President Donald Trump has abandoned his fight with Congress over slashing $4 billion in foreign aid and will allow the appropriated funds to be spent. But the State Department says it agreed with the White House to “redirect all funding that does not directly support our priorities.” VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington.
VOA State Department Correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this report.
WHITE HOUSE — The trade war between Washington and Beijing further escalated Friday.
The United States will additionally hike tariffs on Chinese products, President Donald Trump announced.
Terming China’s announcement Friday of additional tariffs on $75 billion worth of American products “politically motivated,” Trump said he is retaliating by increasing the 25% tax, effective October 1, on $250 billion on goods of products from China to 30%.
Additionally, Trump announced on Twitter, the tariffs on the remaining $300 billion of Chinese goods to be imposed September 1 will rise from the 10% level to 15%.
….Sadly, past Administrations have allowed China to get so far ahead of Fair and Balanced Trade that it has become a great burden to the American Taxpayer. As President, I can no longer allow this to happen! In the spirit of achieving Fair Trade, we must Balance this very….
…Additionally, the remaining 300 BILLION DOLLARS of goods and products from China, that was being taxed from September 1st at 10%, will now be taxed at 15%. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Trade talks between the United States and China are tentatively set to resume next month in Washington.
VOA asked Trump Friday night if he still wanted those negotiations to proceed.
“At this moment they want to do that,” the president replied before he boarded the Marine One helicopter for the start of his trip to the G-7 leaders’ summit in France. “I’m always open to talks.”
FILE – China Shipping Company containers are stacked at the Virginia International’s terminal in Portsmouth, Va., May 10, 2019.
Ordering companies to leave China
Hours earlier, Trump declared he is “ordering” American companies “to immediately start looking for alternatives to China” after Beijing announced it is raising tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. goods and resuming 25% tariffs on American autos, in retaliation against Trump’s September 1 duty increase.
In a series of tweets, the U.S. president said the companies should bring their manufacturing home.
Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years. They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won’t let that happen! We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far….
Asked, as he departed the White House, under what authority he could do that, Trump told reporters to look up the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, enacted in 1977, which authorizes the president to regulate international commerce after declaring a national emergency in response to extraordinary threats originating outside the United States.
“I have the absolute right to do that,” Trump stated.
FILE – Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell speaks at a news conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, May 1, 2019, in Washington.
Markets drop
The escalating trade war unsettled markets Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average of the New York Stock Exchange closed down more than 620 points, a loss of 2.37%.
Trump, before boarding the helicopter Friday night, brushed off the plunge in share prices, saying that since the time of his November 2016 election “we’re up 50 percent or more.”
Trump, earlier on Twitter, also criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, both before and after he made a closely watched speech at the institution’s annual symposium in the state of Wyoming.
Powell indicated that the Federal Reserve, which cut interest rates last month for the first time in a decade, is willing to make another reduction to keep the U.S. economy growing, but he did not specify the amount or the timing of such action.
That angered the president, who tweeted: “As usual, the Fed did NOTHING! It is incredible that they can speak’ without knowing or asking what I am doing, which will be announced shortly.” The president then added: “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or (Chinese Communist Party) Chairman Xi?”
Xi is also China’s president.
Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years. They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won’t let that happen! We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far….
Trump has repeatedly referred to Xi as a friend and touted his relationship with Xi as a way to achieve significant breakthroughs on trade and other major issues.
China’s commerce ministry, earlier Friday, stated it will be imposing additional tariffs of 5% or 10% on a total of 5,078 products originating from the U.S., including agricultural products, crude oil, small aircraft and cars.
Chinese tariffs on some U.S. products would take effect September 1 and on others December 15.
“America’s manufacturing workers will bear the brunt of these retaliatory tariffs, which will make it even harder to sell the products they make to customers in China,” said Jay Timmons, the president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Manufacturers.
“While we share the president’s frustration, we believe that continued, constructive engagement is the right way forward,” said Myron Brilliant, executive vice president and head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Time is of the essence. We do not want to see a further deterioration of U.S.-China relations.”
Rick Helfenbein, president and CEO of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, said: “This is not how you negotiate. This is tit-for-tat exercise that is hurting Americans and distracting from the task at hand — creating a sustainable trade agreement that solves long-standing and deep-seated issues.”
“The administration needs to rise above the fray and start negotiating for the American people,” Helfenbein added.
Analysts are expressing fears that if there is no truce soon in the trade war with China, it could lead to a recession in the United States.
However, Trump is holding firm to his policies.
“Our economy is doing great. We’re having a little spat with China and we’ll win it …” he said Friday night. Adding, “I think that our tariffs are working out very well for us, people don’t understand that yet…”
“We’re not going to lose close to a trillion dollars a year to China,” Trump told reporters Friday. “This is more important than anything else right now, just about, that we’re working on.”
The three Baltic countries on Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the 1989 “Baltic Way,” a historic anti-Soviet protest that involved nearly 2 million people forming a human chain more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) long.
On Aug. 23, 1989, as the Soviet Union was weakening, the gesture was a powerful expression on the part of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians that they were not giving up on their independence even after decades of Soviet occupation.
“People holding hands can be stronger than people holding guns,” said Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas in a tweet.
The celebrations come as the inhabitants of the three nations _ and many beyond _ worry about Russia’s renewed ambitions to influence the region.
“We must remember the courage and dreams of the participants. But let it also be a reminder that freedom and democracy can never be taken for granted,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said in a statement.
The Baltic News Service recalled Friday that then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Moscow “started realizing very clearly that the three Baltic nations were moving toward political independence.”
The main commemorations are taking place in Vilnius, the capital of the southern-most Baltic country, and along the Lithuania-Latvia border, with a relay-race and an exhibition. In the evening, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda will host a concert in central Vilnius.
In the Latvian capital of Riga, the three Baltic prime ministers will lay wreaths at the foot of a freedom monument.
