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The U.S. Senate’s version of the annual authorization for American armed forces earmarks $300 million in military aid to Ukraine, $50 million more than the amount allocated for 2019. 
 
The version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that senators approved this week budgets $750 billion for the Pentagon for fiscal 2020, which begins in October, up from $716 billion this year. 
 
Of the expanded U.S. military assistance to strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities, only $100 million is designated for lethal weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles and anti-ship weapons for coastal defense. 
 

Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, who authored the Ukraine aid amendment, said the bill contains language that aims to limit U.S.-Russian cooperation until Russia frees 24 Ukrainian sailors captured in international waters of the Kerch Strait off Crimea last November. 
 
“The legislation … demonstrates our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine and the international community in calling for the release of the illegally detained sailors who were fired on and captured by Russian forces in international waters on November 25, 2018,” Portman, who co-chairs the Senate Ukraine Caucus, said Thursday on the chamber floor. 
 
Portman said the language of his amendment makes the sailors’ release “a condition for the U.S. military cooperation with Russia.” 

‘Firm stance’

“We need to take the firm stance against Russia’s blatant disregard for the international law,” he said, referring to the Kerch attack and Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the first forcible seizure of territory in Europe since World War II. The annexation triggered war in Ukraine’s east and multiple rounds of U.S.- and EU-led sanctions that have since wreaked havoc on Russia’s economy. 
 
Last month, the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea called on Russia to release the sailors immediately and allow their return to Ukraine. 
 
Russia does not recognize the tribunal’s jurisdiction in the matter and did not send representatives to the hearing. 
 

On Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a plea to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to free the sailors. 
 
The 973-page bill, which comes amid fulsome debate on President Donald Trump’s latitude to take military action against Iran, also includes a new round of sanctions against North Korea and provisions that target China on issues ranging from technology transfers to the sale of synthetic opioids. 

Arctic port
 
The bill also directs the Pentagon and Maritime Administration “to identify and designate a new strategic port in the Arctic, a move meant to counter Russia’s presence at the top of the world,” as reported by Virginia-based Defense News.

The Senate’s NDAA, passed 86-8, differs from a House version, most likely requiring the formation of a bicameral committee to craft a unified bill that can pass both chambers. 

That compromise version, expected later this year, must pass both the Senate and House before Trump can sign it into law. 

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian service.

…

In a sea of more than 20 candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, former vice president Joe Biden entered the second of two nights of early Democratic primary debates Thursday with a big bulls-eye on his back.

The front-runner before he even announced his candidacy, Biden was expected to ignore attacks from fellow Democrats as much as possible and to focus instead on challenging U.S. President Trump, trying to create the impression that the real race isn’t the primary at all, but an eventual Biden v. Trump showdown.

And from the get-go, that really did seem like Biden’s strategy. But as the former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson once observed, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Biden was repeatedly challenged on his record by his opponents and by moderators from television networks NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo, which jointly hosted the event. His answers were often angry and defensive, even to attacks that he must certainly have known were coming.

Passing the torch

During the two-hour debate in Miami, which shoehorned 10 candidates onto a single stage for the second night in a row, the first person to take a swing at Biden was California Rep. Eric Swalwell. The 38-year-old four-term congressman went after the 76-year-old former vice president over his age, pointing out that when Swalwell was 6 years old, in 1982, Biden had come to the California Democratic Convention as a presidential candidate and declared that it was time for America to pass the torch to a new generation.

Biden dodged the first attack deftly, parrying with comments about improving educational outcomes and cutting student debt.

However, it didn’t take long for the next blow to land.

Busing opposition

California Sen. Kamala Harris, who is African American, challenged Biden over his past opposition to integrating public schools through busing, as well as recent comments he made about his ability to strike deals with openly racist members of the U.S. Senate during his early days in Congress. (Biden had mentioned his ability to work with Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge and Mississippi Sen. James Eastland, both staunch segregationists from the distant past, as evidence that the Senate used to be a more “civil” place.)

“It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country,” Harris said. “And, you know, there was a little girl in California, who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools. And she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”

Defensive, angry

If, coming into the debate, Biden had planned to rise above attacks on him, he abandoned that plan when Harris confronted him. He responded angrily, denying that he had praised Talmadge and Eastland — something Harris never claimed — and launching into a defense of his opposition to busing.

Only a few minutes later, Biden was challenged again, when moderator Chuck Todd asked about his recent assertion that, if he were elected, Republicans in Congress would drop their resistance to Democratic ideas and negotiate. Pointing out that President Barack Obama had made similar comments near the end of his first term, only to be proved wrong, Todd said, “It does sound as if you haven’t seen what’s been happening in the United States over the past 12 years.”

Again, Biden responded angrily, reciting a list of accomplishments during his vice presidency that involved cooperation with Republicans in Congress, including a deal that avoided a federal government default.

He was immediately blasted by Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who pointed out that the deal he mentioned involved extending controversial Republican tax cuts indefinitely.

Later, Biden was challenged by moderator Rachel Maddow on his vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Rather than defending his vote, he instead focused on his efforts, as vice president, to finally bring U.S. combat troops home, again sounding angry and defensive.

Campaign test

Thursday night was a major test for Biden, who has not campaigned for any office since 2012. He won re-election as a senator in 2008, at the same time that he was elected vice president. Biden has not run by himself on any ticket since 2002, 18 years before the election he is hoping to win next year.

Biden only announced his candidacy in late April, but for long before that he was the clear front-runner in the Democratic primary nomination. On May 4, one week after he officially announced his campaign, Biden held a dominant lead over the rest of the field, with 36.8% of the vote, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. His closest rival at the time, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, had less than half that support, at 16.4%.

In the intervening months, much has changed. As of June 26, Biden’s support in the RCP average had dropped to 32%. Sanders had gained only a little, at 16.9%. But the big story was Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. At 8 percent a week after Biden announced, she had surged to 12.8% in the week before the first debates. Warren was the only one of the five highest-polling candidates to appear in the first debate.

In the final moments of Thursday’s debate, Biden did his best to move his focus back to President Trump, declaring that he wanted to “restore the soul” of the nation, which he said has been “ripped” out by the incumbent. 

