Restrictions continued in much of Indian-administered Kashmir on Sunday, despite India’s government saying it was gradually restoring phone lines and easing a security lockdown that’s been in place for nearly two weeks.

Soldiers manned nearly deserted streets and limited the movement of the few pedestrians who came out of their homes in Srinagar, the region’s main city.

The security crackdown and a news blackout were installed following an Aug. 5 decision by India’s Hindu nationalist government to downgrade the Muslim-majority region’s autonomy. Authorities started easing restrictions on Saturday.

But the Press Trust of India news agency said authorities re-imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar after violence was reported on Saturday.

About 300 Kashmiris returned to Srinagar on Sunday from a Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Many of them became emotional while reuniting with their family members who met them at the city’s airport. Due to the security and communications lockdown, many travelers were unable to contact anybody in the Kashmir region.

“Neither us nor our relatives here knew if we were dead or alive,” Muhammad Ali said after returning from the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.

Public transport buses started operating in some rural areas in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Saturday. Cellphone and internet services resumed in some districts, but news reports said that happened only in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region, which was not threatened by anti-India protests.

The New Delhi government’s decision on Kashmir’s status has touched off anger in the region and raised tensions with Pakistan. Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India, but both claim the region in its entirety. The nuclear-armed archrivals have fought two wars over the territory.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan demanded that United Nations observers be deployed to the troubled region.

“This threatens 9 million Kashmiris under siege” in Kashmir, “which should have sent alarm bells ringing across the world with UN Observers being sent there,” Khan said Sunday on Twitter.

Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh dismissed the idea, and said that if talks are held between New Delhi and Islamabad they would only be on Pakistani-administered Kashmir, not on India’s part of the region.

An exchange of gun and mortar fire between Indian and Pakistani forces was reported on Saturday across the militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir between the countries. India said one of its soldiers was killed in the exchange.

Meanwhile, ordinary people in the region continue to feel the impact of the restrictions.

Nazir Ahmad, a retired engineer who lives in Srinagar, said Saturday that residents were still facing difficulties in buying items such as vegetables, milk and medicine. He said his father is sick and needs a constant supply of medicine, which the family is finding difficult to procure.

“There is no internet, no telephone, no communication, no transportation,” said Ahmad, describing the situation as living through a “siege.”

“We are living like animals,” he said. “So I request everybody, please come and solve this situation. Nobody is coming out” of their homes.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has defended the Kashmir changes as freeing the territory from separatism, and his supporters have welcomed the move. One of the constitutional revisions allows anyone to buy land in Indian-controlled Kashmir, which some Kashmiris fear could change the region’s culture and demographics. Critics have likened it to Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.

 

 Jaffar Mjasiri contributed to this article.

A Tanzanian regional governor is calling for a nationwide public database listing married men as a means of protecting prospective brides from humiliation and heartbreak, he says.

Paul Makonda, the top official in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam, announced his plan earlier this week. He proposed the database after saying women had complained to him of lovers who had pretended they were single and promised marriage but then deserted them, along with children they’d fathered. The women were left without financial or other support.

“We can see from our women, they are suffering a lot,” Makonda told VOA in a phone call Wednesday. He said that at least one despondent woman had become suicidal “because somebody has been cheating [on] her. … We have to find a way to protect these women.”

The official offered this rationale for the campaign: “If the family is not going well, don’t expect the country to be in a good position. Everything starts from the family. … So it is our responsibility as a government to make sure that people are living in harmony.”

Anna Henga, executive director of the independent Legal and Human Rights Center  in Tanzania, said she considers the proposed public database “an infringement on human rights and the right to privacy.”

She pointed out that Tanzania has optional registration for marriage, whether civil or religious, monogamous or polygamous. The national Registration Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency notes only that if a couple does register to marry, the registrar must “cause the intention to be made known locally by such means as may be prescribed. …”

“A relationship is a private matter,” Henga said. A searchable database is “not fair.”

Familiar with controversy

Makonda, appointed to his post in March 2016 by President John Magufuli, has made headlines with other controversial campaigns.

In April 2018, he ignited a social media storm by announcing a house-to-house campaign to screen for prostate cancer. The Citizen of Kenya reported that doctors sounded opposition because of logistical and privacy challenges over digital rectal examination, commonly known as the “finger” method.

In late October, Makonda urged the public to provide the names of any suspected homosexuals in Dar es Salaam, so they could be tracked down and arrested.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet joined in the public outcry against the effort, saying Tanzania’s government and all its citizens “should work to combat prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” Tanzania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that Makonda’s plan reflected his own opinion and said that the national government would “continue to respect all international agreements on human rights that have been signed and ratified.”

Homosexuality is outlawed in much of Africa, including Tanzania. Makonda said he wanted to identify LGBTQ individuals so they could be provided counseling.

Kenyan campaign

Makonda’s call for a searchable database of married individuals takes a slightly different tack from a name-and-shame campaign begun earlier this month by a governor in neighboring Kenya. In early August, Mike Sonko of Nairobi invited women there to expose politicians and other prominent individuals who had fathered children out of wedlock, Kenya news media reported.

Sonko’s communications director reported the office within days had gotten complaints about at least 16 high-profile deadbeat dads 13 members of parliament and three governors the Kenyan diaspora news site Mwakilishi reported.

 

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren framed their Democratic presidential bids in personal, faith-based terms Saturday before black millennial Christians who could help determine which candidate becomes the leading progressive alternative to former Vice President Joe Biden.

