Russia’s development and fielding of a treaty-violating missile system represents a direct threat to the United States and our allies and partners.”

New agreement?

U.S. President Donald Trump he is hopeful a new agreement can be made to replace the historic Cold War pact.

“Russia would like to do something on a nuclear treaty and that’s OK with me. They would like to do something and so would I,” Trump said in response to a question from VOA Thursday afternoon.

But the president, speaking on the White House South Lawn before boarding the Marine One helicopter, said “we didn’t discuss the INF” when he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin the previous day.

In his statement, Pompeo called on Russia and China “to join us in this opportunity to deliver real security results to our nations and the entire world.”

A ‘brake on nuclear war’

With the expiration of the treaty, the world loses “an invaluable brake on nuclear war,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Thursday. “This will likely heighten, not reduce, the threat posed by ballistic missiles,”

U.S. officials for months have complained that Russia turned a deaf ear to pleas from officials here and in Europe to halt its violations of the treaty.

Russian officials claim they have strictly observed the treaty’s provision and have not allowed violations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin a month ago signed legislation suspending his country’s participation in the treaty, five months after the Trump administration made a similar move.  

Pillar of European security

The historic Cold War-era pact has been a pillar of European security for more than 30 years. It bans the development and deployment of ground-launched nuclear missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. European leaders, fearing a renewed arms race if the treaty is jettisoned, called on both Washington and Moscow to remain constructively engaged to try to preserve it.

There is also concern about the ramifications beyond Europe.

“The prospect of new ground-based INF systems being introduced in Asia could conceivably spark similar political turmoil among Asian allies,” says Laura Kennedy, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan and former U.S. permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

“Even if the U.S. planned only to field such future systems on U.S.-territory such as Guam, such a move could be seen as threatening by China, which could respond by introducing a new wave of systems as a counter,” Kennedy, an adviser to Foreign Policy for America, told VOA. 

“We are literally years away before we would be at a point where we would talk about basing of any particular capability,” says a senior administration official, downplaying such immediate concerns.

The 1987 INF agreement was signed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It eliminated the medium-range missiles arsenals of the two countries and went into effect in June of the following year.