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The three Baltic countries on Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the 1989 “Baltic Way,” a historic anti-Soviet protest that involved nearly 2 million people forming a human chain more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) long.
On Aug. 23, 1989, as the Soviet Union was weakening, the gesture was a powerful expression on the part of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians that they were not giving up on their independence even after decades of Soviet occupation.
“People holding hands can be stronger than people holding guns,” said Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas in a tweet.
The celebrations come as the inhabitants of the three nations _ and many beyond _ worry about Russia’s renewed ambitions to influence the region.
“We must remember the courage and dreams of the participants. But let it also be a reminder that freedom and democracy can never be taken for granted,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said in a statement.
The Baltic News Service recalled Friday that then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Moscow “started realizing very clearly that the three Baltic nations were moving toward political independence.”
The main commemorations are taking place in Vilnius, the capital of the southern-most Baltic country, and along the Lithuania-Latvia border, with a relay-race and an exhibition. In the evening, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda will host a concert in central Vilnius.
In the Latvian capital of Riga, the three Baltic prime ministers will lay wreaths at the foot of a freedom monument.
The chain has inspired others, including a 2008 human chain in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where a crowd of at least 100,000 people jammed Tbilisi’s main avenue.
In Hong-Kong, protesters planned Friday to form a 40-kilometer (25-mile) human chain to demand more freedoms from China, saying it was inspired by the “Baltic Way.”
The Baltic countries declared their independence from Russia in 1918 but were annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940. Friday’s events also marked the 80th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a secret agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that led to the occupation of the Baltic states and Poland.
The Baltic nations remained part of the Soviet Union until 1991.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to find a quid pro quo response after the test of a new U.S. missile banned under a now-defunct arms treaty.
In Sunday’s test, a modified ground-launched version of a Navy Tomahawk cruise missile accurately struck its target more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away. The test came after the U.S. and Russia withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
The U.S. has explained its withdrawal from the treaty by Russian violations, a claim Moscow has denied. Speaking Friday, Putin charged that the U.S. wanted to untie its hands to deploy the previously banned missiles in different parts of the world.''<br />
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He ordered the Defense Ministry and other agencies totake the necessary measures to prepare a symmetrical answer.”
Forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognized government have taken full control of a key southern city after overnight clashes with separatists, Yemeni security officials said Friday.
Clashes over Etq, the capital of oil-rich Shabwa province erupted late Thursday night and lasted until Friday morning, said the security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because there were not authorized to talk to the media.
The city of Etq was previously divided between Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government forces and a separatist militia, trained and armed by the United Arab Emirates.
The infighting between Hadi’s forces and the UAE-backed separatists,ostensibly allies in Yemen’s war against the Shiite Houthi rebels, erupted earlier this month. It has threatened to fracture the Saudi-led coalition, a group of Arab states that intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015, to help restore Hadi’s government to power. The previous year, the rebel Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and gained control of much of the country’s north.
Separatist militiamen of the so-called Southern Transitional Council, have so far seized strategic southern areas, including the city of Aden and much of the nearby Abyan province.
A Saudi-Emirati commission flew to southern Yemen last week to negotiate a truce between the government forces and separatists but has so far made no progress.
In a tweet posted early Friday, Hani Ben Braik, a separatist leader, would not admit defeat at Etq but said his militiamen chose not to pursue a battle in the city out of “respect” for the truce efforts. However, Ben Baraik warned his forces would fight back if they were attacked again.
Renan Toussaint and Florence Lisene contributed to this report
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI – Kore Lavi, a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) food program for malnourished Haitians, ended in August amid a worsening of Haiti’s food insecurity crisis.
It is estimated that 2.6 million people, roughly a quarter of Haiti’s population, faces food insecurity in 2019. Experts say natural disasters, high inflation and the country’s socio-political and economic problems are to blame.
“Kore Lavi has served as a strong model in the ongoing development of Haiti’s National Social Protection Policy,” Alexis Barnes, acting senior development, outreach and communications officer for USAID in Port-au-Prince, told VOA via email.
“This activity was designed to be a partnership with the government of Haiti that would model through a limited sample of households a predictable, social transfer focused on consumption of nutritious foods among the most vulnerable in 21 communes,” Barnes said.
