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.”

Shelsea, whose husband was recently detained by ICE inside her family’s home, recounts the moments leading up to his arrest.

Two American teenagers were jailed in Rome on Saturday as authorities carry out a murder investigation in the killing of an Italian police officer.

A detention order issued by prosecutors was shown on Italian state broadcaster RAI, naming the suspects as Gabriel Christian Natale Hjorth and Finnegan Lee Elder. The detention order didn’t give their ages, but says they were both born in San Francisco in 2000. Police earlier said they were 19.

Prosecutors said in the order that Elder is the main suspect, accusing him of repeatedly stabbing Carabinieri paramilitary policeman Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, who was investigating the theft of a bag after a drug deal gone wrong in Rome. Natale Hjorth is accused of using his bare hands to strike the officer’s partner, who wasn’t seriously injured in the attack.

Both suspects were also being investigated for attempted extortion. Elder’s lawyer, Francesco Codini, said his client exercised his right not to respond to questions during a detention hearing held Saturday in the Rome jail where the two teens are being kept. Natale Hjorth’s lawyer wasn’t immediately available for comment.

A judge at the detention hearing hasn’t ruled if the suspects will be kept in custody beyond an initial three-day period.

An Italian investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity since the probe was ongoing said that the pair had snatched the bag of a drug dealer in Rome after the man apparently gave them “a different substance” instead of cocaine.

The Carabinieri said the Americans demanded a 100-euro ($112) ransom and a gram of cocaine to return the bag. The alleged dealer called police, saying he had arranged a meeting with the thieves to get his bag and cellphone back. Police says there was a scuffle at the rendezvous site and the policeman was stabbed eight times, dying shortly afterward in the hospital.

The Carabinieri said video surveillance cameras and witnesses allowed them to quickly identify the two Americans and find them in a hotel near the scene of the slaying. Police said the two Americans were “ready to leave” Italy when they were found.

In a search of their hotel room, the Carabinieri said they found a long knife, possibly the one used to attack Cerciello Rega. Police said the knife had been hidden behind a panel in the room’s ceiling. Police also said they found clothes the two apparently were wearing during the attack.

The Carabinieri statement said the two Americans admitted responsibility after being questioned by prosecutors and faced with “hard evidence.”

Russian police cracked down hard Saturday on demonstrators in central Moscow, beating some people and arresting hundreds of others protesting the exclusion of opposition candidates from the ballot for Moscow city council. Police also stormed into a TV station broadcasting the protest.

Police wrestled with protesters around the mayor’s office, sometimes charging into the crowd with their batons raised. OVD-Info, an organization that monitors political arrests in Russia, said 638 people were detained. Moscow police earlier said 295 people had been taken in, but did not immediately give a final figure.

Along with the arrests, several opposition activists who wanted to run for the council were arrested throughout the city before the protest. Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail for calling for the unauthorized gathering Saturday in the heart of the Russian capital.

The protesters, who police said numbered about 3,500, shouted slogans including “Russia will be free!” and “Who are you beating?” One young woman was seen bleeding heavily after being struck on the head.

Helmeted police barged into Navalny’s video studio as it was conducting a YouTube broadcast of the protest and arrested program leader Vladimir Milonov. Police also searched Dozhd, an internet TV station that was covering the protest, and its editor in chief Alexandra Perepelova was ordered to undergo questioning at the Investigative Committee.

Before the protest, several opposition members were detained, including Ilya Yashin, Dmitry Gudkov and top Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov.

There was no immediate information on what charges the detainees might face.

Once a local, low-key affair, the September vote for Moscow’s city council has shaken up Russia’s political scene as the Kremlin struggles with how to deal with strongly opposing views in its sprawling capital of 12.6 million.

The decision by electoral authorities to bar some opposition candidates from running for having allegedly insufficient signatures on their nominating petitions had already sparked several days of demonstrations even before Saturday’s clashes in Moscow.

The city council, which has 45 seats, is responsible for a large municipal budget and is now controlled by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. All of its seats, which have a five-year-term, are up for grabs in the Sept. 8 vote.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday said Brexit was a “massive economic opportunity” but had been treated under his predecessor Theresa May as “an impending adverse weather event”.