The chain has inspired others, including a 2008 human chain in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where a crowd of at least 100,000 people jammed Tbilisi’s main avenue.
In Hong-Kong, protesters planned Friday to form a 40-kilometer (25-mile) human chain to demand more freedoms from China, saying it was inspired by the “Baltic Way.”
The Baltic countries declared their independence from Russia in 1918 but were annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940. Friday’s events also marked the 80th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a secret agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that led to the occupation of the Baltic states and Poland.
The Baltic nations remained part of the Soviet Union until 1991.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to find a quid pro quo response after the test of a new U.S. missile banned under a now-defunct arms treaty.
In Sunday’s test, a modified ground-launched version of a Navy Tomahawk cruise missile accurately struck its target more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away. The test came after the U.S. and Russia withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
The U.S. has explained its withdrawal from the treaty by Russian violations, a claim Moscow has denied. Speaking Friday, Putin charged that the U.S. wanted to untie its hands to deploy the previously banned missiles in different parts of the world.''<br />
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He ordered the Defense Ministry and other agencies totake the necessary measures to prepare a symmetrical answer.”
Forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognized government have taken full control of a key southern city after overnight clashes with separatists, Yemeni security officials said Friday.
Clashes over Etq, the capital of oil-rich Shabwa province erupted late Thursday night and lasted until Friday morning, said the security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because there were not authorized to talk to the media.
The city of Etq was previously divided between Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government forces and a separatist militia, trained and armed by the United Arab Emirates.
The infighting between Hadi’s forces and the UAE-backed separatists,ostensibly allies in Yemen’s war against the Shiite Houthi rebels, erupted earlier this month. It has threatened to fracture the Saudi-led coalition, a group of Arab states that intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015, to help restore Hadi’s government to power. The previous year, the rebel Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and gained control of much of the country’s north.
Separatist militiamen of the so-called Southern Transitional Council, have so far seized strategic southern areas, including the city of Aden and much of the nearby Abyan province.
A Saudi-Emirati commission flew to southern Yemen last week to negotiate a truce between the government forces and separatists but has so far made no progress.
In a tweet posted early Friday, Hani Ben Braik, a separatist leader, would not admit defeat at Etq but said his militiamen chose not to pursue a battle in the city out of “respect” for the truce efforts. However, Ben Baraik warned his forces would fight back if they were attacked again.
Rwanda has introduced the use of electric motorcycles as part of its efforts to protect the environment and cut fuel costs.
Passengers and motorcyclists say the electric vehicles could dramatically change how Rwandans do business.
James Musisi, 45, is one of 10 motorcyclists who have started to use the motorcycles in what is known as the moto-taxi business — motorcycle taxis.
He says the vehicles are quiet, which means passengers are able to make phone calls as they’re taken to their destinations.
They’re also relatively cheap. One electric bike costs $1,300 — less expensive than the $1,600 price for fuel motorcycles.
Also, Musisi said, “There is no chain, no drum brake, and requires less [maintenance compared to] those that use fuel lubricant every week and have to change the oil.”
Currently, there are 10 of the motorcycles running on Kigali’s roads, but more than 600 are being built.
Two charging stations exist in Kigali. A moto-taxi driver has to bring an exhausted battery to take a charged one, which runs for 70 kilometers (43 miles). The price for recharging an electric vehicle is equal to the cost of the fuel for traditional cycles.
In 2016, four entrepreneurs from different countries formed a start-up called Ampersand with a mission to transform Rwanda into a mass market for commercial electric motorcycles.
Josh Whale, the company’s chief executive officer, said electric motorcycles, also known as e-Motos, have great potential in Rwanda — a country known for its environmental initiatives.
“For electricity, we found that the grid is sufficiently reliable in Kigali,” he said. “There has been a lot of investment made in new transmission lines, which are operating well, so everything is good for us.”
Environmental efforts
Engineer Colleta Ruhamya, director-general of Rwanda’s Environment Management Authority, says this is another milestone for the country, which has become an important player in the global environmental protection movement.
“I don’t see why Rwanda should be behind. I think it’s the right time for Rwanda to come forward. We call each and every person to also embrace [the effort] and to go [forward] together,” Ruhamya said.
FILE – Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame addresses a news conference in Kigali, Rwanda, April 8, 2019.
This comes after Rwandan President Paul Kagame declared that his government is going to replace all motorcycles with new electric ones.
“We will find a way to replace the ones you have now. We urge taxi-moto operators to help us when the phase-out process comes,” Kagame said recently.
The adoption of electric motorcycles follows many other initiatives the Rwandan government has taken to protect the environment and keep Kigali clean.
In 2008, Rwanda banned plastic shopping bags. Last year, it banned the use of single-use plastic materials, including water bottles.
According to the United Nations, every year 8 million tons of plastic end up in the world’s oceans, poisoning sea life and harming fisheries.
SAN FRANCISCO — Democratic Party leaders are arguing over whether to hold a presidential primary debate exclusively on the climate crisis.
Hundreds of activists were at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting Thursday in California, where an influential party committee was discussing the matter.
But Chairman Tom Perez shows no signs of rewriting the debate rules months into the campaign.
Perez opposes single-issue debates with multiple candidates on stage at the same time. The DNC instead has encouraged other groups to hold issue-based forums where candidates appear one at a time. Activists say that approach hasn’t gotten climate policy enough attention.
The meeting came a day after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ended his presidential bid after failing to gain enough support for his pledge to make climate action the nation’s top priority.
TEKNAF, BANGLADESH – Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh said Wednesday that they did not want to return to their homes in Myanmar, raising doubts about a fresh attempt to repatriate the stateless, mainly Muslim minority.
On Thursday, Bangladesh and Myanmar were hoping to begin repatriating a few of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled a military crackdown two years ago, after a previous attempt in November failed.
Officials from the United Nations and Bangladesh’s refugee commission have been interviewing more than 200 shortlisted families in the settlements in southeast Bangladesh to find out if they would return to Rakhine state.