Sanders, the Vermont senator whose struggles with black voters helped cost him the 2016 nomination, told the Young Leaders Conference that his family history shapes his approach to President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and the rise of white nationalism in the United States.

“I’m Jewish. My family came from Poland. My father’s whole family was wiped out by Hitler and his white nationalism,” Sanders said at the forum led by the Black Church PAC, a political action committee formed by prominent black pastors.

“We will go to war against white nationalism and racism in every aspect of our lives,” Sanders said, promising to use the “bully pulpit” to unite instead of divide. 

Warren, a Massachusetts senator and United Methodist, quoted her favorite biblical passage, which features Jesus instructing his followers to provide for others, including the “least of these my brethren.”

“That’s about two things,” Warren said. “Every single one of us has the Lord within us. …. Secondly, the Lord does not call on us to sit back. The Lord does not just call on us to have a good heart. The Lord calls on us to act.”

Sanders and Warren are looking for ways to narrow the gap with Biden, who remains atop primary polls partly because of his standing with older black voters. Polls suggest that younger black voters, however, are far more divided in their support among the many Democratic candidates.

The senators, both of whom are white, connected their biblical interpretations to their ideas about everything from economic regulation and taxation to criminal justice and health care.

“This is a righteous fight,” Warren said, who noted that she’s taught “fifth-grade Sunday School.”

Sanders, while not quoting Scripture as did Warren, declared that “the Bible, if it is about anything, is about justice.” His campaign, he said, is “not just defeating the most dangerous president in modern American history. We are about transforming this nation to make it work for all of us.”

Warren and Sanders received warm welcomes, with notable enthusiasm for their proposals to overhaul a criminal justice system both derided as institutionally racist and to eliminate student loan debt that disproportionately affects nonwhites. 

“They obviously tailored their message in a way that would resonate with this audience,” said Chanelle Reynolds, a 29-year-old marketing specialist from Washington, D.C. “But that means they spoke to issues and concerns that we care about.”

Reynolds described her generation of black voters – churchgoing or not – as more engaged than in the past, but cautious about choosing among candidates months before the voting begins. “I’m going to take my time,” she said, adding that “the last election, with Trump, shook us up, and we’re not going to let this one go by.” 

Indeed, the youngest generation of voters typically doesn’t shape presidential primary politics, for Democrats or Republicans. 

Impact of black voters

Black voters collectively have driven the outcome of the past two competitive Democratic nominating fights. But Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 built their early delegate leads largely on the strength of older black voters in Southern states with significant African American populations. 

Those states again feature prominently in the opening months of Democrats’ 2020 primary calendar, giving black millennials in metro areas such as Atlanta, along with Nashville, Tennessee, and Charlotte, North Carolina, a chance to wield their influence early in the process. 

Beyond the primaries, the eventual Democratic nominee will need younger black voters to flip critical states that helped elect Trump: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. 

“Anybody who’s not talking to every community, particularly within the African American community, you’re running a fool’s race,” said the Rev. Leah Daughtry, a pastor from Washington, D.C., and member of the Democratic National Committee, who co-moderated the Black Church PAC forum.

Three other 2020 candidates – Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, former Obama housing chief Julian Castro and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana – attended the conference on Friday. Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris are the most prominent black candidates in the 2020 race.

Mike McBride, a pastor who was Daughtry’s fellow moderator, stressed that the black church and the black community as a whole are not monolithic. Democrats, he said, must reach beyond the traditional Sunday services in places such as South Carolina, the first primary state with a sizable black population. 

“We need candidates to show up on our turf, not always asking us to show up on their turf,” McBride said in an interview. 

Daughtry said all Democratic candidates were invited, and she noted the absence of other leading candidates, including Biden, who is attending campaign fundraisers in the Northeast this weekend.

“He missed an opportunity,” Daughtry said, to “make his case” to younger voters “who don’t know him like older folks do.”

Police in Portland, Oregon, arrested at least 13 people Saturday, established concrete barriers, closed streets and bridges, and seized a multitude of weapons in an attempt to preempt violence between right-wing groups and anti-fascist counter-protesters.

Metal poles, bear spray, shields and other weapons were taken from protesters by the authorities Saturday as hundreds of far-right protesters and counter-demonstrators crowded the downtown area, but there were no major incidents between the two factions. 

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said at an evening news conference, however, that the event was connected with “a rising white nationalist movement” and a growing sense of fear in the U.S.  

The mayor said Joe Biggs, the organizer of the far-right demonstration, was not welcome in Portland. “We do not want him here in my city. Period.” 

Biggs said Saturday was a success. “Go look at President Trump’s Twitter,” he told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “He talked about Portland, said he’s watching antifa. That’s all we wanted.” 

U.S. President Donald Trump indicated Saturday morning that he could take action on Antifa. The president said in a tweet, “Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an “ORGANIZATION OF TERROR.” Portland is being watched very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job!”  However, there is no federal criminal offense of ‘domestic terrorism.’

Portland police used officers on bikes and in riot gear to keep black clad, helmet and mask-wearing anti-fascist protesters — known as Antifa — from following the right-wing groups. Hundreds of people remained on downtown streets.

Flag-waving members of the Proud Boys and Three Percenters militia group had gathered late in the morning, some also wearing body armor and helmets. Police said they had seized the weapons as the protesters assembled along the Willamette River that runs through the city.

