Business

Stephanie Frappart has been appointed as the referee for the European Super Cup between Liverpool and Chelsea, making her the first woman to officiate a major UEFA men’s showpiece event.

UEFA announced Frappart’s appointment on Friday, adding that the Frenchwoman will lead a team of predominantly female officials, with Manuela Nicolosi of France and Michelle O’Neal from the Republic of Ireland serving as assistant referees. The 35-year-old Frappart was also in charge at the Women’s World Cup Final between the United States and the Netherlands.

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin says: “I have said on many occasions that the potential for women’s football has no limits.”

It is not the first time a female has refereed a men’s UEFA competition match. Switzerland’s Nicole Petignat officiated three UEFA Cup qualifying-round matches between 2004 and 2009.

The Super Cup is the traditional curtain raiser to the season, between the winners of the Champions League and Europa League. This year it will take place at the Besiktas Park in Istanbul on Aug. 14.

Fans Celebrate US Women’s Soccer Team’s World Cup Win at New York Parade

Frappart also became the first female referee to officiate a French league match in April. She has been promoted to the pool of French top-flight referees on a permanent basis for the upcoming season.

Ceferin adds: “I hope the skill and devotion that Stephanie has shown throughout her career to reach this level will provide inspiration to millions of girls and women around Europe and show them there should be no barriers in order to reach one’s dream.”

…

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson about trade, next-generation 5G mobile networks and global security, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement on Friday.

Trump told Johnson during a call on Thursday that he looked forward to meeting him at the G7 economic summit in France later this month, the White House said.

The United States is pressuring its allies, including Britain, to avoid using equipment from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in its 5G mobile networks. Washington says Huawei is a national security risk.

Britain’s National Security Council, chaired by Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, had decided in principle to give Huawei limited access to sensitive parts of the 5G network. But the council has yet to make a final decision, and Johnson is more publicly aligned with Trump than May was.

Trump has pushed for a trade deal between the United States and Britain following the latter’s planned exit from the European Union.

…

A powerful earthquake struck off the southern coast of Indonesia’s heavily populated Java island Friday, with the country’s disaster agency warning that it could generate a tsunami.

The 6.8 magnitude quake struck offshore at a depth 42 kilometres (26 miles), some  150 kilometres (90 miles) from Labuan, southwest of the capital Jakarta, according to the United States Geological Survey. 

Indonesia’s disaster agency initially pegged the quake at magnitude 7.4 and a depth of 10 kilometres, warning it could spark a tsunami.

Residents in Jakarta fled their homes as buildings in the megacity swayed from the force of the quake.

“The chandelier in my apartment was shaking and I just ran from the 19th floor,” 50-year-old Elisa told AFP. 

“Everybody else ran too. It was a really strong jolt and I was very scared.”

At least two people were killed and thousands were forced from their homes after a major 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit the remote Maluku islands in eastern Indonesia this month.

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide.

Last year, a 7.5-magnitude quake and a subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi island killed more than 2,200 people, with another thousand declared missing.

On December 26, 2004, a devastating 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 across the Indian Ocean region, including around 170,000 in Indonesia. 
 

…

The U.S.-China trade war intensified Thursday after President Donald Trump said he would impose an additional 10 percent tariff on some Chinese products, one day after the two superpowers agreed to continue trade talks next month.

“Trade talks are continuing, and during the talks the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country, Trump tweeted. “This does not include the 250 Billion Dollars already Tariffed at 25%.”

Trump also accused China of failing to purchase more U.S. agricultural products and halting the sale of opioid fentanyl to the U.S. “China agreed to … buy agricultural product from the U.S. in large quantities, but did not do so,” he said. “Additionally, my friend President Xi said that he would stop the sale of Fentanyl to the United States — this never happened, and many Americans continue to die.”

While the previous rounds of tariffs have primarily targeted industrial products, the new round of tariffs will target consumer products such as cell phones and apparel.

Trump’s latest salvo came one day after the latest round of trade talks between U.S. and Chinese negotiators ended in Shanghai with an agreement to meet again in September in the U.S.

…

The chairman of Pakistan’s Senate has survived a no-confidence vote that has opponents alleging political interference.

