The Colombian military has killed nine rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Colombia (FARC), President Ivan Duque said.

A FARC commander and eight other guerrillas were killed in a bombing raid in southern Colombia on Friday, just days after the group announced it was taking up arms again to ensure their political rights under an historic peace agreement.

Duque said the attack occurred in the municipality of San Vicente del Caguan, located in the province of Caqueta, after he authorized a military operation in rural areas in the southern part of the country.

Duque said Friday’s bombing sends “a clear message” to FARC members to lay down their weapons.

Among those killed was a rebel known by his alias, Gildardo Cucho, a member of a group led by former FARC chief negotiator Luciano Marin, who was trying to recruit potential rebels for a new guerrilla movement.

On Thursday, former FARC commander Ivan Marquez announced in a video that a new offensive would be launched, three years after FARC signed a peace deal with the government, ending five decades of armed conflict in the South American country.

“This is the continuation of the rebel fight in answer to the betrayal of the state,” Marquez, in a 32-minute YouTube video. “We were never beaten or defeated ideologically, so the struggle continues.”

Marquez, a former chief rebel negotiator, appeared alongside some 20 heavily armed guerrillas when he made the announcement, which comes amid severe challenges to the complex peace agreement.

In response to the FARC announcement, Duque said “Colombia takes no threats. Not of any nature.”

Colombia’s peace tribunal also has issued arrest warrants for Marquez and the others who have pledged to take up the insurgency again.

President Duque is offering an $863,000 reward for information leading to the capture of anyone who appeared in the YouTube video, according to Reuters.

Hundreds of former rebels and human rights activists have been murdered since the accord was signed.  That, coupled with delays in funding for economic efforts by former rebels — has exacerbated deep political divisions within the country.

Marquez said the group’s objective is to ensure the installation of a government that will promote peace. Marquez said the group will fight corruption and fracking (the hydraulic fracturing crude oil extraction process) and demand payments from participants in illicit economies and from multinational corporations.

About 7,000 rebels surrendered their weapons to United Nations observers as part of the agreement that was negotiated with the support of the United States, Cuba and Norway. But smaller rebel groups and drug traffickers have filled the void, leaving many citizens frustrated with the slow pace of implementing the agreement.

Security sources estimate the force commanded by Marquez could number 2,200 fighters.

 

…

Current Time TV is a Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

MOSCOW — Thousands of Russians defied authorities and marched in central Moscow, ignoring officials’ warnings and pressing demands to let independent candidates run in upcoming city council elections.

Police did not interfere with the August 31 protest, which was markedly smaller than previous ones.

However, camouflaged officers linked arms to keep marchers out of the road when demonstrators arrived at Pushkin Square — a symbolically important public park closer to the Kremlin. A heavy presence of detention buses and water-cannon trucks were visible on nearby side streets.

Neither police nor independent watchdogs reported any arrests or detentions from the action — in contrast to other recent protests in which thousands were detained, sometimes violently.

The August 31 action was the latest in a series of confrontations between liberal activists, and Moscow city authorities — and the Kremlin.

Demonstrators clapped and chanted “Russia Will Be Free!” and “Down With The Tsar!” (in a reference to President Vladimir Putin, who has been in power in Russia for two decades), as they walked along a leafy boulevard just a few kilometers north of the Kremlin.

A leading opposition figure and one of the organizers of the march, Lyubov Sobol, led people chanting “Freedom For Political Prisoners.”

“People of different ages have come out because everyone wants justice. They want Russia to be free and happy and to not drown in lawlessness and mayhem. We demand this and we will not back down,” she told reporters.

At Pushkin Square, the ending point for the march, participants milled around, occasionally yelling political chants. One group entered the crowd carrying a large banner citing the clause in the constitution that gives Russians the right to gather peacefully, and yelled “We Need Another Russia!”

Unofficial estimates put the crowd size in the low thousands.

Protesters also yelled “Let Them Through!” as they marched — a reference to the City Duma elections scheduled for Sept. 8.

The refusal by election officials to register some independent candidates has been the impetus for the protests that have been held weekly since mid-July.

However, they’ve also turned into a major challenge for the Kremlin and a reflection of growing impatience among Russians with President Vladimir Putin.

The weekly protests first erupted in July as election authorities blocked some independent candidates from registering to run on September 8.

The initial rallies drew tens of thousands of people in some of the largest political demonstrations seen in the country since 2012. Some, though not all, were authorized by officials ahead of time.

Police have violently dispersed several of the earlier demonstrations, some of which authorities described as “illegal mass gatherings.” More than 2,000 people have been detained, some preemptively, drawing international condemnation.

 

…

Valerie Harper, who scored guffaws and stole hearts as Rhoda Morgenstern on back-to-back hit sitcoms in the 1970s, has died. She was 80. 
 
Longtime family friend Dan Watt confirmed Harper died Friday, adding the family wasn’t immediately releasing any further details.  

Harper was a breakout star playing the lovable sidekick on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” then as the funny leading lady of the spinoff series “Rhoda.” 
 
In March 2013, she revealed that she had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She had battled lung cancer in 2009, and her husband-manager said recently that he’d been advised to place her in hospice. 
 
Harper appeared on Broadway and in feature films, including “Freebie and the Bean” and “Chapter Two.” 

…

A military judge set a date Friday in early 2021 for the start of the long-stalled war crimes trial of five men being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison on charges of planning and aiding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Air Force Col. W. Shane Cohen set the start date in an order setting motion and evidentiary deadlines in a case that has been bogged down in pretrial litigation. The five defendants were arraigned in May 2012.

