Month: July 2019

Thailand's new civilian government will retain the power to arbitrarily detain critics despite the imminent easing of junta-era security controls, prompting warnings from rights groups of enduring "martial law". Nearly 2,000 people have been tried in military courts since now-prime minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power in a 2014 coup. The junta eased a ban on political activities last year in the run-up to national elections and the former army chief phased out dozens of additional junta-enacted orders Tuesday, transferring military cases to civilian courts. But the government retained over 100 orders -- including the right for the military to detain suspects for seven days on national security grounds. "This is martial law used during an emergency crisis, but we've had elections and a new government so why is it still…

Wealthy American financier Jeffrey Epstein, charged with sex trafficking in underage girls, is now confined to a cell in a fortress-like concrete tower jail that has been criticized by inmates and lawyers for harsh conditions. After his arrest on Saturday at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport on arrival from Paris in his private plane, Epstein was likely put in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan, according to defense lawyers and others familiar with the jail. “When you have someone that’s allegedly a sexual predator like Jeffrey Epstein, he’ll need to be in protective custody,” Andrew Laufer, a lawyer who has represented MCC inmates in civil lawsuits against prison officials, said in an interview. Epstein pleaded not guilty in the nearby federal court on Monday to one…

Spain’s Socialists said on Tuesday they would give up trying to install their leader Pedro Sanchez as prime minister if he fails to win two investiture votes this month, raising the prospect of yet another parliamentary election. Those comments compounded the tension in already fraught relations among Spain’s main political parties, which blame each other for the fact that there is still no government in place two and a half months after the election. Sanchez, who came to power in June 2018 after parliament ousted a conservative government over a fraud scandal, is currently acting prime minister after his party won April elections but without enough seats to govern on its own. The Socialists’ most likely ally for a July 23 investiture vote is far-left Unidas Podemos, but its leader…

Mexico's moderate Finance Minister Carlos Urzua resigned on Tuesday with a letter that shocked markets by citing "extremism" in economic policy, before President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador quickly named a well-regarded deputy minister to replace him. In the unusually strongly worded resignation note made public on his Twitter account, Urzua said the government was forming economic policy without sufficient foundation. "I'm convinced that economic policy should always be evidence-based, careful of potential impacts and free of extremism, either from the right or the left," Urzua wrote. "These convictions did not resonate during my tenure in this administration," Urzua said. He also said there were what he called conflicts of interest in the appointment of some ministry officials imposed on him by influential members of the government. He did not give…

A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled President Donald Trump cannot silence critics on his Twitter account, maintaining that blocking them violates the Constitution's right to free speech. The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled in a 3-0 decision Tuesday the First Amendment prohibits Trump from blocking critics from his account, a public platform. On behalf of the three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote "The First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees." Trump has used his Twitter account, which has more than 60-million followers, to promote his agenda and to attack critics. The court ruled on a…

Lawmakers must pass legislation easing "abhorrent conditions" facing children held at the southern border, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday as she tried taking the offensive on an issue that badly split Democrats and has raised questions about their unity on other issues.   Pelosi, D-Calif., tried rallying Democrats against a common foe — Republicans led by President Donald Trump — less than two weeks after a $4.6 billion border bill drove a bitter rift into her party. Although the measure passed Congress easily and became law, many House progressives and Hispanics voted "no" because they said the measure lacked real controls on how the government must handle children, while the party's moderates and senators said the measure was the best compromise they could craft with the GOP-run Senate.  …

Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro is among the least popular since the country's return to democracy three decades ago, but his rating in a poll released on Monday showed his numbers stabilizing. The Datafolha polling institute found that 33% of respondents said Bolsonaro was doing a "great or good" job. That is technically tied with the 32% in an April Datafolha poll. Those who think Bolsonaro is doing a "bad or awful" job rose to 33% from 30% in the April poll. The latest polls show Bolsonaro technically tied with former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso as the leader with the least support at this point in his first term. Thirty-four percent of those asked by Datafolha in June 1995 thought Cardoso was doing "good or great." The poll of 2,086…