A Kore Lavi marketplace bustling with activity. (Photo: USAID)
New way to address hunger
The multimillion-dollar program began in 2013. It provided nutritious meals to 18,000 households in the southeast, northwest, central plateau and Artibonite regions, as well as the Isle of La Gonave.
Originally scheduled to end in September 2017, USAID extended the program for two more years after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which devastated homes and food crops in many regions of the Caribbean country.
Four NGOs — the World Food Program (WFP), World Vision, Action Against Hunger and CARE — administered the program with MAST, Haiti’s Ministry of Public Works and Social Affairs (Ministere des Affaires Sociales et du Travail Haitien).
Program coordinator Laurore Antoine said organizers used innovative ways to address hunger.
“We wanted to divorce ourselves from the traditional approach,” Antoine, a Haitian official with CARE, a Geneva-based international humanitarian and international development agency, told VOA.”We wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so we boosted local production, as well.”
Vegetables for sale at the Kore Lavi marketplace (Photo: USAID)
That new approach included “fresh products” such as meat, fish and vegetables sold by program-approved vendors.
“That way the beneficiary was able to consume a nutritionally balanced meal and learn the components of that. But what’s more important is that we achieved this with a network of local vendors whom we found living in the community – in many cases they were women – in fact 86 percent of our local vendors were women,” he said.
Kore Lavi participants received a monthly allotment of food stamps that could be used to buy perishable provisions for the week. Vendors then turned in the vouchers for cash.
Kore Lavi vendor holds vouchers she can exchange for cash. (Photo: USAID)
Government solutions
Haitian opposition lawmaker Youri Latortue, who owns a poultry farm, said boosting national food production is key. He fears Haiti’s food insecurity will soon worsen if that doesn’t happen.
“When you have 3 million people who don’t have access to food on a daily basis, you are heading towards famine,” he told VOA’s Creole Service. “It’s not normal to depend on international aid agencies to feed the people. Of course it’s true that it is a humanitarian situation (crisis) that they can temporarily assist us with, but it’s not a permanent solution. The (Haitian) government needs to step in to do its part.”
Latortue said the government solution for the current crisis must include all sectors of the food production industry, both livestock and agriculture.
“That’s the only way out of this crisis,” he said.
Once a week the mountain town of Canyette comes alive with the cadence of donkeys carrying baskets of vegetables, fruits and meat. (Photo: USAID)
As Kore Lavi shutters its operations, Barnes is satisfied with the program’s accomplishments.
“Achievements include the development of the SIMAST vulnerability mapping system, which has now expanded and is supported by other donors such as the European Union, and international NGOs working on activities serving the most vulnerable,” she said.
Barnes expressed optimism that the Haitian government will keep the progress going.
“The program succeeded in demonstrating that the government of Haiti can manage a predictable social transfer activity to the most vulnerable in this country in a well-targeted and transparent manner,” she said. “Haiti’s commitment to developing the policy framework for engagement of a durable and manageable social protection system is essential to this task, and we have been proud to support our government counterparts as they vision and structure their system.”
Kore Lavi participant Marie Anna Jolicoeur, a widowed farmer and two of her five children. (Photo: USAID)
Looking forward
Does that mean the beneficiaries will maintain the level of nutrition they achieved over six years?
“The people still have problems,” Antoine acknowledged. He said things will indeed change. MAST needs access to financial resources so they can continue funding the program, he said.
Antoine hopes a micro-loan system CARE put in place to support the food program will motivate former participants to unite and borrow money to launch small businesses that can pick up where Kore Lavi left off.
“Recently, we did a resilience study using a methodology called SenseMaker, where we asked the beneficiaries to tell us how they are living, how the program changed their lives. We can tell you that (the program) required a huge effort, a lot of sacrifices, but in the end, we delivered (what we promised). So today, as we participate in the official closing ceremony, we stand proud of our work with the most vulnerable populations,” Antoine said.
The United States and the Afghan Taliban have resumed peace talks in Qatar to try to conclude an agreement that would bring an end to the longest U.S. overseas military intervention.
The crucial ninth round of talks in the yearlong dialogue process got under way Thursday in the Qatari capital of Doha amid expectations it will lead to the much-awaited peace agreement between the two adversaries.
The talks come a day after clashes with Taliban insurgents in northern Afghanistan killed two American soldiers, bringing the number of U.S military fatalities in the country this year to 14, exceeding the 2018 total.