In setting the Jan. 11, 2021, start, Cohen noted that the trial at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, “will face a host of administrative and logistics challenges.”

The U.S. has charged the five with war crimes that include terrorism, hijacking and nearly 3,000 counts of murder for their alleged roles planning and providing logistical support to the Sept. 11 plot. They could get the death penalty if convicted at the military commission, which combines elements of civilian and military law.

The five defendants include Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, a senior al-Qaida figure who has portrayed himself as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and other terrorist plots.

Mohammad and his four co-defendants have been held at Guantanamo since September 2006 after several years in clandestine CIA detention facilities following their capture.

…

Peter Clottey of VOA’s English to Africa service contributed to this report.

A lawyer for Tanzanian investigative journalist Erick Kabendera on Friday asked that he get a speedy trial and medical attention after more than four weeks of incarceration.

Appearing with Kabendera at a hearing in magistrate’s court in Dar es Salaam, attorney Jebra Kambole asked that the journalist’s case be resolved quickly. It was adjourned for the third time until Sept. 12, according to Reuters news service, reportedly because the prosecution’s investigation is continuing.

Kabendera was arrested at his home July 29 over what authorities at the time said were problems with his citizenship. He subsequently was charged with involvement in organized crime, money laundering and tax evasion.

Kabendera is being held at Segerea prison on the city’s outskirts.

Kambole later told VOA, in a phone interview, that he had asked prison authorities to allow the journalist to be taken to a state hospital for treatment of respiratory and leg problems that have developed during his incarceration.

“The last time we sit and talk,” Kambole said, the journalist had experienced faintness and leg numbness. “He cannot walk properly.”

Kabendera has been critical of President John Magufuli’s administration and the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party in stories for The Guardian, The East African and The Times of London.

On Thursday, ahead of the court hearing, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) called for authorities to drop all charges against Kandera.

In a statement, the IFJ cited its concern “that the journalist’s arrest and the confused prosecution based on spurious charges are an attempt to hide what merely is a ruthless retaliation against Kabendera for his reporting.”

After Kabendera’s arrest, the United States and Britain raised concerns about the “steady erosion of due process” in the east African country. Their governments put out a joint statement raising concern about “the irregular handling of the arrest, detention and indictment” of Kabendera.

…

The lineup is now set for the next Democratic presidential debate in September. A total of 10 Democratic contenders qualified for the debate in Houston, Sept. 12, half the number of the previous two debates that were held over two nights. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on who is in the next debate and what it means for the race to pick a Democratic presidential nominee.
 

…

A report by the U.N. refugee agency finds more than half of the world’s refugee children, about 3.7 million, do not go to school and will not gain the skills needed to build a productive future.

The statistics on education for refugee children worsen as the children grow older. The report finds 63% of refugee children go to primary school, compared to 91% globally. But that dwindles to only 24% of refugee adolescents getting a secondary education, compared to 84% globally.

Investing in the future

The U.N. refugee agency says lack of money is keeping refugee children out of school. The head of the Global Communications Service and UNHCR spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, calls the failure to invest in refugee education shortsighted. She says this is not only sad, but also foolish.

“Not investing in refugees, people who have fled warzones, people who have fled countries where the world is interested in the future of peace is not investing—very simply—in the future of its people … who are interested in reconciliation and not revenge.”

The UNHCR is backing a new initiative aimed at kick-starting secondary education for refugees. The initiative will seek to construct and refurbish schools, train teachers and provide financial support to refugee families to cover the expenses of sending their children to school.

Secondary education

Mamadou Dian Balde is UNHCR deputy director of the Department of Resilience and Solutions. He tells VOA some pilot projects on secondary education for refugee adolescents will be conducted before the initiative gets fully underway.

“We are going to start in a very … in a very, I think, resolute manner in a given number of countries in the eastern Horn of Africa, in Asia and then move into a greater number of countries—also being aware of the scarcity of resources in such an initiative.”

The UNHCR says bringing this initiative to fruition will take vast sums of money. But an initial outlay of $250 million will get moving the process of improving refugee enrollment in secondary education.

…

In India’s northeastern Assam state, anxiety and panic is mounting among nearly four million people who fear they may no longer count as Indian citizens although many have lived in the country for decades.

As part of a campaign to root out illegal immigrants, authorities will publish on Saturday a final list of the state’s bonafide citizens.

The hundreds of thousands whose names were excluded from a preliminary list last July have scrambled through a bureaucratic maze for the past year, trying to dig out documents from government offices or engaging lawyers they often cannot afford to fight for their inclusion in the citizens’ register.

Waiting to hear their fate, they fear being packed to detention camps or becoming “stateless” and stripped of benefits such as voting rights.

“People are going around with bundles of hope, wrapped in plastic, waiting for hearings, lining up to get on to the register,” says Sanjoy Hazarika, international director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and an Assamese scholar.

The process to identify illegal immigrants has the strong backing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, although it was mandated before they came to power by a Supreme Court order to update the state’s citizens’ list. Assam had been wracked by an “anti-foreigner movement” in the 1980’s as indigenous communities complained of being swamped by hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim, illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Tracing roots to before 1971

The state’s 33 million residents, many poor and illiterate, were called on to show documentation that they or their ancestors had lived in Assam before Bangladesh’s independence in March 1971. It turned out to be a veritable nightmare for many, say human rights activists.

“Can you imagine working class people like rickshaw pullers keeping with documents dating back 50 years? It’s an incredibly unfair and slanted process where the poor find themselves at the wrong end of the process,” says Colin Gonsalves, a senior lawyer and founder of Human Rights Law Network, who visited Assam to hear about the travails of people running from pillar to post to prove they are of Indian heritage.

