Month: September 2019

After a decade of booming enrollment by students from China, American universities are starting to see steep declines as political tensions between the two countries cut into a major source of tuition revenue. Several universities have reported drops of one-fifth or more this fall in the number of new students from China. To adapt, some schools are stepping up recruiting in other parts of the world and working to hold on to their share of students from China. University administrators and observers say trade conflicts and U.S. concerns about the security risks posed by visiting Chinese students appear to be accelerating a trend driven also by growing international competition, visa complications and the development of China’s own higher education system. At Bentley University in Massachusetts, the number of new Chinese…

A school collapsed in Kenya’s capital on Monday and killed at least seven children, officials said, while some outraged residents alleged shoddy construction. Two other children were in critical condition. “We were in class reading and we heard pupils and teachers screaming, and the class started collapsing and then a stone hit me on the mouth,” one survivor, 10-year-old Tracy Oduor, told The Associated Press. “When we got out of the gate we heard that pupils were dead. I feel so sad!” Parents wailed over the remains of The Precious Talent Top School in Nairobi, and hundreds of people gathered as emergency workers picked through debris. It was not clear whether anyone was trapped underneath. Government spokesman Cyrus Oguna confirmed the deaths, and Kenyatta National Hospital later said 64 children…

Authorities on Saturday identified the four Chinese tourists killed in a bus crash in southern Utah, and the tour group is dispatching employees from China to help those injured. Three women and one man perished in the crash on a highway running through the red-rock landscape of southern Utah on Friday. The victims have been identified as Ling Geng, 68, Xiuyun Chen, 67, Zhang Caiyu, 62, and Zhongliang Qiu, 65. They were all from Shanghai, China. They were part of a tour group made up of 29 tourists and one leader. They come from Shanghai and the nearby provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Heilongjiang, according to a news report on the media website huanqiu.com. The tour leader came from Hebei Province, near Beijing, according to the Zhejiang Online news site.…

Egypt’s media authority warned journalists Sunday that it was monitoring coverage to ensure they abide by “professional codes” amid a rare burst of protests against President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The warning came hours after the latest small protest was dispersed by police in clouds of tear gas. Dozens of people including children marched Saturday evening in the port city of Suez, calling for el-Sissi to step down, three witnesses told The Associated Press. Police “pursued the people in the streets ... there was lots of gas,” one resident said. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals. Dozens Arrested in Egypt After Rare Anti-Sissi ProtestsAt least 74 were arrested overnight, a security source told AFP, with plain clothed police patrolling sidestreets of downtown Cairo The protest came…

A visiting Afghan Taliban delegation held talks with senior officials in China Sunday to discuss the Islamist insurgent group’s now defunct peace negotiations with the United States. The insurgent visit comes two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump had abruptly called off his administration’s months-long peace talks, citing ongoing Taliban deadly attacks in Afghanistan. The two adversaries were believed to be on the verge of signing an agreement to end the 18-year-old Afghan war before Trump declared the peace process as “dead.” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said the nine-member delegation has traveled to Beijing under the leadership of Mullah Baradar, the head of the group’s political office in Qatar, which hosted the U.S.-Taliban talks.   Pompeo: Trump Correctly Called Off Taliban Talks The visitors’ opened their tour with a meeting…

With marching bands, drum lines, hundreds of yard signs and at least one fire truck, Democratic presidential candidates made a colorful and often loud pitch to Iowa Democrats at the Steak Fry fundraiser in Des Moines on Saturday. The event, a fundraiser for the Polk County Democratic Party and one of the biggest remaining opportunities for candidates to flex their organizing muscles in Iowa before the caucuses, comes as a number of candidates are facing an uncertain future in the race and shaking up their campaign strategies in an effort to break out of the pack. Warren gains in poll A new CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll Saturday shows Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren challenging Joe Biden’s dominance in the field. Warren stands at 22% to the former vice president’s 20% in…

The Islamic State group on Saturday claimed a bomb blast that killed 12 people near the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Karbala the previous day. The blast aboard a bus at a checkpoint north of Karbala also wounded five people, according to the city's health authorities. Security forces said Saturday that they had arrested a man suspected of placing the explosives on the bus before it disembarked. Iraq declared victory against IS in late 2017 after three years of a brutal fight against the extremist Sunni group, which had specifically targeted Shiite gatherings. Jihadist sleeper cells have continued to carry out hit-and-run attacks against government positions across the country, particularly at checkpoints, but attacks targeting Shiite religious gatherings had been rare in recent years. The deadliest incident this year was a…

