As drought-hit towns across New South Wales and Queensland edge closer to completely running out of water, federal and state governments in Australia are trying to come up with ways to guarantee supplies into the future. But on the other side of the continent, the city of Perth is leagues ahead in its water efficiency following a long-term decline in rainfall. Part of its survival plan relies on recycled water from toilets, a move that many consumers elsewhere still consider to be unpalatable.
Since 2017, residents in the Western Australian city of Perth have been drinking water recycled from sewage. It is filtered using a process called reverse osmosis, which is similar to forcing water through a giant sponge. It is then disinfected with ultra-violet light at a treatment plant, pumped into natural aquifers, and extracted.
Perth is a city of two million people, and Clare Lugar from Western Australia’s Water Corporation said it has had to get used to climatic changes.
“We know from the mid-70s onwards Perth’s rainfall has been declining by about 20 percent, and that has had a huge impact on our water sources that are dependent on the climate.”
Lugar said convincing residents of the benefits of drinking recycled sewage did take time.
“So, it is only a small percentage of the water that comes into the plant is actually from our toilets. But getting over that perception, that kind of image you might be drinking the water that you flushing down the toilet – that was probably one of our big challenges initially,” said Lugar.
Two desalination plants supply about half of Perth’s water. Aquifers are also crucial, but recycling produces only two percent of the total. But that figure is soon expected to rise.
Ian Wright, an expert in environmental science at Western Sydney University, believes other parts of Australia should embrace recycling.
“In Sydney that is probably 150 liters per day per person of waste water that is completely wasted, and, yes, we have the availability of desalination on the coast, but Canberra does not have desalination and then the poor drought-stricken towns like Tamworth and Dubbo, and Broken Hill, they could really, really use that now,” he said.
Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent. Water is precious, and, in many places, scarce. More than 95 percent of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, is officially in drought, and the next three months are forecast to be drier than average.
British Treasury chief Philip Hammond said Sunday that he will quit if _ as widely expected — Boris Johnson becomes prime minister this week on a promise to leave the European Union with or without a divorce deal.
Hammond said Johnson’s vow to press for a no-deal Brexit if he can’t secure a new agreement with the EU is “not something that I could ever sign up to.”
Hammond was almost certain to be removed from office by the new leader in any case. He has angered Brexit-backers, who now dominate the governing Conservative Party, with his warnings about the economic pain that leaving the EU could cause.
Hammond told the BBC that if Johnson wins, “I’m not going to be sacked because I’m going to resign before we get to that point.”
Johnson is the strong favorite to win a two-person runoff to lead the Conservative Party and the country. The winner is being announced Tuesday, with the victor taking over from Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday.
Britain is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31 but Parliament has repeatedly rejected the divorce deal struck between May and the bloc. Both Johnson and his rival Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary, say they will leave the EU without an agreement if the EU won’t renegotiate.
Most economists say quitting the 28-nation bloc without a deal would cause Britain economic turmoil. The U.K.’s official economic watchdog has forecast that a no-deal Brexit would trigger a recession, with the pound plummeting in value, borrowing soaring by 30 billion pounds ($37 billion) and the economy shrinking 2% in a year.
But Johnson, who helped lead the “leave” campaign in Britain’s 2016 EU membership referendum, says a no-deal Brexit will be “vanishingly inexpensive” if the country prepares properly.
The EU insists it won’t reopen the 585-page divorce deal it struck with May.
Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney said Sunday that the bloc is “simply not going to move away from the Withdrawal Agreement.”
“If the approach of the new British prime minister is that they’re going to tear up the Withdrawal Agreement, then I think we’re in trouble,” he told the BBC. “We’re all in trouble, quite frankly, because it’s a little bit like saying: ‘Either give me what I want or I’m going to burn the house down for everybody.'”
Hammond is the third U.K. minister within a week to quit or say they will resign in order to try to prevent a cliff-edge Brexit. Britain looks set for a fall showdown between the new Conservative government and British lawmakers determined to thwart a no-deal exit.
“I am confident that Parliament does have a way of preventing a no-deal exit on October 31 without parliamentary consent and I intend to work with others to ensure parliament uses its power to make sure that the new government can’t do that,” Hammond said.
The United Nations says conditions in Syria continue to deteriorate and humanitarian needs for millions of civilians remain acute across the war-torn country.
U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Najat Rochdi’s job is to keep tabs on the humanitarian situation in Syria. She said conditions in this country, which has been at war for more than eight year, are alarming. She is appealing to the international community to protect and support millions of vulnerable civilians who lack the bare essentials for survival.