Bangladesh refugee commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam told AFP five buses and two trucks had been hired to take the refugees to a land port.
A Rohingya man sells betel leaves in a market at a camp in Teknaf, Bangladesh, Aug. 21, 2019.
But several Rohingya interviewed by the United Nations told AFP they did not want to go home until their safety was guaranteed and they were recognized as citizens in the Buddhist-majority country.
“It is not safe to return to Myanmar,” Nur Islam, a Rohingya Muslim who was among nearly 3,500 refugees earmarked for repatriation, told AFP.
Rohingya community leader Jafar Alam told AFP the refugees had been gripped by fear since authorities announced the fresh repatriation process.
They also feared being sent to camps for internally displaced people if they went back to Myanmar.
No family consents
A U.N. official who was part of the team interviewing the Rohingya cast doubt on when the repatriation might start, saying: “We have yet to get consent from any refugee family.”
In New York, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday that repatriations had to be done in a “voluntary nature.”
“Any return should be voluntary and sustainable and in safety and in dignity to their place of origin and choice,” Dujarric told reporters.
“It’s important for refugees to have the full information they need to be able to make that decision.”
The U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors on the issue on Wednesday.
Rohingya people are seen at a camp in Teknaf, Bangladesh, Aug. 21, 2019.
Some 740,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in August 2017 from a military offensive in Myanmar — joining 200,000 already there — but virtually none have volunteered to return despite the countries signing a repatriation deal in late 2017.
The new push follows a visit last month to the camps by high-ranking officials from Myanmar led by Permanent Foreign Secretary Myint Thu.
Sunday will mark the second anniversary of the crackdown that sparked the mass exodus to the Bangladesh camps.
The Rohingya are not recognized as an official minority by the Myanmar government, which considers them Bengali interlopers despite many families having lived in Rakhine for generations.
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled a rule that allows officials to detain migrant families indefinitely while judges consider whether to grant them asylum in the United States, abolishing a previous 20-day limit.
The rule, which is certain to draw a legal challenge, would replace a 1997 court settlement that limits the amount of time U.S. immigration authorities can detain migrant children. That agreement is generally interpreted as meaning families must be
released within 20 days.
It was the Republican administration’s third major regulation restricting immigration in little more than a month, all during an unsettled period when senior immigration officials hold “acting” titles lacking U.S. Senate confirmation.
Trump has made cracking down on legal and illegal immigration a hallmark of his presidency after campaigning in 2016 on a promise, so far unfulfilled, that Mexico would pay for a border wall to keep migrants from entering the United States.
FILE – Immigration activists rally outside the Supreme Court as the justices hear arguments over the Trump administration’s plan to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census, in Washington, April 23, 2019.
In what would be another attempt to dismantle established immigration law, Trump told reporters on Wednesday his administration was seriously looking at ending the right of citizenship for children born to non-citizens within the United States.
Immigration officials are looking for any kind of deterrent to reverse a record surge in families fleeing violence and poverty in Central America. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials say they have caught or rejected 475,000 family members in the past 10 months, more than three times any previous full year.
On July 15 the administration unveiled a rule to bar almost all immigrants from applying for asylum at the southern border, and on Aug. 12 it announced regulation denying visas and permanent residency for those who fail to make enough money.
Multiple lawsuits were filed within days of the two previous immigration rules.
Legal challenges have held up many of Trump’s initiatives, but immigration advocates say he has managed to build an “invisible wall” through executive actions bypassing Congress.
The administration framed the policy as a humane approach to a crisis.
“To protect these children from abuse, and stop this illegal flow, we must close these loopholes. This is an urgent humanitarian necessity,” Trump said in a statement.
FILE – Senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller arrives for a meeting with the president on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 19, 2018.
Critics counter that Trump and Stephen Miller, his aide on immigration, are using a series of heartless policies to animate hard-core political supporters.
“The administration is seeking to codify child abuse, plain and simple,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said in a statement, adding that she expected a federal judge would strike down the new rule.
Pediatricians have said children may suffer numerous negative physical and emotional symptoms from detention, even if only brief. The American Psychoanalytic Association on Wednesday branded the Trump policies as “psychological warfare.”
‘Cruel’ policies
“It has become clear that the current administration uses cruel language, policies and abuse with the objective of deterring immigrants and asylum-seekers,” said Lee Jaffe, president of APsaA.
Officials said the families would receive mental health treatment and other services in facilities that are held to high standards of care.
“They’re campus-like settings with educational, medical, dining and separate, private living facilities,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told Fox News.
Robyn Barnard, an attorney for the nonprofit organization Human Rights First, challenged that characterization, saying that just because a facility is in a pastoral setting does not make it more humane.
“A gilded cage is still a cage,” Barnard said. “There are locks on the doors, there is no freedom of movement. It is for all intents and purposes a prison.”
Flores settlement
The latest action tears apart the Flores Settlement Agreement that had placed limits on how long children of families seeking asylum could be held in detention, enabling the U.S. government to release tens of thousands of families pending the resolution of their cases.
Trump officials had blamed Flores for the spike in immigration, especially of Central American families, saying it encouraged migrants to bring children with them so they could be released into the United States pending their court cases.
Families typically wait several months for their cases to work their way through immigration court, and the new rule would allow the DHS to keep those families at detention facilities.
The rule will be published in the Federal Register on Friday and will take effect 60 days later. The implementation deadline could slip, however, depending on the success of any court challenges.
President Donald Trump is denying reports he told the NRA chief that expanded background checks for gun buyers are “off the table,” and now says he backs such measures.
Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House Wednesday as he appears to waver back and forth on how he plans to address gun violence in the United States.
He said Wednesday he is considering ways to make background checks stronger, but warned of what he calls the “slippery slope” he believes would restrict legal gun ownership.