Greek police said Saturday they have arrested a suspect in the 1985 hijacking of a flight from Athens that became a multiday ordeal and included the slaying of an American. Police said a 65-year-old suspect in the hijacking was arrested Thursday on the island of Mykonos in response to a warrant from Germany. Lt. Col. Theodoros Chronopoulos, a police spokesman, told The Associated Press that the hijacking case involved TWA Flight 847. The flight was commandeered by hijackers shortly after taking off from Athens on June 14, 1985. It originated in Cairo and had San Diego as a final destination, with stops scheduled in Athens, Rome, Boston and Los Angeles. FILE - While holding carnations he carried off the plane, former hostage Victor Amburgy hugs an unidentified girl upon arrival…

U.S. President Donald Trump announced new sanctions Friday on Iran's central bank, calling them the most severe sanctions ever imposed on a country. But it appears that he wants to avoid military action against Tehran, in response to recent cruise missile and drone strikes against Saudi Arabia's oil facilities. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this story.   ...

Francis Rooney is a Republican congressman from a conservative Florida district who opposes federal funding for abortions and supports President Donald Trump’s plans for construction of a wall along the Mexican border. But he also recently co-sponsored a carbon pricing bill and is one of a handful of lawmakers from his side of the aisle who have bucked orthodoxy and acknowledged human beings are responsible for global warming. The modern Republican Party is one of the few political forces in the world whose leadership denies manmade climate change, but there are now small yet perceptible signs of changes within its ranks, driven by an increase in extreme weather events and shifting public opinion. FILE - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., second from left, poses during a ceremonial swearing-in with…

The United States said it is deeply disappointed in Kiribati's decision to abandon its diplomatic ties with Taiwan, in favor of China. Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers voiced grave concerns. A Senate panel plans to move forward with a congressional proposal that could “impose consequences on nations downgrading ties with Taiwan.” In a stern statement on Friday, a State Department spokesperson said "countries that establish closer ties to China primarily out of the hope or expectation that such a step will stimulate economic growth and infrastructure development often find themselves worse off in the long run." The spokesperson said the U.S. supports the status quo in cross-Strait relations, which includes Taiwan's diplomatic ties and international space, as important to maintaining peace and stability in the region. "China's active campaign to…

The Zimbabwean doctor whose disappearance sparked off a wave of doctors’ protests across the country, has reappeared, alive. Speaking Thursday on VOA Zimbabwe Service’s Livetalk program, a disoriented-sounding Dr. Peter Magombeyi, the president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association, confirmed he was the one on the other end of the phone. “I honestly don’t know how to truly identify myself, but I am Dr. Peter Magombeyi, I work at Harare Hospital,” he said. The doctor, who had been spearheading calls for an increase of doctors’ salaries when he disappeared on September 15, said he could not remember exactly what happened to him or how he ended up where he was — an area called Nyabira, about 33 kilometers from Harare. “That part I’m just so vague about, I need time…

Sound checks echoed from a distant main stage while Daniel Martinez whirled and danced at dusty makeshift festival grounds just after sunset in Rachel, the Nevada town closest to the once-secret Area 51 military base. Martinez's muse was the thumping beat from a satellite set-up pumping a techno tune into the chilly desert night Thursday. Warm beneath a wolf “spirit hood” and matching faux fur jacket, the 31-year-old Pokemon collectible cards dealer said people, not the military base, drew him drive more than six hours from Pomona, California, alone. “Here's a big open space for people to be,” he said. “One person starts something and it infects everybody with positivity. Anything can happen if you give people a place to be.” Minutes later, the music group Wily Savage started, and…

More than 1,000 United Nations employees have called for the global body to reduce its carbon footprint, including through curbs on their own diplomatic perks like business-class flights and travel handouts, a letter obtained by Reuters showed. The United Nations calls climate change the "defining issue of our time" and is hosting a New York summit on it next week. But reformers within say in the letter addressed to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that it needs more radical change to get its own house in order. "Our commitments need to be more ambitious and at least as concrete as those of the UN Member States and non-party stakeholders attending the UN Climate Action Summit," said the letter, signed by more than 1,000 employees. It was organized by a group called Young…

