Climate change is about to hit the world in the stomach, according to the United Nations. A new scientific report from the world body that examines land degradation concludes that climate change will imperil crops and worsen hunger. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story.
Russia appears to be using one of its most powerful weapons — tourism — against Georgia, its smaller neighbor to the south. Moscow has banned direct flights between Russia and Georgia, after the latest wave of protests in Georgia against Russia’s occupation of two of its regions. Moscow has also called for its citizens to return home. That is meant to damage the Georgian economy, which is highly dependent on tourism. Ricardo Marquina reports from Tbilisi in this report narrated by Jim Randle.
The chief facilitator of negotiations between Venezuela’s socialist administration and opposition has downplayed the decision by President Nicolas Maduro to skip a scheduled round of talks.
Dag Nylander of Norway’s Foreign Affairs Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday he’s in contact with both sides about finding a date for talks to resume.
Maduro on Wednesday night said he had decided not to send envoys to the Caribbean island of Barbados, where talks were to resume Thursday. That was to protest the Trump administration’s decision to freeze the Venezuelan government’s assets in the U.S. and threaten to retaliate against foreign companies that continue to do business with his government.
Maduro’s government also said it would review the mechanism of the talks to ensure it contributes to an efficient solution to the problems Venezuelans face.
“Norway is facilitating the negotiation process at the request of the principal political actors in Venezuela and schedules all meetings based on the availability of the parties. Accordingly we are in touch with them regarding the next meetings,” said Nylander, the head of the peace and reconciliation office at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
He added: “The facilitation continues under the principle that the parties would like it to, and that there are realistic prospects of a negotiated solution that can benefit the Venezuelan people.”
In announcing the sweeping move, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the dialogue between the government and opposition was being used by Maduro to buy time.
“We will not fall for these old tricks of a tired dictator,” Bolton declared Tuesday at a meeting in Peru of more than 50 governments aligned against Maduro. “No more time for tap, tap, tapping. Now is the time for action.”
But some believe Bolton’s admonishments might end of strengthening the negotiations, which have been taking place since May.
The United Nations reiterated Thursday U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “strong support” for Norway’s mediation effort.
“Our position is unchanged — that only a settlement through negotiations will solve this ongoing situation,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Meanwhile, the U.N.’s top human rights official criticized the U.S.’ response as overhanded and bound to intensify suffering in a country already racked by six-digit hyperinflation, food shortages and an economic recession worse than the U.S. Great Depression.
Michelle Bachelet, who sharply criticized Maduro’s human rights record following a visit to the country in June, said that provision in the new sanctions allowing for the shipment of food and medicine are unlikely to suffice.
“They are still likely to significantly exacerbate the crisis for millions of ordinary Venezuelans, especially as there will certainly be over-compliance by financial institutions around the world that have commercial relations with the governments of the US and Venezuela,” she said.
Witnesses say fears of the Ebola virus have brought border traffic between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to a virtual standstill. Long lines and lengthy delays at the border crossings have left many traders frustrated, but officials say health checks are necessary to stop the spread of the deadly virus.
Beatrice Irunga, a 35-year old Congolese trader, says no one can cross the border without washing hands and being checked for fever.
The measures are necessary to prevent people from carrying the virus across the border. But trade-wise, Ebola fears have hit hard.
Jemima Ibrahim, a Congolese trader who sells rice and oil in Rwanda, says the long delays at the crossing are costing her time and money.
“The loss is huge,” she said. “We buy goods here in Rwanda. To export them to Congo is becoming very hard.”
Rwandan Claudine Irunga says she owns a shop in Goma, on the Congolese side, but can’t reach it because of the delays.
“I left Goma in the morning,” she said. “My shop is open now, and here they are not allowing us to go regardless of every document you can have. I am so sad. They say the border is open, but just look.”
The Rwandan government estimates that 80,000 people cross between Goma and the Rwandan city of Gisenyi each day.
The government has not said the border is closed. However, it is urging its people not to enter the eastern DRC, where the Ebola virus has killed more than 1,800 people over the past year.
Dr. Diane Gashumba, Rwanda’s Minister of Health, is encouraging Rwandans not to go to DRC, and instead to find other ways to do their business in the country.
This stance goes against advice from the World Health Organization.
Dr. Kasonde Mulenga Mwinga, WHO country director, supports a flow of people to the member country to be able to address the response that is needed there.
The Rwandan and Congolese health ministers met Tuesday to discuss measures to stop the Ebola outbreak from spreading.
