School dress codes are legal in America, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. But many students say they discriminate against females and burnish stereotypes. During the 2015-16 school year, 53 percent of public schools compelled students to abide by a dress code, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But some young women in the United States and around the world are pushing back, saying dress codes unfairly target women more than men. Sahar Majid has more in this report narrated by Kathleen Struck.

In May a Chinese vessel exploring for oil tried to stop the operations of a Malaysian contract drilling site in the South China Sea, a U.S. think tank says. In June and July, a Chinese boat entered a standoff with Vietnam over exploration in another tract of the disputed waters. 

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) expressed concern. The bloc, which includes Malaysia and Vietnam, brought up land reclamation plus other activities in the South China Sea, the site of Asia’s biggest maritime sovereignty dispute, saying in a statement those actions could “undermine peace.”

China’s reclamation of land in the South China Sea over the past decade makes it easier to launch ships and place oil rigs compared to countries without those resources. Beijing has a military and technological lead over the five other governments with claims to the disputed waters.

ASEAN usually takes a more upbeat tone at formal events such as the August 2 East Asia foreign ministers summit that produced the statement. The bloc now wants to show its exasperation with Chinese expansion without angering Beijing, a key ally, experts believe.

“It’s an interesting change in wording, probably related to recent events in Vietnam and Malaysia,” said Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines. “It’s unusual that in the past months you had these incidents practically simultaneously taking place.”

ASEAN chairman’s statement

While the statement from the Bangkok summit avoids naming any one country, the wording implies China, analysts believe. 

“The ministers discussed the matters relating to the South China Sea and took note of some concerns on the land reclamations and activities in the area, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions and may undermine peace, security and stability in the region,” the August 2 document says.

Other parts of the statement include language that the United States and its allies have used in pressuring China to get along better with its maritime neighbors. ASEAN ministers, for example, advocate “freedom of navigation in and overflight above the South China Sea,” the statement says. 

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam dispute China’s claims to all or parts of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea. Claimant nations prize the waterway for fisheries and marine shipping lanes as well as oil and gas reserves.

ASEAN, which also counts Brunei and the Philippines as members, had to come up with language that expressed worry without offending China, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. China ranks as a valued trade partner and core investment source for much of ASEAN.

“On the one hand, I think many of the claimant countries, they are concerned about land reclamations and increased frequency of patrols, but of course they don’t want to antagonize China,” Oh said.

Pressure on Malaysia, Vietnam

A Chinese coast guard vessel was patrolling waters in May close by Luconia Shoals near Malaysia and tried then to “prevent the operations” of a drilling rig, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative under the Washington DC-based research and policy group, the Center for Strategic & International Studies. 

Chinese coast guard vessels had also patrolled since mid-June around a seabed tract about 350 kilometers off the coast of southeastern Vietnam where the Southeast Asian country is exploring for energy, the initiative says. Vietnam eventually asked the Chinese boats to leave.

“China has intruded into Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone to illegally conduct seismic surveys, fired high-pressure water cannons on Vietnam Coast Guard ships and crossed their bows at high-speed and harassed an oil exploration vessel,” said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor with The University of New South Wales in Australia.

China staying upbeat

Officials from China participated actively at the ASEAN ministerial events last week, said Termsak Chalermpalanupap, fellow with the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. They have tried over the past three years to reach peace with much of Southeast Asia by offering investment and boosts in trade grounded in the world’s second largest economy.

China will “pretend everything is OK” and suggest that the region can “handle our differences,” Batongbacal said. 

China says it wants to sign with ASEAN a code of conduct aimed at preventing mishaps on the sea. The two sides discussed that code last week. “The Chinese now want more working group meetings to speed up the negotiation of the drafting,” Chalermpalanupap said.

President Donald Trump urged Americans to condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy Monday in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.  But opposition Democrats continue to complain that some of the president’s past rhetoric on race and immigration has inflamed passions and divided the country.  VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on the president’s reaction to the latest gun violence from Washington.

Volunteers on Monday planted crosses, each representing a fatality in Saturday’s mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, at a shrine to the victims that included “El Paso strong” signs, flowers, candles, bible verses and U.S. and Mexican flags.

Police have not released the names of the victims of the attack, which authorities have called an act of domestic terrorism that appeared to target Hispanics. Hours later, a separate mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people. The attacks injured dozens more.

Greg Zanis of Crosses for Losses, who has been making white, waist-high wooden crosses for victims of tragedies since 1986, provided them for the shrine to the victims near the Walmart store.

“Today is the worst day. I’m going to have to go to Dayton, Ohio, right now. I don’t know how I can handle this day,” Zanis told reporters at the shrine.

Zanis said he has made more than 26,000 crosses since the master carpenter began his one-man mission after finding the body of his father-in-law, who had been shot to death.

In 1999, he erected 13 crosses in Colorado in honor of the victims of the shooting rampage at Columbine High School. Last year he went to Pittsburgh to deliver 11 Stars of David in remembrance of the worshippers shot dead on Oct. 27 at the Tree of Life synagogue, and barely two weeks later to Thousand Oaks, Calif., for the 12 victims of a shooting there, and then to Paradise, Calif., the following month after a wildfire destroyed the town, killing at least 85.