In a speech in Manchester where he pledged new investment in Leave-voting areas, Johnson promised to step up negotiations on post-Brexit trade deals and set up free ports to boost the economy.

“When people voted to leave the European Union, they were not just voting against Brussels, they were voting against London too,” he said.

He promised a £3.6 billion ($4.5 billion, 4 billion euros) “Towns’ Fund” to support a 100 struggling towns, “so that they will get the improved transport and the improved broadband connectivity that they need.

“Taking back control doesn’t just apply to Westminster regaining sovereignty from the EU, it means our cities and counties and towns becoming more self governing,” he said.

“Leaving the EU is a massive economic opportunity to do things we’ve not been allowed to do for decades,” he said.

Asked about the prospect of Brexit negotiations, Johnson said he was willing to engage with EU partners but only if the backstop clause was removed from the current divorce agreement struck by May.

The backstop seeks to ensure a free-flowing post-Brexit border between British Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, in all eventualities.

“The approach of the UK government is not going to be disengaged or aloof or waiting for them to come to us, we are going to try to solve this problem,” he said.

“We can’t do it as long as that anti-democratic backstop, that backstop that seeks to divide our country, divide the UK, remains in place. We need to get it out and then we can make progress.”

‘Absolutely’ rules out election

The new leader earlier tried to dampen speculation he could call an early election.

The former mayor of London, who only took charge on Wednesday, has promised to take Britain out of the EU by the latest deadline of October 31 – deal or no deal.

But he has focused on domestic priorities in his first few days in office, including a pledge on Friday to reverse drastic cuts to the police force made under May.

Commentators have speculated that he could be preparing to call a general election, hoping to regain the Conservative majority that May lost at the polls in 2017.

Johnson on Friday “absolutely” ruled out initiating such a poll before Britain leaves the bloc.

“The British people voted in 2015, in 2016, in 2017,” he said during a visit to the central English city of Birmingham.

“What they want us to do is deliver on their mandate, come out of the EU on October 31.

“They don’t want another electoral event, they don’t want a referendum, they don’t want a general election.”

However, Britons could be headed to the polls if MPs bring down Johnson’s new government in a no-confidence vote to try and prevent a no-deal Brexit from happening.

Britain voted 52 percent in favor of leaving the European Union in a shock 2016 referendum that partially reflected deep resentment over economic inequality.

Johnson said Saturday’s speech intended to “set out his vision to rebalance power, growth and productivity across the UK”.

May also came to power promising to fight Britain’s “burning injustices” but her domestic agenda was overwhelmed by Brexit negotiations and her failed attempts to persuade parliament to vote in favor of her exit deal.

The Swedish indie pop duo, Flora Cash, is new in the pop/rock world but has been gaining popularity with a hit song on the charts and a newly-released record.  It also has been gaining a following, especially among Albanian-American fans because one of its members, Shresa Lleshaj, is of Albanian descent.  The duo recently performed in Baltimore, and VOA’s Ardita Dunellari was there. 
 

Thousands of people were expected to join an unsanctioned march in a town along the mainland Chinese border Saturday to voice their anger with a government that they feel has ignored their political demands and at what they consider the government’s slowness in addressing the brutal attacks by thugs who beat railway customers last weekend.

Though it is rare for police to fully reject a request for a march or protest, security officials refused this week to sanction a protest march through Yuen Long, a congested industrial suburb where some residents have been associated with organized crime. 

The gangs were accused of beating and bloodying customers, journalists and a lawmaker at the Yuen Long rail station July 21 leaving 45 people with injuries, some severe.

The march’s organizer, Yuen Long resident Max Chung, said it was important for Hong Kongers to stand against what he termed a terrorist attack and against a government that has seemed more concerned with silencing democracy protesters. 

Yuen Long attacks

An hour before the Yuen Long event, a group of young people defaced the national emblem of China on a government building Sunday and then blocked a major tram route for hours, even after police showered the crowd with tear gas and fired rubber bullets. The standoff ended hours later.