Biggs, the organizer of the rally, is a member of the Proud Boys, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Joining them were the American Guard, Three Percenters, Oathkeepers and Daily Stormers.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Guard is a “white nationalist group,” Three Percenters and Oathkeepers are “extremist,” anti-government militias, and the Daily Stormers are “neo-Nazis.”

Countering the right-wingers was Portland’s Rose City Antifa, a local anti-fascist group that called on its members to take to the streets in an opposing rally. 

More than two dozen local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, were in the city for the right-wing rally that reportedly drew people from across the country. Portland Police said all of the city’s 1,000 officers were on duty for the gathering that was publicized on social media and elsewhere for weeks. 

Antifa has grown more visible recently and experts say the groups are not centrally organized, and their members may espouse a number of different causes, from politics to race relations to gay rights. But the principle that binds them — along with an unofficial uniform of black clothing and face masks — is the willingness to use violence to fight white supremacists, which has opened them to criticism from both left and right.

Three Palestinian men were killed by Israeli forces, the Palestinian health ministry said Sunday, adding that another Palestinian man was wounded in the shooting. 

An Israeli military statement said a military “attack helicopter and tank” opened fire on a group of armed men spotted “adjacent to the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip” that separates Israel from Gaza.

The incident happened just hours after three rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. 

There were no immediate reports of casualties in that incident.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina’s treasury minister, Nicolas Dujovne, resigned Saturday and will be replaced by the economy minister of the country’s most populous state, a senior official in the presidential office said. 
 
The resignation came three days after President Mauricio Macri announced his conservative administration was temporarily increasing the minimum wage, reducing payroll taxes and implementing other steps to help Argentine workers as the country struggles to overcome sizzling inflation, high unemployment and other economic problems. 
 
Macri acted after a leftist presidential slate that includes his predecessor, Cristina Fernandez, turned in a powerful showing last Sunday in primary voting for candidates going into October general elections. Macri’s slate did poorly, and the already weak Argentine peso slumped and stock prices fell sharply as investors worried about the vote results. 
 
In his resignation letter, Dujovne reportedly said the government needed to make “a significant overhaul in the economic area.” He said the administration had made strides in reducing the government’s deficit and reducing taxes, but added that “we undoubtedly made mistakes.” 
 
The presidency official, who agreed to confirm the resignation only if not quoted by name, said Dujovne would be replaced by Hernan Lacunza, the economy minister for Buenos Aires province. Lacunza previously was general manager of the Central Bank. 

Workers erected a wooden wall around Mexico City’s iconic Angel of Independence monument Saturday after feminists defaced it with graffiti during a raucous and violent protest over a string of alleged rapes by police.

The disorder Friday night erupted as part of protests that arose this week over a perception that city officials were not adequately investigating the rape accusations. Both victims were teenagers. The demonstrations have become known as the “glitter protests” after marchers doused the city’s police chief in pink glitter.

Hundreds of city workers spent the wee hours of the morning pressure-cleaning and painting over graffiti.

The deputy director of artistic patrimony at the National Fine Arts Institute, Dolores Martinez, said at the base of the statue that officials were assessing the damage to the Angel and other points in the capital that protesters attacked. 

At the same time, Martinez added, the fine arts institute “respects freedom of speech and offers support for actions to eradicate all forms of violence against women.”

Protesters wrote phrases like “They don’t take care of us” and “rape state” in lime green, purple and black spray paint across the base of the Angel monument, which commemorates Mexico’s independence from Spain and is often the site of celebrations by city residents. 

Demonstrators also painted the word “rapists” on the wall of a nearby police station and trashed a major bus station. A male television reporter was assaulted while covering the protest.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the first woman to head the city’s government, said via Twitter that the attorney general’s office of the metropolis will investigate and bring charges against those who attacked journalists.

Violence against women is a serious problem in Mexico. 

Human Rights Watch says Mexican laws “do not adequately protect women and girls against domestic and sexual violence.” It said in a 2019 report that provisions in Mexican law, including those that make the severity of punishments for sexual offenses contingent upon the supposed chastity of the victim, “contradict international standards.”

Mexico City’s culture minister, Jose Alfonso Suarez del Real, expressed sadness over the vandalism at the Angel monument, saying it “belongs to the Mexican people, not to the state.”

The remains of 14 independence heroes rest within the monument, including those of a woman, Leona Vicario.

The monument on Reforma Avenue is a reunion point for protests as well as celebrations. Soccer fans regularly converge around the base to celebrate their teams’ wins, while young girls marking their 15th birthdays – known as quinceaneras – pose for photos on the monument’s base wearing outsized party dresses on weekends.

Spotting the graffiti as she passed in a stretch limo, a quinceanera celebrant in a powder blue taffeta dress gasped in horror. Another, in a voluminous burgundy gown, went ahead with her photo shoot on the grass lawn around the monument despite the wooden barricade in the background. 

Art historian Mara Fragoso came to assess the damage to the Angel with conflicted feelings. She said she understands and shares the protesters’ rage over violence against women, but she feels monuments should not be violated.

The Angel in many ways is a monument to women, Fragoso said. In addition to the golden female figure of an angel at the top, stoic bronze female figures are stationed at the four corners of the base. 

Below the bronze figures are the words: War, Peace, Law and Justice.

“We’re divided between the indignation that’s evident, but also the indignation over the vandalism,” Fragoso said. “Both things are valid.”

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO – Officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory have plans for $13 billion worth of construction projects over the next decade at the northern New Mexico complex as it prepares to ramp up production of plutonium cores for the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal. 
 