She said an estimated 11.7 million people need humanitarian aid and five million are in acute need. She said it has been a particularly grave month for civilians caught up in intensified fighting between Government and rebel forces in Idlib in northwestern Syria.
Her spokeswoman, Jenifer Fenton, said at least 350 civilians reportedly have been killed and more than 330,000 have been displaced. She said some three million people are at particular risk. She said they are trapped in the battle zone and are at the mercy of the warring parties as there is no place where they can flee.
“Civilian infrastructure continues to be damaged and destroyed. Protection of civilians remains our foremost concern. Far too many civilians are dying. Fighting terrorism does not absolve any party of its obligations under international humanitarian law and we continue to call on parties to uphold their agreements and to stabilize the situation,” said the spokeswoman.
Fenton said the situation remains unsustainable for some 70,000 people living in the squalid, overcrowded Al Hol camp in northeastern Syria. These people fled to Al Hol after the Syrian government seized control of Deir-Ez-Zour, the radical Islamic State group’s last stronghold.
FILE – Women walk through al-Hol displacement camp in Hasaka governorate, Syria, April 1, 2019.
The vast majority of the camp population is comprised of Syrian and Iraqi women and children. This population includes more than 11,000 family members of suspected IS foreign fighters from dozens of countries. These nations are reluctant to bring back their nationals fearing prosecutions of IS fighters will be difficult and will alienate their citizens.
UNICEF and other agencies are urging nations to repatriate an estimated 29,000 children of foreign IS fighters, noting they are blameless and are victims of this brutal war.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports a number of children have been repatriated to their countries of origin in past weeks. But it adds thousands of others remain in Al Hol, facing an uncertain future.
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday that Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven had assured him American citizen and rapper A$AP Rocky would be treated fairly.
Trump said he assured Lofven that Rocky was not a flight risk and personally vouched for his bail.
Swedish prosecutors on Friday extended Rocky’s detention by six days amid their investigation into a street fight in Stockholm.
Pakistan organized its first ever provincial elections Saturday in a northwestern region along the mountainous border with Afghanistan that until a few years ago was condemned as the “epicenter” of international terrorism.
Pakistani officials said the elections in the seven districts of what were formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) are central to steps the government has taken to supplement regional and global efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan and counter violent extremism.
Pakistani election officials said some 2.8 million registered voters were to choose from 285 candidates for 16 seats in the legislative assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.
The contestants, including two women, represented major mainstream political parties. The election was held under tight security and no incidents of violence were reported.
The historic vote came on a day when Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan left for the United States for his first meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, where the two leaders will discuss counterterrorism measures among a range of other issues.
A landmark constitutional amendment pushed through the parliament last year paved the ground for the tribal territory to be merged in the adjoining KP province to bring it into the national mainstream.
Until last year, the lawless border regions of FATA were federally administered through a set of British colonial laws that were not applicable to the rest of Pakistan, and residents could vote only in the national assembly, lower house of the parliament.
A Pakistani tribesman cast his vote during an election for provincial seats in Jamrud, a town of Khyber district, Pakistan, Saturday, July 20, 2019.
FATA anti-terror campaign
Civilian and military leaders in Pakistan hailed Saturday’s democratic process as testimony that years-long security operations have rid most of the ex-FATA of militant groups, including al-Qaida and fighters loyal to the Taliban waging a deadly insurgency against U.S.-led intentional forces on the Afghan side of the porous border.
Islamabad has been for years accused by American and Afghan officials of harboring training camps and sanctuaries for the Taliban. Pakistani officials have consistently denied those charges.
The anti-terrorism Pakistan army offensives, backed by airpower, over the years had displaced several million residents of FATA, although officials say 95% of them have since been rehabilitated.
A government document shared with VOA claimed the operations killed more than 15,000 militants and captured another 5,000. The remnants have fled and taken refuge in “ungoverned” border regions of Afghanistan, it added.
It was not possible to ascertain the veracity of the data through independent sources because conflict zones in FATA had remained inaccessible for journalists and aid workers during military operations.
In recent months, however, the military has organized media trips to showcase infrastructure development, particularly in North Waziristan, which Pakistani officials say was the final battleground in their bid to clear FATA of terror.
North Waziristan, Pakistan
The retaliatory terrorist attacks and suicide bombings in FATA districts and elsewhere in the country also killed thousands of Pakistanis, including about 8,000 military personnel, according to Pakistani officials.
The violence, which stemmed from Pakistan’s participation in the U.S. “war on terror,” also has inflicted direct and indirect losses to the national economy totaling more than $200 billion, according to government estimates.
Foreign critics also had been referring to FATA as the “most dangerous place”on the globe, and the U.S. repeatedly called for Pakistan to dismantle the terrorism infrastructure.