A team of French diggers has restored three Sudanese artifacts, including a 3,500-year-old wall relief, and it handed them to the African country's national museum Thursday, a French archaeologist said.    The three artifacts were discovered at separate archaeological sites in recent years in Sudan and were restored by a French team of experts.    The items are a wall painting of an ancient Kandaka Nubian queen, a Meroite stela and a wall relief inscription believed to be almost 3,500 years old.  A stela, discovered at Sedeinga pyramids, is displayed at the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum, Sept. 19, 2019. "The idea is to give back to the museum the most important archaeological pieces discovered and restored," said Marc Maillot, director of the French archaeological unit deployed in Sudan.    The wall painting…

Any attack on Iran by the U.S. or Saudi Arabia will spark an “all-out war,” Tehran’s top diplomat warned Thursday, raising the stakes as Washington and Riyadh weigh a response to a drone-and-missile strike on the kingdom’s oil industry that shook global energy markets. The comments by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif represented the starkest warning yet by Iran in a long summer of mysterious attacks and incidents following the collapse of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, more than a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the accord. They appeared to be aimed directly at U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who while on a trip to the region earlier referred to Saturday’s attack in Saudi Arabia as an “act of war.” Pompeo Visits…

Chinese tech giant Huawei launched its latest high-end smartphone in Munich on Thursday, the first of its mobile devices not to carry popular Google apps because of U.S. sanctions. "Today because of the U.S. ban ... we cannot pre-install" Google's applications, said Richard Yu, who heads Huawei's consumer business group, as he unveiled the group's latest Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro models. But heading off fears that a phone without popular apps like Whatsapp, YouTube or Google Maps could not succeed, he stressed that the equivalent platform by the Chinese giant offered a choice of 45,000 apps through the Huawei App Gallery. Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer business group, speaks on stage during a presentation to reveal Huawei's latest smartphones Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro in Munich,…

In a hearing Wednesday to examine the spread of extremism online and the effectiveness of measures taken to prevent violent content, leaders from Facebook, Twitter and Google faced tough questions from U.S. lawmakers, accentuating the positive steps taken, while acknowledging the work remaining. Policy representatives from the social media giants told members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that their companies had made significant progress in curbing bigotry and extremist content on their platforms. Senators suggested the companies could do much more, however, as part of their "digital responsibility" to prevent terrorists and extremists from using the internet to encourage violence. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., takes the stage during a rally in Tupelo, Miss., Nov. 26, 2018. "No matter how great the benefits to society these platforms provide, it is important…

The border wall literally became President Donald Trump’s signature project Wednesday. Trump used a permanent marker to sign a new portion of the rust-colored metal barrier, reinforced with concrete and rebar, rising as high as 9 meters at Otay Mesa, a suburb of San Diego that separates California from Tijuana, Mexico. “It is really virtually impenetrable,” Trump declared. “There are thousands of people over there that were trying to get in” before this portion of the barricade went up, said Trump, who described the work he inspected Wednesday afternoon as “pretty amazing.” “The wall does not answer the crisis at the border today,” said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the New York office of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “The situation at the border today is not people sneaking in. The…

Canadian leader Justin Trudeau's campaign for national elections was hit Wednesday by the publication of a yearbook photo showing him in brownface makeup at a costume party in 2001. Time magazine posted the photo, which it says was published in the yearbook from the West Point Grey Academy, a private school in British Columbia where Trudeau worked as a teacher before entering politics. The photo depicts Trudeau wearing a turban and robe, with dark makeup on his hands, face and neck. Liberal Party spokesman Cameron Ahmad confirmed the photo is of Trudeau. He says it was taken at the school's annual dinner which had an "Arabian Nights" theme that year. Trudeau was dressed as a character from "Aladdin." Trudeau, who launched his re-election campaign exactly one week ago, said he…

Nigeria's frenetic commercial capital, Lagos, is plunged into darkness several times a day. Then its generators roar, and the lights flood back on. Nigeria is one of the world's largest economies where businesses rely so heavily on diesel-powered generators. More than 70% of its firms own or share the units, while government data shows generators provide at least 14 gigawatts of power annually, dwarfing the 4 gigawatts supplied on average by the country's electricity grid. The machines guzzle cash and spew pollution, but they are reliable in a nation where nearly 80 million people - some 40% of the population - have no access to grid power. Now diesel costs could spike globally, and many businesses are not prepared. Diesel prices are expected to surge as United Nations rules aimed…