They outlined their plans at a recent meeting attended by hundreds of representatives of construction firms from around the country. 
 
Beyond the new infrastructure related to plutonium assignment, other work most likely will be aimed at serving a growing workforce — from planned housing projects and parking garages to a potential new highway that would reduce commute times from Albuquerque and Santa Fe for the 60% of employees who live outside Los Alamos County. 

2,600 jobs
 
Lab Director Thomas Mason told the Albuquerque Journal the lab has 1,400 openings and plans to add another 1,200 jobs to its workforce of 12,000 by 2026.  
  
“It’s a busy time at the lab,” he said. “We’re probably busier than we have been since the height of the Cold War.” 
 
Mason said $3 billion in spending is planned for improvements to the lab’s existing plutonium facility for the core work. An accelerator project and a new-generation supercomputer also will require major investments. 
 
Roadwork would be the responsibility of surrounding communities or the state, but he said the lab is stressing the importance of transportation infrastructure and needs to communicate to the region about the lab’s growth projections. 
 
One piece of transportation infrastructure — Omega Bridge, which connects the town of Los Alamos with the lab site over Los Alamos Canyon — is owned by the federal government. One possibility is that it’s converted to a “greenway” with a new bridge added nearby.  
  
Mason said the question of what to do with the bridge is a long-term issue. 

Watchdogs have questions
 
Some watchdog groups have been concerned about the federal government’s plans to boost plutonium pit production at Los Alamos given the current infrastructure and the lab’s track record of safety concerns. 
 
Greg Mello with the Albuquerque-based Los Alamos Study Group said “everywhere pit production has been done, in every country, has been an environmental disaster.” 
 
Pits were formerly made at Rocky Flats in Colorado, which was shut down in the early 1990s amid an environmental scandal. 
 
“We think it’s the wrong direction for this region,” Mello said. 
 
The National Nuclear Security Administration is under a mandate from Congress and the Department of Defense to make 80 pits a year by 2030 as part of a plan to modernize the nation’s arsenal. 
 
Only a handful have been produced in recent decades, all of them at Los Alamos. NNSA’s plan calls for making 30 pits a year at Los Alamos and 50 pits a year at the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. 
 
A recent congressionally funded study cast doubt on whether the pit production goals can be met and questioned the plan to ramp up production, which is estimated to cost $14 billion to $28 billion. The study stated that “eventual success of the strategy to reconstitute plutonium pit production is far from certain.” 

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – An explosion ripped through a wedding hall on a busy Saturday night in Afghanistan’s capital and dozens of people were killed or wounded, a government official said. Hundreds of people were believed to be inside. 
 
Interior Ministry spokesman Nusrat Rahimi told The Associated Press there was no immediate information on the cause of the blast. Both the Taliban and a local affiliate of the Islamic State group carry out bloody attacks in the capital. 
 
The blast at the Dubai City wedding hall in western Kabul, a part of the city that many in the minority Shiite Hazara community call home, shattered a period of relative calm in the city. 
 
On Aug. 7, a Taliban car bomb aimed at Afghan security forces detonated on the same road in a busy west Kabul neighborhood, killing 14 people and wounding 145 — most of them women, children and other civilians.  
  
Kabul’s huge, brightly lit wedding halls are centers of community life in a city weary of decades of war, with thousands of dollars spent on a single evening. 
 
“Devastated by the news of a suicide attack inside a wedding hall in Kabul. A heinous crime against our people; how is it possible to train a human and ask him to go and blow himself [up] inside a wedding?!!” Sediq Seddiqi, spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, said in a Twitter post. 
 
The wedding halls also serve as meeting places, and in November at least 55 people were killed when a suicide bomber sneaked into a Kabul wedding hall where hundreds of Muslim religious scholars and clerics had gathered to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

Between holidays 
 
The latest attack came a few days after the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, with Kabul residents visiting family and friends, and just before Afghanistan marks its 100th independence day on Monday. 
 
The blast came at a greatly uncertain time in Afghanistan as the United States and the Taliban near a deal to end a nearly 18-year war. The Afghan government has been sidelined from those discussions, and presidential spokesman Seddiqi said earlier Saturday that his government was waiting to hear results of President Donald Trump’s meeting Friday with his national security team about the negotiations. Top issues include a U.S. troop withdrawal and Taliban guarantees not to let Afghanistan become a launching pad for global terror attacks. 
 
While the Taliban earlier this year pledged to do more to protect civilians, it continues to stage deadly attacks against Afghan security forces and others in what is seen by many as an attempt to strengthen its position at the negotiating table. 
 
The conflict continues to take a horrific toll on civilians. Last year more than 3,800, including more than 900 children, were killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, U.S. and allied forces, the Islamic State affiliate and other actors, the United Nations said. 

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, PAKISTAN – Pakistani intelligence officials said a roadside bomb attack killed two army soldiers Saturday in the country’s northwest. 
 
The officials said the planted bomb exploded when a security forces vehicle was patrolling in the Ladha area of South Waziristan.  
  
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.  
  
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but past such attacks have been claimed by Pakistani Taliban.  
  
South Waziristan was a stronghold of Mahsud militants until the army carried out multiple offensives against them in recent years. 
 
The army claims to have cleared the area near the Afghan border of Islamic militants. 

