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President Donald Trump has pegged his re-election bid on the strength of the U.S. economy. Amid growing concerns of a potential slowdown, the president insists the economy is strong, at the same time he’s pushing for growth by floating another potential round of tax cuts and urging the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates further. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
The European Union’s powerful competition chief has indicated she’s looking at expanding regulations on personal data, dropping an initial hint about how she plans to use new powers against tech companies.
Margrethe Vestager said Friday that while Europeans have control over their own data through the EU’s existing data privacy rules, they don’t address problems stemming from the way companies use other people’s data, “to draw conclusions about me or to undermine democracy.”
She said, “we may also need broader rules to make sure that the way companies collect and use data doesn’t harm the fundamental values of our society.”
Vestager spoke days after she was appointed to a second term as the EU’s competition commissioner. She was also given new powers to shape the bloc’s digital policies.
India’s first major railway station managed by an all-women staff in the northern Rajasthan state is helping break gender stereotypes and empowering women in one of the country’s most conservative states. Reporter Anjana Pasricha visited the station to see how the initiative has fared since it was launched last year.
A lawyer for the former Tunisian president ousted in the 2011 Arab Spring says Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been hospitalized in Saudi Arabia.
Mounir Ben Salha told Mosaique radio Thursday night that Ben Ali’s daughter called him to say the 83-year-old ex-president is “very sick” after years of treatment for prostate cancer. The lawyer said Ben Ali is in a hospital in Jeddah.
The lawyer’s announcement came as Tunisians prepare for a presidential election Sunday. It is Tunisia’s second democratic presidential election since the 2011 uprising over corruption, unemployment and repression pushed Ben Ali to flee.
Ben Ali has been convicted in absentia to several prison terms for corruption-related violations.
Given Tunisia’s economic troubles since Ben Ali’s ouster, some have called for his return. But he remains detested by others.
President Donald Trump’s administration has released $250 million in military aid for Ukraine, U.S. senators said on Thursday, after lawmakers from both parties expressed anger that the White House had held up money approved by Congress.
Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Committee said the White House released the money on Wednesday night, hours before the panel was due to debate an amendment to a defense spending bill that would have prevented Trump from such actions in the future.
It was one of several disputes recently between Trump and members of Congress, some of his fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, over his administration’s decision to sidestep congressional approval to fund its own policy initiatives.
A few Republicans, as well as Democrats, had said they expected Congress would pass legislation to reinstate the aid for Ukraine if the administration had not released the money. The money is intended for use by Ukraine in its struggle with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.
The White House has sought repeatedly to slash foreign aid since Trump took office in January 2017, but Congress has pushed back repeatedly against such plans.
The White House Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for comment.
The new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations took up her post on Thursday. Kelly Knight Craft will not have much time to settle in, as she arrives little more than a week before the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer has more.
Across Nigeria, there’s a rising demand for vultures, and poachers are driving the local population of four large vulture species to near extinction.
The Nigerian Conservation Foundation is now placing vulture preservation high on its agenda, hoping to revive the threatened population. Abidemi Balogun, a senior special conservation officer with the foundation’s educational unit, is engaging with local communities where superstitions and folklore about the birds persist.
“Someone actually asked me how do they identity the evil ones because there’s been a belief that vultures are evil birds,” Balogun told VOA with a laugh.
She’s been with the foundation for eight years and said vulture poaching was not taken seriously in the past.
Spiritual practices
She said that the birds aren’t being hunted for consumption as much as they’re being killed for spiritual practices. In 2017, the foundation conducted a market survey to see how the birds were traded.
“Some of the findings that we made is that the head is used for ritual purposes and the head is the most expensive part of it,” she said.
In local markets, vulture feathers are sold for about 100 naira, or less than 50 cents. But the head can fetch up to 25,000 naira, or about $70.
In Nigeria’s diverse cultural landscape, the beliefs around vultures vary widely. In the southwest, where they’re called igún, vultures are seen as sacred in traditional spirituality. According to folklore, they can be used to communicate with the dead or to appease the gods in elaborate sacrificial ceremonies.
In northern Nigeria, they are consumed. But they’re also sold by traders known as yan shinfida to be used in traditional medicine and spiritual healing.
Treatments
A 2013 report cited traders in the north marketing vulture parts to treat epilepsy, mental instability and stroke, as well as to offer supernatural protection, good luck, pain relief and relief for women in labor. Some say the head possesses clairvoyant powers.