Then, in Yuen Long, about 100 men dressed in white T-shirts used rattan sticks, pipes and other implements against people leaving and trying to board trains and fleeing through a shopping mall. 

The next day, Hong Kong residents were enraged by a press conference when police officials admitted it took them 39 minutes to adequately respond to pleas for help. Only a dozen people, associated with triad gangs, have been arrested. Comments from the city’s embattled chief executive, Carrie Lam, did not reassure the public that the thugs would be found and stopped.

Residents “think police aren’t protecting them anymore,” Chung said in an interview Friday. Before, “none of us had any plan to hold protest in Yuen Long, but they started to intimidate us.” His appeal to hold the march was denied.

Safety gear

Many young protesters spent Friday night buying safety equipment such as helmets, thick gloves and protective padding; the better to withstand police who may use batons and rubber bullets.

Some said they would go to Yuen Long to protect the residents or each other. Most everyone anticipated clashes with police. But they didn’t know what the plan would entail beyond marching.

“For me, going inside of Yuen Long is a way of telling them we are not afraid. Terror is an important method for gangsters, for controlling society,” says Brian, a 21-year-old undergraduate who lives in a nearby town. Most young people will not disclose their full name out of concerns of retribution. “We have to show the terrorists we aren’t afraid of them.”

Political crisis

Hong Kong is facing its worst political crisis since its handover to China in 1997. After millions of people marched twice in June against an extradition bill, now suspended, that would have permitted criminal suspects to be sent to China, many residents turned their ire on the police.

The force has used tear gas and rubber bullets twice against protesters who did little more than defy their orders with their bodies, umbrellas and plastic bottles. Clashes have left scores injured.

The Reuters news agency reported on Friday that Li Jiyi, the director of the Central Government Liaison’s local district office in Yuen Long, urged guests at a July 11 community banquet for hundreds of villagers to thwart democracy protesters. According to a recording of the event, Li appealed to those who attended to protect their towns in the Yuen Long district and to rebuff anti-government activists, the news agency said.

Local news reports said Yuen Long residents stockpiled food on Friday, while some residents left Hong Kong altogether, to brace for potential clashes at protests against mob violence at the district’s subway station a week earlier. Shops and public sports facilities were expected to close early and other services such as a clinic were expected to be shuttered.

The upper deck of a nightclub collapsed on top of revelers in South Korea on Saturday, killing two people and injuring several foreign athletes competing at the World Aquatics Championships, rescue officials and witnesses said.

The floor gave way in the Coyote Ugly nightclub in the city of Gwangju about 2:30 a.m. (1730 GMT Friday), pinning people underneath and injuring at least 10, rescue officials said. 

The two people killed were South Korean.

New Zealand men’s water polo team captain Matt Small said he was on the second-floor deck when it collapsed.

“We were just dancing and then the next minute we dropped,” he told New Zealand’s Radio Sport. “We … fell on top of the heads of other people that were beneath us. … Some of them were pretty dire cases,” he said of the injured.

Kim Young-don, chief of the Gwangju Seobu Fire Station, told a briefing there were about 370 people in the club at the time.

“We deem that the second level … seems to have collapsed because there were too many people on it,” he said. “The second level is a small space, it’s not a space where a lot of people can be.”

World Aquatics Championships

Gwangju, about 330 km (205 miles) south of the capital Seoul, has been hosting the championships, which feature swimming, water polo and diving, over the past fortnight. The meet finishes Sunday.

Organizers said eight foreign athletes were injured, with seven sustaining minor injuries and one remaining in hospital for treatment of a leg laceration.

Three of the injured athletes were from the United States, two from New Zealand and one each from Italy, the Netherlands and Brazil, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

All but the Brazilian were water polo players, it said.

A Gwangju police officer told Reuters two co-owners and two workers at the nightclub were being questioned about possible illegal expansion and renovation at the nightclub, and the legality of its licensing.

‘It was quite scary’

Australian, New Zealand and U.S. water polo officials confirmed team members were present when the incident occurred.