Poor people such as daily wage workers in India often have no bank accounts or do not own property.

Critics also point out that the campaign is not targeting recent immigrants but those that may have migrated decades ago.

“Fifty years you have been here, you never thought you would be questioned. You have children, some of them have grandchildren and suddenly you are asked to prove you are Indian,” says Gonsalves. “It’s a thoroughly arbitrary and a biased system.”

The arbitrariness was highlighted when a war veteran, Mohammed Sanaullah was identified as a “foreigner” in May and packed off to a detention camp – he was released days later by the state’s High Court on bail when the case made headlines.

Muslims especially worried

Worries run specially high among Muslims in a state where they make up one third of the population, far higher than in other parts of India. And as many Muslims complain of bias against them, critics have slammed the BJP for exposing communal fault lines and using them as a political target to build their support base in the state.

Among those who have scrambled to prove that they are Indians are 70 members of school principal Mansur Ahmed’s maternal family whose names never made it to the citizens’ list published last year. The problem: his grandfather’s name appeared with different spellings on land records that date back to the 1930’s — a common problem in India, where record keeping in the past was never accurate.

Ahmed says the family has appeared over 12 times before officials hearing appeals. “They are becoming tired, appearing in interviews again and again. Still they are in confusion whether their name will come or not,” he says.  “It is very distressing for all people, specially Muslims, they are in great fear,”

Selling assets to prove citizenship

The BJP has strongly countered charges of anti-Muslim prejudice and pointed out that the 4 million who were excluded from the citizens’ list includes hundreds of thousands of Hindus also.

Many of these poor people have pledged their land or sold their farm animals as they frantically try to raise funds to prove that they are of Indian heritage, according to Mubarak Ali, a retired army soldier who is now with the voluntary group Citizens for Peace and Justice.

“They have to bribe to get documents and sometimes travel as far away as 400 kilometers to appeal at the designated office. And they have to carry all members of the family with them,” he says. “Poor people don’t have so many funds.”

And as tens of thousands stare at uncertainty, Sanjoy Hazarika points out that authorities have not prepared a roadmap on how to deal with those whose names do not figure on the list.

“What happens afterwards? I don’t think governments have addressed that issue very clearly except speaking in rhetorical flourishes,” he says. “The whole thing is a mess.”

Widespread criticism

Deportations are not an option — Bangladesh has said the citizenship exercise is India’s internal matter. But many fear being sent off to detention camps — six in the state already have about 1000 inmates and 10 more are being set up. Or they could just be left in limbo, with no access to rights such as voting, healthcare and education.

The government has said that those excluded can appeal to foreigners tribunals, whose numbers are being expanded. It is also promising legal aid to the poor although it may be difficult for poor people to negotiate long legal battles.

Despite widespread criticism of the controversial exercise, the government is not backing off. In fact, Home Minister Amit Shah, a close aide of Prime Minister Modi, who during an election rally called illegal immigrants “termites,” has said the campaign to root them out will go nationwide. So far Assam is the only state in the country to have a citizens list.

The contentious issue of citizenship has been further muddied by a BJP-backed proposed law that would grant citizenship rights to non Muslims such as Hindus and Sikhs from neighboring countries, but exclude Muslims.

For the time being, all eyes will be on the numbers that do not make it to Assam’s citizen’s register on Saturday — human rights activists worry it could add up to the a massive stateless population.

…

A four-legged hero who saved then-President Barack Obama from a White House intruder is now an award-winner in Britain.

Hurricane, a former Secret Service dog, has earned the Order of Merit from British veterinary charity PDSA. He’s the first foreigner to win the honor, to be bestowed at a London ceremony in October.

The Belgian Malinois intercepted an intruder who scaled the White House fence in October 2014. The intruder swung Hurricane around, punching and kicking him, but the dog dragged him to the ground, allowing Secret Service agents to intercept him. Obama, home at the time, was not harmed. 

Handler Marshall Mirarchi described Hurricane as a “legend” within the service after the attack. Mirarchi said injuries suffered in the incident contributed to Hurricane’s 2016 retirement from the Secret Service.

…

When President Donald Trump levied tariffs on China that scrambled global markets, farmer Randy Miller was willing to absorb the financial hit. Even as the soybeans in his fields about an hour south of Des Moines became less valuable, Miller saw long-term promise in Trump’s efforts to rebalance America’s trade relationship with Beijing.

“The farmer plays the long game,” said Miller, who grows soybeans and corn and raises pigs in Lacona. “I look at my job through my son, my grandkids. So am I willing to suffer today to get this done to where I think it will be better for them? Yes.”

But the patience of Miller and many other Midwest farmers with a president they mostly supported in 2016 is being put sorely to the test.

The trigger wasn’t Trump’s China tariffs, but the waivers the administration granted this month to 31 oil refineries so they don’t have to blend ethanol into their gasoline. Since roughly 40% of the U.S. corn crop is turned into ethanol, it was a fresh blow to corn producers already struggling with five years of low commodity prices and the threat of mediocre harvests this fall after some of the worst weather in years.

“That flashpoint was reached and the frustration boiled over, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Lynn Chrisp, who grows corn and soybeans near Hastings, Nebraska, and is president of the National Corn Growers Association.
“I’ve never seen farmers so tired, so frustrated, and they’re to the point of anger,” says Kelly Nieuwenhuis, a farmer from Primghar in northwest Iowa who said the waivers were a hot topic at a recent meeting of the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Nieuwenhuis said he voted for Trump in 2016, but now he’s not sure who he’ll support in 2020.