In southeastern Nigeria, the bird is not eaten and has no place in traditional spirituality, Ike Nwakamma of the Nigerian Supreme Council of Traditional Worshippers told VOA. He said it is viewed as unclean, and therefore unacceptable to traditional gods. People don’t want them around, whether alive or dead.
That’s why an incident that happened in July caused panic at a local market.
Amateur videos captured shocked and fearful reactions at the sight of 50 dead vultures on the ground at Eke-Ihe market in the Awgu community, in the southeastern state of Enugu.
Igwe Godwin Ekoh, the traditional ruler of Ihe and the chairman of the Agwu Traditional Rulers Council, told VOA that a poacher had killed the vultures en masse, using poisoned meat, to sell the corpses.
Vulture trafficking has become a lucrative trade. The NIgerian Conservation foundation said 500 tons of vultures are trafficked every month.
BirdLife International, a global partnership organization, said that across Africa, vulture populations have virtually collapsed in the last 30 years, with poisoning as the major threat.
In June, 537 vultures were found dead in Botswana’s northeast, after ingesting poison left by elephant poachers.
BirdLife International describes vultures as nature’s sanitary workers, worthy of being celebrated.
Vulture workshops
In Enugu last week, Igwe Ekoh attended a forum that was organized by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation for International Vulture Awareness Day, held on the first Saturday every September. The foundation held workshops in Jalingo, Ibadan and Sokoto as well as Enugu.
Attendants at the Enugu edition went to a popular market to talk to meat butchers and asked them to inform authorities if they ever saw vulture parts being sold.
Igwe Ekoh said he left the forum with a newfound appreciation for vultures, saying he learned about how they are vital to reducing the spread of bacteria of dead animals.
A local NGO, the South Saharan Development Organization (SSDO), has agreed to partner with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation. SSDO will set up conservation clubs for high school students to learn about the environment and the role of animals, including vultures, in sustaining nature.
“It’s holistic,” SSDO’s executive director, Dr. Stanley Ilechukwu, told VOA.
U.S. President Donald Trump is set to visit Baltimore, the eastern U.S., majority-black city he recently called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”
Trump will be in Baltimore on Thursday to address Republican congressional leaders attending an annual retreat.
Several protests are planned to coincide with his visit. Activist groups are planning to protest “racism, white supremacy, war, bigotry and climate change,” organizers told The Baltimore Sun.
Trump has denied charges of racism regarding his attacks on the city and U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who is a native of Baltimore.
“There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know, that Elijah Cummings has done a terrible job for the people of his district, and of Baltimore itself,” he tweeted in July.
The U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State (IS) was announced five years ago. Despite defeating the terror group militarily, some experts believe IS still poses a major threat to global security. Sirwan Kajjo reports from Washington.
It was a sobering moment this July 1 in Gillette, Wyoming, when two of the largest coal mines in the country closed in midshift.
Melissa Peterson Worden was one of about 600 people who lost their jobs that day, when the nation’s sixth-largest coal mining company, Blackjewel, abruptly went out of business.
“It is the thing they said would never happen,” Worden said. “And it happened.”
Blackjewel had applied for bankruptcy protection that morning. But the company couldn’t get funding to keep the mines running while courts sorted out its finances. So the mines closed that afternoon. They haven’t opened since.
Blackjewel’s bankruptcy underscores the paradigm shift taking place in the electric power industry. In just the last decade or so, more than half of the nation’s 530 coal-fired power plants have shut down or announced plans to do so as cheaper, cleaner alternatives have moved in, according to the Sierra Club.
While the downturn in the coal industry has hit hard in the Eastern U.S. region of Appalachia, Wyoming is the nation’s largest coal producer by far. The state dug more than 316 million tons of coal in 2017, more than all seven states of Appalachia combined.
Companies with mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin were thought to have “jewels in their balance sheets,” said Robert Godby, director of the University of Wyoming’s Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy, “because the Powder River Basin was so profitable.”
“But that’s changed in a few short years,” he added. “The tide has just turned so quickly that it’s caught a lot of people off guard.”
Rock bottom prices
Even as the coal industry faltered elsewhere, the Powder River Basin thought it would weather the downturn.
Coal is so easy to mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the local joke goes, that all you need is a golf club. Huge seams lie just below the surface.
The mines are massive. Seven of the 10 largest mines in the country are here. Dump trucks the size of houses carry 400 tons of coal at a time through terraced craters carved out of the grasslands.