The women’s water polo tournament wrapped up Friday with the United States beating Spain in the final and Australia beating Hungary in the bronze medal match.

Christopher Ramsey, CEO of USA Water Polo (USAWP), said it was an awful tragedy.

“Players from our men’s and women’s teams were celebrating the women’s world championship victory when the collapse occurred,” Ramsey said. “Our hearts go out to the victims of the crash and their families.”

USAWP said women’s team member Kaleigh Gilchrist suffered a leg laceration and underwent surgery at a Gwangju hospital, while Paige Hauschild and Johnny Hooper needed stitches. Ben Hallock suffered minor scrapes.

Water Polo Australia said some of its players were in the club but were not hurt. Women’s team captain Rowie Webster said she was one of those who fell from the second floor.

“It was quite scary,” she said.

Public safety

Public safety has been a hot button issue in South Korea after the 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry, which killed 304 people, most of them school children.

The administration of President Moon Jae-in has made the establishment of a national system for accident prevention and disaster management a priority. But there have been several major incidents since Moon came to power.

In December 2017, 29 people were killed and 40 were injured in a fire at a fitness center in Jecheon city. A month later, 45 people died and 147 were injured in a fire in a hospital in Miryang.

A newlywed woman from Belarus who was swept away by a river in Alaska was trying to reach an abandoned bus made famous by the book and film “Into the Wild.”

Veramika Maikamava, 24, and her husband, Piotr Markielau, also 24, Thursday were heading for the bus where hiker Christopher McCandless met his death in 1992, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

The bus has been the source of multiple rescues since it was made famous, first by Jon Krakauer’s book published in 1996 and then by Sean Penn’s 2007 film. Both chronicled the life and death of McCandless, who hiked into the Alaska wilderness with little food and equipment and spent the summer living in the bus. McCandless was found dead in the bus almost four months later.

Markielau called troopers in Fairbanks late Thursday to report his wife’s death during a hike, Alaska State Troopers said.

The couple was trying to cross the Teklanika River along the Stampede Trail near Healy when the woman was swept under water, the troopers said. The river was flowing high and fast because of recent rains.

Markielau reported he was able to pull his wife out of the water a short distance away downriver, but she had died by then, the troopers said.

The body has been recovered. 

Updated at 11:23 p.m. July 26, 2019

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Three strong earthquakes hours apart struck a group of sparsely populated islands in the Luzon Strait in the northern Philippines early Saturday, killing at least eight people, injuring about 60 and causing substantial damage. 

The quakes collapsed houses built of stone and wood, arousing residents from sleep, said Roldan Esdicul, who heads the Batanes provincial disaster-response office. 

“Our bed and everything were swaying from side to side like a hammock,” Esdicul told The Associated Press by cellphone from Basco town, the provincial capital. “We all ran out to safety.”

More than 1,000 residents of hard-hit Itbayat island — nearly half of the island’s population of mostly fishermen — were advised not to return to their homes and stay in the town plaza as successive aftershocks shook the region, he said. 

“The wounded are still being brought in,” Itbayat Mayor Raul de Sagon told a local radio station. He said more doctors may be needed if the number of injured from interior villages rises.

The Philippine seismology agency said the quakes measured 5.4 and 5.9. A third quake magnitude 5.7 struck later Saturday. 

Esdicul said he was already in his office with the provincial governor when the second and more powerful quake struck about three hours after the first shock. “We have to hold on because you can’t stand or walk. It was that strong,” he said. 

The initial quake severely cracked the bell tower of the island’s old limestone church, the 19th-century Santa Maria de Mayan, a popular tourist attraction. The tower collapsed when the second temblor hit the island, he said.

An Itbayat hospital was damaged but remained open. An air force helicopter and a plane were en route to Batanes to help ferry and provide aid to victims.

Itbayat, part of the Batanes Islands, has a population of about 2,800 people and lies in the Luzon Strait that separates the Philippines and Taiwan. The islands are famous for their stone-built houses, coral walls and cogon grass roofs. 