FILE – Members of the Taliban attend the second day of the Intra Afghan Dialogue talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, July 8, 2019.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the special reconciliation envoy for Afghanistan, is leading the American side while Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanekzai is heading insurgent negotiators, said a Taliban spokesman.
“Head of occupation forces Scott Miller was also present in these negotiations,” Zabihullah Mujahid said, referring to the American commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Khalilzad will travel to Kabul for meetings with the Afghan leadership after concluding the meeting in Doha.
The Afghan-born chief U.S. negotiator tweeted before leaving Washington on Tuesday that “we will try and close on remaining issues. We’re ready. Let’s see if the Taliban are as well.”
The deal, if reached, would require Washington to announce a timeline for withdrawing U.S.-led foreign troops from the country. In return, the Taliban will give guarantees they will not allow transnational terrorists to use Afghan soil for attacks against other countries.
The agreement would pave the way for talks among the Taliban and Afghan stakeholders, including representatives of the government in Kabul. Those talks will focus on a permanent cease-fire and issues related to future governance in Afghanistan.
Mexican musician Celso Pina, famed as “the rebel of the accordion” for mixing eclectic styles with traditional Colombian cumbia, died Wednesday of a heart attack in his hometown of Monterrey, his record label La Tuna Records said.
He was 66 years old, according to local media.
With an interest in genres ranging from ska to hip-hop, Pina collaborated with a number of major Mexican rock artists including Cafe Tacvba, Lila Downs and Julieta Venegas. In 2002 his solo album “Barrio Bravo” was nominated for a Latin Grammy.
The composer and singer began playing music with his brothers growing up in Monterrey near the northern border, according to his official website. He picked up the accordion in his late 20s, and, still in Monterrey, learned Colombia’s celebrated vallenato style, central to the bouncy cumbia genre.
“Nobody can resist cumbia,” Pina wrote in his last tweet before his death, ahead of concerts planned in the United States, one of about 30 countries he had toured, according to his profile on the Spotify music streaming platform.
“The rebel of the accordion has left us. His music united Latin American cultures and captivated Americans,” the U.S. Embassy in Mexico wrote on Twitter.
VOA correspondent Ayaz Gul contributed to this report from Islamabad.
The death toll from a suicide bomb attack at a wedding in the Afghan capital, Kabul, last week has risen to 80, officials said.
The initial death toll from Saturday’s blast was 63 but jumped to 80 after 17 civilians died from their wounds in recent days, Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said Wednesday.
“Seventeen others have succumbed to their injuries in hospital and over 160 are still being treated either in hospitals or at home,” Rahimi said.
A man mourns for victims of the wedding hall bombing during a memorial service at a mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 20, 2019.
The blast, Kabul’s deadliest attack since January 2018, was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Survivors said hundreds of guests were inside the hall when the blast occurred near the stage where the musicians were. “All the youths, children and all the people who were there were killed,” witness Gul Mohammad said. One of the wounded, Mohammad Toofan, said that “a lot of guests were martyred.”
The bride’s father told TOLO television station that 14 members of his family were killed in the bombing and three were still missing.
“I know that this will not be the last suffering for Afghans. This suffering will continue. This will not be the last incident to happen against innocent people,” the groom, identified as Mirwais, told the private Afghan news station.
The Taliban, who are set to resume peace talks with the U.S., condemned the attack as “barbaric.”
WASHINGTON – A researcher at the University of Kansas was indicted on federal fraud charges Wednesday for allegedly concealing ties to a Chinese university while doing research funded by the U.S. government, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Feng “Franklin” Tao, 47, an associate professor at a University of Kansas center that conducts sustainable technology research, was charged with one count of wire fraud and three counts of program fraud.
The indictment came amid increased concern by U.S. officials about the risk from China to U.S. universities, part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to confront Beijing over what Washington sees as the use of
sometimes illicit methods for acquiring rapid technological advancement.
Intelligence officials have issued dire warnings about the threat of intellectual property theft or even espionage, amid an ongoing trade war with China.
China denies such activities.
U.S. authorities said Tao hid the fact that he was working full time for Fuzhou University in China while conducting research at the University of Kansas funded through U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation contracts.