The huge economies of scale meant coal from these mines was among the cheapest in the country. The state supplies 40% of the nation’s coal, fueling power plants from Georgia to Oregon.
Coal’s backers blame the Obama administration environmental regulations for closing plants that have kept the lights on for generations.
But experts say the decline has more to do with the rapid rise of cheaper natural gas since the mid-2000s. And the plunging cost of solar and wind power in just the last few years is helping renewable energy further cut into coal’s market.
That’s forcing a reckoning in places like Gillette, Wyoming, the de facto capital of the Powder River basin.
Change comes to the ‘energy capital’
Mining is “kind-of a family thing” for Rory Wallet.
His father, stepfather and sister all have worked in the coal mines around Gillette, he said. His grandfather was a phosphate miner before that.
“It’s a wonderful way to make a living. A decent, livable living,” he said. “I’ve got four kids, so it’s a great way to keep them insured and keep food on the table and keep a good home over their head.”
But Wallet lost his job in the Blackjewel bankruptcy.
“We’re struggling,” he said. “The big one for us is the house payment.”
He’s kept up his spirits and those of hundreds of others with a Facebook page that’s become a de facto support group for former Blackjewel workers.
Mining is a high paying job with good benefits that doesn’t require higher education. When mining jobs dry up, experts say, it’s hard to find a substitute.
That poses a problem for Gillette, population 30,000. The city bills itself as the “Energy Capital of the Nation.”
While Gillette and Wyoming are profiting from oil and gas development, those industries tend to boom and bust. Coal has been a relatively steady source of tax revenue for decades.
“Coal has built the city as you see it,” said Gillette Mayor Louise Carter-King.
Gillette has weathered previous downturns. But the mayor sees the coal industry is on a downward trajectory.
“That’s why it’s important that we diversify,” she said.
The carbon prize
The city and the state have a lot riding on an experimental project called the Integrated Test Center attached to a coal-fired power plant just outside town. The $15 million facility allows researchers to plug directly into the plant’s exhaust and study ways to capture the planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Many experts consider carbon capture essential to fighting climate change. The world’s existing power plants, factories, vehicles and other fossil fuel-burning infrastructure are already on track to produce enough carbon dioxide to push the planet into catastrophic warming, scientists say.
While coal plants are closing in the United States and Europe, the rest of the world is building or planning to build hundreds more.
Carbon capture technology is not yet commercially viable, however, and is years away at best.
Next year, the center will be one of two sites hosting the $20 million Carbon XPRIZE. The other site is in Alberta, Canada. Teams from around the world will compete to find the best way to turn the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions into profitable products, such as building materials or chemicals.
Whether they win or lose, Carter-King hopes some of the teams competing for the prize will set up shop in Gillette permanently.
In the meantime, Rory Wallet said recent events have shaken his faith in coal — but not much.
“I’d lie if I said it didn’t,” he said. However, he added, “I plan on hanging on. If I don’t get a coal job immediately I’ll keep looking in the basin. They’re always available.”
Miners are a family, he said, and “it’s something I love doing.”
But there is a growing sense in Gillette that, after keeping the lights on for decades, coal will not be there forever.
The big question is, what’s next?
“The United States is saying, ‘What do you have for us now?’“ Melissa Peterson Worden said. “And we have to come up with a better answer than, ‘If you don’t like coal, don’t turn your lights on.’ We can’t be those people anymore.”
Britain is getting set for a general election likely to be held in November, as the political crisis over the country’s exit from the European Union deepens.
The British parliament was officially suspended or “prorogued” in the early hours of Tuesday, just weeks before the country is due to crash out of the European Union. Opposition lawmakers have branded the move a coup by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and have vowed to take him to court if he refuses to request a Brexit extension from the European Union.
Britain is scheduled to leave the bloc Oct. 31, although legislation passed last week by opposition MPs seeks to force the prime minister to ask Brussels for an extension to the Brexit process if no exit deal can be reached.
The political stalemate must be broken soon, says Stephen Booth, acting director of the Open Europe policy group in London.
“Clearly we are gearing up for a general election at some time or other, probably in November now. And I think increasingly everything is going to be framed in those terms. Which is one of the reasons why (opposition Labour leader) Jeremy Corbyn and the anti no-deal MPs are quite keen to see Boris Johnson sent to Brussels in a humiliating fashion to ask for an extension,” Booth said.
Johnson says Brexit will happen
Boris Johnson joined lessons at a London primary school Tuesday, announcing new investment in education widely seen as a warmup for an election campaign.