BEIRUT – Airstrikes have killed more than two dozen civilians in northwestern Syria in the last two days in an escalation of a Russian-backed offensive against the last major rebel stronghold, a war monitor and local activists said Saturday. 

An airstrike in the village of Deir Sharki killed seven members of one family, most of them children, on Saturday morning, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Another seven people were killed by bombardments in other areas, it said. 

On Friday, airstrikes in the village of al-Haas killed 13 people. The dead included a pregnant woman and her unborn baby, local activists and the observatory said. They had been seeking shelter after fleeing another area. 

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the observatory, said the government’s aim was apparently to force civilians to flee from areas that had been relatively unscathed in the military escalation that began in late April. 

“They are bombing the towns and their outskirts to push people to flee,” he said, adding that hundreds of families were moving northward, away from the targeted areas. 

No military positions 

Ahmad al-Dbis, safety and security manager for the U.S.-based Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), which supports medical facilities in the northwest, said the bombardment had widened into populated areas where there were no military positions. 

“They are being targeted to drive the people towards forced displacement,” he told Reuters. 

Dbis said the number of civilians killed by government or Russian forces stood at more than 730 since late April. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said more than 500 civilians have died in hostilities. 

Russia and Syria have said their forces are not targeting civilians and are instead aimed at militants including the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. 

The northwestern region including Idlib province is part of the last major foothold of the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. 

Government troops advance

The government side has been advancing toward Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib province, threatening to encircle the last remaining pocket of rebel-held territory in neighboring Hama province. 

Capt. Naji Musafa, spokesman for rebel National Liberation Front, said fierce clashes were raging in southern Idlib province and adjoining areas of Hama province. 

France called Friday for an immediate end to the fighting. The French Foreign Ministry added that it condemned in particular airstrikes on camps for the displaced. 

The surge in violence has already forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee toward the border with Turkey, which backs some of the rebels in the northwest and has its own troops on the ground in the area. 

A Turkey-backed Syrian rebel force based north of Aleppo, the National Army, said it had yet to send reinforcements to help the Idlib rebels because of technical reasons. 

The National Army had said it would send the fighters Friday. 

“There is a meeting today among the factions over preparations for the National Army to enter Idlib, and we are awaiting the results of this meeting,” Maj. Youssef Hammoud, its spokesman, said. 

For the first time in more than a decade, Native Americans have the opportunity to question presidential candidates on issues of importance to Indian Country.

“This is our chance to tell candidates that they can earn our votes,” said organizer O.J. Semans, co-executive director of the national Native American voting rights organization

Italy’s hard-line interior minister appeared to buckle under pressure Saturday to ease the political standoff over a migrant rescue ship with 134 people aboard, saying he would allow minors to disembark after being at sea for two weeks.

Premier Giuseppe Conte had written a second letter to Interior Minister Matteo Salvini demanding that minors be allowed off the boat. Salvini wrote back Saturday with a three-page missive of his own saying he would do so but made clear it was Conte’s choice and that it didn’t set a precedent.

It wasn’t clear how many youngsters were aboard, or when the disembarkation might begin.

The standoff laid bare the split between Salvini’s anti-migrant League and the 5-Star Movement, which together govern Italy. Salvini is seeking to end Conte’s populist coalition with a no-confidence vote and early election that Salvini hopes will give him the premiership.

Spanish aid group Open Arms had rescued the migrants in the Mediterranean near Libya two weeks ago, and won a legal battle to enter Italy’s territorial waters despite a ban by Salvini preventing humanitarian aid groups from docking.

The ship has been off Italy’s coast waiting to disembark after Spain and five other European Union nations agreed to take them in.

Open Arms chief Oscar Camps warned Saturday that the group couldn’t guarantee the safety of the migrants anymore, as tensions were rising and fights breaking out.

He warned European leaders that as of Saturday “we cannot be responsible nor guarantee the security of the people on board Open Arms.”

Amid the standoff, the aid group filed a formal complaint with prosecutors in Sicily alleging that both the migrants and the crew were being held hostage. Salvini and other ministers have been investigated in the past for alleged kidnapping stemming from previous standoffs, but no charges have ever been brought.

Conflicting demonstrations were expected to draw hundreds of protesters Saturday to the city of Portland, Oregon, where police were positioning in the downtown area to keep the peace.

Far-right protesters are expected to march in the same part of town where local anti-fascist groups intend to conduct a counter-demonstration.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined leaders of the city’s religious, and business to warn those “who plan on using Portland on August 17th as a platform to spread your hate. Those groups are not welcome here.” community

Friday police arrested Joey Gibson, the leader of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer’s, prompting him to urge his followers on social media to “show up ten-fold, one hundred-fold” for Saturday’s protests.

Gibson, who was not involved in organizing this weekend’s event but has planned similar rallies in the past, surrendered Friday on an outstanding warrant for a fight that broke out in May between his right-wing supporters and left-wing adversaries.

Mayor Wheeler said all of Portland’s nearly 1,000 police officers will be on duty Saturday and will be helped by the Oregon State Police, other local police forces and the FBI.

The rally was organized by a member of the Proud Boys, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Expected to join them are the American Guard, Three Percenters, Oathkeepers and Daily Stormers.
 
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Guard is a “white nationalist group,” Three Percenters and Oathkeepers are “extremist,” anti-government militias and the Daily Stormers are “neo-Nazis.”

Countering the right-wingers is Portland’s Rose City Antifa, a local anti-fascist group that has called on its members to take to the streets in an opposing rally.