Five-year pact
The indictment alleges that Tao signed a five-year contract in May 2018 with Fuzhou that required him to be a full-time employee of the Chinese school. Kansas required Tao to file an annual conflict-of-interest report, but Tao “falsely claimed” he had no conflicts of interest in those reports, the Justice Department said.
The indictment says Tao fraudulently received more than $37,000 in salary from the Energy Department and National Science Foundation.
A Justice Department spokesman said Tao had not entered a plea.
Department of Justice officials in Kansas did not immediately respond to questions about whether Tao is a U.S. citizen or whether he was working with classified materials.
If convicted, Tao faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on the wire fraud count, and up to 10 years and a fine up to $250,000 on each of the three program fraud counts.
The University of Kansas cooperated and assisted in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe of Tao.
The U.S. State Department has approved a possible $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said on Tuesday in an official notification to Congress.
The potential deal is for 66 aircraft, 75 General Electric Co engines, as well as other systems, the agency said in a statement, adding it served the interests of the United States and would help Taiwan maintain a credible defense.
China has already denounced the widely discussed sale, one of the biggest yet by the United States to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. It has warned of unspecified “countermeasures.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, a Republican, has welcomed the proposed sale of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 jets.
“These fighters are critical to improving Taiwan’s ability to defend its sovereign airspace, which is under increasing pressure from the People’s Republic of China,” he said in a recent statement.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Monday that President Donald Trump notified Congress of the sale last week.
Pompeo told Fox News the sale was “consistent with past U.S. policy” and that the United States was “simply following through on the commitments we’ve made to all of the parties.”
In Tapei, President Tsai Ing-wen said the sale would help Taiwan build a new air force and boost its air defense capacity.
In a post on Facebook, Tsai said she was grateful for Washington’s “continuous support for Taiwan’s national defense.”
“With strong self-defense capacity, Taiwan will certainly be more confident to ensure the cross-strait and regional peace and stability while facing security challenges,” she said.
Taiwan unveiled its largest defense spending increase in more than a decade last week, amid rising military tensions with China.
U.S. envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun says the Trump administration is ready to resume stalled negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program.
Speaking Wednesday in Seoul where he was meeting with South Korean officials, Biegun said the United States is “prepared to engage as soon as we hear from our counterparts in North Korea.”
President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter earlier this month that he had received a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressing a desire “to meet and start negotiations” after the conclusion of U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises, which ended Tuesday.
North Korea considers the exercises a threat to its existence, and since late last month it carried out six short-range ballistic missile tests that Kim said were in response to the drills.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday he was concerned about the latest missile tests, disagreeing with Trump, who has shrugged off their importance.
“I wish that they would not” launch the missiles, the top U.S. diplomat told CBS News.
The two latest projectiles, fired last Friday, flew 230 kilometers into the waters off North Korea, but, aimed differently, could reach South Korea as well as American troops and civilians living there.
Trump has voiced his discontent as well, not about North Korea’s missile tests, but about the costs of the military drills with Seoul.
President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, left, walk up to view North Korea from the Korean Demilitarized Zone from Observation Post Ouellette at Camp Bonifas in South Korea, Sunday, June 30, 2019.
Asked about the missile tests, Trump told reporters, “I have no problem. These are short-range missiles.”
Trump called the missiles “smaller ones.” He said earlier this month that Kim had sent him “a really beautiful letter” that included a “small apology” for conducting the missile tests.
The U.S. leader has held out hope that he can bring about Pyongyang’s denuclearization by the time his first term in the White House ends in January 2021.
Pompeo acknowledged in the CBS interview, however, that the United States and North Korea “haven’t gotten back to the table as quickly as we would have hoped” to continue the nuclear weapons talks.
Pompeo said the U.S. knew “there will be bumps along the way” in the negotiations.
“We hope Chairman Kim will come to the table and a get a better outcome” than by maintaining North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, he said.
“It will be better for the North Korean people,” Pompeo concluded. “It’ll be better for the world.”
China hopes to welcome the United States “back to the negotiating table” to discuss global efforts to limit climate change at a United Nations summit to be hosted by Chile in December, its top climate change envoy said on Tuesday.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s Special Representative for Climate Change Affairs, told journalists during a visit to a solar energy plant outside the Chilean capital Santiago that China would provide “full support to the Chilean presidency of this meeting.”
The summit was “strong proof that a multilateral negotiation process is successful, that multilateralism is working,” he said.