“I think we will get a deal (with the EU). But if absolutely necessary we will come out with no deal,” the prime minister told reporters.
Opposition MPs have warned they will take Johnson to court if he refuses to ask for an extension. The government is looking for an escape route, says analyst Booth.
“One is simply refusing to comply and seeing what happens in terms of any court cases or legal action that might happen,” he said.
Parliament suspended
For now Parliament has been silenced, much to the indignation of opposition lawmakers.
At 2 a.m. Tuesday several MPs interrupted the suspension ceremony by trying to physically restrain the speaker from leaving his chair. Others held up protest banners and shouted “Shame on you!” at ruling Conservative MPs.
The government will likely frame any election campaign as the people versus an intransigent parliament trying to overturn the Brexit referendum, says Catherine Barnard, professor of European Union Law at the University of Cambridge.
“There’s a real irony about this of course because in the referendum a lot of people said they voted leave because they wanted to take back control to the Westminster parliament. And now what we’re seeing, the narrative that’s being developed, is direct democracy through referendum versus representative democracy through MPs,” Barnard says.
In Brussels, the European Union Tuesday began appointing a new team of commissioners. Even if Britain asks for an extension, some EU members could veto it, Booth says.
“We’ve heard certain noises from particularly the French government, and I think that is indicative of a growing frustration in the European Union of sort of, ‘We are open to an extension but what is the plan?’”
In Ireland, there are fears that any border checks resulting from Brexit could spark a return to sectarian violence. Such concerns were underlined Monday as dissident Republicans attacked police with petrol bombs in Londonderry, a reminder that the implications of Brexit go far beyond the theatrics of Westminster.
An Iranian female soccer fan has died after setting herself on fire outside a court after learning she may have to serve a six-month sentence for trying to enter a soccer stadium, a semi-official news agency reported Tuesday.
The tragic death immediately drew an outcry among some soccer stars and known figures in Iran, where women are banned from soccer stadiums, though they are allowed at some other sports, such as volleyball.
Sahar Khodayari died at a Tehran hospital on Monday, according to the Shafaghna news agency. The 30-year-old was known as the “Blue Girl” on social media for the colors of her favorite Iranian soccer team, Esteghlal.
She set herself on fire last week, reportedly after learning she may have to go to prison for trying to enter a stadium in March to watch an Esteghlal match. She was pretending to be a man and wore a blue hairpiece and a long overcoat when the police stopped her.
Khodayari, who had graduated in computer sciences, then spent three nights in jail before being released pending the court case. No verdict had been delivered in her case so far.
Esteghlal issued a statement, offering condolences to Khodayari’s family.
Former Bayern Munich midfielder Ali Karimi – who played 127 matches for Iran and has been a vocal advocate of ending the ban on women – urged Iranians in a tweet to boycott soccer stadiums to protest Khodayari’s death.
Iranian-Armenian soccer player Andranik “Ando” Teymourian, the first Christian to be the captain of Iran’s national squad and also an Esteghlal player, said in a tweet that one of Tehran’s major soccer stadiums will be named after Khodayari, “once, in the future.”
The minister of information and communications technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, described the death as a “bitter incident.” Female lawmaker Parvaneh Salahshouri called Khodayari “Iran’s Girl” and tweeted: “We are all responsible.”
Malawi has crowned Ms. and Mr. Albinism during the country’s first ever beauty pageant for albinos, held in the capital Lilongwe. The Association of People with Albinism organized the event as part of efforts to destroy myths which have led to albino attacks in Malawi and other African countries. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe.
Americans are addicted to snacks, and food experts are paying closer attention to what that might mean for health and obesity.
Eating habits in the U.S. have changed significantly in recent decades, and packaged bars, chips and sweets have spread into every corner of life. In the late 1970s, about 40 percent of American adults said they didn’t have any snacks during the day. By 2007, that figure was just 10 percent.
To get a better handle on the implications of differing eating patterns, U.S. health officials are reviewing scientific research on how eating frequency affects health, including weight gain and obesity. The analysis is intended to gauge the broader spectrum of possibilities, including fasting. But snacking, grazing and “mini meals” are likely to be among the factors considered, given how they have upended the three-meals-a-day model.
Findings could potentially be reflected in the government’s updated dietary guidelines next year, though any definitive recommendations are unlikely.