A U.S. senator from Missouri has written the state university system and a private liberal arts university to express his concerns about Chinese espionage and Confucius Institutes on campus.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley directed his concerns to the University of Missouri and Webster University, which host Confucius Institutes.

Confucius Institutes and centers around the world offer language and cultural programs that, in the past few years, have been accused of spreading Chinese propaganda. Several colleges and universities worldwide have ended their relationships with the institutes and shuttered their on-campus facilities as tensions over Chinese spying in the U.S. have grown.

Hawley was motivated by a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week with FBI Director Chris Wray.

‘Source of concern’

Chinese Confucius Institutes at American universities are a “source of concern,” Hawley said, because they allow the Chinese government to disseminate communist propaganda, encourage censorship and restrict academic freedom.

Hawley said a number of U.S. colleges and universities have closed their Confucius Institutes in the past year, including Texas A&M University, the University of Iowa, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and North Carolina State University.

“Both the University of Missouri and Webster University should follow their examples,” Hawley tweeted.

University of Missouri spokesman Christian Basi said the school appreciated Hawley’s letter and shared many of his concerns related to academic espionage.

“This is something that has been on the radar of our top leadership for the last one to two years,” Basi said. “We also have periodically met with the FBI, both at national conferences when they provided information, as well as meeting with them here on campus.”

Webster University, in suburban St. Louis, said it felt confident its oversight of the campus Confucius Institute was sound.

“We take academic freedom very seriously and will not sacrifice it for the sake of any relationship,” Webster President Elizabeth Stroble wrote. “Our arrangement with Hanban expressly reserves for Webster University the right to determine the curricula and the manner of instruction for all programs that we offer. Nothing in our agreements concerning the Confucius Institutes restricts us from addressing any academic subject.”

The Hanban is a Chinese state agency chaired by a member of the Politburo and the vice premier of the People’s Republic of China.

Of the more than 1 million international students in the U.S., more than 300,000 are Chinese, according to the Institute of International Education. 

Organization cites demand

“As China’s economy and exchanges with the world have seen rapid growth, there has also been a sharp increase in the world’s demands for Chinese learning,” according to the Confucius Institute website.

Chinese influence has been a top concern of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The FBI’s Wray, who testified before lawmakers including Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, said the agency has “a thousand open investigations … involving attempted theft of intellectual property,” and almost all the cases involved the Chinese. He called it “deep, diverse, wide and vexing.”

A statement from the American Association of University Professors published in 2014 said, “Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom.”

This week #VOAOurVoices joins the international community in marking the World Day against Trafficking Persons. Yearly millions of vulnerable victims, mainly adult women, fall into human trafficking, through violence, manipulation and false promises. Our team, joined by VOA Zimbabwe Digital Lead Marvelous Nyahuye, takes a closer look at the myths and misconceptions of trafficking, measures to combat the act and how survivors cope.

U.S. President Donald Trump is pressing the World Trade Organization to stop designating China and other countries as “developing” nations, a label that allows them to receive lenient treatment under global trade rules. 
 
In a memo Friday, Trump directed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to “use all available means” to get the WTO to stop describing countries as “developing” if their economies are strong.  
  
He said the WTO uses “an outdated dichotomy between developed and developing countries that has allowed some WTO members to gain unfair advantages.”  
  
Trump said that if the United States decides the WTO has not made “substantial progress” after 90 days, it will unilaterally stop treating those nations as developing countries. 
 
The statement notes that seven of the 10 wealthiest economies in the world, including China, claim developing country status with the WTO. The status allows governments the ability to protect some domestic industries and maintain subsidies, as well as to receive longer time limits to implement trade commitments. 
 
In a tweet Friday, Trump said the “WTO is BROKEN when the world’s RICHEST countries claim to be developing countries to avoid WTO rules and get special treatment. NO more!!! Today I directed the U.S. Trade Representative to take action so that countries stop CHEATING the system at the expense of the USA!” 

Retaliation against France
 
In another trade development Friday, Trump vowed to retaliate against France for imposing a tax against U.S. tech giants, hinting that the United States could adopt tariffs on French wine. 
 