“This most dangerous spot on the map may well be the source of another 9/11 type of attack on the Western world or its surrogates in the region,” concluded the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a 2009 study on FATA..
Border security and reconstruction
The Pakistani army is currently building a robust fence and new posts along most of the 2,600-kilometer Afghan border to deter militant infiltration in either direction. The massive border management project is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.
“With fencing of Pak-Afghan border, cross border movement of terrorists, drugs and smugglers has reduced to almost 5% of what was happening before,” according to a Pakistani government document shared with VOA.
The ensuing reconstruction effort has established roads, bridges and telecommunication networks, schools, health facilities and markets.
The key infrastructure was previously almost non-existent in many FATA districts. Pakistani officials cited a lack a government authority in the region for decades, saying it long served as a “transit zone for Jihadi groups where they had established a de-facto government.”
The military lately, however, has faced allegations of abuses from a newly emerged group in FATA, known as Pakistan Tahafuz Movement or PTM. But both army and government officials deny the charges, alleging that some of the PTM leaders are being supported by Afghan and Indian spy agencies in their bid to undermine Pakistan’s counterterrorism gains.
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s nearly one-year-old government takes credit for arranging an ongoing peace dialogue between the U.S. and the Taliban aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan.
During recent trips to FATA districts, Khan has announced new projects and allocated substantial funds for the development of the regions, hoping they will become a commercial and transit trade hub between Pakistan and Afghanistan if peace eventually returns to the neighboring country.
Saudi-coalition spokesman Col. Turki al Maliki says that coalition fighter jets took out at least five Houthi air defense sites around the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, early Saturday. Amateur video showed a number of explosions rocking Sanaa, overnight.
Amateur video broadcast by Arab media showed a series of explosions around the Yemeni capital Sana’a, early Saturday, followed by loud percussive explosions.
Saudi-owned media, quoting coalition spokesman Turki al Maliki, indicated that at least five Houthi air defense sites were bombed by Saudi warplanes. Maliki claimed that a number of Houthi ballistic missiles were destroyed in the air attacks.
The Saudi-owned Asharqalawsat newspaper quoted Maliki as saying the “operation [overnight] targeted the Houthis air defense capabilities, as well as their ability to launch aggressive attacks.” Maliki went on to say the coalition raids “conformed with international human rights law.”
Hilal Khashan, who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut, tells VOA that he doesn’t think the Saudi air raids are going to have much effect on the ongoing war or the Houthis military capabilities:
“This is not the first time the Saudis announced launching attacks on missile sites in Yemen,” he said. “It happened in the past and it’s highly unlikely that such attacks are going to have any tangible effects on the Houthi war effort.”
Khashan stressed that most of the Houthis’ attacks on Saudi territory in recent weeks have been launched “using drones, rather than by firing ballistic missiles.”
The Houthis military spokesman, Gen. Yahya Saree, claimed Saturday that his group had launched a retaliatory drone attack Saturday, which “destroyed several radar [sites] and other military equipment at the King Khaled airbase in southern Saudi Arabia.” Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV countered that the drone was shot down near Abha and “hit no targets.”
The Saudi air attacks on Houthi missile sites come one day after unknown drones struck a Shi’ite militia camp that allegedly contained Iranian ballistic missiles in the north of Iraq. Some Iraqi analysts accused Saudi Arabia of the attack, but it was not immediately clear who was responsible. A number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces and Lebanese Hezbollah advisers allegedly were killed or wounded in the raid.
Joaquin Guzman, the convicted Mexican drug lord known as “El Chapo,” has been transferred to a “Supermax” prison in Colorado from which no one has ever escaped, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said in a statement Friday.
Guzman was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years on Wednesday in a federal court in Brooklyn after a jury convicted him of drug trafficking and engaging in multiple murder conspiracies as a top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s largest, most violent drug trafficking organizations.
Before he was finally captured in 2016, Guzman twice escaped maximum-security prisons in Mexico.
“We can confirm that Joaquin Guzman is in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at United States Penitentiary (USP) Administrative Maximum (ADX) Florence, located in Florence, Colorado,” the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said in its statement.
The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment further.
FILE – This Oct. 15, 2015 file photo shows a guard tower looming over a federal prison complex which houses a Supermax facility outside Florence, Colorado.
Guzman was whisked away early Friday from a secret location in New York, on his way to the Supermax prison in Florence, his attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, told the Denver Post.
The prison is about 115 miles (185 km) south of Denver and opened in 1994. It has about 375 inmates.
Guzman joins a long list of notorious criminals there. They include “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, Terry Nichols from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Ramzi Yousef from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York.