While Iowa farmer Miller saw Trump’s brinkmanship with China as a necessary gamble to help American workers, the ethanol waivers smacked to him of favoritism for a wealthy and powerful industry _ Big Oil.

“That’s our own country stabbing us in the back,” Miller said. “That’s the president going, the oil companies need to make more than the American farmer. … That was just, `I like the oil company better or I’m friends with the oil company more than I’m friends with the farmer.”

The Environmental Protection Agency last month kept its annual target for the level of corn ethanol that must be blended into the nation’s gasoline supply under the Renewable Fuel Standard at 15 billion gallons (56.78 billion liters) for 2020. That was a deep disappointment to an ethanol industry that wanted a higher target to offset exemptions granted to smaller refiners. Those waivers have cut demand by an estimated 2.6 billion gallons (9.84 billion liters) since Trump took office.

At least 15 ethanol plants already have been shut down or idled since the EPA increased waivers under Trump, and a 16th casualty came Wednesday at the Corn Plus ethanol plant in the south-central Minnesota town of Winnebago. The Renewable Fuels Association says the closures have affected more than 2,500 jobs.

The 31 new waivers issued this month came on top of 54 granted since early 2018, according to the association. While the waivers are intended to reduce hardships on small oil refiners, some beneficiaries include smaller refineries owned by big oil companies.

The administration knows it has a problem. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at a farm policy summit in Decatur, Illinois, on Wednesday that Trump will take action to soften the effects. He would not say what the president might do or when, but said Trump believes the waivers by his EPA were “way overdone.”

Geoff Cooper, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, said the heads of the EPA and Agriculture Department and key White House officials have been discussing relief, and said his group has been talking with officials involved in those conversations. He said they’ve heard the plan may include reallocating the ethanol demand lost from the exempted smaller refiners to larger refiners that would pick up the slack, but many key details remain unclear, including whether the reallocation would apply in 2020 or be delayed until 2021.

“Anything short of that redistribution or reallocation is not going to be well received by farmers, I’ll tell you that,” Cooper said.

The White House referred questions to the EPA, where spokesman Michael Abboud said that the agency would “continue to consult” on the best path forward.

Meanwhile, the oil industry has spoken out against some of the steps Trump has taken to try to appease the farmers, including allowing year-round sales of gasoline with more ethanol mixed in.

“We hope the administration walks back from the brink of a disastrous political decision that punishes American drivers. Bad policy is bad politics,” Frank Macchiarola, a vice president for the American Petroleum Institute trade group, said in a statement.

Another example of the tensions came last week when the Agriculture Department pulled its staffers out of the ProFarmer Crop Tour, an annual assessment of Midwest crop yields, in response to an unspecified threat. The agency said it came from “someone not involved with the tour” and Federal Protective Services was investigating.

Despite farmers’ mounting frustrations, there’s little evidence so far that many farmers who backed Trump in 2016 will desert him in 2020. Many are still pleased with his rollbacks in other regulations. Cultural issues such as abortion or gun rights are important to many of them. And many are wary of a Democratic Party they see as growing more liberal.

Miller, too, says he’s still inclined to support Trump in the next election.

Though Trump has inserted new uncertainty into Miller’s own financial situation, he believes the president has been good for the economy as a whole. And as a staunch opponent of abortion, he sees no viable alternatives in the Democratic presidential field.

Chrisp, too, says he doesn’t see an acceptable Democratic alternative. Still, he cautioned Republicans against taking farmers for granted.

“We’re not a chip in the political game, though I’m certain there are folks who are political strategists who view us that way, but it’s not the case,” he said.

Brian Thalmann, who farms near Plato in south-central Minnesota and serves as president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, confronted Perdue at a trade show this month about Trump’s recent statements that farmers are starting to do well again.

“Things are going downhill and downhill very quickly,” Thalmann told Perdue.

Thalmann, who voted for Trump in 2016, said this week that he can’t support him at the moment. He said farmers have worked too hard to build up markets and the reputation of American farm products and “I can’t see agriculture getting dragged down the path it currently is.”

 

…

Children born to U.S. citizens stationed abroad as government employees or members of the U.S. military will no longer qualify for automatic American citizenship under a policy change unveiled on Wednesday by the Trump administration.

Effective Oct. 29, parents serving overseas in the U.S. armed forces or other agencies of the federal government would need to go through a formal application process seeking U.S. citizenship on their children’s behalf, the policy states.

Currently, children born to U.S. citizens stationed by their government in a foreign country are legally considered to be “residing in the United States,” allowing their parents to simply obtain a certificate showing the children acquired citizenship automatically.

But an 11-page “policy alert” issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said the agency found the prevailing policy to be at odds with other parts of federal immigration law. Beyond that, the rationale for the policy change remained unclear.

“USCIS is updating its policy regarding children of U.S. government employees and U.S. armed forces members employed or stationed outside the United States to explain that they are not considered to be ‘residing in the United States’ for purposes of acquiring citizenship,” the memorandum said.

The number of government and military personnel affected by the change was not immediately known, but the revised policy sparked immediate consternation on the part of some organizations representing members of the armed forces.

“Military members already have enough to deal with, and the last thing that they should have to do when stationed overseas is go through hoops to ensure their children are U.S. citizens,” said Andy Blevins, executive director of the Modern Military Association of America.

He urged Congress to take action to address the situation to “ensure our military families don’t suffer the consequences of a reckless administration.”

…

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Wednesday that he had accepted the help of four Chilean aircraft in the fight against wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, and he renewed his criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron. 
 