If Thursday night demonstrated anything, though, it was that the former vice president’s opponents have no intention of allowing him to keep his focus on the current president. Or to remain comfortable at the top of the polls.
 

…

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was at center stage Thursday on the second night of Democratic presidential debates, but one of his main challengers, Sen. Kamala Harris, sharply questioned his relations with segregationist lawmakers four decades ago and his opposition to forced school busing to integrate schools.

Harris, a California lawmaker and former prosecutor, turned to Biden, saying, “I do not believe you are a racist.” But the African American senator drew cheers from the crowd in an auditorium in Miami, Florida, when she said it was “hurtful to hear” Biden recently as he described how as a young senator he worked with segregationist Southern senators to pass legislation.

“That’s a mischaracterization of my position across the board,” a stern-faced Biden responded. “I did not praise racists.”

But Harris persisted in a sharp exchange, demanding of Biden, “Do you acknowledge it was wrong to oppose busing?” Harris said she had benefited from busing to attend desegregated schools.

Biden defended his longtime support for civil rights legislation, but he did not explain his opposition to school busing in the state of Delaware, which he represented in the U.S. Senate.

Divisive issue

Court-ordered school busing was a divisive issue in numerous American cities in the 1970s, especially opposed by white parents whose children were sent to black-majority schools elsewhere in their communities to desegregate them.

The Harris-Biden exchange was one of the most pointed of the debate, perhaps catching Biden off guard. The issue of race was triggered midway through the debate when Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, was questioned about his handling of the recent fatal shooting of a black man by a white police officer.

Buttigieg, who temporarily suspended his campaign to return to his city, said the shooting is under investigation, but added, “It’s a mess and we’re hurting.”

Many in the black community have protested Buttigieg’s handling of the police incident and the relatively small number of black police officers on the South Bend force.

Biden leading early survey

Biden currently leads Democratic voter preference surveys for the party’s presidential nomination, but he was facing some of his biggest rivals, with millions watching on national television. He often defended his long role in the U.S. government, most recently as former President Barack Obama’s two-term vice president.

He was joined in the debate by nine other presidential candidates, including Senators Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist from Vermont, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

In the early moments of the debate, Biden, Sanders and Harris all attacked President Donald Trump for his staunch support for a $1.5 trillion tax cut Congress enacted that chiefly benefited corporations and the wealthy.

“Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation,” Biden said. “I would be going about eliminating Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy.” Sanders called for the elimination of $1.6 trillion of student debt across the country, while Harris said she would change the tax code to benefit the American middle class, not the wealthy.

‘The fraud he is’

Sanders attacked Trump in the most direct way of any of the Democratic contenders, declaring, “Trump is a phony, pathological liar and a racist.” He said Democrats need to “expose him as the fraud he is.”

In a wide-ranging debate, some of the contenders voiced disagreements on how to change U.S. health care policies. Sanders, Harris and Gillibrand all, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren the night before, called for the controversial adoption of a government-run health care program to replace the current U.S. system, which is based on workers buying private insurance policies to pay most of their health care bills.

But the other candidates disagreed. Biden, a staunch supporter of the Obamacare plan adopted while he was vice president that helped millions of Americans gain health insurance coverage, said that the existing plan should be improved, not abandoned.

“I’m against any Democrat who takes down Obamacare,” Biden said.

All 10 contenders said they supported providing health care coverage for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Biden, reflecting other candidates’ comments, said, “You cannot let people be sick no matter where they came from.”

Trump, who was following the debate from the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, blasted the democratic candidates’ position.

All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2019

Biden twice has failed to win the party’s presidential nomination, in 1988 and 2008. But he has consistently led national polling this year, both over his Democratic rivals for the party nomination and over Trump in a hypothetical 2020 general election matchup.

Biden’s closest Democratic challengers are Sanders and Warren of Massachusetts, the key contender among 10 on the debate stage Wednesday, when more than 15 million people tuned in to see the first major political event of the 2020 campaign.

Biden has attempted to portray himself as a steady alternative to the unpredictable Trump, one who would restore frayed U.S. relations with foreign allies and undo conservative domestic policies Trump has adopted.

But more progressive Democrats have questioned Biden’s bona fides and political history over four decades in Washington as the party’s key current figures have aggressively moved toward more liberal stances on a host of key policy issues, including health care and abortion, taxes and immigration.

Some critics also have suggested that Biden might be too old to become the U.S. leader. Now 76, Biden would be 78 and the oldest first-term president if he were to defeat the 73-year-old Trump and take office in January 2021. Trump often mocks him as “Sleepy Joe.”

‘Pass the torch’

Congressman Eric Swalwell of California jabbed at Biden, recalling that 32 years ago, when Biden first ran for president, Biden contended the U.S. needed to “pass the torch” to a new generation of leaders. Swalwell said Biden was right when he said that then and joked that “he’s right today.”

Biden laughed at the reference, responding, “I’m still holding on to that torch.”

In the Midwestern farm state of Iowa recently, Trump assessed his possible Democratic opponents, saying of Biden, “I think he’s the weakest mentally, and I think Joe is weak mentally. The others have much more energy.”

Biden, for his part, labeled Trump “an existential threat” to the U.S.

…

The second set of 10 Democrats took the stage Thursday night for the second Democratic primary debate of the 2020 U.S. election cycle in the race to try to oust Republican President Donald Trump from the White House.

On stage were Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.), former Vice President Joe Biden, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.), former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), author Marianne Williamson and businessman Andrew Yang.

Here is a look at the top quotes from the spirited debate:

Joe Biden

As the front-runner, Biden faced tough questions.

He was questioned over his recent comments about working well with segregationist senators and his past opposition to busing plans used to desegregate public schools.

Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, said to Biden: “I do not believe you are a racist and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. But I also believe, and it is personal, and I was actually very — it was hurtful, to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.”

Biden hit back: “It’s a mischaracterization of my position across the board: I did not praise racists. That is not true.”

Bernie Sanders

Sanders was pressed over his self-description as a socialist, including a question on whether his proposals like Medicare for All would lead to higher taxes on the middle class.

“Every proposal that I have brought forth is fully paid for,” he said, arguing that insurance premiums would be lower under his proposal. “Yes, they will pay more in taxes but less in health care for what they get.”