He was even forced into action for a workplace shooting on Feb. 15 in his home town of Aurora, Illinois that killed six.

“These people all don’t think it will happen in their towns, and I was dumb enough to think it wouldn’t happen in mine,” Zanis said.

Mexican Nationals

At least eight of the victims in the border city of El Paso were Mexican nationals. One funeral home is offering free cremation services for the victims as the city mourned.

At the Walmart shrine, Tony Basco, 61, planted a cross for his partner of 22 years, Margie Reckard, 67, according to the name and age on the cross.

“I’ve been lost. I’m like a puppy run away from its momma.

She took care of me,” Basco said. “But my wife, she’d say get up off your rear end and grow up. Because now I’ve got to take care of the bills, take care of the cat.”

Basco was unaware Zanis would be presenting her cross. He just happened to be visiting the site for the first time since the massacre.

“I just wanted to go where she died,” Basco said.

Nestled in the foothills of Washington’s Cascade Mountains, the bustling Seattle suburb of Issaquah seems an unlikely candidate for anxiety over wildfires. 

The region, famous for its rainfall, has long escaped major burns even as global warming has driven an increase in the size and number of wildfires elsewhere in the American West. 

But according to experts, previously too-wet-to-burn parts of the Pacific Northwest face an increasing risk of significant wildfires due to changes in its climate driven by the same phenomenon: Global warming is bringing higher temperatures, lower humidity and longer stretches of drought. 

 And the region is uniquely exposed to the threat, with property owners who are often less prepared for fire than those in drier places and more homes tucked along forests than any other western state. 

In Issaquah and towns like it across the region, that takes a shape familiar from recent destructive California wildfires: heavy vegetation that spills into backyards, often pressing against houses in neighborhoods built along mountains, with strong seasonal winds and few roads leading out. 

“The only thing that’s keeping it from going off like a nuclear bomb is the weather,” said Chris Dicus, a professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and head of the Association for Fire Ecology, a national group that studies wildfire and includes experts from the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey. 

With historically short summers, the swath of densely forested coastal territory stretching from northwestern Oregon to British Columbia has long been cloaked in a protective veil of moisture, making even medium-sized fires relatively rare. So-called “megafires” — enveloping hundreds of thousands of acres and even generating their own weather — have occurred only at century-plus intervals. 

 But global warming is changing the region’s seasons. A national climate assessment prepared by 13 federal agencies and released in 2018 said the Pacific Northwest had warmed nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900 and that trend would continue into the century, leading to warmer winters and less mountain snowpack. 

Experts say these long-term changes create a special risk in Pacific Northwest forests: Even a modest increase in contributing factors, like days without rain, could make them much more prone to burning. 

“It’s a couple of degrees difference. It’s a couple of weeks’ difference,” said Michael Medler, a fire scientist and chair of the environmental studies department at Western Washington University. “Those are the kinds of changes that amount to taking a forest and pushing it over the edge.” 

Exactly when any one part of the region will reach that point is hard to predict, and researchers stressed that unknowns exist in modeling fire in woods that have burned so infrequently. But all pointed to changes already beginning to take place. 

This year’s fire danger, for instance, reached above-normal levels in the region a full three months earlier than at any time in more than 10 years, driven partly by an abnormally dry winter. 

And fire counts are up: As of late June, western Oregon forests have seen double the average number of fire starts from the previous decade — 48 compared with 20. Western Washington saw an even larger increase, with 194 starts compared with an average of 74. 

Even the region around Astoria, Oregon, which frequently gets 100-plus rainy days per year, making it one of the wettest parts of the state, has seen a dozen small fires in 2018 and 2019, according to data from the Oregon Department of Forestry. That compares with an average of just two per year over the previous decade. 

Last year, 40% of Washington’s wildfires were on its wetter western side, according to Janet Pearce, a spokeswoman for that state’s natural resources agency. 

“That was alarming and a first for us,” she said in an email. 

The risk is amplified by development patterns throughout the Pacific Northwest, where experts say the long gaps between major fires have created a perception of the forest as being too wet to burn. 

In part due to that perception, the region boasts some of the West’s most concentrated forest-edge development. 

 A 2013 survey of development within 550 yards (500 meters) of forestlands found that just six counties along the foothills of Washington’s Cascade mountains host more homes in such zones than all of California. 

Together, western Washington and the northwest corner of Oregon contained roughly 1,400 square miles (3,626 square kilometers) of forest-edge development — nearly as much as California, Colorado and Montana combined, according to the report by Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit land management research group. 

Ray Rasker, who heads the group, cautioned the report was narrower than others, which count development up to 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from any type of wildland. And the results don’t necessarily translate to the Northwest being at higher overall risk, Rasker said, because other types of wild areas are more prone to burning than mature forests. 

But while officials in California and other states have begun reforming forest-edge building and landscaping rules, such codes are still rare in the Northwest, and virtually none apply to houses already built, said Tim Ingalsbee, who heads Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology, an Oregon-based nonprofit that works to update building codes. 

“The western slopes of the Cascades and the Northwest are just woefully unprepared,” Ingalsbee said. 