Bolsonaro again accused the French leader of calling him a liar over a dispute about how to contain the raging wildfires. He said Macron believed himself to be “the one and only person interested in defending the environment.” 
 
Bolsonaro’s remarks came one day after he said his country would accept $20 million in aid from Group of Seven countries to battle the wildfires only if Macron retracted what Bolsonaro considered offensive remarks. 
 
He initially said Tuesday that Macron had accused him of being a liar and demanded that Macron retract his comments. 
 
“From there, we can talk,” Bolsonaro said. 
 
Bolsonaro rejected the aid Monday, declaring the funds could be better used in Europe. 
 
Amazon nations’ meeting

After a meeting Wednesday with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera in Brasilia, Bolsonaro said Amazon nations, except Venezuela, would meet in Colombia Sept. 6 “to come up with our own unified strategy for preserving the environment.” 
 
A statement Wednesday from the two South American leaders acknowledged environmental challenges must be met, but only by respecting “national sovereignty.”  
 
While Bolsonaro said Brazil was willing to accept “bilateral” offers of aid, he accused Germany and France of trying to “buy” the sovereignty of Brazil.  

Macron has questioned Bolsonaro’s honesty and commitment to protecting the environment. He threatened last week to block a free-trade deal between Latin America and the European Union unless Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic, took serious steps to fight the Amazon fires.  
 
World leaders at the recently concluded G-7 summit in France of the world’s most advanced economies committed an immediate $20 million on Monday to fight the wildfires that are threatening the world’s biggest rainforest. 
 
Macron said France within hours would provide military support in the region to fight the fires. 
 
Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, took aim at Macron on Tuesday, declaring Brazil was a nation that “never had colonialist and imperialist practices, as perhaps is the objective of the Frenchman Macron.” 
 
Lorenzoni also said Macron could not “even avoid a foreseeable fire in a church that is a world heritage site,” a reference to an April fire that devastated France’s Notre-Dame Cathedral. 

Aid for Africa
 
Macron and Pinera said the G-7 countries — the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and France — were studying the possibility of giving similar aid to support Africa to fight wildfires in its rainforests. 
 
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump pledged his “complete support” for Bolsonaro. In a tweet, Trump said Bolsonaro “is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil – Not easy.”  
 
Under pressure from the international community to protect the environment, Bolsonaro on Sunday dispatched two C-130 Hercules aircraft to help douse the flames. Macron said the U.S. supported the aid to South American countries, even though Trump skipped Monday’s G-7 working session on the environment. 
 
More than 75,000 fires covering the Amazon region have been detected this year, with many of them coming this month. Experts have blamed farmers and ranchers for the fires, accusing them of setting them to clear lands for their operations. 
 
About 60% of the Amazon region is in Brazil. The vast rainforest also extends into Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. 

…

After celebrating her two-decade-plus career at the MTV Video Music Awards with a performance featuring a slew of her hits, Missy Elliott knew she did a great job when the first text she received after the performance was from another musical icon and longtime friend: Janet Jackson.

“She was like, ‘You shut that [expletive] down,'” Elliott said, laughing in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, a day after the VMAs. “And just to know that Janet even said that word was amazing. And I was like, ‘OK, I must have done good for her to use that [word].'”

Elliott, who has collaborated musically with Jackson in the past, received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award on Monday night for the eccentric and vibrant music videos that helped establish her as a trailblazer on the music scene.

The 48-year-old Grammy winner said the road to creating iconic videos was not easy. She said in the “She’s a B—h” clip, which includes a scene where she and others are submerged, two of the dancers “had asthma attacks just from being underwater.”

For “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” — her 1997 debut single where she wore an inflated trash bag — she recalls walking “to the gas station to use the air pump … in Brooklyn to pump up the suit, and then realized I was too big to fit in the car, so we had to walk … on the main street in this outfit all the way to set, and it had deflated.”

She confirmed that the bees in the “Work It” video were in fact real. And in the “Pass that Dutch” clip when she was lifted up and rapping from a cornfield, “they dropped me on my knees; I thought my kneecaps had broken.”

“I was just doing these videos and … it wasn’t like I was doing them and trying to make a point for later down the line. I was just doing it,” she said. “A lot of people say, ‘Hey you should have gotten [this award] a long time ago and I realize that I’m a spiritual person and so I always say, ‘I’m on God’s time.’ And so whenever God says it was time for me to have it is the correct time.”

Elliott’s VMA performance also included the well-known hits “Lose Control” and “Get Ur Freak On,” as well as “Throw It Back,” the first single from her new EP “Iconology,” released last week. Her performance also featured dancer and actress Alyson Stoner, who first gained fame as the young child who danced with skill in the “Work It” video.

“It’s been 17 years since we shot that video,” Elliott said. “I couldn’t have done it without [Alyson]. I was like, ‘I’ve got to have Alyson in here because everywhere I went since then people have always been like, ‘What happened to that little girl that used to be in your ‘Work It’ video?'”

At the VMAs, Elliott also honored late R&B singer Aaliyah when she gave her acceptance speech. Elliott and Timbaland wrote and produced a number of hits for Aaliyah, from “One In a Million” to “4 Page Letter.” 
 
“I always pay tribute to her. And I’m always in contact with her brother, you know, checking on them. Even though each year makes it a year longer, it always still feels like it was yesterday,” Elliott said of Aaliyah, who was killed in a plane crash 18 years ago last Sunday. 
 
“I could still hear her laughter and I could see her smile and almost kind of could sense what she would be like today. She’s always been a risk taker and never a follower because when she chose to work with Timbaland and myself, we had style that was so different; she could have picked any other producer and writer that was already hot and popping,” she continued. “We hadn’t had anything out but she heard something in us and so I know that she would have just been setting the bar high.”