Eric Swalwell

Eric Swalwell was the first of the night to attack Joe Biden. He says he remembers being a child when a Democratic candidate came to California and talked about the need to “Pass the torch” to young people.

“That man was Joe Biden,” Swalwell said. “And yes, we need to ‘Pass the torch.’”

“I’m still holding onto that torch,” Biden said.

Kamala Harris

After some squabbling among the candidate, the moderators tried to move the discussion on. Harris comes in with a line of her own. “Americans don’t want to watch a food fight,” she said. They want to know how they will be able to “put food on the table.”

Pete Buttigieg

Asked during the debate why he didn’t manage to hire more black police officers in South Bend, where 26% of the population is black. 

“Because I couldn’t get it done,” Buttigieg responded.

“It’s a mess, and we’re hurting,” he said. “And I could walk you through all the things that we have done as a community. All of the steps that we took from bias training to de-escalation. But it didn’t save the life of Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother’s eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back.”

Buttigieg said that these issues South Bend faces are really a national problem, and that across the country it’s important to combat systemic racism in police departments.

“I am determined to bring about a day when a white person driving a vehicle and a black person driving a vehicle, when they see a police officer approaching feels the exact same thing — a feeling not of fear, but of safety,” Buttigieg said.

Marianne Williamson

Williamson called the policy proposals for the country’s health care plans “superficial fixes” and railed against the current system as a “sickness system” rather than a “health care system.”

“If you think we are going to beat Donald Trump with all these plans, you are wrong,” she said, a tacit swipe at several candidates, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who have offered multiple policy proposals.

Michael Bennet

Bennet swiped at President Donald Trump directly over his 2017 tax cuts, tariffs he’s levied as president and poor conditions at migrant detention centers.

“The president has turned the border of the United States into a symbol of nativist hostility,” Bennet said.

Kirsten Gillibrand

The New York senator criticized Trump, pointing to the deaths of seven migrant children in U.S. custody during Trump’s tenure in the White House.

“He’s torn apart the moral fabric of who we are, when he started separating children at the border with their parents. The fact that seven children have died in his custody,” Gillibrand said.

Andrew Yang

Yang was asked to defend his proposal to pay $1,000 a month, to every American, from the federal government.

“It’s difficult to do if you have companies like Amazon, trillion-dollar companies, paying zero in taxes,” Yang said, suggesting he would seek to close tax loopholes used by companies. He said he would also add a “mild” value-added tax, a kind of consumption tax used by European countries.

“Just the value gained by having a stronger, healthier, mentally healthier population” would be worth billions to the U.S. economy, Yang said, plus savings, as incarceration rates and homelessness declined.

John Hickenlooper

“As Colorado governor, I brought in progressive policies. Socialism is bad, and will re-elect Trump.”

…

At least sixteen people were facing the death penalty in a trial that started Thursday over the gruesome death of a young Bangladeshi woman that sparked protests and government promises of tough action.

Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 19, was set on fire in April after allegedly refusing to withdraw claims of sexual harassment against the head teacher of the Islamic seminary she attended.

She was lured onto the seminary rooftop in the southeastern town of Sonagazi, doused in kerosene and set alight, prosecutors say. She died five days later, triggering countrywide outrage.

The 16 people indicted — including the teacher — could face the death penalty if convicted. All defendants pleaded not guilty, while eight of the accused told the court that police forced them to sign written statements confessing involvement in the murder.

A special tribunal opened the trial Thursday at a crowded courtroom in the southeastern Feni district, with the first testimony by Rafi’s elder brother Mahmudul Hasan Noman who filed the case.

Noman — one of 92 people due to testify — described the killing in the court, saying the murder could have been avoided if police had acted upon Rafi’s harassment complaint.

The trial is expected to finish in six months, but Noman has urged the court to fast-track the hearings.

“Several defendants have alleged they were tortured and given electric shocks to sign confessional statements,” defence lawyer Giasuddin Ahmed told AFP, adding the case has become “politically motivated”.

Rafi had gone to police in March to report the alleged harassment. A leaked video shows the then district police chief registering her complaint but dismissing it as “not a big deal”.

The police official was later dismissed and arrested early this month for failing to properly investigate her allegations.

Police said at least five people — including three of Rafi’s classmates — tied her up with a scarf before setting her on fire. The plan was to stage the incident as a suicide case.

Rafi suffered burns to 80 percent of her body and died on April 10. But she recorded a video before her death, repeating her allegations against the head teacher.

Rights groups are closely monitoring the case as it came amid a spike in the number of rape and sexual assaults reported in Bangladesh.

They have said “a culture of impunity” is partly to blame for rise in sexual violence in the country.

According to Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, a women’s rights group, only three percent of rape cases end in convictions.

It said about 950 women were raped in Bangladesh last year.

…

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has begun a two-day official visit to Pakistan to pursue what aides say would be the normalization of the relationship between the two uneasy neighboring countries.

The Afghan leader held delegation-level talks with Prime Minister Imran Khan shortly after arriving in Islamabad at the head of a large delegation comprising Cabinet ministers, advisors and Afghan business community leaders.

Officials said the discussions focused on strengthening mutual cooperation in a number of areas, including political, trade, economic, security as well as peace and reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan. Ghani is also scheduled to address a conference of Pakistani and Afghan businessmen.

Allegations that the Pakistani military supports and shelters Taliban leaders are at the center of long-running bilateral tensions and mistrust. Pakistan rejects the charges and in turn accuses the Afghan spy agency of providing refuge to militants waging terrorist attacks against the Pakistani state.

The two countries share a nearly 2,600 kilometer, largely porous border, which critics say encourages illegal movement in both directions. Pakistan is unilaterally installing a robust fence along most of the frontier and believes it would address mutual security concerns.

Officials in Islamabad see Ghani’s latest visit as an indication his government “now realizes and accepts the centrality of Pakistan” to resolve bilateral issues and promote the Afghan peace process.

A senior foreign ministry official underscored the need for regular, direct and uninterrupted institutional-level engagement between the two countries. The official spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity.

“While Afghanistan realizes the importance of Pakistan in medium to long term, Pakistan also feels that it is important to remain engaged with the government of Afghanistan regardless of who heads it,” stressed the Pakistani official.