When wildfires penetrate neighborhoods, they become much harder to fight. 

Fires that did that last year in California destroyed homes and killed residents in cities including Redding, where the Carr fire destroyed over 1,000 homes and forced the evacuation of 38,000, and Paradise, where the Camp fire killed more than 80 people and burned 14,000 homes. 

Medler, of Western Washington University, pointed to sprawl radiating from cities in the Northwest’s coastal corridor — such as Seattle — toward the Cascade mountains, which define the region’s eastern edge and stretch from Canada into Oregon. 

“The ones that keep me awake at night are places like Issaquah,” said Medler. 

The similarities between Paradise before the 2018 Camp fire and present-day Issaquah — a bustling suburban city of 39,000 less than half an hour from Seattle’s downtown — are noticeable. 

Both are tucked into foothills. Both feature neighborhoods surrounded by dense forests, some with only a single road leading in or out. And while not as frequent as the seasonal winds that fanned the Camp Fire, the Cascades are also prone to similar strong winds. 

The California fires were “absolutely” a wake-up call, said Rich Burke, deputy fire chief with the Eastside Fire Department, which oversees fire protection in Issaquah and the surrounding area. 

Wildfire-oriented setbacks and less-flammable materials still aren’t written into building codes on the city’s edges. But Burke said the department now fields frequent calls from homeowners concerned about wildfire protections, hosts preparedness trainings and has four wildland fire engines of its own. 

Still, a neighborhood less than a mile from the city’s center reveals what Medler describes as a classic Northwest scene: branches of towering conifers brushing against dozens of wood-sided homes. 

Jason Ritchie owns a home just north of Issaquah, in neighboring Sammamish, and said a 2015 fire in the woods beside his property drove home the risks. 

“It grew so fast,” Richie said. “Had the wind been blowing from the north to the south, it would have engulfed the neighborhood very, very quickly.” 

 The neighborhood features many houses built steps from the woods’ edge but only two main routes out, a risk that wasn’t at the front of Richie’s mind when he bought his home. 

 “If one of those roads gets blocked, we are in a heap of trouble,” he said. 

Questions remain about wildfire risks in previously wet forests, in part because they have burned so infrequently, said Crystal Raymond, a fire ecologist with the University of Washington’s Climate Impact Group. 

A lack of data makes it difficult to predict exactly how many additional days of summer or drought the region’s forests will tolerate before the risks increase, said Raymond and others. 

But experts broadly agreed: The Pacific Northwest’s wet climate is changing in ways that will make its forests more likely to burn. 

“On the west side, there’s a perception that fire doesn’t happen here — maybe up on the mountains, but not here,” Ingalsbee said. “That was then. This is now.”

Ferdinand Magellan set off from Spain 500 years ago on an epoch-making voyage to sail all the way around the globe for the first time.

The Portuguese explorer was killed by islanders in the Philippines two years into the adventure, leaving Spaniard Juan Sebastian Elcano to complete the three-year trip. But it is Magellan’s name that is forever associated with the voyage.

“Magellan is still an inspiration 500 years on,” said Fabien Cousteau, a French filmmaker and underwater explorer like his grandfather Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

“He was a pioneer at a time when explorers who went off into the unknown had a strong habit of not coming back.”

Here are five ways in which Magellan’s voyage marked human history and continues to inspire scientists and explorers today.

Some of them spoke to AFP at a conference in Lisbon to mark the August 10 fifth centenary.

Historical

Magellan’s voyage was a turning point in history, as unique as the first manned journey into outer space and the later moon landings, said NASA scientist Alan Stern, leader of its New Horizons interplanetary space probe.

“When the first one circled the plant, (that) sort of meant that we now had our arms around the planet for the first time,” he said.

“That just transformed humanity in my view. I would call it the first planetary event, in the same way that Yuri Gagarin was the first off-planetary event” when the Soviet cosmonaut went into outer space.

Geographical

Magellan’s voyage rewrote the maps and geography books. He was the first to discover the strait, which now bears his name, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the tip of South America.

“Perhaps his greatest feat, and still considered today one of the greatest feats of the history of navigation, was negotiating this strait, of which there were no maps and whose existence was vaguely rumored,” said US historian Laurence Bergreen, author of a biography of Magellan.

Philosophical

The voyage transformed humans’ own conception of their place in the world.

“It wasn’t just geography and anthropology, it showed something philosophical: that it’s all one world,” said Bergreen.

“Before Magellan people didn’t really know that. They didn’t know how the world was connected or how big it was.”

Astronomical

The voyage contributed to Europeans’ knowledge of the universe and has marked the worlds of space exploration and astronomy to this day.

While crossing the Magellan Strait, the explorer and his crew observed two galaxies visible to the naked eye from the southern hemisphere, now known as the Magellanic Clouds.

Some recently-designated areas of the surface of Mars have been given the same names that Magellan gave to parts of South America, with Bergreen’s help. A giant telescope being developed in Chile will also bear the explorer’s name.

Inspirational

Magellan’s achievement was a landmark in the history of exploration still hailed by his modern-day successors.