The Colorado Supermax prison is nicknamed “Alcatraz of the Rockies” after the San Francisco prison whose inmates included the gangsters Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly, as well as Robert Franklin Stroud, known as the Birdman of Alcatraz.
Like other prisoners, Guzman will likely be confined for around 23 hours a day to a solitary cell that has a narrow window about 42 inches (107 cm) high and angled upward so only the sky is visible.
He will be able to watch TV in his cell, and will have access to religious services and educational programs.
Special restrictions are used to ensure that inmates cannot exert influence or make threats beyond prison walls. Prisoners cannot move around without being escorted. Head counts are done at least six times a day.
The Wall Street Journal says Equifax will pay around $700 million to settle with the Federal Trade Commission over a 2017 data breach that exposed Social Security numbers and other private information of nearly 150 million people.
The Journal, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, said the settlement could be announced as soon as Monday. Equifax declined to comment.
The report says the deal would resolve investigations by the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and most state attorneys general. It would also resolve a nationwide consumer class-action lawsuit.
Spokesmen for the FTC and the CFPB didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment Friday night.
The breach was one of the largest affecting people’s private information. Atlanta-based Equifax did not notice the attack for more than six weeks. The compromised data included Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver license numbers and credit card numbers.
The company said earlier this year that it had set aside around $700 million to cover anticipated settlements and fines.
The United States and Pakistan this month started cracking down against armed militant groups, in what analysts describe as establishing a groundwork ahead of the meeting between the U.S. President Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington early next week.
Pakistani authorities in Punjab province Wednesday arrested the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, Hafiz Saeed, who is alleged to have been the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, including six Americans.
Trump, in a tweet following the detention, praised the “great pressure” exerted over the past two years against the cleric.
FILE – Hafiz Saeed, head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, second from right, addresses supporters during a protest against U.S. drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal region, in Lahore, Nov. 29, 2013.
Some experts say the move by the Pakistani government just days ahead of Khan’s maiden trip to Washington serves as a goodwill gesture to improve relations with the Trump administration, which has accused Pakistan of failing to rein in extremists operating on its soil.
Marvin Weinbaum, the director of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told VOA that Pakistan is hoping its recent moves against armed Islamists could convince U.S. officials that it is playing an effective role in the fight against terrorism.
“Pakistan has campaigned for months to convince the international community that it does not harbor terrorists,” Weinbaum told VOA.
He said Pakistan authorities, in an effort to gain economic leverage from Washington, are stepping up their efforts against militants targeting India, while at the same time influencing the Taliban in Afghanistan to hold peace negotiations with the U.S.
“There is a recognition in Pakistan that despite the rhetoric used by the political leadership, it needs the U.S. on the economic front,” Weinbaum said.
Suspension of aid
Trump last year suspended $300 million in military aid to the Pakistani government, which he accused of giving safe havens to terrorists launching attacks in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has received more than $33 billion in U.S. assistance since 2002, including more than $14 billion in Coalition Support Funds (CSF), which is a U.S. Defense Department program for reimbursing allies that incur costs while supporting the U.S.-led counterinsurgency and counterterror operations in the region.
The United States, Afghanistan and India have accused Pakistan of being selective in its counterterror operations, targeting only those groups that pose a threat to its national security and ignoring others that plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan.
Pakistan has rejected those accusations, noting that thousands of its civilians have died in militant attacks because of its anti-terror efforts with the U.S. The country also said it targets militants indiscriminately.
FILE – Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is seen during a news conference at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, Pakistan, Aug. 20, 2018.
Peace talks
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Tuesday that his country’s efforts to facilitate peace talks between the U.S. and the Taliban have led to a “gradual warming” of U.S.-Pakistan relations.
He said Trump’s invitation to Khan underscored the “inherent importance of the relationship” for both countries.
The meeting between Trump and Khan, scheduled for Monday, will focus on counterterrorism, defense, energy and trade, according to a White House statement.
“It will focus on strengthening bilateral cooperation to bring peace, stability and economic prosperity to South Asia,” it said.
Zubair Iqbal, a Pakistan analyst with the Middle East Institute, said the expected meeting between the two leaders and recent actions against militants show both sides are willing to defuse months of tensions.
“The U.S. government seems to have changed its attitude toward Pakistan,” Iqbal said, adding that Pakistan could play a vital role in Afghanistan’s peace process.
FATF list
Some analysts charge the improved relations between the two countries could also help Khan in his bid to prevent his country from being blacklisted by the global anti-terror watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
FATF in 2017 placed the country on its “gray list” for allegedly not taking adequate action against terror financing and money laundering in the country. The president of FATF last month told VOA that it was possible that Pakistan could be blacklisted during the global terror financing watchdog’s plenary session in October.