Aficionados of Western classical music have carved out a niche for themselves in Iran, where cultural expression remains tightly controlled by strict rules imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And perhaps surprisingly, musicians in their 20s and 30s perform for overwhelmingly young audiences. Last week, the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, including female musicians in burgundy headscarves on cello, horn and harp, played works by 19th-century Russian composers for an enraptured crowd in the capital's main concert venue, Vahdat Hall. A major draw is Shahrdad Rohani, 65, the orchestra's charismatic music director. The Iranian-American composer, musician and conductor who has led orchestras in the United States and Europe, said he is proud of his homegrown crop of young musicians. Iranian American maestro Shahrdad Rohani conducts the Tehran Symphony Orchestra at Unity Hall,…

The first Democratic presidential debate for the 2020 elections brought a decades-old civil rights issue back into the public spotlight: whether to bus children to racially integrate schools. One of the most defining moments of the debate came when U.S. Senator Kamala Harris challenged former Vice President Joe Biden's record for not supporting the type of busing that she experienced as a black schoolgirl in California. The exchange garnered headlines and brought the topic of busing, which had been a national issue in the 1970s but had largely fallen out of the public conversation, back into the spotlight. Democratic presidential hopeful US Senator for California Kamala Harris speaks to the press in the Spin Room after the second Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign. What is busing? Busing…

When people are recovering from an illness or injury, they often don't think of nutrition, but it may be key to getting their health back. When Monika McComb returned home from the hospital, she didn't think about nutrition as being essential for a full recovery.    “I was really, really weak. I could hardly even walk with a cane,” McComb said.  McComb didn't associate her weakness with malnutrition until she was evaluated; but, researchers from Advocate Health Care and Abbott were conducting a study to evaluate the role nutrition plays in reducing hospital admissions.  Suela Sulo, a researcher from Abbott, says malnutrition is rarely taken into account in dealing with patients who are in recovery. "Malnutrition is invisible to the eye, and therefore it remains under diagnosed and underrated,” Sulo said. …

A 50-member delegation of Afghan elites is in Qatar for peace talks with Taliban leaders, with the hopes of ending the 18-year-long conflict in Afghanistan. The two-day summit, facilitated by Germany and Qatar, is an “historic opportunity for all of them to bridge trust deficit, which will help pave the way for direct peace negotiations between Afghan government and the Taliban,” said Asadullah Zaeri, a spokesman of the country’s High Peace Council. The delegation includes politicians, top members of the council, representatives of women’s groups and senior journalists, he said. Although both sides have emphasized that members of Afghan government are attending in their personal capacity, not representing Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government, their presence makes this conference different from the intra-Afghan conference in Moscow in April. At that gathering,…

Iraq's security and paramilitary forces began Sunday a military operation along the border with Syria aimed at clearing the area of Islamic State group militants, the military said in a statement. Although Iraq declared victory against IS in July 2017, the extremists have turned into an insurgency and have carried out deadly attacks in the country. The military said the operation that began at sunrise was being carried out by Iraqi troops and members of the Popular Mobilization Forces that largely consist of Iran-backed militias. It said the operation will last several days and was the first phase of the Will of Victory Operation securing the western province of Anbar and the central and northern regions of Salahuddin and Nineveh. "We press on the hands of our heroic forces that…

She vowed to stay out of politics and even dropped the French far right's signature name - Le Pen - from her moniker. But Marion Marechal, a former star lawmaker who's still only in her 20s, is now tip-toeing back into the political arena, and is already causing trouble. Widely seen as a potential party leader, the 29-year-old's discreet meetings in recent days to build bridges with enemy conservatives, crippled by their crushing defeat in European Parliament elections, are further unsettling the mainstream right. The forays into forbidden territory by the woman once voted the most popular in the far-right National Rally party (formerly the National Front) led by her aunt, Marine Le Pen, have also raised questions about Marechal's political intentions - and whether a new war within the…