Last week, Pakistan hosted a “peace conference” of around 60 top Afghan political personalities, mostly opposition leaders, to try to underscore its neutrality in the conflict-torn Afghanistan.

U.S.-Taliban peace talks

Ghani’s visit comes at a time of intensified diplomatic efforts the United States is making to find a political settlement with the Taliban insurgency to end the nearly 18-year-old war in Afghanistan.

It also comes ahead of the next round of peace negotiations between U.S. and insurgent delegations to be hosted by Qatar on Saturday.

The Afghan government has been excluded from the dialogue process because of the Taliban’s refusal to deal with what the insurgents dismiss as an illegitimate “puppet” regime in Kabul.

Islamabad takes credit for arranging the U.S.-Taliban peace dialogue, insisting peace in Afghanistan is key to Pakistan’s own long-term security.

U.S. officials acknowledge Pakistani efforts in promoting the Afghan peace but they are seeking more help from Islamabad in terms of persuading the Taliban to show flexibility in the talks.

“Pakistan has a particularly important role to play in this process…Progress has been made. We will continue to look to Pakistan for practical measures, cooperation on peace talks and the implementation of any agreement,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to Kabul.

Taliban and U.S. officials have held six rounds of talks in the nearly year-long process. The two sides say they have drafted a primary agreement that would bind the Taliban to stop terrorists from using insurgent-control areas for international terrorism. In turn, Washington would announce a troop withdrawal timetable.

But the Taliban rejects calls for a permanent cease-fire and the start of a formal intra-Afghan peace dialogue until it secures a U.S. troop withdrawal deal.

…

Fifty years ago today (June 27, 1969),  police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village. The violent protests that followed galvanized the gay rights movement in America. A half-century later, society’s attitudes toward the LGBTQ community has evolved, as highlighted in a groundbreaking exhibit at the Newseum in Washington, DC. For some members of the LGBTQ community, the exhibit is deeply personal. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.

…

Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for U.S. President Donald Trump, will be arraigned Thursday in a New York court in Manhattan on state criminal charges, after having been convicted last year on federal fraud charges.

Manafort, 70, is scheduled to appear before Justice Maxwell Wiley of the state Supreme Court at 2:15 p.m. EDT (1815 GMT) Thursday, court spokesman Lucian Chalfen told Reuters.

Manafort faces 16 felony charges brought by the Manhattan district attorney. The state charges include mortgage fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records, and relate to alleged efforts by Manafort and others to obtain millions of dollars in loans on New York properties.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance made the indictment public in March, on the same day Manafort was sentenced on federal crimes.

Manafort is serving a 7 1/2-year federal sentence for tax fraud, bank fraud and other charges.

Federal prosecutors accused him of hiding $16 million from U.S. tax authorities that he earned as a consultant for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, and then lying to banks to obtain $20 million in loans when the money dried up.

The federal charges stemmed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Manafort faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the top charges in the New York case.

…

Mark Brooks is no stranger to golf. In fact, he says, “I chose golf, I certainly had designs on maybe doing something else if golf didn’t work out, but it has worked out for me and it is an interesting game.”

Mark Brooks plays on the Champions Tour of the Professional Golfers Association. Brooks has seven wins on the PGA Tour, including one major win, the 1996 PGA Championship. He turned became a professional in 1983, and he holds the record for most career starts on tour: over 800 and counting.

“I went straight to the PGA Tour. I never played any other tours around the world. I did not have to play the ‘mini tours,’ you know, where you’re scraping by. I went straight to ‘the show.’ You have to qualify. It’s a big qualifier. A six-round golf tournament, played in the fall, and it’s been that way for quite a few years,” he says. “I was fortunate enough to get my first shot right of college.”

Brooks says playing with professional golf players right out of college helped him to realize his own shortcomings and the need for learning how to improve his play.

“Once I got on tour, I basically saw that everything about my game needed to be improved.  I had a pretty good swing but I needed these things to change. I made some changes after about five years of struggling, trying to stay on tour, you know, pretty much just kind of gutting it out, playing on instinct.  And within probably four or five months, I saw some dramatic improvement in my ball striking, which, you know, it’s how close you hit it to the hole and hit fairways and all that.  And after about five years on tour, things kind of clicked.”

Brooks says although physical abilities matter when playing, the game of golf tests a player’s mental stamina, but he says the game has changed.

“One of the things we’re seeing, the equipment gotten so much better, the golf ball itself, which is integral to playing the game, the ball has changed quite a bit in the last 20 or 30 years. It goes straighter. It goes further. It fights the elements better as far as the wind. Technologies kind of entered the game in a strong way in the last 15 or 20 years, so it’s allowed a different style of athlete, I’m going to say, to do really well in golf,” he says. “So, we’re seeing a little bit of a change, unfortunately, in my opinion, with golf and the characteristics of a person that make you probably be a good player, not a great player. And so, I think a little bit of the mental part has been taken out. They have to figure out how to make golf become more of testing a player’s mental ability other than just a few weeks of the year when you turn on the Masters or U.S. Open. Golf is supposed to be a game of, you know, testing oneself against oneself. The golf course is just an element that’s there to bring those things out.”

Brooks still plays on the tour. He says now that he is older, the toughest challenge is dealing with less than perfect play. 

“You want to go out there and produce shots that you know you’re capable of, but you know when you’re in your prime years, you can go reproduce a shot eight or nine out of 10 times. Three in a row is easy. As you get older, it is far more difficult to have your body repeat those things. In my opinion, your mind wants your body to do certain things and sometimes your body doesn’t listen. I’ve had knee issue, shoulder issue, you know, back issues, herniated disc, so playing mediocre golf doesn’t feel good.

As I’ve gotten older, I think it’s not just patience, it’s just I just don’t enjoy going out there playing really crappy golf. And I think I’m not alone in that regard.”

Mark Brooks holds a significant record in the Pro Golfers Association: most career starts.

“I’ve played over 800 tournaments that are just the PGA tour alone, and when you start doing the math, you just go, ‘That’s insane.’ I mean, if you play 20 tournaments a year, that’s 40 years. It’s ridiculous,” Brooks says.  “So, I would say that’s probably my greatest achievement.”

Brooks says choosing a time to retire from golf has been difficult.