Afterward, they said they resolved to enact ways that allow for smoother border crossings while taking “very strong measures to keep the epidemic at bay.”
Lebanon’s only English-language daily protested the country’s deteriorating economic and political conditions by publishing a blank edition Thursday, calling it an “alarm bell.”
Each page of The Daily Star’s Thursday edition bore a single phrase referring to one of the country’s problems, including government deadlock, rising public debt, increasing sectarian rhetoric and unemployment. The back page had a photo of a cedar tree, a national symbol, with a caption reading: “Wake up before it’s too late!”
“We are sounding the alarm bell over the many challenges the country is facing,” the paper’s editor-in-chief Nadim Ladki told The Associated Press. “It’s a call on everyone — politicians, activists, ordinary people — to pull together in the same direction to resolve the crises and challenges.”
Lebanon has been in the grip of an economic crisis for months, and the government has not met since a June 30 shooting in a mountain village that escalated tensions between the Christian and Druze communities.
Rival groups in the Cabinet have been divided on how to proceed with the investigation of the shooting, which left two people dead.
The U.S. Embassy issued a statement Wednesday saying it supports a fair and transparent investigation into the shooting in the village of Qabr Shamoun.
“Any attempt to use the tragic June 30 event in Qabr Shamoun to advance political objectives should be rejected,” the embassy said in an apparent reference to the militant Hezbollah group and its allies, who are seen as pressuring Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.
Hezbollah on Thursday blasted the U.S. Embassy statement, calling it “a blatant and gross intervention in Lebanese internal affairs” and adding that it aims to “deepen divisions” within Lebanon. The group called the crisis a “local political issue” that the Lebanese judiciary is dealing with.
Lebanon’s government is the product of a power-sharing agreement that ended the devastating 1975-1990 civil war and which divides powers among various religious sects. The political scene is split between a pro-Western coalition, which includes Jumblatt and his followers, and a bloc dominated by Hezbollah that is aligned with Syria and Iran.
The political infighting has made it impossible to maintain the country’s crumbling infrastructure or provide adequate public services. The national debt is hovering around $85 billion, or 150 percent of gross domestic product.
Raging floods across Myanmar have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes in recent weeks, officials said Thursday, as monsoon rains pummel the nation.
Aerial images from Shwegyin township in Bago region showed how the area had become a vast lake of water.
Only the rooftops could be seen of many homes lining the Sittaung river.
Emergency services have been helping bring people to dry ground, many seeking shelter in local monasteries.
Others waded through waist-deep floodwaters or rowed on wooden boats with pets and any belongings they could take with them.
Than Aye, 42, who has diabetes and is partially-sighted, struggled to escape the deluge.
“I could not do anything when the flooding started but then the fire service came to rescue me by boat,” he told AFP from the safety of the monastery that has been his home for the last five days.
The most severe flooding is currently in eastern Bago region and Mon and Karen states, according to the social welfare ministry.
“There are currently over 30,000 people (across the country) displaced by floods,” said director general of disaster management Ko Ko Naing.
UN’s Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates around 89,000 people have been displaced in recent weeks, although many have since been able to return home.
Damascus on Thursday accused Turkey of “expansionist ambitions,” saying Ankara’s agreement with Washington to set up a so-called safe zone in northeastern Syria only helps such plans and is a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.
The statement by Syria’s Foreign Ministry comes a day after the U.S. and Turkey announced they’d agreed to form a coordination center to set up the safe zone. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the move, which is designed to address Ankara’s security concerns, was important.
The announcement of the deal may have averted for now a Turkish incursion into that part of Syria. Ankara seeks to push out U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters from the region as it considers them terrorists, allied with a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.
The Syrian Kurdish fighters were the main fighting force on the ground against Islamic State militants in the area, and Washington has been hard pressed to protect its partners.
Damascus said the Syrian Kurdish groups “bear historic responsibility” for the U.S-Turkey deal and urged them to drop “this aggressive U.S.-Turkish project” and align with the Syrian government instead.
Damascus has had no presence along the Turkish border since 2012, when Syrian rebels and Syrian Kurdish groups took control of different parts of the region.
After three days of talks in Ankara and repeated Turkish threats of a military incursion in northeast Syria, Turkish and U.S. officials agreed that the coordination center would be based in Turkey and would be set up “as soon as possible,” according to the Turkish defense ministry.
The ministry did not provide further details but said the sides had agreed that the safe zone would become a “corridor of peace” and that all additional measures would be taken to ensure the return of refugees to Syria.