At the start of the proceedings Thursday in Islamabad, opposition lawmakers seeking Sadiq Sanjrani’s removal from office had 64 votes in their favor. In a secret ballot a short time later, however, only 50 senators voted to oust him — just short of the 53 needed. Five votes were rejected.

100 senators vote

Pakistan’s Senate comprises 103 members. Of that number, 100 voted. The opposition sought the vote to put pressure on the government. All legislation, except the budget, has to be passed by both houses of parliament. The chairman can play a major role in which legislation is put forward. 

Leading English-language newspaper DAWN called the outcome a “shock victory.” Opposition leaders accused the government of “horse-trading,” using a term that means buying votes, or influence-peddling, in Pakistan.

Rejecting the allegations, Senator Faisal Javed of the Pakistan Justice Movement (the ruling PTI), described the outcome as an end to the dynastic politics of the two leading opposition parties — the Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PMLN. Both parties are led by relatives of their founding members.  

“Senators … voted according to their conscience … sending a message that senators won’t behave like slaves any longer,” Javed said.  

Senators defy own parties

Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said the senators who voted against their own parties “rejected their leadership’s corruption.”

Shehbaz Sharif, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Pakistan’s lower house of parliament, blamed the outcome on money changing hands.

“Those who sold their souls and weakened democracy today, we have decided we will identify them and expose them,” he said in a joint press conference with multiple opposition parties. 

The chairman of the opposition PPP, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, echoed similar sentiments, criticizing the vote as an “open attack on a symbol of federation—the Senate.  Zardari, the son of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, pledged to identify the 14 senators who, in his words, “put a dagger in their party’s back.” 

The opposition contends the five votes that were rejected were deliberately cast in a faulty manner.  

Meanwhile, Hasil Bizenjo, the opposition candidate for Senate chairman, blamed his loss on Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

“This is a game played by ISI. If today we have lost, we have lost because of ISI,” he said.  

No comment from military

Pakistan’s military is often accused of interfering in politics, mostly through the ISI. VOA reached out to the military’s media wing but received no response.

Several members of the ruling PTI rejected the idea that anyone interfered in Thursday’s process. 

…

Poland on Thursday scrapped its personal income tax for young employees earning less than $22,000 a year, as part of a drive to reverse a brain drain and demographic decline that’s dimming the prospects of a country that is otherwise experiencing strong economic growth.

A new law by the right-wing government took effect Thursday, slashing the personal income tax from 18 percent to zero for workers under the age of 26 below the income threshold. It is expected to boost the earnings of nearly 2 million Poles at home, and the government hopes it will also persuade young Poles working abroad to return home.  

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki recently said he hoped it would “prevent a further loss, a bleeding of the population that is especially painful for a nation, a society, when it concerns the young generation.”  

But there were strong doubts if the tax relief would stop the drain of talented and educated young Poles to London, Berlin and other cities that offer higher wages and other opportunities.

”I do not think it would stop me and my peers from leaving,” said Paulina Rokicka, a 19-year-old in Warsaw who works part-time at a TV station. “It seems to me that we will want to leave [anyway] because there are better perspectives abroad than in Poland.”

Introduced ahead of fall parliamentary elections, the exemption is part of a larger package of social benefits that has earned the government strong voter support but raised worries about strains on state finances. They include cash bonuses to families with children and a one-off payment to pensioners.

Morawiecki said that some 1.5 million Poles, a number comparable to the population of Warsaw, have emigrated since the nation of 38 million joined the European Union in 2004. Some other estimates have put that number at 2 million but it is hard to pin down exactly due to the large number of those who go back and forth.

While wages still are far lower than in the West, Poland’s economy is growing at around 4.5% and unemployment had dipped below 6%. In order to fill labor shortages companies have turned to hiring migrants, mostly Ukrainians, some 2 million of whom are estimated to be working in Poland.

The government says it is focusing on innovation where young inventive minds are highly valued.      

Morawiecki recently urged a gathering of young people to “stay here, to take your future in your own hands and be enterprising.”

The government estimates the program will cost the budget some 2 billion zlotys ($519 million) a year.  