“I had a shot at something pretty big in the early 2000s. I said at the time I would retire if I won that week and I was dead serious and I didn’t win.” So, to my body’s demise and my family, I am still doing it because I did not win that playoff. Retiring is difficult. Golf sort of wanes you off. You are weaned off the competitive circuit. And then I’d love to spend the rest my life, the next 10 or 15 years doing television and teaching good players because I think that’s what I have the most experience with, and the most expertise in.”

…

VOA’s Victoria Macchi contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — More than 200 children held in a border facility described as unsafe and unsanitary last week were transferred to the care of another U.S. agency by Tuesday, U.S. health authorities confirmed.

In a statement emailed to VOA, U.S. Health and Human Services acknowledged it worked with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to remove 249 unaccompanied children from the CBP Clint Station facility in Texas.

The statement came after the Associated Press reported unsanitary living conditions and inadequate food and medical treatment at the facility.

The children held at Clint Station were those who crossed the border without authorization and without a guardian, and are referred to as “unaccompanied alien children,” or UACs.

While CBP is the agency that detains unauthorized border crossers, HHS generally takes custody of detained, unaccompanied children within 72 hours, as is mandated by law except for rare occasions in which a child is held by CBP for longer.

“UAC are waiting too long in CBP facilities that are not designed to care for children,” an HHS official told VOA.

The agency said it was able to expedite how soon children in its care were released to sponsors  often an extended family member, like a grandparent. A process that was taking 90 days in November 2018 was down to an average of 44 days in May, according to HHS.

But like other agencies working with children and families detained at the border, HHS and CBP are struggling to meet the demands of the recent increase in arrivals.

Trump “personally concerned”

Meanwhile, despite the confirmation from HHS that 249 children were removed from the Clint facility, media outlets reported that an official from CBP, who briefed reporters on Tuesday, said the government moved more than 100 children back to the same facility .

CBP drew criticism from human rights groups and federal lawmakers  over the AP report last week.

After signing an affordable housing executive order in the Oval Office on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he was “personally concerned about the conditions” at border facilities after AP’s report. 

Trump said “A lot of these young children come from places that you don’t even want to know about, the way they’ve lived, the way they’ve been.” 

He also said his administration is trying to get Democrats to give “some humanitarian aid humanitarian money.”

CBP chief resigning

It is also unclear whether that report played a role in the announcement on Tuesday that the head of CBP, Acting Commissioner John Sanders, is resigning.

He will leave his post on July 5, a CBP official confirmed in an email to VOA.

The agency declined to provide further comment on the resignation.

…

A heat wave is set to descend upon Europe this week, weather so intense that a forecaster in Spain warned, “El infierno (hell) is coming.”

El infierno is coming. pic.twitter.com/j0iGEYF0ge

— Silvia Laplana (@slaplana_tve) June 24, 2019

The heat wave is expected to peak between Wednesday and Friday when temperatures are expected to top 40 degrees Celsius from Spain to Poland.

Authorities warned early summer heat waves are especially dangerous because people have not had to adapt to the higher temperatures.

French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said more than half of France is on alert for high temperatures. Public service announcements on TV, radio, and on buses and trains urged the French to keep an eye out for older family members and neighbors.

Most of France is under an orange alert, the second-highest level on the country’s heat scale. The scale was established after the 2003 heat wave killed some 15,000 people.  

The French Education Ministry ordered the national school exams to be postponed to next week. Paris city officials mobilized teams to hand out water to the homeless. The city also extended the hours for city pools, and set up thousands of misting tents and cooling rooms.

Authorities in Switzerland also raised that country’s alert to its second-highest level, especially for regions along the southern and northern borders with Italy and Germany.

Germany’s meteorological agency said temperatures Wednesday could break the current record in June of 38.5 Celsius.

Temperatures also soared in the Baltics, sending scores of people to lakes and rivers to cool down, leading to a spike in drownings. In Lithuania, where the highs reached 35.7 degrees Celsius, 27 people were reported to have drowned.

Heat waves are becoming more common across Europe and are expected to double in frequency by 2050, the French  meteorological agency says.

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday during a visit to Afghanistan that the Trump administration is aiming for a peace deal in the war-ravaged country by September.

His visit came as American and Taliban negotiators are scheduled to meet in Qatar later this week (June 29) for the next round of talks in their months-long dialogue aimed at finding a political settlement to the Afghan war.

“I hope we have a peace deal before September 1st. That’s certainly our mission set,” Pompeo told reporters at the U.S. embassy in Kabul after his meetings with Afghan leaders. The country is due to hold presidential elections on September 28.

The U.S.-Taliban dialogue process is primarily focused on working out a timeline for the withdrawal of American and NATO forces from Afghanistan in return for assurances international terrorists will not be allowed to use Taliban-controlled areas for attacks against other countries.

The insurgent group controls or contests more than 50% of the Afghan territory and continues to inflict battlefield losses on U.S.-backed Afghan security forces,

“We have made real progress and are nearly ready to conclude a draft text outlining the Taliban’s commitments to join fellow Afghans in ensuring that Afghan soil never again becomes a safe haven for terrorists,” Pompeo noted.

He said discussions with the Taliban regarding foreign troop withdrawal have begun.  Pompeo also said insurgent claims that Washington has agreed to pull out of Afghanistan are not true.

“While we’ve made clear to the Taliban that we are prepared to remove our forces, I want to be clear we have not yet agreed on a timeline to do so,” Pompeo explained. He acknowledged the U.S.-Taliban discussions will be the basis for intra-Afghan peace and reconciliation talks.

Pompeo visited Kabul on a day when members of opposition groups held a large public gathering in the city to protest against extension given to President Ashraf Ghani by the country’s Supreme Court. They insisted Ghani’s constitutional five-year term ended in May and demanded the president must step down. The incumbent president is seeking re-election.

“We call upon the former president (Ghani) to withdraw his candidacy if he should continue to hold office as a caretaker president for the purpose of realization of the principles of justice and impartiality,” said a post-rally statement by the Council of Presidential Candidates (CPC).

Pompeo also emphasized the need for a credible Afghan presidential election.

“I urge the Afghan government, the Independent Election Commission, and all political stakeholders to take all necessary steps to ensure that the elections are credible,”  Pompeo stressed.