Asked if the U.S. approach to the threat of climate change under President Donald Trump and the U.S.-China trade dispute might affect the outcome in Santiago, Xie replied: “China and the U.S. has many differences but we do have some common grounds on climate change issues as well and we welcome them back to the negotiating table on climate change, we are very open to that.”
Trump has signaled his intention to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord and been dismissive of regulations aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions. He has also expressed his preference for bilateral trade pacts over multilateral agreements.
In July, China pledged on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka to show “the highest possible ambition” in the fight against climate change. Experts and policy advisors say the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter could introduce new and more stringent carbon targets next year.
Xie said China would back a bid by the U.N. secretary-general and climate change envoy to persuade all countries to update their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) goals to keep global warming to well below two degrees centigrade.
“The most important objective is to identify the new NDCs for the post-2020 period and link those new NDCs together with the financial support from the developed countries as promised,” Xie said. “To have that financial support in place is very important and that’s the objective we would like to achieve.”
China is a key investor in Chilean renewable energy projects and manufactured half of the solar panels at the 110MW Parque Quilapilún solar plant Xie visited with environment minister Carolina Schmidt.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen thanked the United States on Tuesdsay for approving the sale of 66 advanced F-16V fighter jets and urged rival China to respect Taiwan’s right to defend itself.
President Donald Trump announced approval of the $8 billion deal on Sunday. The sale is expected to further inflame U.S. relations with China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.
Tsai on Tuesday also applauded previous arm sales already announced by Trump’s administration, saying those reaffirmed the United States’ “long-standing commitment to helping maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
Trump’s announcement begins a period of consultation with Congress, and a formal announcement of the sale could be made as early as next month unless lawmakers object. The State Department, which would ultimately authorize the sale, declined to comment, but members of Congress from both parties welcomed the proposal.
China fiercely opposes all arms sales to Taiwan but has specifically objected to advanced fighter jets such as the F-16V, whose Active Electronically Scanned Array, or AESA, radar is compatible with the F-35 stealth fighters operated by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines. The U.S. is also installing upgraded electronics, including AESA radars, on Taiwan’s existing fleet of 144 older F-16s.
While the U.S. cut formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979 in order to recognize Beijing, U.S. law requires Washington to ensure Taiwan has the means to defend itself.
Since 2008, U.S. administrations have notified Congress of more than $24 billion in foreign military sales to Taiwan, including in the past two months the sale of 108 M1A2 Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles, valued at $2.2 billion. The Trump administration alone has notified Congress of $4.4 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.
Tsai has rejected Chinese pressure to unite Taiwan and China under a “one-country, two-systems” framework and soon after her 2016 inauguration, Beijing cut contacts with her government over her refusal to endorse its claim that Taiwan is part of China.
Beijing has sought to increase Taiwan’s international isolation by reducing its diplomatic allies to just 17 and stepped up military intimidation, including by holding military exercises across the Taiwan Strait and circling the island with bombers and fighters in what are officially termed training missions.
On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing had made solemn complaints'' to the U.S. over the planned F-16V sale. Geng called on Washington tofully recognize the serious dangers of the arms sale to Taiwan” and cancel it immediately or bear the consequences.
“China will take necessary measures to safeguard its own interests according to the development of the situation,” Geng said.
Only a dozen airlines will eventually share the aviation market for major international routes, predicts Lufthansa’s CEO, while a possible future economic crisis could “accelerate” a consolidation in air travel.
“The sector is evolving towards a dozen companies operating worldwide” on major international routes, in addition to smaller national or regional airlines, Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr told reporters late Monday.
Without naming them, Spohr forecast there would be “three in the United States, three in China, three in the Gulf and three in Europe”.
The Lufthansa chief executive warned that any future economic crisis could hit European airlines particularly hard, but predicted a downturn could “accelerate” mergers and acquisitions.
“If there is one positive aspect to the flattening of the global economy, and certainly also the worsening figures for all airlines — unfortunately also for us — it is that the consolidation process will tend to accelerate,” Spohr added.
The recent bankruptcies of German low-cost airlines Air Berlin and Germania have enabled Lufthansa to buy back flight routes and aircraft.
The airline industry is “much more cyclical” and at the mercy of economic developments than others, Spohr said, with the sector suffering from international trade tensions.