“I want guns in the hands of people that are mentally stable,” Trump said Wednesday. “I want them to be easily able to get a gun. But people who are insane, people who are sick, I don’t want them to be able to get a gun.”
Trump expressed strong support for more background checks after two gunmen massacred 31 people earlier this month in EL Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
FILE – National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre speaks at the NRA Annual Meeting of Members in Indianapolis, Indiana, April 27, 2019.
But he seemed to grow lukewarm toward tougher gun measures after conversations with Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, White House officials have said.
A report by The Atlantic magazine Tuesday said Trump told LaPierre that expanded background checks were “off the table.”
Trump said Wednesday, “We have a lot of background checks right now, but there are certain weaknesses. We want to fix the weaknesses.”
He has also noted that many of his supporters are strong believers in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees citizens the right to own guns.
Some Democrats who wholly support more gun control say they are upset with Trump’s perceived back-and-forth on background checks.
“It’s time for Republicans and President Trump to decide whose side they’re on,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said. “Are they going to stand with 90% of Americans who want universal background checks, or are they going to once again kowtow to the desires of the gun lobby?”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that Trump’s “retreats are heartbreaking, particularly for the families of the victims of gun violence.”
FILE – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer heads to a briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 10, 2019.
White House and congressional teams from both parties have been talking about ways to strengthen gun laws. But the NRA has been a major force on Capitol Hill in opposing more regulations.
A gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart store in El Paso Aug. 3 in a shooting that appears to have targeted Mexicans. The suspect is in jail.
Hours later, another gunman shot and killed nine others in Dayton before police killed him. The motive for that attack is still unclear
Both shooters used military-style assault weapons.
The killings, along with past mass shootings and a recent spate of threatened shootings, have renewed the nationwide debate over gun control in the U.S.
The U.S. State Department has approved a possible $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said on Tuesday in an official notification to Congress.
The potential deal is for 66 aircraft, 75 General Electric Co engines, as well as other systems, the agency said in a statement, adding it served the interests of the United States and would help Taiwan maintain a credible defense.
China has already denounced the widely discussed sale, one of the biggest yet by the United States to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. It has warned of unspecified “countermeasures.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, a Republican, has welcomed the proposed sale of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 jets.
“These fighters are critical to improving Taiwan’s ability to defend its sovereign airspace, which is under increasing pressure from the People’s Republic of China,” he said in a recent statement.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Monday that President Donald Trump notified Congress of the sale last week.
Pompeo told Fox News the sale was “consistent with past U.S. policy” and that the United States was “simply following through on the commitments we’ve made to all of the parties.”
In Tapei, President Tsai Ing-wen said the sale would help Taiwan build a new air force and boost its air defense capacity.
In a post on Facebook, Tsai said she was grateful for Washington’s “continuous support for Taiwan’s national defense.”
“With strong self-defense capacity, Taiwan will certainly be more confident to ensure the cross-strait and regional peace and stability while facing security challenges,” she said.
Taiwan unveiled its largest defense spending increase in more than a decade last week, amid rising military tensions with China.
U.S. envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun says the Trump administration is ready to resume stalled negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program.
Speaking Wednesday in Seoul where he was meeting with South Korean officials, Biegun said the United States is “prepared to engage as soon as we hear from our counterparts in North Korea.”
President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter earlier this month that he had received a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressing a desire “to meet and start negotiations” after the conclusion of U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises, which ended Tuesday.
North Korea considers the exercises a threat to its existence, and since late last month it carried out six short-range ballistic missile tests that Kim said were in response to the drills.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday he was concerned about the latest missile tests, disagreeing with Trump, who has shrugged off their importance.
“I wish that they would not” launch the missiles, the top U.S. diplomat told CBS News.
The two latest projectiles, fired last Friday, flew 230 kilometers into the waters off North Korea, but, aimed differently, could reach South Korea as well as American troops and civilians living there.
Trump has voiced his discontent as well, not about North Korea’s missile tests, but about the costs of the military drills with Seoul.
President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, left, walk up to view North Korea from the Korean Demilitarized Zone from Observation Post Ouellette at Camp Bonifas in South Korea, Sunday, June 30, 2019.
Asked about the missile tests, Trump told reporters, “I have no problem. These are short-range missiles.”
Trump called the missiles “smaller ones.” He said earlier this month that Kim had sent him “a really beautiful letter” that included a “small apology” for conducting the missile tests.
The U.S. leader has held out hope that he can bring about Pyongyang’s denuclearization by the time his first term in the White House ends in January 2021.
Pompeo acknowledged in the CBS interview, however, that the United States and North Korea “haven’t gotten back to the table as quickly as we would have hoped” to continue the nuclear weapons talks.
Pompeo said the U.S. knew “there will be bumps along the way” in the negotiations.
“We hope Chairman Kim will come to the table and a get a better outcome” than by maintaining North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, he said.
“It will be better for the North Korean people,” Pompeo concluded. “It’ll be better for the world.”
China hopes to welcome the United States “back to the negotiating table” to discuss global efforts to limit climate change at a United Nations summit to be hosted by Chile in December, its top climate change envoy said on Tuesday.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s Special Representative for Climate Change Affairs, told journalists during a visit to a solar energy plant outside the Chilean capital Santiago that China would provide “full support to the Chilean presidency of this meeting.”
The summit was “strong proof that a multilateral negotiation process is successful, that multilateralism is working,” he said.
Asked if the U.S. approach to the threat of climate change under President Donald Trump and the U.S.-China trade dispute might affect the outcome in Santiago, Xie replied: “China and the U.S. has many differences but we do have some common grounds on climate change issues as well and we welcome them back to the negotiating table on climate change, we are very open to that.”
Trump has signaled his intention to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord and been dismissive of regulations aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions. He has also expressed his preference for bilateral trade pacts over multilateral agreements.