…

Pinterest said it would try to combat misinformation about vaccines by showing only information from health organizations when people search. 
 
Social media sites have been trying to combat the spread of misinformation about vaccines. Pinterest previously tried blocking all searches for vaccines, with mixed results. 
 
Now searches for “measles,” “vaccine safety” and related terms will bring up results from such groups as the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the WHO-established Vaccine Safety Net. 
 
Pinterest won’t show ads or other users’ posts, as they may contain misinformation.  
  
“We’re taking this approach because we believe that showing vaccine misinformation alongside resources from public health experts isn’t responsible,” Pinterest said Wednesday in a blog post. 
 
Though anti-vaccine sentiments have been around for as long as vaccines have existed, health experts worry that anti-vaccine propaganda can spread more quickly on social media. The misinformation includes soundly debunked notions that vaccines cause autism or that mercury preservatives and other substances in them can harm people. 
 
Experts say the spread of such information can push parents who are worried about vaccines toward refusing to inoculate their children, leading to a comeback of various diseases. 

Spike in measles cases
 
Measles outbreaks have spiked in the U.S. this year to their highest number in more than 25 years.  
  
In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson blamed people “listening to that superstitious mumbo jumbo on the internet” for a rising incidence of measles in that country. The government plans to call a summit of social media companies to discuss what more they can do to fight online misinformation, though details are still being worked out. 
 
Facebook said in March that it would no longer recommend groups and pages that spread hoaxes about vaccines and that it would reject ads that do this. But anti-vax information still slips through. 
 
The WHO praised Pinterest’s move and encouraged other social media companies to follow. 
 
“Misinformation about vaccination has spread far and fast on social media platforms in many different countries,” the statement said. “We see this as a critical issue and one that needs our collective effort to protect people’s health and lives.” 

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OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and its owners, the Sackler family, are in discussion to settle more than 2,000 opioid lawsuits against the company for $10 billion to $12 billion, two people familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

Purdue is among several drugmakers and distributors that have been sued for fueling an opioid addiction crisis in the United States, which claimed 400,000 lives from 1999 to 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The lawsuits have accused the Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma of aggressively marketing prescription opioids while misleading prescribers and consumers about risks from their prolonged use. Purdue and the Sacklers have denied the allegations.

Purdue said it was actively working with state attorneys general and other plaintiffs to reach a resolution, without specifying a settlement amount.

There is currently no agreement and the settlement discussions could collapse, the sources said.

Representatives for Purdue and the Sackler family held discussions with cities, counties and states on the contours of the potential multibillion-dollar settlement last week in Cleveland, said a person familiar with the matter.

During the meeting, Purdue outlined a plan to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a mechanism for implementing the settlement, which the company hopes will address the lawsuits, the person said.

The Sacklers would cede control of Purdue under the settlement terms discussed last week, the person said.

All the parties face a Friday deadline to update a federal judge on the status of the negotiations, the person said.

The company has said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved labels for OxyContin that warned about risk and abuse associated with treating pain. The Sacklers have argued they were passive board members who approved routine management requests rather than micromanaging the marketing of OxyContin.

Restructuring

The settlement offer was first reported by NBC. Paul Hanly, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs, in an email, replied only “Made up. Ridiculous,” when asked to confirm NBC’s report. Asked to clarify after Reuters confirmed the report, he did not respond.

Representatives for the Sackler family declined to comment and a representative for the state attorneys general did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The plan under discussion envisions Purdue restructuring into a for-profit “public benefit trust” that would last for at least a decade, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

Purdue would contribute between $7 billion and $8 billion to the trust, with some of the money coming from the sales of its drugs, including those that combat opioid overdoses, the person said. Three experts would be approved by a bankruptcy judge as trustees who would select board members to run the trust, this person said.

The Sackler family, which has amassed an estimated $13 billion fortune over the years, is also weighing a possible sale of another pharmaceutical firm it owns called Mundipharma, with some of the proceeds potentially going toward the settlement under discussion, the person said.

David Sackler, one of a handful of family members who previously sat on Purdue’s board, was present for the discussions in the meeting last week, which included at least 10 state attorneys general, the person said.

Purdue is set on Oct. 21 to go on trial for the first time over about 2,000 federal lawsuits, largely by local governments, accusing several drug makers and distributors of fueling the epidemic.

Other companies set to face trial include drugmakers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd and Johnson & Johnson and drug distributors McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and AmerisourceBergen Corp.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland, Ohio, who oversees the lawsuits, has been pushing for settlements that could “do something meaningful to abate this crisis.”

Bankruptcy protection 

Purdue, the Sacklers and the communities involved face high-stakes negotiations and Purdue has been preparing for filing for bankruptcy protection in case it cannot reach an agreement.

Going into Chapter 11 would give Purdue the exclusive right for several months to propose a reorganization plan, which if approved by a U.S. bankruptcy judge could be forced on any local governments who decide to hold out.

Some state attorneys general have said they will resist any attempt by Purdue to use bankruptcy.

New York Attorney General Letitia James subpoenaed Wall Street banks, Purdue corporate entities and family offices in mid-August for records related to the Sackler family’s finances, according to court records.

In a letter to a judge in an earlier lawsuit, her office characterized payouts to the Sacklers from Purdue as fraudulent conveyances, a legal designation for clawing back money during bankruptcy proceedings.

“The opioid epidemic has ravaged American communities for over a decade, while a single family has made billions profiting from death and destruction,” James said in a statement. “We won’t let up until we have delivered justice.”