Pawel Jurek, the Finance Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press on Thursday that young Poles will now have more money left in their bank accounts to allow them to start families earlier. But he said the most important aim is to keep professionals in the country.

Maciej Biernacki, another young employee in Warsaw, also voiced doubts that the tax relief would sway many people, calling it only “one small” element that would be considered in people’s life decisions. More important, he said, are issues like business predictability and how the country is run.

”I doubt that this kind of exemption would make anyone stay here in the country if he hesitates about whether to leave or stay,” the 25-year-old public relations manager told the AP.

A recent survey by the National Bank of Poland showed that some 15 percent of Polish emigres would be willing to return home, especially from Britain, where the prospect of a hard Brexit threatens economic pain.

…

U.S. rapper A$AP Rocky is expected to give testimony in a Swedish court Thursday on the second day of his assault trial after he and two of his entourage were accused of punching and kicking a teenager.

The 30-year-old performer, producer and model, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, pleaded not guilty to a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm on the first day of the trial Tuesday. His lawyer told the court he acted in self-defense.

Mayers was detained July 3 in connection with a brawl outside a hamburger restaurant in Stockholm June 30 and later charged with assault.

On Tuesday, prosecutor Daniel Suneson showed video from security cameras and witnesses’ mobile phones and said following an altercation Mayers threw 19-year-old Mustafa Jafari to the ground, after which he and two of his entourage kicked and punched him.

The prosecutor said a bottle was used to hit Jafari, who suffered cuts and bruises.

Jafari told the court he was pushed and grabbed by the neck by Mayers’ bodyguard outside the restaurant and followed the rapper’s group to get back his headphones. He said he was then hit on the head with a bottle and kicked and punched while on the ground.

If convicted, the accused could face up to two years in jail.

The case has drawn huge media attention, forcing the trial to be moved to a secure courtroom.

Celebrities, including Kim Kardashian and Rod Stewart, have leaped to Mayers’ defense and U.S. President Donald Trump asked Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to help free Mayers.

Sweden’s judiciary is independent of the political system, and Lofven has said he will not influence the rapper’s case.

Mayers, best known for his song “Praise the Lord,” was in Stockholm for a concert. He has canceled several shows across Europe because of his detention.

The trial could run into a third day Friday. The verdict is expected at a later date.

…

The United States does not plan to make changes to a military drill with South Korea, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday, despite a series of North Korean missile launches intended to pressure Seoul and Washington to stop joint exercises.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries are planning to stage a joint exercise in August, known as Dong Maeng, which is believed to be a slimmed down version of an annual drill once known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise, which included thousands of U.S. troops.

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles Wednesday after two similar missile tests last week, raising the stakes for U.S. and South Korean diplomats hoping to restart talks on North Korean denuclearization.

No plans to change

“No adjustment or change in plans that we’re aware of or are planning,” the U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said.

It is unclear how many U.S. troops will be involved this year, but the official noted that the exercise, as in the past, would have a large computer simulated portion.

“The main thing you want to test, exercise, practice is to make decisions in a combined decision making environment because we have an integrated command structure,” the official said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met June 30, but Pyongyang has since accused Washington of breaking a promise by planning the military exercises and warned the drills could derail talks.

North Korean State news agency KCNA repeated calls for the United States and South Korea to end their “hostile” joint drills, but did not mention the missile launches.

South Korea denies promise broken

South Korea has said previously that the joint military exercise would go ahead, denying Pyongyang’s charges that holding it would breach an agreement made between Trump and Kim.

“We have to do two things: We have to give the diplomats appropriate space for their diplomacy and help create an environment that is conducive to the talks when they resume … and we have to maintain readiness,” the U.S. official said.

Newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper will be making his first official visit to Seoul, which the Pentagon said Tuesday was scheduled as part of a tour through Asia in August.

…

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed Kelly Craft, a Republican donor who is currently ambassador to Canada, as ambassador to the United Nations, despite opposition from Democrats who criticized President Donald Trump’s nominee as not having sufficient experience for the post. 

The Senate backed Craft 56 to 34, largely along party lines, moving to end seven months without a permanent U.S. envoy to the world body. 