…

Senior U.S. officials say they are already busy buttressing the nation’s defenses against foreign interference for the 2020 presidential election. Only they admit the public may be kept in the dark about attacks and intrusions.

Intelligence and election security officials have warned repeatedly that Russia, among other state and nonstate actors, remains intent on disrupting the upcoming elections and that the Kremlin may even have gone easy on the U.S. during the 2016 midterm elections, seeing the ability to impact the 2020 presidential race as the bigger prize.

At the same time, election and security officials have come under increased scrutiny for failing to reveal the size and scope of Russia’s efforts to hack into voter databases and other critical systems.

In April, special counsel Robert Mueller released his report into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as well as allegations of obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.

Florida representatives

In May, two U.S. representatives from Florida, Republican Michael Waltz and Democrat Stephanie Murphy, wrote to the FBI and Justice Department, demanding a classified briefing on the extent of Russia’s exploits after the Mueller report indicated Moscow managed to infiltrate critical systems in at least one county during the 2016 presidential election.

“Florida voters have the right to know the extent to which foreign actors may have breached our state’s election security systems, and what the federal government is doing to prevent it from happening again,” Murphy said in a statement.

Senior Trump administration officials, however, cautioned Monday they may decide to keep information like that from the public.

“There are hard choices to be made,” one official told reporters while briefing them on efforts to protect the 2020 election from foreign interference.

“The ultimate question is going to be whether the federal or national interests in doing so — publicly disclosing it — outweigh any counter veiling consideration,” the official added.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials said the ability to disclose information can often be limited by the need to protect the sources and methods that discovered the attacks or intrusions in the first place.

Impact on victims

There are also concerns about the impact on the victims.

“Victims who work with the FBI do so because they trust that we’ll protect and handle their information appropriately,” a senior law enforcement official said. “For example, the majority of technical information that we were able to give election officials during the 2016 time frame was initiated from this type of trusted outreach.”

In cases involving foreign influence campaigns, the decision to make them public can be even more difficult.

“Disclosing a foreign influence operation might do more harm than good because it might draw more attention to an operation that would otherwise go unnoticed,” the senior administration official said.

A senior intelligence official agreed that in some cases, the less said, the better.

“It’s less about highlighting for the public that there might be a problem,” the official said. “We actually want to stop it from happening, whether we do that through cyber channels or diplomatic channels or other operations.”

2020 campaign

With the 2020 presidential campaign getting under way, intelligence agencies, along with the Department of Homeland Security and FBI, have set about briefing the candidates and making them aware of the resources available should their campaign come under attack.

There are also increased efforts to reach out to U.S. state and local officials to make sure they have the information they need to protect their voter databases and election systems from attacks.

Officials said there have even been ongoing discussions with the private sector, both those that provide voting machines and other election infrastructure, as well as with social media companies.

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The U.S. Treasury inspector general says he will look into why the Trump administration decided to scrap plans to put escaped slave turned abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the move last month, saying the change is because of “counterfeiting issues.”

But Democratic Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said he is not satisfied with Mnuchin’s vague explanation, saying it lacked credibility.

He asked the Treasury’s watchdog to investigate the circumstances “including any involvement by the White House.”

“There are no women, there are no people of color on our paper currency today even though they make up a significant majority of our population,” Schumer said.

The redesigned bill was to have entered circulation next year, but Mnuchin said it will be put off until 2028. It is also unclear whether Tubman will still be on the new bill when it is finally rolled out.

He said the “imagery feature” (who will appear on the bill) will not be a matter until long after he and U.S. President Donald Trump are out of office.

The $20 bill currently features a picture of 19th century U.S. President Andrew Jackson. Jackson owned slaves and forced Native Americans out of their ancestral lands in the southeastern U.S. leading to the deaths of thousands of Indians. 

The move to replace Jackson, preferably with a historically-important woman, was announced during the Obama administration. 

Tubman was chosen from an online poll of Americans.

President Trump is said to be an admirer of Andrew Jackson — not because of Jackson’s racism — but because Trump regards him as a populist and anti-establishment. 

Trump called replacing Jackson with Tubman “pure political correctness” and proposed putting Tubman on the $2 bill, which is rarely printed. 

Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland as a young woman and returned to the southern U.S. to help other slaves escape and to work as a union government spy during the Civil War.

She was thought to be in her early 90s when she died in 1913.

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who criticized China last year for “buying” up his country, will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time on the sidelines of this week’s G-20 meeting in Japan, his office said on Monday.

Bolsonaro, a far-right firebrand, has softened his stance on Brazil’s largest trading partner since taking office in January and will meet with Xi for 40 minutes on Friday morning before the summit of leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies kicks off in Osaka, according to the schedule released by his office.

A representative of China’s embassy in Brazil said the two countries were discussing a bilateral meeting, although the details had yet to be agreed to. Given the packed schedule at the G-20, any bilateral meeting would likely be informal and brief, the diplomat said, speaking on background.

China is by far the largest buyer of Brazilian soybeans and iron ore, and Brazil hopes to upgrade its commodities exports to include products with greater added value.

Bolsonaro expressed concern about Chinese domination during his election campaign. Citing the purchase of electrical assets by Chinese companies, he complained that “China isn’t buying in Brazil, China is buying Brazil.”

But he has dropped his criticisms as the reality of Brazil’s dependence on the Chinese market set in.

His vice president, retired general Hamilton Mourao, visited Beijing in May to resume high-level talks that had stalled under the previous government. Mourao’s visit followed Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina’s mission to China seeking to widen food sales to China.

Mourao met in Beijing with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Chief Executive Ren Zhengfei and later told journalists that Brazil had no plans to follow the United States in barring the Chinese telecom company’s participation when Latin America’s largest country launches its 5G network next year.

Washington has asked countries to reject Huawei technology in the development of new mobile phone networks due to security concerns.

Bolsonaro and Xi are expected to discuss a date for the Brazilian leader’s planned visit to Beijing later this year, before Xi visits Brazil in November for the summit of the BRICS leading emerging economies.

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Ethiopian security is hunting for the leader of the failed coup in the northern Amhara region where security is tight, as well as in the capital, Addis Ababa.
 
An internet shutdown remains in force across the country, following the assassinations of Amhara’s governor and an adviser in the regional capital, Bahir Dar, Saturday. Later in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s military chief was shot dead by his own bodyguard who also killed a visiting retired general.
 