“In the space program, to prepare for these long duration missions, we say ‘the lessons for the future are written in the past’,” said Dafydd Williams, a former NASA astronaut, now 65, who went on two space missions.

“So many in the space program have read about Magellan.”

Wall Street’s major indexes posted their biggest percentage drop of the year on Monday as a fall in the yuan following U.S. President Donald Trump’s vow to impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods sparked fears of further escalation of the U.S.-China trade war.

While stocks pared losses in the last hour of trading to finish off their session lows, the benchmark S&P 500 fell about 3% to notch its biggest one-day percentage decline since Dec. 4.

The decline amounted to a $766 billion paper loss for the index, according to Refinitiv data. The S&P 500 has fallen for six consecutive sessions and is now about 6% below its record closing high on July 26.

The yuan weakened past the seven-per-dollar level, its lowest in 11 years, after the People’s Bank of China, with the blessing of policymakers, set its daily midpoint at the weakest level in eight months.

On Twitter, Trump called the action a “major violation” and “currency manipulation.”

Several investors viewed the move in the yuan as a direct response to Trump’s announcement of 10% tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese imports.

“It’s the escalation of the trade war,” said Steven DeSanctis, equity strategist at Jefferies in New York. “The dollar strengthening presents another issue. For companies that do a lot of business outside the U.S., it all adds up.”

A weaker yuan and a stronger dollar pose challenges for U.S. companies that do substantial business in China by effectively raising the cost of their goods for Chinese customers.

Adding to the tensions, China’s Commerce Ministry said that Chinese companies have stopped buying U.S. agricultural products and that China will not rule out imposing import tariffs on U.S. farm products that were bought after Aug. 3.

Shares of S&P 500 technology companies, which are heavily exposed to Chinese markets, dropped 4.1%.

Apple shares slid 5.2% as analysts warned that the newly proposed tariffs may hurt demand for the iPhone, while the Philadelphia semiconductor index dropped 4.4%.

Stocks could slide further if there are no signs of improvement in U.S.-China trade relations before September, when the recently announced tariffs are to take effect, said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at SunTrust Advisory Services in Atlanta.

“There’s a little bit of a vacuum in the market for the next several weeks,” he said. “We’re in this corrective phase, and it likely has further to go.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 767.27 points, or 2.9%, to 25,717.74, the S&P 500 lost 87.31 points, or 2.98%, to 2,844.74 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 278.03 points, or 3.47%, to 7,726.04.

The Cboe Volatility Index, an options-based gauge of investor anxiety, rose 6.98 points to 24.59, its highest in about seven months.

No. 1 U.S. meat processor Tyson Foods Inc was one bright spot. Its shares rose 5.1% after the company beat quarterly profit estimates.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 6.36-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 6.46-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted three new 52-week highs and 32 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 13 new highs and 280 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.41 billion shares, compared with the 6.8 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Uganda has started its largest Ebola vaccine trial to date, health authorities announced Monday, in an apparent effort to prevent the disease from spreading. 

An epidemic across the border in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo has killed over 1,800 people, making this outbreak the second-deadliest to date, with fatality rates nearing 70%.

The experimental Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be administered to health care professionals, as well as ambulance drivers, burial teams and cleaners. The trial is expected to last two years and cover 800 people in the Mbarara district in southwest Uganda.

Vaccinations have already begun, according to Uganda’s Medical Research Council.

There are no licensed treatments for Ebola, but one vaccine, manufactured by Merck, was used effectively at the end of the 2013-2016 outbreak in the DRC and has been used during the current epidemic. Over 180,000 people have received this vaccine.

But the supply is sporadic, and vaccine administrators are typically 1,000 doses short of what they need, according to Doctors Without Borders as reported by Bloomberg News. Health professionals have called for the use of both the Johnson and Merck vaccines to maximize the number of people protected from Ebola.

Some people, including the DRC’s former health minister, opposed the move, arguing that another vaccine with a different administration schedule would stoke vaccine distrust in vulnerable areas.

While the Merck vaccine is administered through one shot and takes 10 days to be effective, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires two shots, two months apart. 

Aside from sparking anti-vaccine fear, the Johnson & Johnson drug could be difficult to administer in practice, as violence in northeastern DRC hampers disease-control efforts.

Neighboring countries have been on high alert since three people died of Ebola in the DRC city of Goma, located on the border with Rwanda and just a few hours from Uganda.

In a cacophonous sentencing hearing filled with profanity and nudity, a Ugandan court has found activist Stella Nyanzi guilty of “cyber harassment” for posting a poem on Facebook that harshly criticized President Yoweri Museveni.

Nyanzi was sentenced Friday to 18 months in Luzira Women’s Prison, in suburban Kampala. She has already served nine months while awaiting trial.

Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu said she opted for a prison sentence rather than a fine because Nyanzi showed no remorse, and because incidents of cyber harassment are on the rise.

During the heated hearing Friday, Nyanzi, who appeared in the courtroom via a video feed from the maximum-security prison where she’s been held, repeatedly shouted profanities and flashed her breasts, with prison guards standing behind.

Supporters in the courtroom responded to her ongoing acts of defiance with applause. Nyanzi said she gladly accepted the punishment, adding that she was “born for this moment.” 

