Category: Technology

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…

World leaders meeting at the United Nations General Assembly, which begins Tuesday in New York, must make nuclear arms control a priority, according to a group of over 100 political, military and diplomatic figures. They have issued a statement warning that the risks of nuclear accident, misjudgment or miscalculation have not been higher since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. ...

Several Democratic presidential candidates on Sunday lined up to call for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the face of a new, uninvestigated, allegation of sexual impropriety when he was in college. Kavanaugh was confirmed last October after emotional hearings in the Senate over a sexual assault allegation from his high school years. The New York Times now reports that Kavanaugh faced a separate allegation from his time at Yale University and that the FBI did not investigate the claim. The latest claim mirrors one offered during his confirmation process by Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate who claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drunken party. When he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Kavanaugh denied all allegations of impropriety . Sen. Kamala Harris,…

Visiting a black church bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in the civil rights era, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Sunday the country hasn’t “relegated racism and white supremacy to the pages of history” as he framed current tensions in the context of the movement’s historic struggle for equality. He spoke to parishioners at 16th Street Baptist Church in downtown Birmingham as they commemorated the 56th anniversary of the bombing that killed four black girls in 1963. “It’s in the wake of these before-and-after moments when the choice between good and evil is starkest,” he said. The former vice president called out the names of the victims — Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. He drew nods of affirmation as he warned that “the same…

Roughly 49,000 workers at General Motors plants in the U.S. plan to go on strike just before midnight Sunday, but talks between the United Auto Workers and the automaker will resume. About 200 plant-level union leaders voted unanimously in favor of a walkout during a meeting Sunday morning in Detroit. Union leaders said the sides were still far apart on several major issues and they apparently weren’t swayed by a GM offer to make new products at or near two of the four plants it had been planning to close, according to someone briefed on the matter. “We stood up for General Motors when they needed us most,” union Vice President Terry Dittes said in a statement, referring to union concessions that helped GM survive bankruptcy protection in 2009. “Now…

Tropical Storm Humberto is expected to become a hurricane Sunday as it slowly strengthens to the north of the Bahamas, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Weather forecasters have not issued any coastal watches or warnings for the storm that is moving north-northwest with maximum sustained winds of 95 kilometer per hour. NHC said late Saturday “the center of Humberto should continue to move well offshore of the east coast of Florida during the next day or so and then move away from the U.S.” The NHC added that “swells generated by Humberto are expected to affect the northwestern Bahamas, and the coast of the U.S. from east-central Florida to North Carolina during the next few days.” The center warned that the “swells could cause life-threatening surf and rip…

A watery grave of old sunken ships has been designated the newest national marine sanctuary in the United States. Located in Maryland about 60 kilometers south of Washington, the "ghost fleet" rises like an apparition out of the water when the tide is low. VOA's Deborah Block takes us to this underwater park with ships going back more than one hundred years.   ...

Selecting a college or university from the thousands in the U.S. can be mind-boggling. Many applicants turn to a web search to find rankings of the “best” colleges and will find U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, Princeton Review, and Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education ranking sites, to name a few. Are those rankings and lists accurate, though, and, more importantly, are those “top” schools the best for you? U.S. News & World Report published its first “America’s Best Colleges” report in 1983, and many schools use those rankings to promote themselves. However, some educators have questioned the published rankings and how useful they are. Experts rank college rankings Ray Anderson is a former high school principal who works with AGM-College Advisors in Virginia. Anderson says that while he uses…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday confirmed that Hamza bin Laden, the son and designated heir of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, was killed in a counter-terrorism operation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. "The loss of Hamza bin Laden not only deprives Al-Qaida of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to his father, but undermines important operational activities of the group," Trump said in a statement issued by the White House. U.S. media reported in early August, citing intelligence officials, that the younger Bin Laden had been killed sometime in the last two years in an operation that involved the United States. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper confirmed the death later last month, saying it was "his understanding" that Bin Laden was dead, but Trump and other senior officials had…

Italy has agreed to allow rescue ship Ocean Viking to disembark 82 migrants in the southern port of Lampedusa, the SOS Mediterranee charity which runs the vessel said Saturday. "The Ocean Viking just received instructions from the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre of Rome to proceed to Lampedusa," SOS Mediterranee tweeted. "An ad hoc European agreement between Italy, France, Germany, Portugal and Luxembourg has been reached to allow the landing," said French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, referring to the division of the migrants between the five countries. "We now need to agree on a genuine temporary European mechanism." Castaner added. The Ocean Viking was on its second mission and was shuttling between Malta and Italy for nearly two weeks, seeking a port to land the migrants. Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without…