Antifa has grown more visible recently and experts say the groups are not centrally organized, and their members may espouse a number of different causes, from politics to race relations to gay rights. But the principle that binds them — along with an unofficial uniform of black clothing and face masks — is the willingness to use violence to fight white supremacists, which has opened them to criticism from both left and right.

At a June rally in Portland, masked antifa members beat up a conservative blogger named Andy Ngo. Video of the 30-second attack grabbed national attention.
 
The city’s leadership and residents are on edge ahead of the rallies. Many summer staples like music festivals and  recreational events have been cancelled. A 5K race has changed its course to avoid possible violence and most businesses in the area plan to close.

Thousands of schoolteachers in Hong Kong marched to the official residence of the city’s leader Saturday as another weekend of protests got underway in the Chinese territory.

An overflow crowd rallied at a nearby public square before setting off on streets that had been closed to traffic, carrying signs that read “Protect the next generation” and umbrellas to ward off intermittent downpours.

The teachers tied white ribbons to a metal fence near Government House to show their support for the protesters, who have taken to the streets since early June and include many students. They said the government of leader Carrie Lam should answer the protesters’ demands and stop using what they called police violence to disperse demonstrators who have taken over streets and besieged and defaced government buildings.

“We want to protect our students, our youngsters, so teachers are willing to come out and speak for the youngsters, and also, to stand by them so they are not alone,” said Fung Wai-wah, president of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union, which organized the march.

Protesters were marching through a district on the Kowloon side of Victoria Harbor, and a counter-rally backing the government was planned for later Saturday.

“Even though we’re all scared of getting arrested, we have to keep going,” said Minnie Lee, a 31-year-old logistics worker who was marching in Kowloon. “What we are fighting for is democracy and our rights. We’re not doing anything wrong. If we stop now, things will only get worse.”

Police drills across border

A rally in Victoria Park has been called for Sunday by a pro-democracy group that has organized three massive marches through central Hong Kong since June.

The movement’s demands include Lam’s resignation, democratic elections and an independent investigation into police use of force.

China’s paramilitary People’s Armed Police has been holding drills this week across the border in Shenzhen, fueling speculation that they could be sent in to suppress the protests. Officers could be seen drilling inside a sports stadium on Saturday, and dozens of army-green armored carriers and trucks are parked in and outside the facility.

The Hong Kong police, however, have said they are capable of handling the protests.

“I can tell you we’re confident the police have the capability to maintain law and order,” Yeung Man-pun, commander of the Kowloon City district, said Friday when asked about the possibility of a deployment of mainland security forces.

Australia, Taiwan protests

Outside of Hong Kong, demonstrations were held in support of both the pro-democracy movement and China. 

In Australia, at least 200 protesters descended on Sydney Town Hall, chanting “Long live China” and singing the Chinese national anthem, while a protest in support of the pro-democracy movement continued in Melbourne.

The Melbourne rally turned ugly Friday night, with police moving in to separate some 100 pro-China protesters from those sympathetic to Hong Kong. Saturday’s protest in the southern city was peaceful.

In Taiwan, people held a flash mob demonstration in Taipei, the island’s capital, in support of the Hong Kong protests.

DENALI NATIONAL PARK, Alaska  – Road crews have cleared one lane in Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve, and buses are beginning to return about 300 stranded tourists back to the park entrance.

The tourists became stranded Friday after heavy rains triggered mudslides and caused excess water from a culvert to damage a road.

Park spokesman Paul Ollig told The Associated Press that all the stranded passengers are expected back at the park entrance Friday night, but he didn’t have an exact time of when they would arrive.

“Our team did an outstanding job responding to multiple debris slides along a pretty remote section of road,’’ said Erika Jostad, Denali’s chief ranger. “The geohazard team monitored conditions while the road crew was clearing debris. It was a great example of teamwork.’’

Earlier Friday, Denali’s superintendent closed Denali Park Road to all traffic at mile 30. The road is the only one inside the vast park.

Similar debris flows led to daylong traffic restrictions last week. Continued heavy rains since kept the road and surrounding tundra saturated with water.

Also Friday, the Alaska Railroad said it has halted service north of the park because of the failure of a retaining wall caused by high water in the Nenana River.

Passenger and freight service will be suspended through the area until late Monday at the earliest, the railroad said in a statement.

The railroad added that passengers traveling north to or south from Denali Park on the Alaska Railroad or on an Alaska Railroad provided service through Holland America/Princess or Premier Alaska Tours should expect delays.

Media organizations say Australia has become a secretive state that is actively restricting the press. The leaders of the country’s major newspapers and broadcasters have made the claims at the first public hearing of a parliamentary inquiry investigating Australia’s security laws and their impact on journalism.

Australia’s media bosses say journalists must be able to do their jobs without fear. The inquiry in Sydney was told that reporters who published stories based on leaked government documents were being treated as though they had received “stolen goods.”

The Australian parliament’s powerful intelligence and security committee is investigating the impact national security laws have on press freedom.

The probe was launched after the Australian Federal Police raided a newspaper journalist’s home in Canberra and the headquarters of the national broadcaster, the ABC, in June, over stories based on leaked confidential documents. The raids were widely condemned as heavy-handed and an “utter violation” of a free media.

The ABC was targeted for publishing allegations of unlawful killings and misconduct by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan. They were based on hundreds of pages of classified military papers.

Media chiefs are calling for so-called “public interest protections” for reporters to be able to tell sensitive stories without fear of prosecution.