Controversy and support

Nyanzi has become an international celebrity, and her case has become a rallying cry for free speech activists, feminists and opponents of Uganda’s longtime ruler. 

Supporters of Nyanzi believe the Ugandan government is seeking to silence criticism of the president under the guise of enforcing good conduct online. Still, Nyanzi’s crude poetry and outrageous behavior have divided public opinion, with some feeling she goes too far.

“Many people think that her words should not be accepted,” said Rosebell Kagumire, editor of Africanfeminism.com, a platform for feminist writers from the continent. “So, Stella in a way that challenges the morality, (the) moral fabric of society (and) what people hold to be moral … shakes this up and says, ‘No, we can say these words and can use them to shock, and use public insults against people in power.’”

Kagumire said Nyanzi is being charged under Uganda’s 2011 Computer Misuse Act, a law ostensibly intended to protect people from online harassment and threats, that has instead been used to muffle government critics. Kagumire said the law is being challenged in the constitutional court. 

“It kind of brings back this aspect of sedition that, actually, someone in power can jail people for offending them, which should be protected speech,” she said.

Nyanzi received a vote of support from Amnesty International. 

“Stella Nyanzi has been criminalized solely for her creative flair of using metaphors and what may be considered insulting language to criticize President Museveni’s leadership,” said Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty’s director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes. “Public officials, including those exercising the highest political authority, are legitimately subject to criticism and political opposition.”

Ongoing activism

Nyanzi has long fought for change in Uganda. She led campaigns advocating for gay rights and for sanitary pads for schoolgirls. In 2017, authorities arrested her for publishing a similarly critical post.

Some have seen Nyanzi’s protests as a form of “radical rudeness,” and Nyanzi herself has described her role as part of a Ugandan tradition of pushing for change through offensive words and shocking acts.

“I planned to offend Yoweri Museveni Kaguta because he has offended us for 30-plus years,” Nyanzi said during the raucous court proceeding.

Museveni, 74, has led Uganda for 33 years. The country’s constitution was recently amended, allowing him to seek re-election after turning 75. Critics say his rule has been marked by ruthless clampdowns on dissenting voices.

Nyanzi told the court Friday that her activism is on behalf of her children, who, she said, should grow up in a better society.

“My children do not deserve a mother who is silent. I refuse to be silent in the face of oppression, in the face of dictatorship,” she told the court. “I will sacrifice motherhood to whatever altar I have to sacrifice motherhood to … so my children can raise their voices against dictators.”

A Nigerian court on Monday granted the leader of the country’s main Shia group, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, permission to leave prison in order to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Abdullahi Usman a spokesman for the group told The Associated Press that the court granted Zakzaky and his wife medical leave to enable them to go to India for treatment.

Zakzaky, leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, has been in prison without trial since 2015 after soldiers clashed with members of his group at their headquarters in the northern city of Zaria. Zakzaky and his wife sustained bullet wounds in the incident.

At least 375 Shias were killed in the incident, according to officials, but the Islamic Movement of Nigeria claims that more than 1,000 of their supporters were killed in the clashes.  
 
Zakzaky and his wife have been held in prison in connection with the death of a solider said to have been killed during the incident.    
 
Last month several of Zakzaky’s supporters were killed when they demonstrated for his release from prison for medical treatment.
 
Following the protests, last week Nigerian authorities banned the Shia group describing it as a terrorist organization.

The Shias are a minority of the country’s Muslims and claim they are being persecuted by the country’s majority Sunni Muslims.

 

The Mexican government plans to evaluate the possibility of extraditing the U.S. man accused of killing 20 people, including six Mexican citizens, in El Paso over the weekend and hopes the shooting will result in changes to America’s gun laws.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that Mexico will respect the debate that will unfold in the United States, but he believes the discussion could lead to change.

“There could be a change to their laws because it is stunning what is happening, unfortunate and very powerful,” Lopez Obrador said. “I don’t rule out that they could change their constitution and laws. These are new times; you have to always be adjusting the legal aspects to the new reality.”

Many in Mexico were reeling Sunday from revelations that the shooting appeared to have been aimed at Hispanics – and Mexicans in particular.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard labeled the shooting “an act of terrorism” against Mexicans and urged the U.S. government to establish a “clear and convincing position against hate crimes.”

Seven Mexican citizens were among the dozens wounded in the attack in addition to the six killed.

“Mexico is outraged,” Ebrard said.

Ebrard said Mexico would take legal action against the business that sold the shooter the gun and that its Attorney General’s Office would take legal action declaring it an act of terrorism against Mexican citizens. This would give Mexican prosecutors access to information about the case, Ebrard said. Then the Attorney General would decide whether to pursue the shooter’s extradition.

“For Mexico this individual is a terrorist,” Ebrard said.

Just minutes before the rampage, U.S. investigators believe the shooter posted a rambling online manifesto in which he railed against a perceived “invasion” of Hispanics coming into the U.S. He then allegedly targeted a shopping area in El Paso that is about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the main border checkpoint with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Tens of thousands of Mexicans cross the border legally each day to work and shop in the city of 680,000 full-time residents, and El Paso County is more than 80% Latino, according to the latest census data.