Lufthansa wants to “and will play an active role” in any future consolidation in the sector, said the airline boss, whose company’s net profit dropped by 70 percent in the second quarter.
Spohr said Lufthansa faced strong competition from low-cost airlines in a “unique price war”, however “we will not be driven out of our domestic market” by low-cost companies like Ryanair, because the German airline “has the financial strength to resist” competition.
An unmanned Indian space probe successfully entered lunar orbit Tuesday, passing a crucial step towards a historic milestone for the country’s fledgling space program.
The arrival of the $141 million Chandrayaan-2 probe comes nearly a month after it was launched into space aboard India’s powerful Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark Three rocket. The probe will orbit the moon for two weeks before its Vikram lander — named after Vikram Sarabhai, the scientist regarded as the “father” of India’s space program — will undock from the mothership and land on the moon’s South Pole. It will then release a small rover dubbed Pragyan that will roam for 14 days, mapping the moon’s surface, conducting experiments to search for signs of water and assessing its topography and geology.
If the planned September 7 landing is successful, India will join the United States, Russia and China as the only nations to achieve a soft landing of a spacecraft on the moon. It will also become the first nation to attempt a controlled landing on the moon’s South Pole.
Although India was a relative latecomer to the space race, it has developed a reputation for conducting its space explorations at a fraction of the cost spent by countries like the United States. It first placed an unmanned spacecraft in lunar orbit in 2008, which helped confirm the presence of water on the lunar surface.
Among other goalposts India has set in the coming years is to put a space station in orbit, an astronaut in space by 2022, a robotic mission to Mars and a mission to explore the sun.
New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that citizenship appears to narrow the economic gap between the foreign-born and native-born in the United States.
The 2018 figures released Monday offer a view of immigrants’ education, wealth, and the jobs they work in. They also look at differences between naturalized immigrants and those who aren’t citizens.
Their release come as the U.S. is engaged in one of the fiercest debates in decades about the role of immigration.
Stopping the flow of immigrants into the U.S. has been a priority of the Trump administration, which has proposed denying green cards to immigrants who use Medicaid and fought to put a citizenship question on the decennial Census questionnaire.
Monday’s figures show naturalized immigrants had a slightly smaller median income than the native-born.
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday was forced to postpone a conference it organized in the West Bank city of Ramallah after Palestinian officials and factions called for a boycott and threatened to organize protests.
The Palestinians cut all ties with the U.S. after it recognized disputed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017, and view the Trump administration as unfairly biased following a series of actions seen as hostile to their aspirations for an independent state.
The embassy had organized a conference this week to bring together alumni of U.S. educational and cultural programs, including dozens of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who received permission from Israel to attend. The territory has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power there in 2007.
The Palestinian leadership viewed the conference as an attempt to circumvent its boycott of the U.S. administration.
“We are aware of recent statements regarding a planned event for alumni of U.S. educational and cultural programs,” the U.S. Embassy said. “In order to avoid the Palestinian participants being put in a difficult situation, we have decided to postpone the event for now.”
It said this and other events “are designed to create opportunities for exchange and dialogue between Americans and Palestinians at the grassroots level.”
“This event in particular is intended to give alumni of all ages and backgrounds from Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza an opportunity to network with each other and to engage in leadership and capacity building activities,” it said.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for their future state. The Trump administration is at work on a long-awaited peace plan, but has not endorsed a two-state solution to the conflict. The Palestinians have already dismissed the plan, saying it is certain to be slanted toward Israel.
Representatives of several Palestinian factions held a press conference Monday at the hotel where the meeting was to have taken place.
Spokesman Isam Baker told The Associated Press that the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella group, had reached out to the hotel management and the invitees asking them to boycott the meeting.
“Most of the invitees and the hotel administration agreed with us that the invitation has political implications and it is not innocent,” he said.
“The U.S. administration, which has cut off all aid to our people, shut down our office in Washington and placed huge pressure on our leadership to accept a pro-Israel political plan will not do any good for our people” he said. “Therefore, we are boycotting any activities it organizes.”
The U.S. cut more than $200 million in development aid to the Palestinians last year, gutting several long-running programs .
A statement released Sunday by the “national and Islamic forces of the Ramallah governorate” said they were determined to thwart the conference, calling it an attempt to “break the will of the Palestinian people.” It said they planned to organize a “mass popular event to prevent this activity by all available means,” calling for a sit-in and marches.