Michael Miller, the executive chairman of News Corp Australasia says national security concerns are unfairly outweighing the public’s right to know.

“We may not be living in police state, but we are living in a state of secrecy,” he said. “We have many laws that criminalize journalism. They are creating a secret society that most Australians would not recognize as our own.”

Police defend raids

Senior Australian Federal Police officers have insisted the raids on the media in June were in defense of national security and that the compromise of sensitive material “could cause exceptionally grave damage or serious damage” to Australia’s interests.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has stressed the importance of a free and open press in Australian democracy.

The parliamentary inquiry into press freedom is expected to report its findings by October.
 

U.S. President Donald Trump met Friday with his national security team to discuss the U.S. negotiations with the Afghan Taliban, the White House said.

The meeting came amid media reports that both sides were close to striking a deal that would decide the fate of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after almost 19 years of conflict in the country. 

“The meeting went very well, and negotiations are proceeding,” the White House said in a statement following the meeting, which was led by the president, who is on a working vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Following the meeting, Trump said the U.S. was looking for a deal with the Taliban “if possible.”  

Just completed a very good meeting on Afghanistan. Many on the opposite side of this 19 year war, and us, are looking to make a deal – if possible!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2019

 
A statement issued Friday evening by the U.S. State Department said the president discussed the “status of negotiations for peace” and “the path forward in Afghanistan.”

Those who met with the president included Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, national security adviser John Bolton, Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford and CIA Director Gina Haspel.

“In continued close cooperation with the government of Afghanistan, we remain committed to achieving a comprehensive peace agreement, including a reduction in violence and a cease-fire, ensuring that Afghan soil is never again used to threaten the United States or her allies, and bringing Afghans together to work towards peace,” the statement said.

A senior administration official told Reuters that no big decision was expected to come out of the president’s meeting with his national security team, but that the “president wanted to bring U.S. troops home.”

Taliban refusal

There seems to have been no change in the Taliban’s staunch position against holding direct talks with the Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani, which the Taliban calls a U.S. puppet government.

U.S. officials have been insisting, though, that any agreement with the insurgent group would be tied to the start of intra-Afghan talks.

Despite assurances by the U.S., the Afghan government has expressed deep concern about being left out of the direct talks between the U.S. and Taliban. The latest round of talks concluded Monday in Qatar’s capital, Doha, where the U.S. delegation and members of the Taliban negotiating team held discussions for nine days to try to iron out differences.

Ghani said Sunday, during a speech on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, that a decision this monumental couldn’t be left to an outsider.

“Our fate cannot be decided outside of Afghanistan, not in the countries of our allies, nor in the capitals of our neighbors,” Ghani said in an apparent reference to the direct U.S. talks with the Taliban.

“Our fate would be decided inside this land. We do not want anyone to interfere in our internal affairs,” the Afghan president added.

September elections

Ghani and his government are adamant about holding the country’s presidential elections, which are due in late September, and in which Ghani seeks another five-year term in office.

Amrullah Saleh, Ghani’s running mate and former head of the country’s spy agency, said on Twitter earlier this month that only a legitimate government elected by the people could negotiate with the Taliban, and that therefore elections must be held.

“Elections will take place. Allow no poisonous propaganda to disturb your patriotism. The link between elections and the peace process is very direct and crucial. No one without a mandate from the people can negotiate settlement,” Saleh said.
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the election by attacking polling centers and campaign rallies. The insurgent group last week warned people not to participate in the elections.

A day after the warning, a Taliban car bomb targeting Afghan security forces killed 14 people and wounded more than 140, mostly children, women and other civilians.

Significant differences

Although both the Taliban and the U.S. are citing progress in their direct talks, a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters that “significant differences remained” between the two sides following the end of the eighth round of talks in Doha this week.

The officials said the differences center on U.S. demands that the insurgents publicly denounce ties to al-Qaida and other terror groups and agree to a nationwide cease-fire.

Some in the U.S. Congress are concerned that terror groups including al-Qaida and the Islamic State may find fertile ground inside Afghanistan and pose a threat to the U.S. and its allies if the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and an ally of Trump, tweeted Friday following the president’s meeting with the national security team.  

Must have robust counterterrorism force with intel capability no matter what Taliban demands in order to protect the USA.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) August 16, 2019

 
“Share President Trump’s ‘hope’ that we can honorably end the war in Afghanistan with the Taliban. Certain that al-Qaida, ISIS, and other radical Islamic groups are not interested in the war ending,” Graham added.

Graham insists the U.S. should maintain a counterterrorism force inside Afghanistan, even if a deal is reached with the Taliban.

The U.S. has about 14,000 troops in Afghanistan engaged in both train-and-advise missions, as part of the U.S.-led NATO Resolute Support Mission, and in counterterrorism missions against the Islamic State and al-Qaida terror groups.

About 8,000 troops from NATO allies and partners also are stationed in the country, training and supporting the Afghan security forces.

Some of information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press. 

Members of China’s paramilitary People’s Armed Police marched and practiced crowd control tactics at a sports complex in Shenzhen across from Hong Kong in what some interpreted as a threat against pro-democracy protesters in the semi-autonomous territory.

The sound of marching boots and synchronized shouts echoed from the grounds Friday. Officers in green camouflage stood guard at closed entrances. A stadium security guard said “it wasn’t clear” when the paramilitary police would leave the grounds.