In July, China pledged on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka to show “the highest possible ambition” in the fight against climate change. Experts and policy advisors say the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter could introduce new and more stringent carbon targets next year.
Xie said China would back a bid by the U.N. secretary-general and climate change envoy to persuade all countries to update their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) goals to keep global warming to well below two degrees centigrade.
“The most important objective is to identify the new NDCs for the post-2020 period and link those new NDCs together with the financial support from the developed countries as promised,” Xie said. “To have that financial support in place is very important and that’s the objective we would like to achieve.”
China is a key investor in Chilean renewable energy projects and manufactured half of the solar panels at the 110MW Parque Quilapilún solar plant Xie visited with environment minister Carolina Schmidt.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen thanked the United States on Tuesdsay for approving the sale of 66 advanced F-16V fighter jets and urged rival China to respect Taiwan’s right to defend itself.
President Donald Trump announced approval of the $8 billion deal on Sunday. The sale is expected to further inflame U.S. relations with China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.
Tsai on Tuesday also applauded previous arm sales already announced by Trump’s administration, saying those reaffirmed the United States’ “long-standing commitment to helping maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
Trump’s announcement begins a period of consultation with Congress, and a formal announcement of the sale could be made as early as next month unless lawmakers object. The State Department, which would ultimately authorize the sale, declined to comment, but members of Congress from both parties welcomed the proposal.
China fiercely opposes all arms sales to Taiwan but has specifically objected to advanced fighter jets such as the F-16V, whose Active Electronically Scanned Array, or AESA, radar is compatible with the F-35 stealth fighters operated by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines. The U.S. is also installing upgraded electronics, including AESA radars, on Taiwan’s existing fleet of 144 older F-16s.
While the U.S. cut formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979 in order to recognize Beijing, U.S. law requires Washington to ensure Taiwan has the means to defend itself.
Since 2008, U.S. administrations have notified Congress of more than $24 billion in foreign military sales to Taiwan, including in the past two months the sale of 108 M1A2 Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles, valued at $2.2 billion. The Trump administration alone has notified Congress of $4.4 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.
Tsai has rejected Chinese pressure to unite Taiwan and China under a “one-country, two-systems” framework and soon after her 2016 inauguration, Beijing cut contacts with her government over her refusal to endorse its claim that Taiwan is part of China.
Beijing has sought to increase Taiwan’s international isolation by reducing its diplomatic allies to just 17 and stepped up military intimidation, including by holding military exercises across the Taiwan Strait and circling the island with bombers and fighters in what are officially termed training missions.
On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing had made solemn complaints'' to the U.S. over the planned F-16V sale. Geng called on Washington tofully recognize the serious dangers of the arms sale to Taiwan” and cancel it immediately or bear the consequences.
“China will take necessary measures to safeguard its own interests according to the development of the situation,” Geng said.
Only a dozen airlines will eventually share the aviation market for major international routes, predicts Lufthansa’s CEO, while a possible future economic crisis could “accelerate” a consolidation in air travel.
“The sector is evolving towards a dozen companies operating worldwide” on major international routes, in addition to smaller national or regional airlines, Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr told reporters late Monday.
Without naming them, Spohr forecast there would be “three in the United States, three in China, three in the Gulf and three in Europe”.
The Lufthansa chief executive warned that any future economic crisis could hit European airlines particularly hard, but predicted a downturn could “accelerate” mergers and acquisitions.
“If there is one positive aspect to the flattening of the global economy, and certainly also the worsening figures for all airlines — unfortunately also for us — it is that the consolidation process will tend to accelerate,” Spohr added.
The recent bankruptcies of German low-cost airlines Air Berlin and Germania have enabled Lufthansa to buy back flight routes and aircraft.
The airline industry is “much more cyclical” and at the mercy of economic developments than others, Spohr said, with the sector suffering from international trade tensions.
Lufthansa wants to “and will play an active role” in any future consolidation in the sector, said the airline boss, whose company’s net profit dropped by 70 percent in the second quarter.
Spohr said Lufthansa faced strong competition from low-cost airlines in a “unique price war”, however “we will not be driven out of our domestic market” by low-cost companies like Ryanair, because the German airline “has the financial strength to resist” competition.
An unmanned Indian space probe successfully entered lunar orbit Tuesday, passing a crucial step towards a historic milestone for the country’s fledgling space program.
The arrival of the $141 million Chandrayaan-2 probe comes nearly a month after it was launched into space aboard India’s powerful Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark Three rocket. The probe will orbit the moon for two weeks before its Vikram lander — named after Vikram Sarabhai, the scientist regarded as the “father” of India’s space program — will undock from the mothership and land on the moon’s South Pole. It will then release a small rover dubbed Pragyan that will roam for 14 days, mapping the moon’s surface, conducting experiments to search for signs of water and assessing its topography and geology.
If the planned September 7 landing is successful, India will join the United States, Russia and China as the only nations to achieve a soft landing of a spacecraft on the moon. It will also become the first nation to attempt a controlled landing on the moon’s South Pole.
Although India was a relative latecomer to the space race, it has developed a reputation for conducting its space explorations at a fraction of the cost spent by countries like the United States. It first placed an unmanned spacecraft in lunar orbit in 2008, which helped confirm the presence of water on the lunar surface.
Among other goalposts India has set in the coming years is to put a space station in orbit, an astronaut in space by 2022, a robotic mission to Mars and a mission to explore the sun.
New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that citizenship appears to narrow the economic gap between the foreign-born and native-born in the United States.
The 2018 figures released Monday offer a view of immigrants’ education, wealth, and the jobs they work in. They also look at differences between naturalized immigrants and those who aren’t citizens.
Their release come as the U.S. is engaged in one of the fiercest debates in decades about the role of immigration.
Stopping the flow of immigrants into the U.S. has been a priority of the Trump administration, which has proposed denying green cards to immigrants who use Medicaid and fought to put a citizenship question on the decennial Census questionnaire.