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that Brig. Gen. Asamnew Tsige masterminded the plot. Ethiopian officials said that Asamnew has not yet been arrested.
 
Ethiopian military have set up checkpoints in the capital and in the Amhara region.
 
Flags are flying at half-mast Monday which has been declared a day of national mourning following the four killings.

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A plate-hurling, screaming quarrel with his latest girlfriend has turned the spotlight fully on where Boris Johnson’s advisers didn’t want it — on his character and chaotic private life, which even his friends have described as “unruly.”

The altercation, recorded by neighbors in south London who phoned the police, has thrown a wrench into Johnson’s smooth-running campaign to succeed Theresa May as Britain’s prime minister, which commentators say is his race to lose.

His bid to win a leadership contest, which is now in its final stages after lawmakers whittled down in knockout ballots the succession choice to two candidates for the party’s 160,000 members to vote on by mail, has been built on avoiding television debates and dodging journalists.

Johnson has refused to answer questions about the screaming match in the apartment of his girlfriend, 31-year-old Carrie Symonds, but calls are mounting on the 55-year-old to address questions about the altercation on Friday.

Johnson ended a 25-year-long marriage, his second divorce, to move in last year with the younger Symonds, but his unruly private life has been marked by serial relationships, children fathered out of wedlock and terminated pregnancies.

The quarrel has allowed his remaining opponent in the leadership race, the country’s current and normally mild-mannered foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, to pile on the pressure and to launch Monday an uncharacteristically personal attack on his rival, accusing him of being a “coward” by trying to avoid public scrutiny and “slink through the back door” of Downing Street.

Johnson, who was finally backed by more than half of Conservative lawmakers to be the new party leader has appeared on only one TV debate and granted a single short broadcast interview and one newspaper interview. Hunt says the public want a “fair and open contest, not one that one side is trying to rig to avoid scrutiny.”

He added: “One of the strengths of our system is that we scrutinize our politicians with more intelligent ferocity than anywhere else in the World. But in this case it just isn’t happening. Nothing could be worse for a new prime minister in these challenging times than to come to power with a fake contest.”

Hunt’s aides say it is especially important for May’s successor to be scrutinized closely as they will be entering Downing Street not via a general election but through a party vote with their democratic legitimacy questioned because the country as a whole would not have had any say in their selection.

Hunt says he doesn’t want to quiz Johnson, a former two-term London mayor and short-lived foreign minister, about his private life, but about his claim that he can “guarantee” Britain will leave the European Union by October 31, the latest deadline for the country’s exit from the bloc.

But while Hunt is avoiding focusing directly on Johnson’s character, some of his aides are happily fanning the flames and briefing reporters behind the scenes that the frontrunner’s highly colorful private life represents a security risk.  It could leave him vulnerable to leaks about past behavior and even open to blackmail by foreign powers, they charge.

The accusation has infuriated Johnson supporters, who say the explosive argument between Symonds and Johnson was just a normal domestic “tiff” apparently provoked by Johnson spilling red wine on a sofa. They maintain the quarrel was blown out of proportion by neighbors who are politically motivated. The police left without charging anyone.

Nonetheless, the dispute, which is depressing Johnson’s poll numbers, is contributing to a picture of a Conservative party in disarray and fearful that it is facing an existential crisis because of Brexit. It comes as pro-European Union Conservatives have started to plot a strategy to wreck a Johnson-led government, if he seeks to take Britain out of the European bloc without an exit deal approved by Brussels.

Sharp divisions between Brexiters and pro-EU lawmakers wrecked Theresa May’s prime ministership and there are growing signs that it might quickly upend Johnson’s, too, if he wins the leadership race.

May’s fate was sealed when the British House of Commons declined three times to approve a Brexit Withdrawal Agreement she negotiated with Brussels — a deal vehemently opposed by a third of her own parliamentary party on the grounds it would keep Britain subservient to EU regulations and rules and prevent it from negotiating trade deals bilaterally with non-EU countries.
 
Europhiles are also opposed to the deal. Several top Conservatives who want to retain close ties with the EU have warned they could join opposition parties in a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons and bring down a Johnson government.

A former Conservative attorney-general, Dominic Grieve, said: “If the new prime minister announces that he is taking the country on a magical mystery tour towards an October 31 crash-out, I don’t think that prime minister is going to survive very long.”

Even Britain’s current top finance minister, Philip Hammond, has warned the next prime minister “will not survive,” if they seek to leave the EU without a deal. He has declined publicly to rule out that he would vote with opposition parties against Johnson, if he sought a no-deal Brexit.

Britain’s fractious Conservatives are ruling as a minority government, and they rely on the support of a Northern Irish party to give them a working majority of just three in the House of Commons. A handful of Conservative standouts could trigger a chain of events leading to an early election the Conservatives are unlikely to win.

Johnson’s supporters say he remains the favorite of party activists because he has the star quality the party needs to win elections and curb both the populist threat from Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party and combat Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn.

They also claim he has the political inventiveness to break the Brexit deadlock that has turned traditional British politics upside down and might even have the ability to persuade hardline Brexiters to accept a compromise and something short of their objective to break completely with the EU.

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The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is urging Hong Kong authorities to “consult broadly before passing or amending” an extradition bill or “any other legislation,” as protests in the autonomous territory continue.

Speaking at the opening of a three-week session of Human Right Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Michelle Bachelet also said that she continues to discuss with China issues related to Xinjiang, including allowing “unfettered access” to the western region, and other matters.

U.N. observers and activists say that about one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims are held in detention centers in Xinjiang. The international community has condemned China for setting up such complexes which Beijing describes as “education training centers” helping to eradicate extremism and give people new skills.

Hong Kong protesters blocked access to a Hong Kong government office building for about two hours Monday and plan another demonstration Wednesday to raise awareness among leaders attending the G-20 summit this week in Japan.

Thousands of student protesters dressed in black have been marching in Hong Kong for weeks, demanding the full withdrawal of the controversial extradition bill and the resignation of the territory’s pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam.

Last week, Lam offered an apology for the political crisis and unrest sparked by the proposed law.

The Hong Kong protests pose the greatest challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he took office in 2012. The Chinese government had supported the extradition proposal, and accused protest organizers of colluding with Western governments.