African leaders met on Sunday to launch a continental free-trade zone that if successful would unite 1.3 billion people, create a $3.4 trillion economic bloc and usher in a new era of development. After four years of talks, an agreement to form a 55-nation trade bloc was reached in March, paving the way for Sunday's African Union summit in Niger where attendees will unveil which nation will host the trade zone's headquarters, when trading will start and discuss how exactly it will work. It is hoped that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) — the largest since the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994 — will help unlock Africa's long-stymied economic potential by boosting intra-regional trade, strengthening supply chains and spreading expertise. "The eyes of the world are turned…

A life-size rough wooden sculpture of U.S. first lady Melania Trump was unveiled Friday near her hometown of Sevnica in southeastern Slovenia.  Commissioned by Berlin-based American artist Brad Downey and carved with a chainsaw by local folk artist Ales Zupevc, the statue serves as a perhaps wry accompaniment to Downey's exhibition in the capital, Ljubljana, exploring Melania's roots in the small Alpine country.  The blocky, rustic figure was cut from the trunk of a living linden tree whose base forms a tall plinth, in a field beside the Sava River in Rozno, eight kilometers (five miles) from Sevnica.    There was no attempt to create an accurate likeness, to the point that the gallery in Ljubljana appears uncertain how seriously to take the statue.   The blocky figure of Melania Trump was cut from the trunk of…

An apparent gas explosion at a shopping plaza in Plantation, Florida, injured several people on Saturday, authorities and local media reported. Video posted to Twitter showed the force of the blast scattered debris across a parking lot and blew out several windows at a nearby L.A. Fitness gym, sending patrons running for the exits. The Plantation fire department said on Twitter that there were multiple patients being treated at the scene. The Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported that witnesses said a vacant restaurant appeared to be the source of the explosion. The city of Plantation is about 6 miles west of Fort Lauderdale.   ...

A war monitor and first responders group say an airstrike has killed at least 13 people in a village in northwestern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the dead, most of them internally displaced persons, include seven children and three women. They died on Saturday in a Syrian government airstrike on the village of Mhambel in the province of Idlib.   Opposition-allied first responders known as the White Helmets also reported the attack and the casualties.   Idlib is the last major rebel stronghold in Syria's eight-year civil war. Government troops backed by Russia have been using heavy airstrikes in their campaign to take the area in the past months.   ...

Iraq is celebrating the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's decision to name the historic city of Babylon a World Heritage Site in a vote in Azerbaijan. Friday's vote comes after Iraq bid for years for Babylon to be added to the list of World Heritage Sites. The city on the Euphrates River is about 85 kilometers (55 miles) south of Baghdad. The 4,300-year-old Babylon, now mainly an archaeological ruin and two important museums, is where dynasties have risen and have fallen since the earliest days of settled human civilization. Parliament speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi and Minister of Culture Abdul-Amir al-Hamadani congratulated the Iraqi people on the announcement. The vote comes years after the Islamic State group damaged another Iraq World Heritage site in the country's north, the ancient city of Hatra.  …

The U.S. coal industry sank deeper this week as the nation's sixth-largest coal company declared bankruptcy. Though the Trump administration has taken measures aimed at supporting coal, six of the 10 largest coal companies have gone bankrupt since 2014. Blackjewel LLC's Chapter 11 filing comes just weeks after the No. 3 producer, Cloud Peak Energy, declared bankruptcy.  The coal industry has been pummeled as electric utilities switch from coal-fired power to cleaner, cheaper natural gas and renewable energy.  It is good news for the climate and public health. Burning coal produces more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants than other fuels.  But the trend has been devastating for the coal industry and its employees.  Blackjewel, a subsidiary of Revelation Energy, employed about 1,700 workers in four states, including Kentucky, Virginia, West…

Marilyne Tatang, 23, crossed nine borders in two months to reach Mexico from the West African nation of Cameroon, fleeing political violence after police torched her house, she said. She plans soon to take a bus north for four days and then cross a 10th border, into the United States. She is not alone, a record number of fellow Africans are flying to South America and then traversing thousands of miles of highway and a treacherous tropical rainforest to reach the United States. Tatang, who is eight months pregnant, took a raft across a river into Mexico on June 8, a day after Mexico struck a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump to do more to control the biggest flows of migrants heading north to the U.S. border in more…

America’s annual Independence Day is celebrated a bit differently in Washington, D.C., this year, with a display of military might and a speech about patriotism by U.S. President Donald Trump. The event draws Trump supporters, as well as protesters who accuse the president of politicizing a nonpartisan holiday and wasting taxpayer money. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story. ...