“France just put a digital tax on our great American technology companies,” Trump tweeted, referring to France’s announcement that it would tax tech giants, including Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.  
  
“If anybody taxes them, it should be their home Country, the USA. We will announce a substantial reciprocal action on Macron’s foolishness shortly,” Trump tweeted, referring to French President Emmanuel Macron.  
  
“I’ve always said American wine is better than French wine!” he added. 
 
The French tax targets companies that use consumer data to sell online advertising. Britain has announced plans for a similar tax. 
 
Deputy White House spokesman Judd Deere said Friday that Washington was “extremely disappointed by France’s decision to adopt a digital services tax at the expense of U.S. companies and workers.” 

This story originated in VOA’s Albanian service.

PRISTINA, KOSOVO — Kosovo’s outgoing Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj is calling on the international community, the United States and the European Union to stop pressuring his country to remove tariffs against Serbia as a precondition for negotiations between the countries. 
 
Haradinaj offered his resignation last week before being questioned as a suspect by a special court investigating alleged war crimes by the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). 

Appearing before prosecutors in The Hague on Wednesday, Haradinaj refused to answer questions. As he left, he said his response was made “at the advice of my lawyer.”  
 
In an exclusive interview with VOA’s Albanian service, his first since returning from the Netherlands, Haradinaj insisted tariffs should remain in place until Serbia recognizes Kosovo. 
 

Haradinaj gained popular support after introducing a 100 percent tax on goods produced in Serbia last November, immediately prompting Belgrade to pull out of talks with Pristina. Many saw the move as a way to block Kosovar President Hashim Thaci and Serbian President Alexandar Vucic from discussing a change of borders as a formula for normalizing relations between the two countries. 
 
Asked if he saw any connection between his insistence on keeping tariffs and the summons from the special court in The Hague, Haradinaj said that “he was surprised to be summoned.” 
 
“I have fulfilled the legal obligation to appear as a suspect after being called for questioning,” he said, adding that “there is a lot of suspicion in Kosovo that it can be a conspiracy, but what I can confirm is that I strongly believe in what I have openly and in the most sincere way told the international partners: that Kosovo’s borders are not controversial, and there should be no discussion of territory or borders changes. 
 
“The agreement with Serbia should include mutual recognition within the existing borders, and at the same time free trade must be linked with the recognition,” he told VOA. 
 
The United States and European Union have repeatedly urged Haradinaj to end the tariffs. 
 
“I call upon the international community, our allies, to stop unjust pressure on Kosovo for tariffs as well as other topics, because it is not right to accept Serbia’s conditions for dialogue,” he said. 

Bias accusation
 
Haradinaj, who has twice been exonerated by prior trials before the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, then accused the international community of bias. 
 
“I was called for the second time to testify before an international court; I resigned twice because of that, while, on the other hand, Mr. Aleksandar Vucic, who was part of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime — [which] has committed crimes in the Balkans, not only in Kosovo but also in other countries — he has no such concerns. 
 
“This proves an imbalance of international community pressure logic that needs to be corrected as soon as possible.” 
 
Haradinaj first resigned as prime minister in 2005 upon being indicted by the U.N. tribunal, which exonerated him. The same court then tried and acquitted him again in 2012. 
 
His resignation is expected to prompt snap elections. Thaci is expected to start consultations with political parties to find a way out of the new political situation.  

On Friday, Philip Kosnett, the U.S. ambassador to Kosovo, tweeted that the United States was “watching closely as Kosovo deals, for the first time, with a PM resignation. How it is handled will indicate the strength of Kosovo’s institutions and officials’ willingness to adhere to the Constitution and laws.” 
 
The Kosovo special court was created on 2015 to investigate alleged war crimes between January 1998 and December 2000. Over a dozen former KLA leaders have been called for questioning in various capacities. So far, no indictments have been issued. 

An extraordinary diplomatic dispute between the United States and Sweden has escalated with President Donald Trump alleging unfair treatment for a jailed American rap musician.