Monday’s figures show naturalized immigrants had a slightly smaller median income than the native-born.
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday was forced to postpone a conference it organized in the West Bank city of Ramallah after Palestinian officials and factions called for a boycott and threatened to organize protests.
The Palestinians cut all ties with the U.S. after it recognized disputed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017, and view the Trump administration as unfairly biased following a series of actions seen as hostile to their aspirations for an independent state.
The embassy had organized a conference this week to bring together alumni of U.S. educational and cultural programs, including dozens of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who received permission from Israel to attend. The territory has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power there in 2007.
The Palestinian leadership viewed the conference as an attempt to circumvent its boycott of the U.S. administration.
“We are aware of recent statements regarding a planned event for alumni of U.S. educational and cultural programs,” the U.S. Embassy said. “In order to avoid the Palestinian participants being put in a difficult situation, we have decided to postpone the event for now.”
It said this and other events “are designed to create opportunities for exchange and dialogue between Americans and Palestinians at the grassroots level.”
“This event in particular is intended to give alumni of all ages and backgrounds from Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza an opportunity to network with each other and to engage in leadership and capacity building activities,” it said.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for their future state. The Trump administration is at work on a long-awaited peace plan, but has not endorsed a two-state solution to the conflict. The Palestinians have already dismissed the plan, saying it is certain to be slanted toward Israel.
Representatives of several Palestinian factions held a press conference Monday at the hotel where the meeting was to have taken place.
Spokesman Isam Baker told The Associated Press that the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella group, had reached out to the hotel management and the invitees asking them to boycott the meeting.
“Most of the invitees and the hotel administration agreed with us that the invitation has political implications and it is not innocent,” he said.
“The U.S. administration, which has cut off all aid to our people, shut down our office in Washington and placed huge pressure on our leadership to accept a pro-Israel political plan will not do any good for our people” he said. “Therefore, we are boycotting any activities it organizes.”
The U.S. cut more than $200 million in development aid to the Palestinians last year, gutting several long-running programs .
A statement released Sunday by the “national and Islamic forces of the Ramallah governorate” said they were determined to thwart the conference, calling it an attempt to “break the will of the Palestinian people.” It said they planned to organize a “mass popular event to prevent this activity by all available means,” calling for a sit-in and marches.
The youth wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party also called for a boycott. It vowed to “exercise all forms of legal and popular pressure to express rejection of this conference being held on occupied Palestinian land.” It also called for an “apology” from the hotel.
In Uganda, a coach’s passion for baseball is getting schools to embrace America’s favorite pastime. But a lack of government support means baseball in Uganda is heavily dependent on donations. Halima Athumani reports from Kampala.
Delegates at a U.N. wildlife conference in Geneva voted Sunday to ban the practice of taking baby elephants from their natural habitat and placing them in zoos and circuses.
Forty-six countries at the UN Convention ion International Trade in Endangered Species voted to outlaw the practice, white 18 voted against it, including the United States. Nineteen abstained.
The ban proclaims entertainment venues to be “unacceptable and inappropriate destinations” for elephants.
“This decision will save countless elephants from being ripped away from their families in the wild and forces to spend their lifetimes imprisoned in substandard conditions at zoos,” the Humane Society International said Sunday. “The capture of baby elephants is horribly cruel and traumatic to both the mothers, their calves and the herds that are left behind.”
Sunday’s decision specifically targets Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
CITES says Zimbabwe has sent more than 100 baby elephants to China since 2012, traumatizing the animals who it says are beaten, kicked, and treated cruelly by their handlers. Several have died.
The U.S. has opened up secret communications with Venezuela’s socialist party boss as members of President Nicolas Maduro’s inner circle seek guarantees they won’t face retribution if they cede to growing demands to remove him, a senior administration official has told The Associated Press.
Diosdado Cabello, who is considered the most-powerful man in Venezuela after Maduro, met last month in Caracas with someone who is in close contact with the Trump administration, said the official. A second meeting is in the works but has not yet taken place.
The AP is withholding the intermediary’s name and details of the encounter with Cabello out of concern the person could suffer reprisals. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the talks, which are still preliminary.
Cabello is a major power broker inside Venezuela, who has seen his influence in the government and security forces expand as Maduro’s grip on power has weakened. But he’s also been accused by U.S. officials of being behind massive corruption, drug trafficking and even death threats against a sitting U.S. senator.
The administration official said that under no circumstances is the U.S. looking to prop up Cabello or pave the way for him to substitute Maduro. Instead, the goal of the outreach is to ratchet up pressure on the regime by contributing to the knife fight the U.S. believes is taking place behind the scenes among competing circles of power within the ruling party.
Similar contacts exist with other top Venezuelan insiders, the official said, and the U.S. is in a listening mode to hear what it would take for them to betray Maduro and support a transition plan.
Cabello did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But an aide said the U.S. has been increasingly knocking on his door, desperately looking to establish contact. The aide rejected the notion Cabello was somehow betraying Maduro, saying that Cabello would only meet with Americans with the president’s permission and if it contributes to lifting sanctions he blames for crippling the oil-dependent economy. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to discuss political affairs publicly.
A person familiar with the July encounter said Cabello appeared savvy and arrived to the meeting with the U.S.-backed envoy well prepared, with a clear understanding of Venezuela’s political problems. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the matter.
As Venezuela’s crisis grinds on, a predictable pattern has emerged where Juan Guaido, who the U.S. and dozens of other countries recognize as Venezuela’s rightful leader, has been unable to woo the military and take power but Maduro lacks enough strength to apprehend his rival or rescue the collapsed economy amid ever-tightening U.S. sanctions. This month, the U.S. slapped a new round of sanctions that seizes all of the Maduro government’s assets in the U.S. and threatens to punish companies from third countries that continue to do business with him.
Talks sponsored by Norway between the opposition and government have been slow-going and were suspended this month by Maduro, who accused Guaido of celebrating the U.S.’ “brutal blockade.” Neither Cabello, the Venezuelan military or U.S. government are a party to those talks.