“It is in Pakistan’s interest that the FATF meeting in October does not put it on the blacklist,” said Imran Malik, a Punjab-based defense analyst and retired brigadier. The blacklist, he noted, could hurt Pakistan’s economy.
For its part, Washington has attempted to fix the strained relations with Islamabad by targeting anti-government separatist militants operating in Baluchistan province in southwestern Pakistan, Malik said.
U.S. designation
The U.S. earlier this month designated the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as a terrorist group, vowing to deny the organization access to resources for planning and carrying out attacks. The move was welcomed by Pakistan’s Foreign Office, and shortly afterward, Islamabad filed 23 terrorism and terror financing charges against Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD), Falah-i-Insaniyat and Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, all U.S.-designated terror groups.
These moves by Pakistan could also be seen as “quid pro quo for the U.S. designation of the Baluchistan Liberation Army as global terrorists,” Malik charged.
“The U.S. action has created the right environment ahead of the meeting between Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Donald Trump,” he added.
Weinbaum, of the Middle East Institute, said the improving relations with Islamabad also reflected Washington’s desire to end the 18-year-old Afghan war, and what it considers the role Pakistan could play.
“For the U.S., the priority will be to discuss Pakistan’s role after the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan,” he added. “When the U.S. is ready to leave Afghanistan, it needs to be comfortable that it has Pakistan’s word that it will stabilize the country.”
An area in northwestern Pakistan known for militant activities and the Taliban’s presence holds a special election Saturday. The vote is part of an effort that began last year to merge the former lawless tribal belt into a neighboring province. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports on how the change is impacting the region.
As Libya’s two rival governments fight for control of the capital, Tripoli, airstrikes and artillery fire continue to batter the city. Nearly 1,100 people have died and more than 100,000 have been displaced by the war. As VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Tripoli, officials say if the fighting does not slow down, the country is headed toward “disaster.”
The governor of Puerto Rico is not backing down despite massive street protests in the capital, San Juan, demanding his resignation. Thousands of people have taken to the streets after Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of leaked text messages in which Gov. Ricardo Rossello used homophobic and misogynistic language. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the governor said in a statement Thursday that his commitment to Puerto Rico is stronger than ever.
Setting aside their usual bickering, South Korean liberal and conservative parties on Thursday vowed to cooperate to help the Seoul government prevail in an escalating trade row with Japan.
After a meeting between the parties’ leaders and South Korean President Moon Jae-in at Seoul’s presidential office, they announced plans to create a pan-national'' emergency body to respond to tighter Japanese trade controls on certain technology exports to South Korea.<br />
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The meeting came amid growing concerns in South Korea that Japan's trade curbs, which could possibly be expanded to hundreds of trade items in coming weeks, would rattle its export-dependent economy.<br />
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South Korean political leaders urged Japan to immediately withdraw the measures they described asunjust economic retaliation” that would seriously harm bilateral relations and cooperation.
The leaders of conservative parties also called for Moon to take more aggressive diplomatic steps, such as pushing for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe or sending a special envoy to Japan.
Earlier on Thursday, South Korea’s central bank lowered its policy rate for the first time in three years to combat a faltering economy that faces further risks created by the trade row with Japan.
“Japan’s export restriction measures are an unjust economic retaliation that violates the order of free trade and seriously damages friendly and mutually beneficial relationships between South Korea and Japan,” the South Korean parties and presidential Blue House said in a joint statement after the meeting.
Moon during the meeting said that a united front between the government and political parties would “send a good message to Japan and increase the negotiation leverage of our government and companies.”
Hwang Kyo-ahn, leader of the conservative Liberty Korea Party, called for Moon to push for a quick meeting with Abe or send high-level special envoys to Tokyo and Washington, a treaty ally with both Asian nations, to help resolve the standoff.
“The government doesn’t have concrete plans and is just appealing to the emotions of our people with words. However, words and emotions cannot solve this problem,” Hwang said. “Core issues should be resolved between the leaders of both countries … I think the president should solve this with a top-down approach.”
The dispute erupted earlier this month when Tokyo tightened controls on the exports of photoresists and two other chemicals to South Korean companies that use them to produce semiconductors and display screens for smartphones and TVs.
Seoul has accused Tokyo of weaponizing trade to retaliate against South Korean court rulings calling for Japanese companies to compensate aging South Korean plaintiffs for forced labor during World War II, and plans to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization.