Turkey has been pressing to control _ in coordination with the U.S. a 19-25 mile-deep zone within Syria, east of the Euphrates River, and wants no Syrian Kurdish forces there.
In its previous military incursions, Turkey entered northwestern Syria, expelling Islamic State militants and Syrian Kurdish fighters from the area and setting up Turkish military posts there, with allied Syrian opposition fighters in control. Turkish troops also man observation points that ring the last opposition stronghold in the northwest _ posts that are meant to uphold a now fraying cease-fire.
President Trump and his wife Melania were greeted by dozens of protesters when they traveled to Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas, Wednesday to visit the victims of last weekend’s mass shootings. Richard Green has the full story from Washington.
Samsung unveiled a new version of the Galaxy Note smartphone on Wednesday with fast 5G network connection and improved camera features, hoping the premium model helps it revive slumping profit and widen the gap with struggling rival Huawei.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.’s trouble in the second quarter with a nearly 7% jump in smartphone sales, as the Chinese firm sold fewer phones in the global market after it was put on a U.S. trade blacklist in May.
With emphasis on improved video and photography features, which helped Huawei become the world’s No. 2 smartphone vendor, Samsung hopes the Galaxy Note 10 will appeal to YouTubers and fans of social media.
Along with its first foldable phone, the big-screen Note 10, unveiled at an event in New York on Wednesday, is the South Korean tech firm’s most important new product planned in the second half of this year to expand its mobile sales.
With two screen sizes of 6.3 inches and 6.8 inches, the Note 10 boasts enhanced video effects such as augmented reality and stabilization modes, and a front-facing camera centrally located at the top of the display for better selfies. It lacks a headphone jack, a tweak Apple Inc. made to its smartphones three years ago.
The Note 10 will be sold starting at $949.99 while the bigger Note 10 plus will start at $1,099. The Note 10 model with 5G capability will start at $1,299.99.
The phone will go on sale Aug. 23 and square off against Apple’s latest iPhones, which are widely expected to come out later this year.
Samsung declined to disclose its sales target for the new Note series, but said it expected to achieve higher sales volume than the predecessor Note 9 models.
Analysts expect similar shipments of about 9.6 million units, with price likely to be the most important factor in a weak market. The global smartphone market shrank 3% in the June quarter, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.
“It is hard to expect strong sales for the new Note with just a few upgrades in its camera features,” said Park Sung-soon, an analyst at Cape Investment & Securities.
Samsung is reeling from sagging profits in its mobile division due to weak sales of flagship models, even as it boosted overall shipments by 6.7% and stayed on top with market share of 22% in the second quarter.
Its first foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, is set to go on sale in September, but analysts say headlines about glitches with sample Folds will dampen consumer excitement around the launch.
Thousands marched Wednesday in Caracas in support of President Nicolas Maduro, two days after the United States imposed the toughest sanctions yet on Venezuela.
National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello, considered the country’s second most powerful leader, called the latest sanctions “a new aggression amongst the madness of genocides that govern the United States.”
Others at Wednesday’s rally accused President Donald Trump of wanting to “get his hands” on Venezuela.
Reporters in Caracas said most of those marching were government workers and militia members.
The Trump administration has banned all U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with the Maduro government as part of U.S. pressure to drive him from power.
The U.S. was the first of more than 50 countries to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president.
Guaido declared himself Venezuelan leader in January, using his constitutional authority as the National Assembly president to declare Maduro’s
re-election last year illegitimate because of fraud.
Russia, China, Iran and Cuba are Maduro’s top defenders.
Guaido’s popular uprising against Maduro earlier this year appears to have lost much of its steam, but the U.S. is still determined to see Maduro go and says military action is still on the table.
The collapse of world energy prices, corruption and failed socialist policies have wrecked the oil-rich Venezuelan economy. Basic food staples and fuel are in severely short supply, and millions of Venezuelans have fled the country.
Maduro has refused to consider early elections and has used violence against anti-government protesters.
A 5.9-magnitude earthquake rattled Taiwan on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The quake struck at 5:28 a.m. (21:28 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in northeastern Yilan county. Taiwan’s central weather bureau put its magnitude at 6.0.
High rises swayed in the capital Taipei, waking people up from their sleep.
Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by quakes.
In April, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit the island, disrupting traffic and injuring 17 people.
Taiwan’s worst tremor in recent decades was a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 that killed about 2,400 people.