To break the stalemate, some conspirators are looking to the U.S. to devise a plan to protect government insiders who turn against Maduro from future prosecution. The U.S. has repeatedly said it would offer top socialists relief from sanctions if they take “concrete and meaningful actions” to end Maduro’s rule. In May, it quickly lifted sanctions against Maduro’s former spy chief, Gen. Manuel Cristopher Figuera, after he defected during a failed military uprising.
As head of the constitutional assembly, Cabello has the power to remove Maduro, a position that could come in handy in any negotiated transition. But to date he’s run the institution, which the U.S. considers illegitimate, as a rubber-stamping foil to the opposition-controlled congress, showing no signs of possible deception.
It’s not clear who initiated the contact with Cabello. But the U.S. official said Cabello was talking behind the back of the embattled socialist despite his almost daily displays of loyalty and frequent harangues against President Donald Trump.
An opposition politician briefed on the outreach said Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and Interior Minister Nestor Reverol are among those in indirect contact with the Americans, underscoring the degree to which Maduro is surrounded by conspirators even after an opposition-led military uprising in April was easily quashed. The politician spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the talks. The AP was unable to verify the opposition politician’s account.
Cabello, 56, has long been seen as a rival to Maduro, someone who has more pragmatic economic views and is less ideologically aligned with communist Cuba. He sat to the right of Hugo Chavez when the late socialist designated Maduro, to his left, to be his successor in his last public appearance before dying of cancer in 2013.
By all accounts Cabello was not among the high-placed officials who were in on a plot to remove Maduro in April, when Guaido and his mentor Leopoldo Lopez appeared on a bridge in eastern Caracas surrounded by a small contingent of armed troops. Since the uprising’s failure, the retired army lieutenant has seen his influence in the government and security forces expand, with the appointment of a cousin to head the army and the placement of another ally atop the feared SEBIN intelligence police.
He also remains popular with the Chavista base, having crisscrossed the country the past five years with a much-watched program on state TV that is a vehicle for pounding the opposition and U.S.
“A fraternal salute, brother President,” Cabello said in the most-recent program, where Maduro called in as a special guest. “We have no secrets, no lies here. Every time we do something we will inform the people, so that with a clear conscience they can take informed decisions and fix positions.”
The U.S. has tried to negotiate with Cabello before. In 2015, Thomas Shannon, who was then counsellor to Secretary of State John Kerry, met with Cabello in Haiti to pave the way for legislative elections that the opposition won by a landslide.
But until now, the Trump administration has shown deep scorn for Cabello, hitting him with sanctions last year for allegedly organizing drug shipments and running a major graft network that embezzled state funds and invested the stolen proceeds in Florida real estate. The U.S. also believes he discussed a plot to kill Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who has called him “Venezuela’s Pablo Escobar.”
“Cabello is one of the worst of the worst inside of Venezuela,” said Fernando Cutz, a former senior national security adviser on Latin America to both President Barack Obama and Trump. “If the strategy is to try to negotiate with the mafia boss, he’s your guy. But that’s a strategy that carries some heavy risks.”
Mourners in Iceland gathered Sunday to bid a final farewell to 700-year-old Okjokull, the first Icelandic glacier lost to climate change.
After about 100 people, including Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, Environment Minister Gudmundur Ingi Gudbrandsson, and former Irish President Mary Robinson, made a two-hour hike up the Ok volcano for the ceremony.
Children installed a memorial plaque to the glacier, now called just “Ok,” its name missing “jokull”, the Icelandic word for glacier.
People climb to the top of what once was the Okjokull glacier, in Iceland, Aug. 18, 2019.
The plaque bears the inscription “A letter to the future”, and is intended to raise awareness about the decline of glaciers and the effects of climate change.
“In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it,” it reads.
The dedication, written by Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason, ends with the date of the ceremony and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air globally – 415 parts per million (ppm).
“We see the consequences of the climate crisis,”Jakobsdottir said. “We have no time to lose.”
A girl holds a sign that reads ‘pull the emergency brake’ as she attends a ceremony in the area which once was the Okjokull glacier, in Iceland, Aug. 18, 2019.
Jakobsdottir said she plans to make climate change a priority when Nordic leaders and German Chancellor Angela Merkel meet in Reykjavik on Tuesday.
Okjokull was was officially declared dead in 2014 when it was no longer thick enough to move. but now all that’s left of the glacier is a small patch of ice atop a volcano.
Glaciologist Oddur Sigurdsson of the Icelandic Meteorological Office was the first to declare Okjokull dead.
When enough ice builds up, the pressure forces the whole mass to move. “That’s where the limit is between a glacier and not a glacier,” Sigurdsson explains. “It needs to be 40 to 50 meters thick to reach that pressure limit.”
Authorities in Afghanistan say the death toll has risen to more than 63 and injured to 183 in the overnight suicide bombing at a packed wedding hall in the capital, Kabul.
The victims were mostly members of the minority Shi’ite Hazara community.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi confirmed the casualty toll in a statement issued early Sunday, saying women and children were among the victims.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the carnage, one of the worst attacks against Afghan civilians in recent years.
The Taliban denied its involvement and condemned the bombing. A spokesman for the insurgent group said “such barbaric deliberate attacks against civilians including women and children are forbidden and unjustifiable.”
Afghan police men stand guard outside the wedding hall after an explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug.18, 2019.
Almost all recent bombings in the city, particularly against the Hazara community, have been claimed by Islamic State’s Afghan branch, known as Khorasan Province.
Rahimi in a statement he issued shortly after the attack said the blast occurred just before midnight on Saturday and police and ambulances quickly reached the site to transport victims to Kabul hospitals.
Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict in Afghanistan, where more than 1,500 were killed or wounded in July alone, according to the United Nations.