U.N. ambassador is one of several high-level positions in the Trump administration held for months by temporary appointees as the White House struggles to deal with a chronic high turnover of top administration officials. 

The Senate last week confirmed Army Secretary Mark Esper, a former lobbyist, as secretary of defense, ending a record seven-month period in which the Pentagon lacked a permanent top official. 

This week, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats announced his resignation. 

Trump nominated Craft, 57, for the U.N. post after a receiving a recommendation from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents her home state of Kentucky. 

She had faced fierce opposition from some Democrats. Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, accused Craft of lacking the “seriousness and professionalism” for the post at the world body. 

Craft, the wife of a billionaire coal industry executive, generated controversy shortly after assuming her post in Ottawa by telling the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that she believed “both sides” of the climate change debate. 

However, she acknowledged during her confirmation hearing that climate change is a global threat and pledged to recuse herself from any U.N. talks on the issue involving coal because of her husband’s position. 

Menendez on Wednesday released a report that said Craft spent the majority of her time as ambassador to Canada outside the country. 

Craft’s backers called her a tough negotiator on a trade deal with Canada and Mexico who had established decent working relationships with both Republicans and Democrats.  

Craft will have the difficult job of defending Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and navigating his criticism of the United Nations while getting global diplomats to back U.S. policies. 

Trump’s first U.N. ambassador, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, announced her resignation in October and left the position at the end of last year. 

…

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his guest, director of the World Food Program David Beasley, planted tree seedlings on Tuesday in a salute to Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative, which seeks to combat climate change through mass tree planting. Volunteers in the Horn of Africa state planted 350 million trees in the past week in an effort to curb climate change effects.

…

Boat cruises on the Potomac River in the Washington, D.C. area are a popular way to see famous monuments and other landmarks. But a special cruise gives dogs a chance to relax on a scenic trip with their owners. VOAs Deborah Block takes us on a cruise for canines. 

…

The first night of the second round of Democratic presidential candidate debates took place in Detroit Tuesday. The candidates answered questions on a range of issues, including health care, recent mass shootings, immigration and foreign trade.

Here are some quotes from each candidate:

Steve Bullock, in responding to a discussion on gun violence, discussed a personal story, saying: “I’m a gun owner, I hunt, like far too many people in America, I have been personally impacted by gun violence. I had an 11-year-old nephew, Jeremy, shot and killed on a playground. We need to start looking at this as a public health issue, not a political issue.”

Pete Buttigieg, who as South Bend, Indiana, mayor has been criticized for his handling of a recent racially tinged shooting, said about race: “As an urban mayor serving a diverse community, the racial divide lives within me. I’m not saying that I became mayor and racism or crime or poverty ended on my watch. But in our city, we have come together repeatedly to tackle challenges like the fact that far too many people were not getting the help they needed in their housing and so we directed it to a historically underinvested African American neighborhood. Right now in the wake of a police involved shooting, our community is moving from hurting to healing by making sure that the community can participate in things like revising the use of force policy, and making sure there are community voices on the board of safety that handles police matters.”

John Delaney, in criticizing health care plans by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, said: “We don’t have to go around and be the party of subtraction and telling half the country who has private health insurance that their health insurance is illegal. It’s also bad policy. It’ll under-fund the industry, many hospitals will close, and it’s bad politics. … Folks, we have a choice. We can go down the road that Senator Sanders and Senator Warren want to take us with bad policies like Medicare for All, free everything, and impossible promises that will turn off independent voters and get (President Donald) Trump re-elected.”

John Hickenlooper, in criticizing Senator Sanders’ health care plan, said: “I’m saying the policies of this notion that you’re going to take private insurance away from 180 million American, who many of them don’t want to give it, many of them do want to get rid of it, but some don’t, many don’t. The Green New Deal makes sure that every American’s guaranteed a government job if they want, that is a disaster. You might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump. I think we have to focus on where Donald Trump is failing.”

Amy Klobuchar, answering a question on infrastructure, discusses the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, said: “I was just in Flint, and they are still drinking bottled water in that town, and that is outrageous, and my plan, and I am the first one that came out with an infrastructure plan and I did that because this is a bread and butter issue for people that are caught in traffic jams. I truly believe that if we’re going to move on infrastructure, climate change, you need a voice from the heartland.”