The International Organization for Migration reports it has repatriated 127 African and Asian migrants stranded in Libya under difficult, brutal conditions. Tripoli’s Mitiga International airport was shut down last Sunday after being hit by missiles. For safety reasons, IOM’s chartered plane with 127 migrants aboard took off earlier this week from Misrata, about a two-hour drive east of the Libyan capital. From there, the passengers, which included women and children, flew to Istanbul and then onwards to their home countries.  Missions from 15 countries in Africa and Asia, including Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Bangladesh and Egypt were involved in the complex, risky operation. IOM spokeswoman, Safa Msehli told VOA stranded migrants is a reference to those those who either are held in Libyan detention centers or are living freely…

The leaders of South Sudan and Sudan have agreed to reopen border areas between their countries in a bid to boost trade and the free movement of people. The agreement between new Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, reached late Thursday, is significant because several border areas remain closed, including Heglig in South Sudan’s former Unity State, Kafiakinji in Raja in South Sudan, and El-Khurasana in Sudan’s Western Kordofan state. South Sudan's deputy minister of foreign affairs, Deng Dau Deng, said he and Sudan's foreign minister, Asma Mohamed Abdalla, touched on the disputed, oil-producing region of Abyei during their talks.   “Of course the issue of Abyei is a fundamental issue because we want a final status on the resolution on the conflict of Abyei.…

The Ukrainian president's envoy for peace talks with Russia-backed separatists expressed concern Friday that the leaders of France and Germany will push Ukraine to make unacceptable concessions to Russia. Ukraine and Russia have been locked in a bitter standoff since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and threw its weight behind separatists in eastern Ukraine. Hopes for a solution to the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has claimed more than 13,000 lives, were revived after political novice Volodymyr Zelenskiy was elected Ukrainian president in April. FILE - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a meeting with law enforcement officers in Kyiv, Ukraine, July 23, 2019. But his envoy, Leonid Kuchma, told The Associated Press he is concerned that France and Germany, who are mediating the talks, will push…

Renan Toussaint in Port au Prince, Jean Robert Philippe and Jacquelin Belizaire in Washington contributed to this report WASHINGTON / PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI - Haitian Senator Willot Joseph, a member of the ruling PHTK party (Pati Ayisyen Tet Kale), admitted Friday that he accepted a $100,000 bribe from Prime Minister-Designate Fritz William Michel in exchange for a yes vote on his nomination. The stunning admission was made during an interview with Haitian news site Gazette Haiti. Parlement/Corruption/ Affaire 100 000 us:- Le Sénateur Wilot Joseph dont le nom est cité dans ce scandale n'y voit aucun inconvénient. Pour le Sénateur qui répondait à un Journaliste de RCH 2000, il n'est pas question de refuser de l'argent en ces temps si durs. pic.twitter.com/oo9GzeAXEE— Gazette Haiti (@GazetteHaiti) September 13, 2019 "I don't have…

A tropical cyclone was forecast to move across the northwestern Bahamas in the coming days, potentially bringing more rain and wind to islands already devastated by Hurricane Dorian, the U.S. National Hurricane Center warned on Thursday.  The Miami-based hurricane center issued a tropical storm warning for islands including hurricane-hit Abacos and Grand Bahama, saying the system could become a tropical depression or storm before making landfall as early as Friday.  Hurricane Dorian slammed into the Bahamas on Sept. 1 as a  Category 5 storm, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record to hit land, packing top sustained winds of 185 miles per hour (298 km per hour).  The tropical cyclone was not expected to bring anywhere near that level of devastation, but was capable of winds of 30 miles per hour and 2 to 4 inches of rain through Sunday, according to the hurricane center.  Aid…

U.S. President Donald Trump has arrived in Baltimore, the eastern U.S., majority-black city he recently called a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess'' where "no human being would want to live.'' Trump was there Thursday to address Republican congressional leaders attending an annual retreat. Before he left the White House, Trump ignored a reporter's question about what he would say to the residents of the city, instead saying only that it was going to be "a very successful evening." Demonstrators gather near the U.S. House Republican Member Retreat where President Donald Trump is speaking, in Baltimore, Sept. 12, 2019. Ahead of the president's visit, activist groups planned to protest "racism, white supremacy, war, bigotry and climate change," organizers told The Baltimore Sun. On Thursday, several hundred protesters lined the route…