Greek search crews have found the body of a British scientist who went missing while on holiday on the Aegean island of Ikaria in a ravine near where she had been staying, authorities said Wednesday.
Police said the body of Cyprus-based astrophysicist Natalie Christopher, 34, was found in a 20-meter (65-foot) deep ravine. Christopher had been reported missing on Monday by her Cypriot partner with whom she was vacationing after she went for a morning run.
The cause of death was not immediately clear and authorities planned an autopsy.
Police, firefighters, volunteers and the coast guard had been scouring the area where Christopher had been staying during her vacation, which has paths along ravines and steep seaside cliffs. A specialized police unit with geolocation equipment was sent to the island to help in the search.
Cypriot authorities said they were in close contact with Greek search crews and the woman’s family.
“I express the sincere condolences of the Cypriot state and of myself to the family and friends of Natalie Christopher,” Cypriot Justice and Public Order Minister George Savvides said after being informed that the body had been identified.
They are seen as the shock troops of a burgeoning direct-action environmental movement. Earlier this year, members of Extinction Rebellion brought the center of London and some other major British towns to a standstill by barricading bridges, standing on top of trains, and blocking major thoroughfares and crossroads.
Extinction Rebellion (XR), a campaign of civil disobedience born in Britain and aiming to address a worldwide climate crisis, has been endorsed by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, the teenage poster child of environmentalism. XR has pledged to cause more disruption, arguing that governments are not doing enough to stop the “climate emergency.”
The group, which is spawning similar campaigns in the United States and Australia, says climate activists have no choice but to take matters into their own hands. It demands that governments prevent further biodiversity loss and commit to producing net-zero greenhouse gases by 2025. Otherwise, XR says, there will be a mass extinction of life forms on the planet within the lifetimes of the demonstrators themselves.
The group’s next target is next month’s star-studded London Fashion Week. Activists have promised to shut down the five-day runway event in a bid to raise awareness of the environmental damage caused by the fashion industry.
“We need to change our culture around consumption,” said climate activist Bel Jacobs. “People have no idea how environmentally destructive fashion is.”
Greenhouse gas emissions from making textiles was estimated at 1.2 billion tons of CO2-equivalent in 2015, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a British environmental charity.
‘Cultish nature’
XR’s actions have been applauded by many environmentalists, who say the only way to make governments, people and corporations sit up and take climate action is to shock them into it. But the radical philosophy underpinning the group, which includes wanting to set up citizens’ assemblies that could overrule parliament, is drawing increasing criticism from foes, who compare the group to a millenarian sect.
“The cultish nature of XR’s activities is a little spooky,” said Austin Williams, director of the Future Cities Project, a group that focuses on urban planning and futurist technological solutions.
Sympathizers acknowledge that XR hasn’t helped itself with some of the remarks made by its leaders. Co-founder Gail Bradbrook said her realization that humanity was on the brink of extinction came from taking huge doses of psychedelic drugs, which “rewired” her brain and gave her the “codes of social change.”
Roger Hallam, another co-founder, has said, “We are going to force the governments to act. And if they don’t, we will bring them down and create a democracy fit for purpose. And yes, some may die in the process.”
Hallam is not a scientist but has a track record as a political activist, and holds a Ph.D. on “digitally enhanced political resistance and empowerment strategies.”
BirthStrikers
Several leading XR adherents have announced they’ve decided not to procreate in response to the coming “climate breakdown and civilization collapse,” arguing the world is too horrible a place to bring children into it.
The BirthStrikers, as they are nicknamed, received some endorsement earlier this year from U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said the climate emergency “does lead young people to have a legitimate question — ‘Is it OK still to have children?'”
XR critics have compared the BirthStrikers to the Cathars, a medieval religious sect that encouraged celibacy and discouraged marriage on the grounds that every person born was just another poor soul trapped by the devil in a body.
Defections
XR has also seen defections. Sherrie Yeomans, coordinator of XR blockades in the English city of Bristol, left the group, saying, “I can no longer surround myself with the toxic, manipulative Extinction Rebellion cult.”
Johan Norberg, a Swedish author, historian and XR critic, worries that the group is fueling anxiety while not being practical about the possible solutions to global warming.
“I guess it depends on your definition of cult,” he said. “But I think it is a growing, but very radical, sentiment that I fear plays a part in giving people anxiety about their life choices, and also leads us to thinking about these things in the wrong way,” he told VOA.