The youth wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party also called for a boycott. It vowed to “exercise all forms of legal and popular pressure to express rejection of this conference being held on occupied Palestinian land.” It also called for an “apology” from the hotel.
In Uganda, a coach’s passion for baseball is getting schools to embrace America’s favorite pastime. But a lack of government support means baseball in Uganda is heavily dependent on donations. Halima Athumani reports from Kampala.
Delegates at a U.N. wildlife conference in Geneva voted Sunday to ban the practice of taking baby elephants from their natural habitat and placing them in zoos and circuses.
Forty-six countries at the UN Convention ion International Trade in Endangered Species voted to outlaw the practice, white 18 voted against it, including the United States. Nineteen abstained.
The ban proclaims entertainment venues to be “unacceptable and inappropriate destinations” for elephants.
“This decision will save countless elephants from being ripped away from their families in the wild and forces to spend their lifetimes imprisoned in substandard conditions at zoos,” the Humane Society International said Sunday. “The capture of baby elephants is horribly cruel and traumatic to both the mothers, their calves and the herds that are left behind.”
Sunday’s decision specifically targets Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
CITES says Zimbabwe has sent more than 100 baby elephants to China since 2012, traumatizing the animals who it says are beaten, kicked, and treated cruelly by their handlers. Several have died.
The U.S. has opened up secret communications with Venezuela’s socialist party boss as members of President Nicolas Maduro’s inner circle seek guarantees they won’t face retribution if they cede to growing demands to remove him, a senior administration official has told The Associated Press.
Diosdado Cabello, who is considered the most-powerful man in Venezuela after Maduro, met last month in Caracas with someone who is in close contact with the Trump administration, said the official. A second meeting is in the works but has not yet taken place.
The AP is withholding the intermediary’s name and details of the encounter with Cabello out of concern the person could suffer reprisals. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the talks, which are still preliminary.
Cabello is a major power broker inside Venezuela, who has seen his influence in the government and security forces expand as Maduro’s grip on power has weakened. But he’s also been accused by U.S. officials of being behind massive corruption, drug trafficking and even death threats against a sitting U.S. senator.
The administration official said that under no circumstances is the U.S. looking to prop up Cabello or pave the way for him to substitute Maduro. Instead, the goal of the outreach is to ratchet up pressure on the regime by contributing to the knife fight the U.S. believes is taking place behind the scenes among competing circles of power within the ruling party.
Similar contacts exist with other top Venezuelan insiders, the official said, and the U.S. is in a listening mode to hear what it would take for them to betray Maduro and support a transition plan.
Cabello did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But an aide said the U.S. has been increasingly knocking on his door, desperately looking to establish contact. The aide rejected the notion Cabello was somehow betraying Maduro, saying that Cabello would only meet with Americans with the president’s permission and if it contributes to lifting sanctions he blames for crippling the oil-dependent economy. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to discuss political affairs publicly.
A person familiar with the July encounter said Cabello appeared savvy and arrived to the meeting with the U.S.-backed envoy well prepared, with a clear understanding of Venezuela’s political problems. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the matter.
As Venezuela’s crisis grinds on, a predictable pattern has emerged where Juan Guaido, who the U.S. and dozens of other countries recognize as Venezuela’s rightful leader, has been unable to woo the military and take power but Maduro lacks enough strength to apprehend his rival or rescue the collapsed economy amid ever-tightening U.S. sanctions. This month, the U.S. slapped a new round of sanctions that seizes all of the Maduro government’s assets in the U.S. and threatens to punish companies from third countries that continue to do business with him.
Talks sponsored by Norway between the opposition and government have been slow-going and were suspended this month by Maduro, who accused Guaido of celebrating the U.S.’ “brutal blockade.” Neither Cabello, the Venezuelan military or U.S. government are a party to those talks.
To break the stalemate, some conspirators are looking to the U.S. to devise a plan to protect government insiders who turn against Maduro from future prosecution. The U.S. has repeatedly said it would offer top socialists relief from sanctions if they take “concrete and meaningful actions” to end Maduro’s rule. In May, it quickly lifted sanctions against Maduro’s former spy chief, Gen. Manuel Cristopher Figuera, after he defected during a failed military uprising.