A lawyer representing the Sackler family said in a statement that the New York attorney general’s “current claims are without merit and the subpoenas are improper.”

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Explosions hit two police checkpoints in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing three officers and wounding several other Palestinians, the Hamas-run interior ministry said, declaring a state of emergency after the blasts.

Such attacks on Hamas, which has the most powerful armed apparatus in the enclave, were rare.

Interior ministry spokesman, Eyad Al-Bozom, said security forces were making progress in their pursuit of those behind the explosions, but he did not disclose further details.

“The sinful hands that carried out this crime will not escape punishment,” said Bozom.

A spokesman for the Israeli military said he knew of no involvement by Israel in the back-to-back incidents in Gaza city at a time of simmering cross-border confrontations with Hamas, the Palestinian enclave’s ruling Islamists.

The first blast destroyed a motorcycle as it passed a police checkpoint, witnesses said. Two police officers were killed and a third Palestinian wounded. It was not immediately clear if the riders were among the casualties.

The second explosion, less than an hour later, killed one officer and wounded several people at a police checkpoint elsewhere in the city, the interior ministry said. The ministry declared a state of emergency throughout Gaza, putting security forces on alert.

Hamas, which took over Gaza in a 2007 civil war with the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has at times faced internal opposition from more stringent Islamist militants aligned with al Qaeda or Islamic State.

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The Trump administration is shifting $271 million earmarked for disaster aid and cyber security to pay for immigration-related facilities, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a leading congressional Democrat said on Tuesday.

The money, which was also set aside for the U.S. Coast Guard, will be used to pay for detention facilities and courts for migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. DHS officials say they have been overwhelmed by a surge of asylum-seeking migrants who are fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.

The Trump administration is seeking to circumvent Congress and move money originally designated for other programs. This will allow the administration to continue to house immigrants arriving at the border, part of President Donald Trump’s promise not to “catch and release” migrants and allow them to await hearings outside of custody.

The administration plans to take $115 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster-relief fund just as hurricane season is heating up in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a letter from U.S. Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, who chairs the congressional panel that oversees Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending.

Cybersecurity  upgrades will have to wait

The letter also details that money will be taken for planned upgrades to the National Cybersecurity Protection System and new equipment for the U.S. Coast Guard, Roybal-Allard said.

DHS said Congress did not provide enough money for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain single adults as they wait for their cases to be heard by an immigration judge.

Congress appropriated $2.8 billion to pay for 52,000 beds this year, but ICE is currently detaining more than 55,000 immigrants, a record high, according to agency statistics.

Roybal-Allard said DHS exceeded its authority to move money around to respond to emergencies.

“Once again, DHS has ignored the negotiated agreement with Congress by vastly exceeding the amount appropriated for immigration enforcement and removal operations,” she said in a statement.

Won’t impact readiness

FEMA spokeswoman Lizzie Litzow said the funding reduction will not impact readiness efforts or other functions for which the money was earmarked.

Trump has made cracking down on legal and illegal immigration a hallmark of his presidency after campaigning in 2016 on a promise, so far unfulfilled, that Mexico would pay for a border wall to keep migrants from entering the United States.

A record-setting 42,000 families were apprehended along the U.S. southern border in July, more than twice as many as in May.

Last week, DHS unveiled a new rule that would allow officials to detain migrant families indefinitely — abolishing a previous 20-day limit — while judges consider whether to grant them asylum in the United States.

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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Tuesday she is open to dialogue with protesters, but that the government will not tolerate violence.

“If violence continues, the only thing that we should do is to stamp out that violence through law enforcement actions,” Lam said.

She said it would be inappropriate for the government to accept the demands of protesters who resort to violence and harassment.

“We want to put an end to the chaotic situation in Hong Kong through law enforcement,” Lam said. “At the same time, we will not give up on building a platform for dialogue.”

Lam has made few public comments through several months of demonstrations that began with a call for stopping an extradition bill and expanded to include demands for full democracy.

Protesters have plans to continue the demonstrations, which represent the biggest threat to peace in the Asian finance center since Britain handed over control of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The protesters say they are demonstrating against what they see as an erosion of rights under the “one country, two systems” arrangement under which Beijing assumed control of the territory.

Police arrested more than 80 people during protests Saturday and Sunday that included clashes with officers.

The police blamed protesters for “escalating and illegal violent acts,” while a group of pro-democracy lawmakers said it was police actions that were “totally unnecessary.”

Lawmaker Andrew Wan said police had provoked protesters to occupy a road already blocked by officers, and that government and police actions during the weeks of protests have caused a “hatred among the people.”

“I think the ultimate responsibility should be on the police side.  That is what I observed,” Wan said at a Monday news conference.

The vast majority of the thousands of protesters marched peacefully Sunday, but police at times fired bursts of tear gas at wildcat demonstrators who broke away from the largest groups. Officers also used water cannons for the first time in responding to protesters.

Some of the protesters threw bricks at police, attacked them with sticks and rods and sprayed detergent on streets to make it slippery for police.

In France, leaders of the Group of Seven countries meeting in Biarritz backed Hong Kong’s autonomy and called for “avoiding violence.” 

“The G-7 reaffirms the existence and the importance of the 1984 Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong,” according to a joint statement, referring to a deal between Britain and China that calls for Hong Kong to be part of China, but autonomous.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that the leaders of the G-7 all expressed “deep concern” about the situation in Hong Kong.