Beto O’Rourke, who lives in the border town of El Paso, Texas, in explaining his stance on decriminalizing border crossings by undocumented immigrants, said: “In my administration, after we have waived citizenship fees for green card holders, more than 9 million of our fellow Americans, free Dreamers who many fear of deportation, and stop criminally prosecuting families and children for seeking asylum and refuge, and for-profit detention, and so that no family has to make that 2,000-mile journey, then I expect that people who come here follow our laws and we reserve the right to criminally prosecute them.” 

Tim Ryan, who said he agrees in part with President Trump’s use of tariffs against China, saying: “I think President Trump was onto something when he talked about China. China has been abusing the economic system for a long time. They steal intellectual property. They subsidize goods. They eroded manufacturing. We transfer our wealth of the middle class either up to the top 1% or to China for them to build the military. So I think we need some targeted response against China.”

Bernie Sanders, in explaining his climate change agenda, said: “To win this election and to defeat Donald Trump, which by the way, in my view is not going to be easy, we need to have a campaign of energy and excitement and of vision. … I get a little bit tired of Democrats afraid of big ideas. Republicans are not afraid of big ideas. They could give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to billionaires and profitable corporations. … On this issue, my friends, there is no choice, we have got to be super aggressive if we love our children and if we want to leave them a planet that is healthy and is habitable. … What that means is we got to take on the fossil fuel industry.”

Elizabeth Warren, on a night when North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles, explained her position on the use of nuclear weapons, saying: “The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons preemptively. We need to say so to the entire world. It reduces the likelihood someone miscalculates or misunderstands. Our first responsibility is to keep ourselves safe. And what’s happening right now with Donald Trump is they keep expanding the different ways we have nuclear weapons. The different ways they can be used puts us all at risk.”

Marianne Williamson, in defending her plan to offer up to $500 billion in reparations to the U.S. descendants of enslaved Africans, said: “It is time for us to simply realize that this country will not heal. All that a country is a collection of people. People heal when there’s deep truth-telling. We need to recognize when it comes to the economic gap between blacks and whites in America, it does come from a great injustice that has never been dealt with. That great injustice has had to do with the fact that there was 250 years of slavery, followed by another 100 years of domestic terrorism.”

…

As U.S.-China trade talks are set to begin, U.S. President Donald Trump is warning China against negotiating a deal after the 2020 U.S. presidential election  — declaring a delayed agreement would be less attractive than a deal reached in the near term.

“The problem with them waiting … is that if & when I win, the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now … or no deal at all,” Trump said in a post Tuesday on Twitter.

…to ripoff the USA, even bigger and better than ever before. The problem with them waiting, however, is that if & when I win, the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now…or no deal at all. We have all the cards, our past leaders never got it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2019

The tweet came as U.S. and Chinese officials gathered in Shanghai to revive talks, with both sides trying to temper expectations for a breakthrough.

The world’s two largest economies are engaged in an intense trade war, having imposed punitive tariffs on each other totaling more than $360 billion in two-way trade.

The negotiations come after Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at June’s G-20 summit to resurrect efforts to end the costly trade war over China’s technology ambitions and trade surplus.

China is resisting U.S. demands to abolish government-led plans for industrial leaders to enhance robotics, artificial intelligence and other technologies.

The U.S. has complained China’s plans depend on the acquisition of foreign technology through theft or coercion.

Days prior to the Shanghai meeting, Trump threatened to withdraw recognition of China’s developing nation’s status at the World Trade Organization. China responded by saying the threat is indicative of the “arrogance and selfishness” of the U.S.

The U.S. delegation in Shanghai will be represented by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. They are due to meet with a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He, who serves as the country’s economic czar.

…

A top U.N. official warned Monday that Yemen’s devastating five-year civil war has knocked the country back 20 years in terms of development and access to education.

Yemen was already the Arab world’s poorest nation before the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people. In 2014, rebels known as Houthis took over the capital, Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention. The stalemated conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, thrust millions to the brink of famine and spawned the world’s most devastating humanitarian crisis.
 