As head of the constitutional assembly, Cabello has the power to remove Maduro, a position that could come in handy in any negotiated transition. But to date he’s run the institution, which the U.S. considers illegitimate, as a rubber-stamping foil to the opposition-controlled congress, showing no signs of possible deception.
It’s not clear who initiated the contact with Cabello. But the U.S. official said Cabello was talking behind the back of the embattled socialist despite his almost daily displays of loyalty and frequent harangues against President Donald Trump.
An opposition politician briefed on the outreach said Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and Interior Minister Nestor Reverol are among those in indirect contact with the Americans, underscoring the degree to which Maduro is surrounded by conspirators even after an opposition-led military uprising in April was easily quashed. The politician spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the talks. The AP was unable to verify the opposition politician’s account.
Cabello, 56, has long been seen as a rival to Maduro, someone who has more pragmatic economic views and is less ideologically aligned with communist Cuba. He sat to the right of Hugo Chavez when the late socialist designated Maduro, to his left, to be his successor in his last public appearance before dying of cancer in 2013.
By all accounts Cabello was not among the high-placed officials who were in on a plot to remove Maduro in April, when Guaido and his mentor Leopoldo Lopez appeared on a bridge in eastern Caracas surrounded by a small contingent of armed troops. Since the uprising’s failure, the retired army lieutenant has seen his influence in the government and security forces expand, with the appointment of a cousin to head the army and the placement of another ally atop the feared SEBIN intelligence police.
He also remains popular with the Chavista base, having crisscrossed the country the past five years with a much-watched program on state TV that is a vehicle for pounding the opposition and U.S.
“A fraternal salute, brother President,” Cabello said in the most-recent program, where Maduro called in as a special guest. “We have no secrets, no lies here. Every time we do something we will inform the people, so that with a clear conscience they can take informed decisions and fix positions.”
The U.S. has tried to negotiate with Cabello before. In 2015, Thomas Shannon, who was then counsellor to Secretary of State John Kerry, met with Cabello in Haiti to pave the way for legislative elections that the opposition won by a landslide.
But until now, the Trump administration has shown deep scorn for Cabello, hitting him with sanctions last year for allegedly organizing drug shipments and running a major graft network that embezzled state funds and invested the stolen proceeds in Florida real estate. The U.S. also believes he discussed a plot to kill Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who has called him “Venezuela’s Pablo Escobar.”
“Cabello is one of the worst of the worst inside of Venezuela,” said Fernando Cutz, a former senior national security adviser on Latin America to both President Barack Obama and Trump. “If the strategy is to try to negotiate with the mafia boss, he’s your guy. But that’s a strategy that carries some heavy risks.”
Mourners in Iceland gathered Sunday to bid a final farewell to 700-year-old Okjokull, the first Icelandic glacier lost to climate change.
After about 100 people, including Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, Environment Minister Gudmundur Ingi Gudbrandsson, and former Irish President Mary Robinson, made a two-hour hike up the Ok volcano for the ceremony.
Children installed a memorial plaque to the glacier, now called just “Ok,” its name missing “jokull”, the Icelandic word for glacier.
People climb to the top of what once was the Okjokull glacier, in Iceland, Aug. 18, 2019.
The plaque bears the inscription “A letter to the future”, and is intended to raise awareness about the decline of glaciers and the effects of climate change.
“In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it,” it reads.
The dedication, written by Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason, ends with the date of the ceremony and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air globally – 415 parts per million (ppm).
“We see the consequences of the climate crisis,”Jakobsdottir said. “We have no time to lose.”
A girl holds a sign that reads ‘pull the emergency brake’ as she attends a ceremony in the area which once was the Okjokull glacier, in Iceland, Aug. 18, 2019.
Jakobsdottir said she plans to make climate change a priority when Nordic leaders and German Chancellor Angela Merkel meet in Reykjavik on Tuesday.
Okjokull was was officially declared dead in 2014 when it was no longer thick enough to move. but now all that’s left of the glacier is a small patch of ice atop a volcano.
Glaciologist Oddur Sigurdsson of the Icelandic Meteorological Office was the first to declare Okjokull dead.
When enough ice builds up, the pressure forces the whole mass to move. “That’s where the limit is between a glacier and not a glacier,” Sigurdsson explains. “It needs to be 40 to 50 meters thick to reach that pressure limit.”