For public health officials, part of the challenge is that snacking is a broad term that can mean a 100-calorie apple or a 500-calorie Frappuccino. How people adjust what they eat the rest of the day also varies. Snacks may help reduce hunger and overeating at meals, but they can also just push up the total calories someone consumes.
While there’s nothing wrong with snacks per se, they have become much more accessible. It also has become more socially acceptable to snack more places: at work meetings and while walking, driving or shopping for clothes.
“We live in a 24/7 food culture now,” said Dana Hunnes, a senior dietitian at UCLA Medical Center.
To encourage better choices as global obesity rates climb, public health officials have increasingly considered government interventions, including “junk food” taxes.
In Mexico, which has among the highest obesity rates in the world, special taxes on sugary drinks and other foods including some snacks and candies went into effect in 2014.
Last week, a study in the medical journal BMJ said taxing sugary snacks in the United Kingdom could have a bigger impact on obesity rates than a tax on sugary drinks that went into effect last year. While sugary drinks account for 2 percent of average calories in the United Kingdom, sugary snacks like cakes and cookies account for 12 percent, the study said.
Complicating matters, snack options are also continuing to broaden beyond the standard chips and cookies.
“Manufacturers have tried to tap into Americans’ concern for health,” said Paula Johnson, curator of food history at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Beyond nutrition, health officials should also consider what emotional or mental health benefits might be lost when people move away from meals, said Sophie Egan, who writes about American food culture. Meals can be a time for socially connectivity, she said, while snacks are usually eaten alone. She also noted the growth in snacking may be fueled by the stress of busier lives.
“Who knows how much food is a Band-Aid for those issues,” Egan said.
For their part, food companies have moved to capitalize on Americans’ love of snacks and stretched the definition of the word. Dunkin Donuts’ former CEO has said the chain’s sandwiches should be considered snacks, not lunch. When Hershey bought a meat jerky company, the candy company said it wanted to expand its offerings across the ”snacking continuum ” to include more nutritious options.
Health experts’ recommendations on snacking vary. Children may need more snacks and to eat more frequently. For adults, many dietitians saying what works for one person might not for another.
Hunnes, the UCLA dietitian, recommends sticking to minimally processed options like fruit or nuts when snacking. But she acknowledged the advice could sound like it’s coming from an ivory tower, given the prevalence of packaged snacks.
“They’re just there, and they have a great shelf life,” she said.
Small-scale farmers in Ghana are using drones for crop surveillance in a bid to increase yields and incomes. Farmers’ cooperatives embrace the technology as a step toward efficiency. Some however, feel the technology is too expensive and may shut out poor farmers. Sarah Kimani has the story from Accra.
Jacqueline Stewart has been named host of Turner Classic Movies’ silent movie program “Silent Sunday Nights,” making her the network’s first African American host in its 25 year history.
TCM on Monday announced the hiring of Stewart, a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago who has specialized in the racial politics of film preservation. She will make her TCM debut on Sunday.
“I hope that as a host at TCM that my presence there will interest a greater diversity of viewers to see what there is to watch,” Stewart said in an interview. “If my presence on TCM gets people interested in film history, especially young people of color, to look at a body of work that they might not think would resonate with them, that’s really important.”
For years after the network’s founding in 1994, Robert Osborne was the sole host on TCM. In 2003, Ben Mankiewicz joined the network. But only recently has TCM expanded the number of personalities that introduce and give context to the classic films that air on its commercial-less network. Last year, Alicia Malone became the first female host on TCM. Also added in recent years were “Noir Alley” hosts Eddie Muller and Dave Karger.
Pola Changnon, senior vice president of marketing, studio production and talent for TCM, says that as TCM has expanded its operations to include an annual film festival and classic movie-themed cruise, the network has needed “a deeper bench” of talent. Changnon said Stewart’s deep knowledge of film history and her engaging way of talking about it made her a natural fit.
“For us, it’s a chance to learn from her, too,” said Changnon. “With classic movies, there are certain assumptions about who got to tell the stories and who was featured in these movies. With Jacqueline’s guidance, we’re going to do more to attend to the Oscar Micheauxs of the world.”
Among the first films Stewart will host on TCM will be 1920’s “Symbol of the Unconquered” by Micheaux, the pioneering African American filmmaker. Also planned is 1912’s “Cleopatra” by the Helen Gardner Picture Players. Gardner was the first actor, male or female, to create her own production company in the U.S.