The latest Afghan violence comes as peace talks between the United States and the Taliban have come close to reaching an agreement to end the 18-year-old war.
As back to back mass shootings in the U.S. prompt more difficult debates on gun laws, researchers at University of Southern California (USC) are working on a different, perhaps less controversial method of keeping people inside buildings safe and deterring people who want to commit acts of mass violence.
Design and Behavior
Engineers and computer scientists are exploring building design and technology seeking ways to protect people. Recent innovations offer many possibilities, from placement of exits to the number of hiding spots and even walls that move. But before designs can be put in place, researchers must first observe the behavior of the building’s occupants.
How do the people inside a building respond when an active shooter is present? Will their behavior change if the building is designed in a different way? Virtual reality (VR) is the first step to answering these questions and helping engineers create a safer building according to USC assistant professor Gale Lucas, who conducts research in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Computer Science Department and Institute for Creative Technologies.
“We’re interested in looking at how different building attributes affect responses to incidents of extreme violence, and that’s something that we can’t manipulate easily in the real world, but in virtual reality all of that is possible and it’s possible safe and ethically,” Lucas said.
Building design features that could make a building safer in mass shooting incidents include the number of exits and hiding places in a building or even whether glass windows are clear or frosted. Many of the features are based on recommendations from government agencies and security experts.
“There are so many recommendations out there and there’s so much money being invested on these recommendations but they’re not well tested in the real world in terms of how they play out,” said Burcin Becerik-Gerber, professor of civil and environmental engineering at USC. She and Lucas co-direct USC’s CENTIENTS, the Center for Intelligent Environments.
Virtual reality can safely and cheaply simulate real world situations. Virtual building designs can also easily be changed and adapted for different types of buildings said Becerik-Gerber.
Later this year, various building designs in a school and an office setting will be tested out in the virtual world with more than 200 real world teachers and office workers on treadmills, using VR so they can run away from the shooter in the virtual world.
Building features however may not be one size fits all. For example, frosted glass on doors to a room that may keep people safe in an active shooter situation may not be ideal during a normal school day when people want to be able to look inside a classroom to deter child predators.
“I think the answer is having more dynamic kinetic elements instead of thinking building elements as static. We’re talking about maybe frosted versus normal glass, but they can have the intelligence when the building senses the threat,” said Becerik-Gerber.
Intelligent Threat-Sensing Building
Instead of an either or, why not have a glass window that can do both said Becerik-Gerber. Artificial intelligence and sensors in a building can allow it to frost a clear window when it senses a threat.
“It could be the case where there are sensors when they pick up the noise levels. If there is a shooting, obviously there it will come with some increased noise levels and shouting and other clues. So the building can have for example, dynamic walls that lock up maybe the bad actors in the building,” suggested Becerik-Gerber.
An intelligent building can also produce digital signage that points occupants to the safest exits, away from the violence.
Researchers said having intelligent buildings can be possible not too far in the future. The technological elements needed to make a building sense danger and respond to keep its occupants safe are available. There just has to be the willingness to incorporate the elements and implement them into buildings.
Through their three-year project on building design and virtual reality, funded by the National Science Foundation, the researchers at USC aim to better understand how different design features influence people’s behavior. Once they have the data, they can present their findings to security experts and other stakeholders so one day, in the near future, better buildings with intelligence incorporated into the building’s DNA can be created to keep it’s occupants safe from acts of mass violence.
Britain will face shortages of fuel, food and medicine if it leaves the European Union without a transition deal, jamming ports and requiring a hard border in Ireland, official government documents leaked to the Sunday Times show.
The Times said the forecasts compiled by the Cabinet Office set out the most likely aftershocks of a no-deal Brexit rather than the worst case scenarios.
They said up to 85% of lorries using the main channel crossings “may not be ready” for French customs, meaning disruption at ports would potentially last up to three months before the flow of traffic improves.
The government believes a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic will be likely as current plans to avoid widespread checks will prove unsustainable, the Times said.
About 4,000 people have held a rally in Moscow to demand fairness in upcoming city council elections, and solo pickets protesting the exclusion of some opposition and independent candidates are taking place at prominent monuments.
The actions Saturday have been much smaller and less heated than recent weekend protests over the issue. Two unauthorized demonstrations were previously harshly broken up by police, with more than 2,000 people detained altogether; a sanctioned demonstration last week attracted as many as 60,000 people, the largest protest in several years.
The authorized rally on Saturday was organized by the Communist Party. The solo pickets are following a law that demonstrations by a single person do not require official permission.
Aramco and Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
The oil field at Shaybah is in the Arabian Peninsula’s Empty Quarter, a sea of sand where temperatures routinely hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 degree Fahrenheit).
The site is also just a few kilometers (miles) from the border of the United Arab Emirates and some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from rebel-held territory in Yemen, demonstrating the range of the Houthis’ drones.
Sudan’s Transitional Military Council and protest leaders have signed a historic power-sharing agreement in the capital, Khartoum.
The pact opens the way for the two factions to form a joint military and civilian council that will lead Sudan for three years until elections are held for a civilian-led government.
The transition deal follows months of demonstrations that erupted in December over the high price of fuel, and eventually evolved into demands for authoritarian President Omar al-Bashir to step down.
The military forcibly removed Bashir from power in April, but the demonstrators continued with protests, calling for democracy after 30 years of Bashir’s rule.
The transitional council and the opposition leaders agreed to form the transitional government in July after three months of violent protests that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators.
Under the agreement that was formalized Saturday a prime minister is to be named Tuesday (Aug. 20) and eight days later, the cabinet ministers are to be revealed. The military will remain in charge of the country for more than a year before the civilians take over.
“I am 72 and for 30 years under Bashir, I had nothing to feel good about,” Ali Issa Abdel Momen told the French news agency AFP. “Now, thanks to God, I am starting to breathe.”
Bashir has been on the wanted list of the International Criminal Court since 2009, on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