“Much of the Yemeni economy has collapsed. People literally do not have any money to buy food,” Achim Steiner, U.N. Development Program administrator, told The Associated Press.

Saudi Airstrike on Yemeni Market Kills 10    

Attack in apparent retaliation for Houthi rebel drone attack on Saudi airbase 

“Thousands of schools are closed, millions of children aren’t able to attend school, missing a generation of education,” he said. “Yemen has lost… 20 years of development.”
 
Steiner recently returned from a visit to Yemen, including the strategic port city of Hodeida. He waned that one in every three Yemenis are at risk of starving to death, out of a population of 30 million.
 
In Hodeida, he said the U.N. Development Program has been working to remove land mines from Hodeida’s port, which handles 70 percent of Yemen’s food imports and humanitarian aid. He said he met with local authorities to create an agreement on “the priorities that are now needed in terms of repair spare parts, technologies that are needed in order to be able to allow the port to function again.”
 
Both sides of the conflict agreed in December to withdraw from Hodeida, considered an important first step toward ending the war. But the implementation of the U.N.-brokered deal has since been delayed, as the agreement was vague on who would control Hodeida’s key port facilities after the withdrawal, saying only that a “local force” would take over.
 
Steiner urged both sides to help U.N. agencies “deliver fast and with little obstruction, the kinds of services, support, food, medicines” that ordinary Yemenis need.

“We would like to see that port up and running again in a matter of months. It can be done but only with the full cooperation of both sides,” he said.
 
Steiner said the UNDP in Yemen faces financial difficulties, as the pledges for humanitarian support in Yemen were close to $3 billion this year, but less than $1.1 billion has been delivered.
 
“We will have to stop programs, we will have to cut rations, and probably in the next two to three months, 21 support programs in the country have to be stopped,” he warned.

…

Former Tehran mayor Mohammad Ali Najafi was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering his wife, the judiciary said Tuesday, after a high-profile case that received extensive media coverage.

A prominent reformist, Najafi was found guilty of shooting dead his second wife Mitra Ostad at their home in the capital on May 28, said Iran’s judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili.

According to Iranian media reports, her body was found in a bathtub after Najafi, 67, turned himself in and confessed to killing her.

“The charge sheet included premeditated murder, battery and possession of an illegal firearm,” Esmaili said, quoted by the judiciary’s official news agency Mizan Online.

“The court has established premeditated murder and passed the execution sentence,” he added.

Najafi was acquitted of the battery charge but received a two-year jail sentence for possessing the illegal firearm, the spokesman said without elaborating.

“The sentence is not yet final and can be appealed at the supreme court,” said Esmaili.

Ostad’s family had appealed for the Islamic law of retribution to be applied — an “eye for an eye” form of punishment which would see the death penalty served in this instance.

Najafi’s trial received detailed coverage in state media where scandals related to politicians rarely appear on television.

A mathematician, professor and veteran politician, Najafi had previously served as President Hassan Rouhani’s economic adviser and education minister.

He was elected Tehran mayor in August 2017, but resigned the following April after facing criticism from conservatives for attending a dance performed by schoolgirls.

Najafi married Ostad without divorcing his first wife, unusual in Iran where polygamy is legal but socially frowned upon.

Some of Iran’s ultra-conservatives said the case showed the “moral bankruptcy” of reformists, while reformists accused the conservative-dominated state television of bias in its coverage and highlighting the case for political ends.

…

A Tanzanian investigative journalist, Erick Kabendera, was abducted Monday from his home on the outskirts of Dar es salaam, the country’s business capital.

A leading Tanzanian newspaper Mwananchi reports that Kabendera who writes for local and international newspapers was abducted Monday evening by people who are said to be police officers. Police have immediately denied being involved.

The journalist’s wife Loy Kabendera, told Mwananchi newspaper that the journalist was “picked up by six people who forcibly stormed into the house and left with a Toyota Alphard” car. She said the people identified themselves as police but refused to produce their badges. They also left with cellphones belonging to Kabendera and his wife.

In November 2017 a Tanzanian journalist Azory Gwanda disappeared mysteriously while investigating a series of killings of local government officials and police officers by unidentified assailants near Kibiti in Pwani region. He has not been since.