On the BirthStrikers he said: “The bizarre thing is that they just think of another human being as a burden, a mouth to feed. But they also come along with a brain to think, and hands to work. I don’t know what scientific insight and which technology will save us from not just global warming but also the many other problems that will affect us — the next pandemic, natural disaster and so on — but I know that the chance that we’ll find it is greater if we have more people alive, who live longer lives than ever, get a longer education than ever, and are more free to make use of the accumulated knowledge and technology of mankind to take on those problems.”
Norberg points to a future of “electric cars and, soon, planes,” and biofuels made from algae and extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere. He worries about the economic consequences if the abrupt zero-growth goals of XR were adopted.
“It would result in a reversal of the amazing economic development that has resulted in the fastest reduction of poverty in history. A lack of growth and international trade would result in human tragedies on a massive scale,” he said.
XR response
XR’s co-founders say Norberg’s formula won’t halt climate change and stop extinction. They defended themselves against critics’ cult charges, arguing recently in an article in a British newspaper, “We’ve made many mistakes, but now is the time for collective action, not recriminations.”
“Extinction Rebellion is humbly following in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King,” Hallam said. “After covering basic material needs, human beings are not made happier through consuming more stuff.”
Bradbrook told reporters in London, “We oppose a system that generates huge wealth through astonishing innovation but is fatally unable to distribute fairly and provide universal access to its spoils. … We need a ‘revolution’ in consciousness to overturn the system.”
Ayaz Gul in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
As Kashmir remained locked down for a second straight day, India’s parliament approved scrapping the special status that gave Kashmir significant autonomy, and passed a bill to split the state.
Plunged in a communications blackout and a virtual shutdown, it has been difficult to ascertain the reaction local residents to the radical steps.
Curfew-like restrictions continued on Tuesday. Troops patrolled deserted streets with barbed wire barricades in the capital, Srinagar, while the internet, mobile and landlines remained suspended to stem protests in the region wracked by a violent separatist struggle for three decades.
The measures passed by an overwhelming majority in the lower house of parliament are being seen as a message that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a tough stance on Kashmir and with rival Pakistan, with whom India has a long-running dispute over control of the Himalayan region.
After the vote, Modi called it a “momentous occasion in our parliamentary democracy.” In a tweet he said, “Together we are, together we shall rise, and together we will fulfill the dreams of 130 crore Indians!”
The steps fulfill a long-standing pledge of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to end the constitutional provision that allowed Kashmir to have its own constitution and draft its own laws on all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications.
Kashmir also will be split into two federally administered territories, effectively tightening New Delhi’s grip on the region. One will comprise of the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and Hindu-majority Jammu, and the second of Buddhist-majority Ladakh. All Indian laws will now apply in Kashmir.
Barring the main opposition Congress Party and a handful of regional parties, the BJP has won wide support for overturning Kashmir’s autonomous status.
Defending the radical moves, Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament the special status granted to Kashmir was responsible for fomenting terrorism in the region, and revoking it would break down the wall created with the rest of India. He said it did not mean that India had given up its claim to Pakistani Kashmir.
The most significant difference now is that with Kashmir placed on par with the rest of the country, outsiders can buy land and live in the region, which was banned earlier. The government says this would open up the area to investment and spur development.
Divided support
But opinion remains sharply divided on whether these steps will help New Delhi meet its goal of integrating Kashmir with the rest of the country and ending an armed rebellion, or whether it will exacerbate tensions in the region where anti-Indian sentiment runs deep.
Congress Party leader Shashi Tharoor warned that it would give a “fresh lease of life to terrorism” and would make Kashmir, where Muslim insurgents have been waging a separatist struggle, more vulnerable to militant groups like Islamic State.
Several political commentators say Kashmiris will view the steps as a ploy to take away their special “identity.”
“India will now come across as the hard Indian state instead of the soft Indian state,” said independent political analyst Neerja Chowdhury, pointing out that previous governments had always tried a “carrot and stick” policy. She says the measure could deepen alienation among Kashmiris.
In New Delhi, most newspapers carried banner headlines on what most hailed as a “bold” move, but also warned that it carried risks and said it was a politically and communally contentious step.
“India’s decision is sure to spark unrest in Kashmir, and especially in the Kashmir Valley, once the Indians end their lockdown there,” said Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based expert on South Asian affairs. He told VOA the move “could even spark a new phase of insurgency, that is if India gives insurgents enough space to operate.”
The word “historic” has reverberated in parliament during the two-day debate, but in different contexts. Ruling party benches have said they have corrected a “historic” injustice done to Kashmir, while the opposition Congress Party has slammed it as a “historic blunder.”