Chinese state media have said only that the Shenzhen exercises were planned earlier and were not directly related to the unrest in Hong Kong, though they came shortly after the central government in Beijing said the protests were beginning to show the “sprouts of terrorism.”

From a distance, police could be seen conducting drills in military fatigues, using shields, poles and other riot-control gear. In one exercise, two groups marched in formation with those in front raising shields as if to protect themselves from projectiles. Others behind held red flags and banners. The words “the law” and “prosecuted” could be seen on one.

Outside, dozens of armored carriers and trucks sat in the parking lot of the Shenzhen Bay Stadium, close to a bridge linking mainland China to Hong Kong.

Asked if Hong Kong police could maintain order or if mainland Chinese intervention is becoming inevitable, Hong Kong police commander Yeung Man-pun said that while they face tremendous pressure, “I can tell you we’re confident the police have the capability to maintain law and order.”

Weeks of protest

Germany, meanwhile, said it considers China to be a responsible actor that will respect Hong Kong laws guaranteeing freedom of speech and rule of law.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Friday that Hong Kong’s 1997 Basic Law, under which the city was promised a high degree of autonomy when the former British colony returned to China, “is a Chinese law, and as such we naturally expect that the People’s Republic of China, too, won’t call into question the peaceful exercise of these rights.”

Weeks of protests in Hong Kong have been marked by increasing violence and a shutdown of the Hong Kong airport earlier this week. The demonstrators are demanding expanded political rights and the scrapping of legislation that could have seen criminal suspects sent to mainland China.

A weekend of protests began Friday night with a university student-led “power to the people” rally in Chater Garden, a public square in the financial district.

A pro-democracy march is planned for Saturday along with a separate pro-government “Save Hong Kong” rally, ahead of a major pro-democracy rally called for Sunday. Police have denied permission for the march Sunday, but protesters have ignored such denials in the past.

Airline CEO resigns

China has pressured foreign and Hong Kong companies to support the ruling Communist Party’s position against the protesters.

The CEO of Cathay Pacific Airways, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent companies, resigned Friday following pressure by Beijing on the carrier over participation by some of its employees in the anti-government protests.

Cathay Pacific said Rupert Hogg resigned “to take responsibility” following “recent events.”

The company chairman, John Slosar, said in a statement the airline needed new management because events had “called into question” its commitment to safety and security.

On Monday, Hogg threatened employees with “disciplinary consequences” if they took part in “illegal protests.”

Last week, China’s aviation regulator said Cathay Pacific employees who “support or take part in illegal protests, violent actions, or overly radical behavior” are banned from staffing flights to mainland China.

Message of ‘joy and smile’

On Friday morning, Frenchman Alain Robert, who has been dubbed “spiderman” for his unauthorized climbs of skyscrapers, hung a banner appealing for peace as he scaled the 62-story Cheung Kong Center, a landmark Hong Kong building that is the base for property tycoon Li Ka-shing’s business empire.

The banner showed the Chinese and Hong Kong flags over a handshake and a small yellow sun with a smiley face.

“The banner is to give joy and smile to the people of Hong Kong,” he told the AP as he sat in a taxi about to leave for his climb. He added that he didn’t want to get “mixed up in the political situation.”

Robert, 57, was taken to a police station afterward. It wasn’t immediately clear if he would be charged. He was banned in 2017 from returning to Hong Kong for one year after climbing another building.
 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday the U.S.-Israel relationship can withstand the “weakness” of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who shook diplomatic norms this week in barring two members of Congress from visiting the country.

Pelosi told The Associated Press that the “weakness of Netanyahu and the weakness of Donald Trump combined” into a policy that’s “a no.”

“We have a deep relationship and long-standing relationship with Israel that can withstand Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu,” Pelosi said. “We cannot let their weaknesses stand in the way of our ongoing relationship.”

She said the U.S. commitment to Israel isn’t dependent on either leader, a sign there may not be lasting fallout from this week’s incident, particularly in terms of foreign aid, which must be approved by Congress.

In an extraordinary move, Netanyahu, with a push from Trump, barred entry for Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota ahead of their planned visit. Tlaib was later granted a humanitarian exception to visit her grandmother in the West Bank, but ultimately decided against the trip .

Trump views the freshmen congresswomen as among his chief opponents — part of the “squad” of newly elected liberal lawmakers — and has called them out at his rallies and in racist tweets as he runs for re-election. Trump describes them as the face of the Democratic Party. 

Trump complained Friday about Tlaib’s decision against taking the trip.

“Rep. Tlaib wrote a letter to Israeli officials desperately wanting to visit her grandmother. Permission was quickly granted, whereupon Tlaib obnoxiously turned the approval down, a complete setup,” Trump tweeted. “The only real winner here is Tlaib’s grandmother. She doesn’t have to see her now!”

The two Muslim lawmakers support a Palestinian-led boycott of Israel, and barring their entry was an escalation of Netanyahu’s attempts to quash the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Both leaders are up for re-election — Netanyahu in the fall, and Trump next year. Critics of the decision framed it as stoking divisions for short-term political gain at the expense of harming the deep ties that Israel has long enjoyed with both political parties in the U.S.

Pelosi said she had “great, great, great sadness” over the decision, but she was not discouraging other lawmakers from visiting Israel.

“Members will make their own decisions about this, but I would not discourage travel to Israel,” Pelosi said.

“We have a strong relationship with Israel as well as a deep love and respect for the people of Israel. And, again, this is not going to undermine that, try as President Trump will to do that.”