The Mexican victims were identified as Sara Esther Regalado of Ciudad Juarez; Adolfo Cerros Hernandez of Aguascalientes; Jorge Calvillo Garcia of Torreon, Coahuila; Elsa Mendoza de la Mora of Yepomera, Chihuahua; Gloria Irma Marquez of Ciudad Juarez; and Maria Eugenia Legarreta of the city of Chihuahua. Other victims may have also been of Mexican descent.

As the news dominated weekend headlines, some in Mexico said the shooting was the result of the simmering resentment that President Donald Trump had stirred early into his presidential campaign when he called Mexicans coming into the U.S. “rapists” and “criminals.” The U.S.-Mexico relationship was only further strained after he took office and vowed to build a border wall and slap tariffs on Mexican imports.

On Sunday, Lopez Obrador chose his words carefully when speaking of the shooting.

“In spite of the pain, the outrage” that Mexicans are feeling, he said, the U.S. is headed toward elections and Mexico doesn’t want to interfere in the “internal affairs” of other countries. He also said the events in Texas reaffirmed his conviction that “social problems shouldn’t be confronted with the use of force and by inciting hate.”

Former President Felipe Calderon said via Twitter that regardless of whether the shooting is a hate crime, Trump “should stop his hate speech. He should stop stigmatizing others.”

Amatza Gutierrez, a student from the Mexican capital, said the idea of a shooter targeting Mexicans because of their ethnicity gives her goose bumps.

“I don’t understand why anyone would go to that extreme,” the 24-year-old said.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country will not deploy short- or medium-range nuclear weapons unless in response to U.S. deployments.

His comments Monday come after a meeting with his security council concerning Washington’s withdrawal Friday from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Putin says “our actions will be exclusively reciprocal and mirrored” relating to “the development, production and deployment” of missiles once banned by INF.

Earlier Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters Washington’s withdrawal from the treaty raised the risk of a new nuclear arms race.

The U.S. announced its intention of withdrawing from the treaty last year, after accusing Russia for years of violating the treaty with a new ground-launched missile.

Nigerian technologist Chinenye Udeh wants to ensure schoolgirls learn Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for summer. Udeh says she is trying to boost gender parity in technology in Africa’s most populous nation, where less than 20 percent of women are involved in the industry.

Girls between the ages of five and 17 chatter at a tech-based facility in the city center, where they converge to learn skills that include coding, animation and robotics for one month this summer.

The program, known as the Smart Girls Tech Camp, was conceived by Nigerian female technologist Chinenye Udeh.

She says she’s tackling gender inequality in Nigeria’s tech sector with this project.

“What we’re trying to do is, how can we get these girls abreast? How can we let them know that it’s important that they get involved in technology, no matter how little? The knowledge is very important in their daily lives, businesses and careers, moving forward,” Udeh said.

Nigeria’s bureau of statistics says women occupy only about 20 percent of the technology sector.

The smart girls tech program hopes to improve that. The program targets 1,000 young girls every year and prepares them for a future in technology.

Tech expert and instructor Onyedinma Onyekachi says progress has being made so far.

“From where we met them and where they are now is not the same, and we discovered it’s as a result of psyche. There was a notion that girls don’t like tech, but we discovered that girls actually are enthusiastic about tech, it’s just the approach, just the way technology is being introduced to them,” Onyekachi said.

For young girls, like aspiring animator Damilola Ojo, technology could be their entry to a booming market dominated by men.

“When I was younger, I was very interested in cartoons and the way they were made. So when I searched up, usually on YouTube, I saw that it involved ICT, and so I became more and more interested,” Ojo said.

Ten-year-old Ruby Dike, who is more interested in robotics, says it could have several applications.

“Let’s say I’m able to program a robot to help in the house, or I’m able to program a robot that can control global warming …,” Dike said.

Nigeria’s ICT industry is among the largest in Africa, and it keeps growing rapidly. It has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry within the last decade.

However, it is characterized by low female representation like many other sectors. People like Udeh are breaking the norms with tech programs for young girls.

Although it could take a while before this translates into substantial female representation in the industry, it is making an impact on the girls.

In a far-reaching move, India’s Hindu nationalist government has scrapped the special autonomous status given to Kashmir for decades, sparking fears of a backlash in its only Muslim-majority region. 

Hours after a massive security clampdown in the state, Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament Monday that the president had signed a decree abolishing Article 370 that allowed the state to make its own laws and have independence over all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications. 

The provision also barred Indians from outside the state from permanently settling, buying land and holding local government jobs.  

His announcement was met with massive protests from opposition parties, who slammed the move as “unconstitutional.”

The new measures would effectively put New Delhi in charge of the violence scarred region, which since 1989 has witnessed a separatist uprising that has left tens of thousands dead. 

More troops were airlifted to the state, where 10,000 additional paramilitary forces were deployed last week as speculation and uncertainty had mounted over an impending announcement on Kashmir’ special status.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has long asserted that special provisions for Kashmir should be scrapped so that the region can be integrated with the rest of India. The party’s lawmakers hailed the decision as “historic.”