Tokyo said the issue has nothing to do with historical issues between the countries and says the materials affected by the export controls can be sent only to trustworthy trading partners. Without presenting specific examples, it has questioned Seoul’s credibility in controlling the exports of arms and items that can be used both for civilian and military purposes.
South Korea has rejected the Japanese claims and proposed an inquiry by the United Nations Security Council or another international body on the export controls of both countries.
South Korea is also bracing for the possibility that Japan will take further steps by removing it from a 27-country “whitelist” receiving preferential treatment in trade.
Its removal from the list would require Japanese companies to apply for case-by-case approvals for exports to South Korea of hundreds of items deemed sensitive, not just the three materials affected by the trade curbs that took effect July 4. It will also allow Japanese authorities to restrict any export to South Korea when they believe there are security concerns.
“The Japanese government should immediately withdraw its economic retaliation measure and clearly understand that additional measures such as the removal from the whitelist would threaten South Korea-Japan relations and the security cooperation in Northeast Asia,” said Choi Do-ja, spokeswoman of the conservative Bareun Mirae Party.
The U.K. will plunge into recession if it leaves the European Union without a divorce deal, with the pound plunging in value and the economy shrinking by 2% in a year, Britain’s official economic watchdog said Thursday.
The Office for Budget Responsibility made its assessment as chances of an economically disruptive no-deal Brexit appear to be rising. Both men vying to take over next week as Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, say they will lead the U.K. out of the bloc, with or without an agreement on terms.
They claim that Britain can withstand any resulting turbulence, but most economists predict the economic shock would be severe.
The OBR, which provides the U.K. government with independent economic forecasts, said a no-deal Brexit would see “heightened uncertainty and declining confidence deter investment, while higher trade barriers with the EU weigh on exports.”
It predicted GDP would fall by 2% by the end of 2020 in a no-deal scenario, and borrowing would be around 30 billion pounds ($37 billion) a year higher from 2020-21 than it forecast in March.
Britain is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31, but Parliament has repeatedly rejected the divorce deal truck between Prime Minister Theresa May and the bloc. Johnson and Hunt, who are vying to replace May as Conservative party leader and prime minister, both say they will leave without an agreement if the EU won’t renegotiate.
The bloc insists it won’t change the 585-page withdrawal agreement, which sets out the terms of Britain’s departure and includes a transition period of almost two years to allow both sides to adjust to their new relationship.
“This document is the only way to leave the EU in an orderly manner,” EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told the BBC in an interview broadcast Thursday.
Three years after British voters narrowly chose to leave the 28-nation EU, it remains stuck in limbo. May announced her resignation last month after failing to win Parliament’s approval for her Brexit deal.
Her successor is being chosen by members of the Conservative Party, most of whom are strongly in favor of Brexit and prepared to accept the risks of leaving without a deal. Johnson is the strong favorite to win the contest when the result is announced Tuesday.
He claims that Britain can flourish outside the EU if it has enough optimism and “mojo,” and says a no-deal Brexit will be “vanishingly inexpensive” if the country prepares properly.
Many others are less sanguine.
Treasury chief Philip Hammond, who has warned about the perils of a no-deal Brexit _ and is likely to be fired by the next prime minister _ said “I greatly fear the impact on our economy and our public finances of a no-deal Brexit.
He said the OBR forecast was based on the “most benign version” of a no-deal Brexit, and in all likelihood “the hit would be much greater, the impact would be much harder.”
Meanwhile, the relationship between the British government and the EU has been frayed by years of testy negotiations and allegations of ill-will on both sides.
EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans told a BBC documentary that the British lacked a plan and were “running around like idiots” during the Brexit negotiations. He cited a catchphrase from the classic British sitcom “Dads’ Army”: “Don’t panic!”
Junior U.K. Brexit minister Martin Callanan accused Timmermans of spreading “childish insults” about the British negotiating stance. Quoting another famous riposte from “Dad’s Army,” he said Timmermans was a “stupid boy.”
Iranian state television said Thursday forces from the country’s Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign tanker accused of smuggling oil.
The report said the vessel was intercepted Sunday in a section of the Strait of Hormuz south of Iran’s Larak Island with 12 crew members on board.
It said the tanker was involved in smuggling one million liters of fuel, but did not give details about its country of origin.
The seizure comes after the Panamanian-flagged tanker MT Riah, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, disappeared from ship tracking maps in Iranian territorial waters on July 14.
The Revolutionary Guard said it received a distress call from the vessel, which was “later seized with the order from the court as we found out that it was smuggling fuel,” a report said. It said Iranian smugglers intended to transport the fuel to foreign customers.