Sweden is rejecting demands from Trump that it free Rakim Mayers, known as A$AP Rocky, who along with two other men, has been formally charged with assault after a street fight that was captured on video.

Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Löfven, has “explained and emphasized the complete independence of the Swedish judicial system, prosecutors and courts,” says Karin Olofsdotter, the Swedish ambassador to the United States. “In Sweden, everyone is equal before the law. The government is not allowed, and will not attempt, to influence legal proceedings.”

The White House on Friday did not respond to a VOA query for comment on the Swedish reaction after Trump demanded a day earlier that the Swedes free the artist.

“We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem!”

Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM. We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem! #FreeRocky

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019

Trump also on Twitter accused the Swedish prime minister of “being unable to act,” adding he “has let down “our African American community in the United States.”

Very disappointed in Prime Minister Stefan Löfven for being unable to act. Sweden has let our African American Community down in the United States. I watched the tapes of A$AP Rocky, and he was being followed and harassed by troublemakers. Treat Americans fairly! #FreeRocky

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019

Prosecutor Daniel Suneson says he’s pressing charges against the three suspects for assault, “because in my judgment what has happened amounts to a crime, despite the objections about self-defense and provocation.”  

The rapper has been in custody since his arrest because he is considered a flight risk.

On his Instagram account, however, Mayer alleges the attack was self-defense in response to a man and a second person, who were harassing women and hitting members of his staff.

In video obtained by American celebrity news website TMZ, Mayers and two other men can be seen punching and kicking the victim on the ground.

Celebrity and criminal justice activist Kim Kardashian West has thanked Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the president’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, for their attention to the case.

Trump’s intervention is criticized by some, though, who note the reputation of Sweden’s judiciary (ranking number 4 out of 126 countries World Justice Project’s 2019 Rule of Law Index), compared to other countries. Detractors also point out the U.S. president has been virtually silent about other high-profile cases..

The opinion page editor of The Washington Post, Karen Attiah, calls it “absolutely absurd” Trump has reacted more angrily to Sweden’s prime minister over the rapper’s case than he did to Saudi Arabia over the killing of the newspaper’s writer, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and U.S. resident.

Absolutely absurd that Trump has reacted more angrily to the Prime Minister of Sweden over the arrest of a rapper than to Saudi Arabia over the vicious killing of U.S. resident and @washingtonpost writer Jamal #Khashoggi.

Signed, A Member of the “African American Community” https://t.co/JzpfwftvGb

— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) July 26, 2019

Others allege a racial motive by the Swedes.

“I don’t want to call the race card but that’s what it’s looking like. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck,” said Renee Black, Mayers’ mother.

Fellow rapper G-Eazy also contends Mayers’ treatment stems from racism, referencing his own arrest in the country a year earlier.

“The difference between me and Rocky’s treatment and process in Sweden brings to mind two concepts that disgustingly go hand in hand: white privilege and systemic racism. Let’s call it what it is. He should not be behind bars right now. My heart goes out to my brother,” wrote G-Eazy on Instagram.

G-Eazy, whose real name is Gerald Gillum, was arrested in Sweden for violence against a public servant, resisting arrest and possession of narcotics. The rapper pleaded guilty and was fined $8,400.

Mayers is due in court Tuesday, and the trial is expected to last three days. He faces a maximum sentence of two years in prison.

Prosecutors set to defend Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction in appeals court next month say the accusations from other women are no coincidence, but “the culmination of a decades-long pattern of behavior.”

The 82-year-old comic actor is the first celebrity convicted and sent to prison in the (hash)MeToo era.
 
He is serving a three-to 10-year prison term for drugging and molesting a woman at his Philadelphia-area home in 2004.

Cosby’s lawyers are raising a long list of alleged trial errors on appeal. They include the judge’s decision to let five other accusers testify and references to Cosby’s possession of Quaaludes and other drugs.
 
Montgomery County prosecutors in a filing late Thursday say the women’s testimony is allowed under Pennsylvania law because it points to a “signature” crime.    Arguments in Cosby’s appeal are set for Aug.12.?