The move has infuriated pro-India parties in Kashmir, who call it a betrayal of trust. Three Kashmiri political leaders under detention in a government guest house have warned the step will backfire and deepen anger among Kashmiris.
The Buddhist enclave of Ladakh cheered India’s move to break it away from Jammu and Kashmir state, a change that could spur tourism and help New Delhi counter China’s influence in the contested western Himalayas.
Beijing, though, criticized the announcement, made on Monday by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a wider policy shift that also ended Jammu and Kashmir’s right to set its own laws. In a statement on Tuesday, China said the decision was unacceptable and undermined its territorial sovereignty.
Ladakh is an arid, mountainous area of around 59,146 square kilometers (22,836 square miles), much of it uninhabitable, that only has 274,000 residents. The rest of Jammu and Kashmir is roughly 163,090 square kilometres (62,969 square miles) with a population of some 12.2 million.
China and India still claim vast swaths of each other’s territory along their 3,500 km (2,173 mile) Himalayan border.
The Asian rivals had a two-month standoff at the Doklam plateau in another part of the remote Himalayan region in 2017.
“The fact that India took this move … can be seen as one way that India is trying to counter growing Chinese influence in the region,” said Sameer Patil, a Mumbai-based fellow in international security studies at the Gateway House think-tank.
In a statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China contests the inclusion of what it regards as its territory on the Indian side of the western section of the China-India border.
“India’s unilateral amendment to its domestic law, continues to damage China’s territorial sovereignty. This is unacceptable,” Hua said.
In response to a question about Hua’s statement, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said on Tuesday the Ladakh decision was an internal matter.
“India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise,” said Kumar, without directly mentioning China.
Patil from Gateway House said monks he interviewed in Ladakh told him China-endorsed monks had been extending loans and donations to Buddhist monasteries in the area in an apparent bid to win influence.
Reuters was not able to contact any monks in Ladakh.
“Our Own Destiny”
By announcing it would turn Ladakh into its own administrative district, the Indian government fulfilled a decades-long demand from political leaders there.
Ladakh locals were tired of being hurt or ignored because of the many years of turmoil in the Kashmir Valley resulting from separatist militant activity and the Indian military’s moves to crush them.
Local politicians and analysts expect the change to bring Ladakh out of the shadow of Kashmir, which has long been a flashpoint with Pakistan. It could also help the area pocket more government funding as it seeks to build up its roads and facilities to lure tourists.
“We are very happy that we are separated from Kashmir. Now we can be the owners of our own destiny,” Tsering Samphel, a veteran politician from the Congress party in Ladakh, said on Tuesday. He added the area felt dwarfed by Jammu and Kashmir – which is a majority Muslim area – and that the regions had little in common culturally.
In Ladakh’s city of Leh on Monday, members of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party danced in the streets and distributed sweets, Reuters partner ANI reported.
Ladakh will be governed by a centrally-appointed lieutenant governor, handing New Delhi stronger oversight over the area.
However, while Ladakh will become a Union Territory, it will not have its own legislature – a sore point for some locals.
“Hopefully we will be getting that also, slowly,” said Samphel, 71, adding that local politicians would put that demand to New Delhi.
Ladakh’s economy, traditionally dependent on farming, has benefited from tourists visiting ancient monasteries and trekking up mountain peaks.
P. C. Thakur, general manager of The Zen Ladakh hotel in Leh, hopes that dissociating from Jammu and Kashmir will further attract visitors. He expects the hotel’s occupancy to jump by up to 7 percentage points from an average of around 80-85% currently.
“Next year will be good,” he said.
Small-satellite launch firm Rocket Lab announced on Tuesday a plan to recover the core booster of its Electron rocket using a helicopter, a bold cost-saving concept that, if successful, would make it the second company after Elon Musk’s SpaceX to reuse an orbital-class rocket booster.
“Electron is going reusable,” Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck said during a presentation in Utah, showing an animation of the rocket sending a payload into a shallow orbit before speeding back through Earth’s atmosphere. “Launch frequency is the absolute key here.”
The Auckland, New Zealand-based company is one of a growing cadre of launch companies looking to slash the cost of sending shoebox-sized satellites to low Earth orbit, building smaller rockets and reinventing traditional production lines to meet a growing payload demand.
Electron, which has flown seven missions so far, can send up to 496 pounds (225 kg) into space for roughly $7 million.