The seizure comes amid heightened U.S.-Iran tensions, which began to escalate when President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal with Iran and world powers last year and imposed stiff sanctions on Iran, including on its oil exports.
Iran has recently exceeded uranium production and enrichment limits in violation of the agreement in an effort to pressure Europe to offer more favorable terms to allow it to sell its crude oil abroad.
The U.S. has also deployed thousands of additional troops, nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets to the Middle East.
Veiled attacks on oil tankers and Iran’s downing of a U.S. military surveillance drone have further fueled concerns of a military conflict in the Persian Gulf region.
An unnamed U.S. defense official told Associated Press earlier this week the U.S. “has suspicions” Iran seized the tanker MT Riah when it turned off its tracker.
PARIS — French prosecutors want Air France to stand trial for manslaughter in the 2009 crash of a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris that killed all 228 people aboard, a judicial official said Wednesday.
Prosecutors also have asked that the case against Airbus, maker of the doomed aircraft, be dropped for lack of evidence. The official wasn’t authorized to speak about the case and asked to remain anonymous.
Air France Flight 447 left Rio de Janeiro for Paris but crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. The Accident Investigation Bureau found that external speed sensors were frozen and produced irregular readings on the aircraft, which went into an aerodynamic stall.
A plethora of problems appear to have doomed the flight as it traveled through turbulence. The captain was on a rest break when the emergency arose, the autopilot disengaged and the co-pilots struggled to fly the aircraft manually.
In their final summing up on Friday of the investigation, prosecutors cited negligence and insufficient training that led to chaos in the cockpit.
Airbus had warned pilots a year earlier about possible incorrect speed readings from the plane’s external sensors, known as Pitot tubes, but changed them only after the crash.
A report last year that was part of the judicial investigation blamed the Flight 447 pilots for failing to apply correct procedures, thus losing control of the aircraft.
A victims group, AF 447 Victim Solidarity, contested the 2018 report, saying it freed Airbus of all responsibility in the accident.
STATE DEPARTMENT — “My father is a fixer, a bridge-builder, a connector. He knows that a better future is one where Han Chinese and Uighur children are in school together, are friends together and have the same opportunities,” said Jewher Ilham, who pleaded for the release of her father, prominent jailed Uighur scholar and economist Ilham Tohti.
She also petitioned Chinese authorities to release all Uighur girls from so-called re-education camps before Beijing hosts the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Tohti has been serving a life sentence on separatism-related charges since 2014. Chinese authorities accused him of encouraging terrorism and advocating separatism in his lectures, articles and comments to foreign media.
The scholar and economist founded the website Uyghur Online, which is aimed at promoting understanding between Uighurs and Han Chinese. He also has been outspoken about Beijing’s treatment of the minority Muslim Uighurs in the far-western Xinjiang region.
“I have not spoken to him since 2014, and I have not seen him since we were separated at the airport in 2013. We were on our way to Indiana University, where my father was supposed to start a yearlong residency,” Jewher Ilham told participants of the second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, hosted by the U.S. State Department on Tuesday.
U.S. lawmakers’ push
The appeal came amid a renewed push from American lawmakers urging China to change how it treats Uighurs in Xinjiang.
“The violations [in Xinjiang] are of such scale, are so big, and the commercial interests are so significant that it sometimes tempers our values in terms of how we should act,” said Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said Tuesday at the ministerial.
“Unless we are willing to speak out against the violations of religious freedom in China, we lose all moral authority to talk about it any other place in the world,” added Pelosi.
The House speaker also called for U.S. sanctions against Chinese Communist Party leaders in Xinjiang, who are responsible for the re-education camps.
More than 1 million Muslim Uighurs have been detained in re-education camps that critics say are aimed at destroying indigenous culture and religious beliefs.
American officials say the United States has stressed to Chinese authorities the importance of differentiating between peaceful dissent and violent extremism. They say Tohti’s arrest “silenced an important Uighur voice that peacefully promoted harmony and understanding among China’s ethnic groups, particularly Uighurs.”
China rejected the nomination, calling Tohti a separatist.
“Ilham Tohti is convicted of dismembering the nation. What he did was meant to split the country, stoke hatred and justify violence and terrorism, which cannot be condoned in any country. The international community should have a clear understanding of this,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said this year.
After months of on-again, off-again talks, Sudan’s military and opposition leaders have signed a power-sharing deal that rotates control of an executive council, but leaves other key details to be determined.
Under the deal, the 11-member Sovereign Council, the top level of government, will be made up of five civilians, five military officials, and one additional civilian to be selected by the 10 members.
Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the Transitional Military Council, will head the council for 21 months. A representative of the Forces for Freedom and Change Coalition then will head the council for the next 18 months. The transitional government will last for 39 months before a regular government is formed.