Stewart, a Chicago native, has dedicated her research toward expanding an understanding and appreciation of film history outside of the largely white lens it is often seen through _ something TCM has sometimes been criticized for contributing to. She has served on the National Film Preservation Board where she is chair of its diversity task force.
Stewart’s 2005 book “Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity” told the often overlooked history of the first black filmmakers. Her South Side Home Movie Project collected an archive of more than 300 home movies from families in the Chicago neighborhood as a way of intimately capturing local African American history.
“It’s important for all viewers of TCM to recognize that expertise comes in many different forms, many different colors,” said Stewart. “I’m especially excited about the kinds of conversations that can emerge because of the unique perspective that I can bring as a host.”
A charity ship run by humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean spent a rainy Sunday searching open waters for a fragile rubber boat overloaded with migrants before finally plucking 50 people to safety not far off Libya’s coast.
The Norwegian-flagged Ocean Viking, which is operated jointly by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, sent its own boats to pick up a pregnant woman close to full term, 12 minors and 37 men, all from sub-Saharan Africa.
“God bless you!” one of the men told the rescuers as they passed life vests to the wet and barefoot passengers.
At least two people feeling ill collapsed upon arrival on the Ocean Viking, while three others were soaked in fuel and two were suffering from mild hypothermia. The operation was witnessed by an Associated Press journalist aboard the ship, which found the migrant boat some 14 nautical miles (16 statute miles) from Libya.
The rescue occurred 14 hours after the Ocean Viking as well as Libyan, Italian and Maltese authorities, the United Nations’ refugee agency and Moonbird, a humanitarian observation plane, received an email by Alarm Phone, a hotline for migrants. It was an urgent call seeking help for the rubber boat carrying 50 people without a working engine.
The Ocean Viking, which was already in the Libyan search and rescue zone of the central Mediterranean, informed all authorities that it was beginning an active search for the migrant boat. Throughout the morning, the charity ship chased several objects spotted on the horizon, including what turned out to be a floating palm leaf tangled with fishing gear and an empty small fishing boat.
Throughout the morning, the ship tried to contact Libyan officials without success. The AP journalist witnessed at least three phone calls to the Libyan Joint Rescue and Coordination Center that went unanswered.
The blue rubber boat jammed with the migrants was finally spotted on the horizon near a fishing boat at 1:30 p.m. The fishing boat did not respond to radio contact by the Ocean Viking, which then launched its rescue boats.
At 2:30 p.m., the Libyan Coastguard finally answered the phone and the Ocean Viking reported that its crew was in the process of rescuing the migrants.
A European Union plane taking part in the Operation Sophia anti-human trafficking operation flew over the Ocean Viking, the migrant boat and the fishing boat multiple times shortly before the people were rescued.
As required by maritime law, the ship asked Libyan authorities responsible for rescue coordination in that part of the Mediterranean to provide a place of safety to disembark the rescued migrants, but it also made the same request to Italian and Maltese officials. There was no immediate response.
International migration and human rights bodies say Libya is not a place of safety, and Doctors Without Borders does not consider any North African country safe for disembarkation of the migrants.
But for more than a year, migrant rescues performed by non-governmental groups have frequently led to sometimes weeks-long standoffs trying to get European authorities to allow migrants to be landed.
World War II veteran Henry Ochsner, who landed on the beach at Normandy on D-Day and later received the French government’s highest honor for his service, has died. He was 96.
Family friend Dennis Anderson says Ochsner died Saturday at his home in California City of complications from cancer and old age.
As part of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division — known as the “Screaming Eagles” — Ochsner also fought at the Battle of the Bulge.
In 2017 Ochsner and nine other veterans were awarded France’s National Order of the Legion of Honor during a ceremony at Los Angeles National Cemetery.
Ochsner married Violet Jenson in 1947. He is survived by his wife, their four daughters and two granddaughters. Funeral plans are pending.
More than 2,000 people – including the U.S. ambassador and several other Western diplomats – marched in Sarajevo Sunday for Bosnia’s first-ever gay pride parade.
There were nearly as many riot police and other security forces at the march as participants after conservative Muslims and other religious groups demanded it be canceled.
The marchers waved the universal gay pride rainbow flag, beat drums, and chanted slogans.
“We demand a society which we will together fight against violence, hatred, isolation, and homophobia.” one marcher said while others decried the official non-recognition of same sex partnerships in Bosnia.
While the Bosnian government outlaws discrimination based on sexual orientation, civil unions and other rights such as adoption are still not formally allowed.