Medium-class launchers such as Los Angeles-based Relativity Space can send up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) into space for $10 million while Cedar Park, Texas-based firm Firefly can do it for $15 million.
Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which reignites its engines to land steadily back on Earth “propulsively” after much larger missions costing around $62 million, Rocket Lab’s Electron will deploy a series of parachutes to slow its fall through what Beck called “the wall” – the violently fast and burning hot reentry process the booster endures shooting back through Earth’s atmosphere.
A helicopter will then hook the booster’s parachute in mid-air as it descends over the ocean and tow it back to a boat for recovery, Beck said.
“The grand goal here is, if we can capture the vehicle in wonderful condition, in theory we should be able to put it back on the pad, recharge the batteries up, and go again,” Beck said.
Some launch companies, such as Boeing-Lockheed venture United Launch Alliance which flies its Atlas V rocket, are skeptical of the economic case for reusing first-stage boosters propulsively, arguing that the fuel spent landing the rocket through the dense atmosphere and back on Earth would be better used to launch heavier payloads.
Beck said propulsive recoveries like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 “don’t scale well” with Electron’s smaller build, anyway. A spokeswoman would not say how much money Rocket Lab expects to save from its foray into hardware reusability, but said “cost reductions could flow from this in time.”
Iran asked U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday to push back against the United States after it imposed sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, describing the move as a “dangerous precedent.”
In a letter to Guterres, Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi accused the United States of a “brazen violation of the fundamental principles of international law” and urged the international community to condemn the U.S. behavior.
“Coercing nations into complying with the United States’ illegal demands threatens multilateralism, as the foundation of international relations, and sets a dangerous precedent, paving the way for those who aspire to rather divide, not unite, nations,” he wrote.
Ravanchi asked Guterres to “play your active role in preserving the integrity of the United Nations in line with your responsibility to counter the current dangerous trend.” However, it is not clear what Guterres could do in response to the Iranians.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric declined to comment on the letter. When asked about the U.S. sanctioning of Zarif, Guterres told reporters on Thursday: “When I ask for maximum restraint, I ask for maximum restraint at all levels.”
The U.S. sanctions imposed on Zarif last week would block any property or interests he has in the United States, but the foreign minister said he had none.
“The illegal imposition of sanctions on the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran also violates the principle of sovereign equality of States,” Ravanchi said.
Increasing tensions
Longtime U.S.-Iran strains have worsened since U.S. President Donald Trump last year quit a 2015 international agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. Zarif was a critical figure in the nuclear deal.
The United States also imposed unusually tight travel restrictions on Zarif when he visited New York last month to speak at a U.N. meeting. He was only able to travel between the United Nations, the Iranian U.N. mission, the Iranian U.N. ambassador’s residence and John F. Kennedy airport.
The sanctions on Zarif were imposed two weeks after he visited New York. Zarif posted on Twitter on Monday that he believed the United States was not interested in talks with Tehran and instead wanted Iran’s submission.
The last time Samuel Botros stepped into the Lebanese monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya was in 1978. He was 24, newly married, and the country was in the grip of an all-out war. Like many of his generation, he left. It took him 41 years to return.
The 1975-90 civil war may be over in Lebanon, but conflicts in nearby countries like Iraq and Syria have devastated entire communities where Christians once lived alongside Muslims. That has triggered an exodus among people of both faiths, especially among minority sects — like Botros’ Syriac Orthodox community whose roots are in early Christianity.
The monastery, which is nestled in a remote valley in the northern Lebanese mountains and dates from the fourth century, is a meeting place for Christians who have fled conflict.
“It is the war that did this to us. It is the wars that continue to leave behind destruction and force people to leave,” said Botros, visiting the monastery as part of a gathering of his community’s scout group — their first in the region since the 1950s.
The scout group’s roughly 150 members include people living in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and further afield. Lebanon was the only country where they could all meet easily and safely, Botros said.
In Iraq, years of conflict, most recently with Islamic State, erased much of the Christian heritage in ancient cities like Mosul and Sinjar in the north. In Syria’s civil war, some of the oldest churches in Aleppo, Homs and other cities were damaged.
Botros, now 65, is about to retire in Sweden where he made his home years ago. He is father and grandfather to children who know Lebanon only through photos.
“I would like them to visit so that when I pass, there is something to pull them back,” he said.
Ancient sanctuary
On Sundays and public holidays, the monastery’s small church, with the bell tower and facade, etched into the cliffs is full of people huddled in the pews or standing at the back of the vaulted interior.