But Kashmiri local politicians, who had warned against such a step, slammed the move and vowed to protect the region’s “identity.” They fear that opening up the state to people from the rest of the country could change the demography of India’s only Muslim majority region. Muslims make up more than two thirds of the population. 

The head of the National Conference party in Kashmir, Omar Abdullah called it “an aggression against people of J&K (Jammu and Kashmir)” and said the government had resorted to “stealth.” He was one of the three leaders placed under house arrest in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, hours ahead of the controversial announcement.

Former Chief Minister of the state, Mehbooba Mufti, said the government’s decision would make India an occupational force in the state and would have catastrophic consequences for the state. “Today marks the darkest day in Indian democracy. Decision of J@K leadership to reject two nation theory in 1947 and align with India has backfired,” she tweeted.

Today marks the darkest day in Indian democracy. Decision of J&K leadership to reject 2 nation theory in 1947 & align with India has backfired. Unilateral decision of GOI to scrap Article 370 is illegal & unconstitutional which will make India an occupational force in J&K.

— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) August 5, 2019

A Congress Party leader from Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, said scrapping laws would not achieve integration because people’s trust had been betrayed instead of being won. 

Hours ahead of the announcement, Kashmir was in a virtual lockdown – internet services were suspended, restrictions placed on public movements, educational institutions shut and visitors and pilgrims evacuated and thousands more troops ordered into the region. In recent days authorities had asked pilgrims and tourists to leave the region. As panic has spread in the restive region, residents have been stocking up on food and gasoline in recent days. 

The government also plans to split the state into two federal territories consisting of Jammu and Kashmir and the Buddhist region of Ladakh.  

While Prime Minister Modi is likely to get public support for the move, it is likely to be subjected to legal challenges.

Several political analysts also expressed fear that it would further alienate a region which has witnessed an armed rebellion by Islamic militants fighting for either independence or its merger with Pakistan. 

“What cannot be changed in the enmity that is being created between Hindus and Muslims in the Valley,” said Neelanjan Sircar, an independent analyst in New Delhi. “Is it a situation where the region can only persist under heavy military occupation? Can we really ever envision a time where all troops will be pulled out and everyone will get along peacefully? I don’t see that today.”

The move is likely to increase tensions with Pakistan. Divided between the two countries, Kashmir is claimed by both and has been the trigger of two of their three wars. 

A multiple-car crash on a Cairo street in front of Egypt’s main cancer hospital set off an explosion that triggered a fire outside the building, killing a total of 19 people, authorities said Monday. 

The crash and the explosion also injured 30 others, the health ministry said, but it wasn’t immediately clear if any of the casualties were inside the hospital. 

The Interior Ministry said a vehicle driving against the traffic – for reasons that were not specified – had collided with up to three others late on Sunday, causing the explosion on the Nile-side street, the city’s famous Corniche. At least 54 patients were evacuated to other hospitals while the fire was later brought under control. 

The blast damaged the hospital’s main gate and several patient rooms and wards, according to a statement from the Cairo University. Its Medical School uses the institute as an educational facility.

Television stations on Monday morning broadcast footage of shattered windows and doors. The health ministry did not say if hospital patients or staff were among the casualties.

There was no immediate explanation as to why the crash had caused such a large explosion and officials could not be reached for questions about possible sabotage or whether there had been any explosive materials at the scene. 

The county’s top prosecutor ordered an investigation into the crash, according to the state-run MENA news agency.

“We heard an explosion and … the bank entrance glass was shattered everywhere,” said Abdel-Rahman Mohamed, a security officer at a bank at the opposite side of the hospital.

The health ministry said the injured were taken to different hospitals for treatment. 

Health Minister Hala Zayed said in TV comments that unidentified body parts were being collected in body bags from the site of the explosion. It was also possible that some bodies had ended up in the Nile, she added.

The police quickly cordoned off the area of the crash. Civil defense workers were seen Monday morning removing debris as officials milled about, inspecting the hospital to determine the extent of the damage to the building.

The riverbank is close to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, which became known internationally as the scene of mass protests in the 2011 uprising that toppled autocratic President Hosni Mubarak. 

Road accidents are common in Egypt, often the result of badly maintained roads and poor enforcement of traffic laws. The country’s official statistics agency says 8,000 crashes last year caused more than 3,000 deaths and 12,000 injuries.

In the border town of El Paso, Texas, a shooter opened fire and left 20 people dead and more than two dozen injured. Hours later in Dayton, Ohio, a shooter killed 9 people and injured at least 27 others.

Here are some of their stories:

Jordan Anchondo: ‘Gave her life’ for her baby

Jordan Anchondo was among those killed in El Paso, Anchondo’s sister said, and she apparently died while protecting her 2-month-old son from the hail of bullets.

Leta Jamrowski of El Paso spoke to The Associated Press as she paced a waiting room at the University Medical Center of El Paso, where her 2-month-old nephew was being treated for broken bones – the result of his mother’s fall.

“From the baby’s injuries, they said that more than likely my sister was trying to shield him,” she said. “So when she got shot she was holding him and she fell on him, so that’s why he broke some of his bones. So he pretty much lived because she gave her life.”