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Taylor Swift picked up two awards, including video of the year, in a girl-powered start to the MTV Video Music Awards show on Monday, while rapper Cardi B won best hip-hop video and newcomer Lizzo celebrated big women.

Swift opened the show with a rainbow-themed performance of her pro-LGBTQ single “You Need to Calm Down,” followed by her first live performance of the romantic ballad “Lover,” the lead single from her new, and already best-selling, album of the same name.

“You Need to Calm Down” brought the country-turned-pop singer one of the top prizes – video of the year – being handed out during Monday’s ceremony. It also took the “video for good” statuette for songs that have raised awareness.

Accepting the video of the year award, Swift said that since the VMAs are chosen by fans: “It means that you want a world where we are all treated equally under the law.”

Swift and pop singer Ariana Grande went into the fan-voted ceremony in Newark, New Jersey, with a leading 10 nominations each and also were competing for song of the year, best pop, and video of the year.

Grande, currently on tour in Europe and absent from Monday’s show, is also a contender for the top award – artist of the year – along with Cardi B, 17-year-old alternative pop newcomer Billie Eilish, Halsey, the Jonas Brothers and Shawn Mendes.

Cardi B beat out a male-dominated lineup to win best hip-hop video for “Money,” and ended a delighted acceptance speech saying: “Thank you, Jesus.”

The outspoken rapper was also on hand to present Missy Elliott with this year’s Vanguard Award for career achievement, calling her “a champion for women who want to be doing their own thing.”

Best new artist contender Lizzo, enjoying a breakout year, performed her hits “Truth Hurts” and “Good as Hell” in a yellow sequined bodysuit, accompanied by plus-size dancers, in a message for body positivity.

Mendes and Camila Cabello stoked reports they are dating in real life with a steamy live version of their romantic duet “Senorita,” which reached No. 1 this week on the Billboard singles charts.

Male winners included Korean boy band BTS, who won for best K-Pop; the recently reunited Jonas Brothers, who paid tribute to their New Jersey roots with a performance from Asbury Park; newcomer Lil Nas; and Mendes.

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Native American representation in Congress made great strides with the 2018 election of two American women to Congress.  Now, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma says it will send its own delegate to Congress, a move that will not only test the tribe’s sovereignty and the willingness of the U.S. to meet its treaty promises.

Newly-elected Cherokee Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr., announced the decision on August 22, naming Cherokee Nation Vice President of Government Relations Kimberly Teehee as his choice to represent the tribe on Capitol Hill.

“As Native issues continue to rise to the forefront of the national dialogue, now is the time for Cherokee Nation to execute a provision in our treaties,” Hoskins said. “It’s a right negotiated by our ancestors in two treaties with the federal government and reaffirmed in the Treaty of 1866 and reflected in our Constitution.”

It was the 1785 Treaty of Hopewell that first gave the Cherokee “the right to send a deputy of their choice” to Congress. 

Fifty years later, in December 1835, a breakaway faction of Cherokee tribe members met with U.S. officials in the Cherokee capital of New Enchota. Dissatisfied with the way their chief was handling negotiations with Washington, they signed a treaty giving up all land east of the Mississippi in exchange for $5 million. 

That move led to the 1,900-kilometer “Trail of Tears,” the forced trek to Indian Territory — today, Oklahoma — by thousands of men, women and children, as many as a quarter of whom died of hunger, disease and exhaustion.

The Enchota Treaty states that the Cherokee “shall be entitled to a delegate in the House of Representatives of the United States whenever Congress shall make provision for the same.”

Long road ahead

The U.S. Constitution mandates that only members of states may serve in the House and Senate, but territories and properties “owned” or administered by the United States may send delegates, who have limited power: They may debate but not vote on the House floor, but may vote in committees on which they serve. 

Today, six non-voting parties sit in Washington:  A resident commissioner from Puerto Rico, and  five individual delegates from the District of Columbia, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

But is Congress prepared to welcome a seventh delegate?

Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, said that the Cherokee claim would likely need the approval of the full House of Representatives, something that could take “a long time.”

“There’s a lot of questions that have to be answered,” Republican representative from Oklahoma Tom Cole said in a town hall meeting that took place August 20 in Norman, Oklahoma. “Number one, I don’t know that the treaty still is valid. They’re basing it on something that is 185 years ago.”  

Stacy L. Leeds, a Cherokee citizen, dean emeritus and professor of law at the University of Arkansas, expressed surprise at Cole’s remark.

“Many of these treaties have been upheld by the federal courts — two this last Supreme Court term alone, and the treaties that the Cherokees are talking about have been held to be in full force and in effect by federal courts within the last five years,” she said. 

Leeds cited the example of the Mariana Islands, whose population of 55,000 is significantly smaller than that of the Cherokee Nation

“When the Mariana Islands seated non-voting delegates, that took congressional action, approval by the House and Senate,” she said.  “A similar act of Congress would have to take place now.  In terms of overall population, the Cherokee Nation is much larger and has a much longer diplomatic relationship with the United States.”

She sees no reason why the Senate, which historically approved these treaties, would fail to recognize them now.

‘Ready to defend’

Teehee is no stranger to Washington.  She served as the first-ever senior policy advisor for Native American affairs in the White House Domestic Policy Council for three years under President Barack Obama.  Earlier, she was senior advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives Native American Caucus Co-Chair, Rep. Dale Kildee of Michigan. 

Teehee said Hoskin’s nomination comes as a great honor.

“This is a historic moment for Cherokee Nation and our citizens,” she said. “A Cherokee Nation delegate to Congress is a negotiated right that our ancestors advocated for, and today, our tribal nation is … ready to defend all our constitutional and treaty rights.”

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