In early July, Tanzania’s Foreign Minister Palamagamba Kabudi said during an interview with BBC that Gwanda had “disappeared and died.” He later retracted his statement.

…

Iraqi officials are displaying stolen artifacts from the country’s rich cultural heritage that were recently recovered from Britain and Sweden.

Many archaeological treasures from Iraq, home of the ancient “fertile crescent” considered the cradle of civilization, were looted during the chaos that followed the 2003 U.S. invasion and whisked out of the country.

Now Iraq is making a massive effort to bring these pieces home, working closely with the U.N. cultural organization.

The artifacts on display Monday at the foreign ministry in Baghdad include archaeological and historical items, such as pottery fragments and shards with writing dating back at least 4,000 years to the ancient Sumerian civilization.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Hakim said his country is determined to recover its lost heritage, whatever it takes.

…

The International Monetary Fund says the cumulative decline of the Venezuelan economy since 2013 will surpass 60% and is among the deepest five-year contractions the world has seen over the last half century.

Alejandro Werner is director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department. He describes the Venezuelan decline as a “historical case” because it is unprecedented in the hemisphere and also because it is the only one of the top global five-year contractions that is unrelated to armed conflicts or natural disasters.    

The IMF on Monday also adjusted its 2019 forecast for the South American country to a contraction of 35% — up from the 25% decline expected back in April — due to a sharp fall in the oil production, which has already plunged to its lowest level in seven decades. 

…

Cuban government and Communist Party officials attended funeral services for Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega on Sunday in  a testament to his success in elevating the Church’s position on the Caribbean island after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Cuban First Vice President Salvador Mesa and two other top leaders on the Communist Party Politburo attended the Requiem Mass along with other officials.

Religious leaders from other countries including Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, Puerto Rico Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez Nieves and Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley of Boston also attended the event in the colonial district’s Havana Cathedral.

Ortega, who died on Friday aged 82, was buried afterwards in the city’s Colon cemetery.

A labor camp inmate in the 1960s when Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government was rounding up religious figures and other perceived enemies, Ortega became archbishop of Havana in 1981 at a time when Cuba was still officially atheist.

For the more than three decades that followed, as Castro’s stance on the Church softened, Ortega raised its visibility and power, building a working relationship with the government thanks to his nonconfrontational style and opposition to U.S. sanctions.

Ortega earned the wrath of hardline exiles and some dissidents on the Caribbean island with his stance.

“His work helped a lot to bring closer the ideas of the Cuban government and the Catholic church,” retiree Maria Green, said, standing outside the Cathedral.

“He managed to solve many things and opened the way for many, many Cubans,” she added.

Ortega hosted three popes and negotiated the release of dozens of political prisoners in 2010 and 2011.

When Raul Castro became president in 2010, Ortega backed his attempts to open up the country and restore relations with Western nations.

At a critical moment in secret talks between Cuba and the United States that led to a detente in December 2014, it was Ortega who relayed messages among Pope Francis, Castro and then-President Barack Obama.

Ortega met with hundreds of U.S. lawmakers, religious figures and businessmen over the years.

John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, worked with Ortega in the 1990s to channel medical aid to the country and said members of his organization provided some logistics for Pope John Paul II’s historic visit in 1998.

“With Cardinal Ortega, there was never a “can’t do it,’ or ‘we must wait,’ or ‘no’,” Kavulich said.

…

Boko Haram militants killed at least 65 people at a funeral in northeastern Nigeria, local officials said Sunday, revising the earlier death toll of 23.

“It is 65 people dead and 10 injured,” said Muhammed Bulama, the local government chairman. Bulama said he thought the attack was in revenge for the killing of 11 Boko Haram fighters by the villagers two weeks ago.

Nigerians last week marked the 10-year anniversary of the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency, which has killed more than 30,000 people, displaced millions and created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. The extremists are known for mass abductions of schoolgirls and putting young women and men into suicide vests for attacks on markets, mosques and other high-traffic areas.

The insurgent group, which promotes an extreme form of Islamist fundamentalism and opposes Western-style education, has defied the claims of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration that the insurgency has been crushed. The violence also has spilled into neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

…