The agreement stipulates that a Council of Ministers, which shall not exceed 20 people, shall be appointed by a civilian prime minister and that a legislative body will be formed within three months of the beginning of the transition.
The more contentious details over a constitutional agreement that would spell out the division of powers has yet to be worked out.
African Union and Ethiopian mediators celebrate after Sudan’s protesters and ruling generals inked an agreement in Khartoum, July 17, 2019.
Omer Ismail, a senior adviser at the Washington, D.C.-based Enough Project, says those missing parts are important.
“It is not there; it was postponed for 90 days. Instead of talking about that, and talking about it as an important institution, they are spelling out their reservations,” Ismail told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.
But Mohammed Hassan Labat, the African Union’s special envoy to Sudan, believes the agreement paves the way for a constitutional deal.
“This agreement opens a new era and eases the ground for the next level, and the parties shall be able to revise and amend the constitutional declaration before the transitional period,” Labat said.
‘Great moment’
An emotional Mahamood Direr, the Ethiopian envoy to Sudan who helped mediate the deal, shed tears after the signing ceremony, describing how the Sudanese people have been waiting patiently to see the fruits of their revolution.
“It is a great moment that the people of the Sudan have reached this historic moment, the gallant army of the Sudan, the Transitional Military Council and, of course, the revolutionary, youth, intellectuals, pioneers who have taken to the streets. God bless the Sudan and God bless Africa,” Direr said.
Ethiopian mediator Mahmoud Direr inks an agreement between Sudan’s protest leaders and members of the country’s Transitional Military Council in Khartoum, July 17, 2019.
Mohammed Hamdan Himetti, the deputy head of the Transitional Military Council who signed the agreement on behalf of the military junta, also praised the protesters for demanding change in Sudan.
“This agreement is a fruit of efforts of all Sudanese people who have waited for so long to witness, which shall bring them freedom, peace and justice. I salute all martyrs of the December revolution; I salute their mothers and all Sudanese women and youth,” Himetti said.
Commission of inquiry
A commission of inquiry will be created to investigate the deaths of protesters, according to the agreement.
In June, Sudanese security forces killed dozens when they stormed a site outside the Defense Ministry where protesters were demanding the military hand over power to civilians. The military seized control of Sudan after ousting president Omar al-Bashir in April, following months of mass protests against his rule.
Umaima Faruq, a third-year student of engineering at Sudan University, said the power-sharing agreement means a lot to her and millions of other Sudanese.
“It is a big day for Sudanese people, especially the youth. It is my priority for me this day to be here and witness this historical day,” Faruq, 26, told South Sudan in Focus.
Labat said the parties will hold more talks Friday to discuss the roles and responsibilities of the Sovereign Council and the Council of Ministers, whose duties include appointing the head of the judiciary, the chief justice, and state governors.
Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra rejected the demand of a regional governor on Tuesday to cancel within 72 hours the construction permit for a copper mining project that has led to protests.
Residents from the area bordering Southern Copper Corp.’s $1.4 billion Tia Maria copper mine project in the south of Peru, which is the second largest copper producer in the world, began protesting on Monday with a blockade of a portion of Peru’s main coastal highway.
Officials from the southern region of Arequipa said the government had not taken into account the community’s concern that the mining operation would contaminate its water sources and land when it granted a construction permit on July 9.
Arequipa Governor Elmer Caceres called on Vizcarra to cancel the construction permit within three days.
“You cannot cancel [a construction permit]. We have to talk,” Vizcarra said in a public appearance in Lima, responding to a reporter’s question about Caceres’ request.
Demonstrators protest against Tia Maria mine in Arequipa, Peru, July 15, 2019.
Vizcarra said the government approved the project when legal requirements were met and that Southern Copper said it would not begin construction until it gains more support from people who live in the area.
Caceres said the community plans to continue its protest while perusing a legal plan to challenge the permit, but did not offer details.
Demonstrations have previously derailed the project when at least six protesters were killed in clashes with police in 2011 and 2015.
John Paul Stevens, who served on the Supreme Court for nearly 35 years and became its leading liberal, has died. He was 99.
Stevens’ influence was felt on issues including abortion rights, protecting consumers and placing limits on the death penalty. He led the high court’s decision to allow terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay to plead for their freedom in U.S. courts.
As a federal appeals court judge in Chicago, Stevens was considered a moderate when Republican President Gerald Ford nominated him. On the Supreme Court he became known as an independent thinker and a voice for ordinary people against powerful interests.
He retired in June 2010 at age 90, the second oldest justice in the court’s history.