Its patron is Saint Anthony, a monk who is believed to have lived in rural Egypt in the fourth or fifth century.
“This place has always been a shrine … we don’t even know when it started. Even when there was no development … people still came,” said Father Fadi Imad, the priest who gives sermons.
Qozhaya lies within a valley known as the Valley of Saints, or Qannoubine in ancient Syriac, part of a wider valley network called Qadisha that has a long history as a refuge for monks. At one time, Qadisha was home to hundreds of hermitages, churches, caves and monasteries. The monastery of Saint Anthony is the last surviving one.
It was an early home for Lebanon’s Christian Maronites, the first followers of the Roman Catholic church in the East.
The Maronites and sometimes the Druze, a Muslim sect, sought the sanctuary of the mountains away from the political and religious dynasties of the times with whom they did not always agree, Father Imad said.
“The inhabitants of this mountain … and they were not only Christians, came here because they were persecuted and weak,” he said.
“Qozhaya holds in its heart 1,600 years of history and it doesn’t belong to anyone, church or faith, … it belongs to the homeland,” he said.
‘I will never forget’
The monastery is surrounded by forests of pine and cedar and orchards that can only be reached via a narrow, winding road.
Its grounds include a cave where visitors light candles, a museum housing the Middle East’s oldest printing press in ancient Syriac and halls for resident priests.
Visitors nowadays include foreign and Arab tourists and local residents including Muslims who sometimes come to ask for a blessing.
Father Imad said the monastery was the safest it had been in its history despite being surrounded by countries at war or suffering its aftermath.
“No one is telling us that they are coming to kill us anymore … at least in Lebanon,” he said.
Before he left, Botros and his fellows stood for a final photo outside the building with the valley behind. With their flags and scarves around their necks, they smiled and cheered as the bells rang.
“What I have seen today I will never forget for as long as I live,” Botros said. “No matter how long it takes, the son always returns to the mother.”
The National Basketball Association on Tuesday said that Amazon.com’s Twitch would be its exclusive digital partner for streaming USA Basketball games globally through 2020.
Twitch — best known as a platform for video game players to interact and stream their own competitions — will also exclusively stream up to 76 boys and girls youth basketball games during the Jr. NBA Global Championship, which begins Tuesday, the league said.
USA Basketball is the governing body of American basketball and fields men’s and women’s teams for international competitions, including this year’s International Basketball Federation (FIBA) World Cup in China starting Aug. 31 and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. NBA handles media and marketing partnerships for the organization.
The deals will add to the growing library of live sporting content on Twitch, which streams the NFL’s Thursday Night Football, as does Amazon Prime.
They will also allow the NBA to keep experimenting with digital partnerships as more fans dump traditional cable subscriptions.
Some purely digital media subscription services — like Amazon Prime and London-based newcomer DAZN — have drawn viewers, as have ESPN and other networks that have started their own direct-to-consumer products.
Leagues themselves now also stream some games on their own websites, in this case on NBA.com.
Extra content
Even so, leagues still view linear television networks as valuable partners because of their high production capabilities and the huge audiences they continue to capture for big events.
The NBA’s main media rights are tied up with Walt Disney Co’s ESPN and ABC, as well as TNT, a unit of AT&T Inc’s WarnerMedia, through the 2025 season.
That has left the league carving out other rights in order to try out new kinds of content and partnerships.
As part of Tuesday’s deals, Twitch and USA Basketball will develop extra content around each event, including the USA Men’s National Team, certain 3×3 events and USA Women’s National team friendly games, training camps and the 2020 Nike Hoop Summit, the NBA said.
Twitch has already been streaming matches from the NBA’s minor league organization, the G League, as well as its NBA 2K videogame matches. Financial terms of Tuesday’s agreements were not disclosed.
Ugandan musician and opposition leader Bobi Wine is urging police to investigate the death of one of his supporters who died from injuries sustained during torture by unknown abductors.
Wine said the victim, an entertainer whose stage name was Zigy Wyne, was missing an eye and two fingers when he was found dumped outside a hospital. He was hospitalized for a week before his death Sunday.
Wine’s statement said that supporters of his People Power movement have been targeted by state agents.
Joel Ssenyonyi, a spokesman for People Power, said Tuesday that until police find contrary evidence the group presumes the torture was politically motivated.
Police spokesman Fred Enanga told reporters that police are investigating and urged the victim’s relatives to provide information to authorities.