A judge cleared the way Tuesday for OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to stay in business while it pursues bankruptcy protection and settlement of more than 2,600 lawsuits filed against it in a reckoning over the opioid crisis. At the first court hearing since the Chapter 11 filing late Sunday, Purdue lawyers secured permission for the multibillion-dollar company based in Stamford, Connecticut, to maintain business as usual — paying employees and vendors, supplying pills to distributors, and keeping current on taxes and insurance. The continued viability of Purdue is a key component of the company's settlement offer, which could be worth up to $12 billion over time. Under the proposal, backed by about half the states, the Sackler family, which owns Purdue, would turn the company, its assets and more than…

International Criminal Court judges said Tuesday that the court's prosecutor can appeal against the rejection of her request to open an investigation into crimes linked to the long-running conflict in Afghanistan. In April, a panel of judges rejected the proposed investigation, saying it would not be in the interests of justice because an investigation and prosecution were unlikely to be successful as those targeted — including the United States, Afghan authorities and the Taliban — are not expected to cooperate. Seeking leave to appeal, Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that reasoning ran contrary to the court's goal of prosecuting grave crimes when national authorities are unwilling or unable to do so. Bensouda must now file a detailed appeal that will be considered by judges, a process likely to take months. FILE…

The recent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s crude oil hub at the Abqaiq and Khurais production facilities reveal that even a nation with a sophisticated military and a massive defense budget is still vulnerable to drone strikes. The United States says satellite images and intelligence information show Iranian weapons were used in the aerial attacks that have shut down half of the kingdom’s oil production. Security experts say this latest incident sparks growing concern over the rapid evolution of technologies expanding drones’ offensive capabilities.   Unidentified U.S. officials have been telling Western media that more than a dozen attacks targeted the installations from a west-northwest direction and not from the southwest as claimed by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen who said they carried out the coordinated assault.    In July, the…

It may be possible to help tackle climate change while still munching on the occasional bacon sandwich or slurping a few oysters, a new study suggested on Tuesday. Scientists found that diets in which meat, fish or dairy products were consumed only once a day would leave less of a footprint on climate change and water supplies than a vegetarian diet including milk and eggs, in 95% of countries they analysed. That is partly because raising dairy cows for milk, butter and cheese requires large amounts of energy and land, as well as fertilisers and pesticides to grow fodder, emitting greenhouse gases that are heating up the planet, the study said. Diets that contain insects, small fish and molluscs, meanwhile, have as similarly small an environmental impact as plant-based vegan…

Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani escaped an attack on his campaign rally in Parwan province that killed 24 people and wounded more than 30 others Tuesday. The president was about to address the rally when a suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated his explosives near the military facility where the gathering was held. Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesman for Afghan Ministry of Interior, tweeted that no one inside the building was harmed and the rally continued after the incident. Qasim Sangeen, the head of Parwan provincial hospital told VOA bodies of the dead and wounded had been taken to a provincial hospital. The Afghan Taliban have taken responsibility for the attack, warning people to stay away from rallies and election related gatherings, promising to carry out further attacks on election activity. “If…

Colombia will increase protection for political candidates running in October's local and regional elections after the murders of seven aspirants, President Ivan Duque said on Monday. The killings have sparked renewed calls for more to be done to prevent political violence in the country, where hundreds of community leaders and human rights activists have also been murdered. Some 117,000 people are running for provincial governorships, mayorships and seats on provincial legislatures and local councils in the Oct. 27 contests. Two hundred and thirty-six of them have some level of protection from the National Protection Unit. "We have spoken today with all of the parties to strengthen protection measures, so the National Protection Unit (UNP) can respond with more speed to the requests, but it also shows there have been significant…

The nation’s worst measles epidemic in 27 years could be in its final stages as a week went by with no new reported cases. “To get to zero is tremendously encouraging,” said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University expert on vaccination policy. The current epidemic emerged about a year ago and took off earlier this year, with most of the cases reported in Orthodox Jewish communities in and around New York City. It started with travelers who had become infected overseas but spread quickly among unvaccinated people. In the spring, 70 or more new cases were being reported every week. Not long ago, the nation that saw that many measles cases in a whole year. So far this year, 1,241 cases have been confirmed — a number that didn’t rise last…