Jordan, a mother of three, and Andre Anchondo had dropped off her 5-year old daughter at cheerleading practice before going to shop for school supplies on Saturday at a Walmart in El Paso. They never returned. 

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Andre Anchondo: Had turned his life around

Andre Anchondo, husband of Jordan Anchondo who was killed in El Paso, recently turned his life around after struggles with drug dependence and run-ins with the law, a friend recalled. 

The friend, Koteiba “Koti” Azzam, made calls on Sunday to learn the whereabouts of his friend, who remained unaccounted for. Bodies of victims were still in the Walmart on Sunday. 

“I love the guy,” Azzam said in a phone interview from San Marcos, Texas, where he attends Texas State University. “He had the character and the charisma.”

Azzam said Anchondo had started a business in El Paso, building things from granite and stone, and made it successful through hard work. He also was on the verge of completing a home for his family. Now, his wife is dead and he himself might not have survived.

“It makes you question your faith almost,” said Azzam, who is Muslim. “But God didn’t have a part in it. The hands of man altered my friends’ life in a drastic way.”

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Nicholas Cumer: Had helped cancer patients

A graduate student at a university in Pennsylvania who was interning with a Dayton facility for people battling cancer was among those killed in the Ohio city early Sunday.

Nicholas Cumer was a graduate student in the master of cancer care program at Saint Francis University. 

“Nicholas was dedicated to caring for others,” university President Malachi Van Tassell said in a statement. The university, in Loretto, Pennsylvania, is the oldest Franciscan institution of higher learning in the United States.

The family released the following statement through a relative: “We are heartbroken by the loss of our Nicholas in this senseless act on August 4. As our family grieves, we ask for privacy at this time. Thank you.”

Cumer had been in Dayton as part of his internship program with the Maple Tree Cancer Alliance, which strives to improve the quality of life for individuals battling cancer through exercise, nutrition, and faith. 

Maple Tree Cancer Alliance offered Cumer a full-time position just days before he was killed, the organization said on its website. It described Cumer as hard-working, dedicated and one week away from completing his internship.

“He was well liked and respected by everyone on our team, and we all will miss him very much,” the organization said.

Van Tassell said a Mass in Cumer’s memory will be arranged on campus this week.

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Lois Oglesby: A nursing student who wanted to care for children

Lois Oglesby, 27, was in nursing school and looked forward to a career that would make the most of her love for children, her cousin said. She was also the mother of a newborn and had an older daughter.

Derasha Merrett told the Dayton Daily News that she was up feeding her own newborn when a friend called her at 3 a.m. Sunday to tell her, through sobs, that Oglesby had died in the Dayton shooting.

“She was a wonderful mother, a wonderful person,” Merrett said. “I have cried so much, I can’t cry anymore.”

Merrett said she and her cousin grew up in the same church, were on the same drill team and that Oglesby worked at her children’s day care center.

“We all grew up in this little town, Merrett said. “We’re all family.”

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Jessica Coca Garcia and Memo Garcia: Fundraising for kids’ sports team

Jessica Coca Garcia and Memo Garcia were at the Walmart in El Paso to raise funds for a youth sports team one of their children played on when a gunman opened fire, wounding them, a relative said.

Norma Coca told Wichita, Kansas-television station KWCH that her daughter and son-in-law were near the front doors of the Walmart when they were shot.

Coca, who lives in Salina, Kansas, said her daughter, Jessica Coca Garcia, was shot three times in the leg. She said her son-in-law, Memo Garcia, was shot twice in the leg and once in the back. She said her daughter was in stable condition and her son-in-law was in critical condition.

Jessica Coca Garcia’s father, Don Coca, said they have family in the El Paso area who were able to be with the couple. Don Coca says: “She was just crying … I told her that our prayers are there and we’re on our way.”

The couple’s 5-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter were also at the Walmart and were not shot.

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 Mario De Alba: A wounded father

Mario de Alba, 45, had come to El Paso with his family from Mexico to go shopping.

Described by his sister Cristina de Alba as an “excellent father” and as a “decent, hardworking person,” he was in serious condition Sunday after being shot in the back, the bullet exiting via his diaphragm.

His wife, Olivia Mariscal, and 10-year-old daughter Erika both appear to be recovering after also being wounded, de Alba said from the El Paso hospital where her brother is being treated.

The family lives in Chihuahua, Mexico — a four-hour drive south of El Paso — and was buying school supplies in the Texas city. El Paso is a popular shopping destination for people who live in northern Mexico.

Mario de Alba’s Facebook page shows him as a devoted father to Erika.

In one picture, taken in a living room, Erika cups her hand in the shape of a heart in front of an entertainment center. 0n the shelves behind her are the words FAMILY and PEACE in bold letters.

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Mexican government identifies five citizens killed in El Paso

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry identified five citizens who were killed in the shooting Saturday in a shopping complex in El Paso. The ministry did not provide ages for them. They are: 

  _ Sara Esther Regalado of Cuidad Juarez.

  _ Adolfo Cerros Hernandez of Aguascalientes.

  _ Jorge Calvillo Garcia of Torreon.

  _ Elsa Mendoza de la Mora of Yepomera.

  _ Gloria Irma Marquez of Juarez.