A single cigarette may have started the April fire that destroyed much of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  Flames tore through the global tourist destination as firefighters struggled to find and extinguish their source.  German authorities want to make sure what happened in France, doesn't happen there.  Arash Arabasadi has more. ...

The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has plunged from a record high to a record low in just three years, according to a new report released this week by the U.S. space agency NASA. Faith Lapidus reports scientists are not sure why. ...

Vietnamese manufacturers should use domestically-sourced raw materials to avoid incurring U.S. tariffs, Vietnam's foreign ministry said on Thursday, days after Washington said it would impose large duties on some steel products shipped through the Southeast Asian country. The U.S. Commerce Department said on Tuesday it would slap tariffs of up to 456% on certain steel produced in South Korea or Taiwan which are then shipped to Vietnam for minor processing and finally exported to the United States. "The Ministry of Industry and Trade has warned local companies about possible moves by importing countries, including the United States, to apply stricter requirements in trade protection cases," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said at a routine news conference in Hanoi. Vietnamese companies should consider business strategies that include switching to…

When David landed an assembly line job at Volkswagen’s Bratislava factory, his colleagues congratulated him on securing a well-paid position he could ride to retirement. Two years later, he is among the 3,000 workers being laid off at the plant that produces the Volkswagen Touareg and Porsche Cayenne in a round of job cuts that has sent shockwaves through Slovakia, the world’s biggest car producer per capita. “All my colleagues were saying there’s nothing to worry about, if I get used to the work load and work pace, the salary will gradually increase and I will have a stable job until retirement,” said David, who declined to give his last name. “And suddenly I get a call from human resources and learn that I’m being let go.” The job losses…

India said on Thursday it needs $330 billion in investments over the next decade to power its renewable energy dream, but coal would remain central to its electricity generation. The energy guzzling country wants to raise its renewable energy capacity to 500 Gigawatts (GW), or 40% of total capacity, by 2030. Renewables currently account for 22% of India's total installed capacity of about 357 GW. "Additional investments in renewable plants up to year 2022 would be about $80 billion at today's prices and an investment of around $250 billion would be required for the period 2023-2030," according to the government's economic survey presented to parliament on Thursday. India wants to have 175 GW of renewable-based installed power capacity by 2022.  The investment estimate reflects the magnitude of financial challenges facing…

The White House is blasting a Seattle judge's ruling that says the Trump administration can't indefinitely lock up migrants who are seeking asylum without giving them a chance to be released on bond. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman on Tuesday blocked a new administration policy saying that asylum-seekers will no longer get bond hearings but instead must remain in custody as they pursue their claims.    She said it's unconstitutional for the government to detain people without demonstrating it's necessary. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement Wednesday calling the ruling "at war with the rule of law." She says it "only incentivizes smugglers and traffickers." American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Michael Tan says the ruling "upholds the law against this administration's ongoing attempts to violate it."  …

This story originated in VOA's Ukrainian service. A spate of GPS disruptions at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport has confirmed what several prominent tech analysts have long feared: that Western nations, and the U.S. in particular, are unusually vulnerable to foreign meddling with location-based technology.    Most location-based software programs, such as the U.S.'s Global Positioning System (GPS), the European Union's Galileo, China's BeiDou and Russia's Glonass, depend on the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), the vast network of international satellites orbiting the Earth.    The technology plays an integral part in our everyday lives, affecting such things as personal phone use, car navigation, international shipping, air travel, power grids, financial markets, and law enforcement and emergency response services. It's also vital to military operations.    So it is no surprise that authorities were alarmed last week when…