The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said President Donald Trump plans to discuss the Hong Kong issue with Xi at the upcoming G-20 summit.

…

U.S. President Donald Trump says he is “not looking for war” with Iran and willing to negotiate with its leaders without preconditions, but that under no circumstances can the Islamic Republic be allowed to mass a nuclear weapons arsenal.

Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press show that if the U.S. went to war with Iran, “It’ll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before.”

“But,” he added, “I’m not looking to do that.”

The U.S. leader said, “Here it is. Look, you can’t have nuclear weapons. And if you want to talk about it, good. Otherwise, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time.”

Trump’s comments, taped Friday, were aired after he announced Saturday, without providing any details, that he plans to impose “major” new sanctions on Iran on Monday. He said the sanctions would be dropped as soon as the country becomes “a productive and prosperous nation again.”

Iran cannot have Nuclear Weapons! Under the terrible Obama plan, they would have been on their way to Nuclear in a short number of years, and existing verification is not acceptable. We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday. I look forward to the day that…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019

Two other key U.S. officials, national security adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence, issued new warnings to Iran that Trump’s last-minute decision to not militarily retaliate for Tehran’s Thursday shoot-down of an unmanned U.S. drone near the Strait of Hormuz should not be viewed as a sign of “weakness.”

“Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake U.S. prudence and discretion for weakness,” Bolton said in Jerusalem ahead of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East,” Bolton said of Iran. “Our military is rebuilt new and ready to go.”

Pence told the CNN television network, “Iran must not take restraint for a lack of resolve. This is a president who hopes for the best for the Iranian people…but we will stand up to their provocations.”

Bolton said existing sanctions against Tehran already are having a sharp effect on the Tehran economy.

“Sanctions are biting,” he said. “Iran can never have nuclear weapons — not against the U.S.A. and not against the world.”

Trump spoke with reporters Saturday at the White House before leaving for the presidential retreat at Camp David outside Washington for a meeting with top administration officials, at one point saying as soon as Tehran agreed to renounce nuclear weapons, “I’m going to be their best friend.”

Trump’s tone was much softer on Saturday after a week of intense actions between the U.S. and Iran.

Concern about a potential armed confrontation between the U.S. and Iran has been growing since U.S. officials recently blamed Tehran for mine attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, allegations Tehran denies, and Iran’s downing of the drone.

On Friday, Trump said that he had canceled late Thursday a retaliatory strike against several Iranian targets.

He tweeted that the United States was “cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,” Trump tweeted, saying the action would have been disproportionate.

Pence said the U.S. was “not convinced” the downing of the drone “was authorized at the highest level” of the Iranian government. As Trump weighed how to respond last week, he said the shoot-down might have been launched on orders of a “loose and stupid” Iranian officer.

World powers have called for calm after the incidents.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday urged for a political resolution of the crisis. “That is what we are working on,” she told Reuters.

On Sunday, Britain’s Middle East minister, Andrew Murrison, will travel to Tehran for talks with Iranian officials.

Britain’s Foreign Office said Murrison would call for “urgent de-escalation in the region.” He will also discuss Iran’s threat to cease complying with the nuclear deal that the United States pulled out of last year.  

James Phillips, a senior researcher at the conservative Washington-based Heritage Foundation, said he believes the immediate risk of a U.S.-Iran conflict has passed.

“It’s probably over as far as the incident goes with the shoot down of the drone. But, I think if there are further provocations, the president will respond in a strong and effective manner,” he said.

Phillips also said he does not expect Tehran to accept U.S. calls for negotiations while Trump continues a “maximum pressure campaign” of sanctions on Iran. “I doubt that Tehran will be serious until it sees who wins the next presidential election,” he said.

The U.S. announced this week it was authorizing another 1,000 troops — including a Patriot missile battery and additional manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to bolster defenses at U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria.

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The ruling party candidate in the re-run of Istanbul’s mayoral election, Binali Yildirim, has conceded defeat to opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu.

Sunday’s vote was held because election authorities controversially annulled Imamoglu’s initial historic election victory in March on a technicality after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan disputed the defeat of his candidate.

Electoral authorities rejected Erdogan’s AKP Party’s claims of voting fraud, but ordered a revote on the grounds a number election officials were ineligible. The opposition condemned the decision and claimed the Sunday vote is now more than just about who runs the city.

In a sign of the importance of Sunday’s election, voting was brisk from the moment the Kadikoy district ballot station opened, in a city where people traditionally vote late.  Early heavy voting  was reported across the city.

“The election is very important for Turkey, this will change the face of Turkey,” said retiree Cengiz Demir, one of the first to vote in Kadikoy district. “We have to return to democratic settings. Maybe more than a majority have had enough of one man rule,” he added.

One man rule is a reference to President Erdogan who many of his opponents accuse of undermining democracy and turning Turkey into an authoritarian state.

“In the name of our Turkey, in the name of our Istanbul, we are going through a very important election,” Imamoglu said to hundreds of supporters after voting. “This is not only about the Istanbul metropolitan, municipal election but at the same time a day for the repair the damage of this unlawful process imposed on our nation for the sake of democracy in Turkey.”

Observers say Imamoglu’s strategy of avoiding polarizing politics and pledging inclusivity has been key to turning his CHP party’s fortunes around in the city.

“I have so many hopes for Turkey,” said Ayse, a teacher who only wanted to be identified by her first name, “Imamoglu is the only person who can make the change. Before I was so pessimistic.”

The importance of Sunday’s election has seen hundreds of thousands of people cut short their vacations to vote. The city’s airports and roads were full the night before the polls opened.

“This is so important,” said Deniz Tas speaking after voting, “I have traveled 12 hours on the road to vote and to right this injustice that has been done.”

Istanbul is Erdogan’s home city and has been his power-base for 25 years, since his rise to power started as the city’s mayor. The city accounts for a third of Turkey’s economy and nearly half the taxation, and the mayorship is widely seen as Turkey’s most important political prize after the presidency.

Underscoring the importance of the vote,  Erdogan has again put his political prestige on the line, campaigning heavily for Yildirm in the run-up to the election.  Erdogan too claims democracy is at stake, repeatedly accusing the opposition of voter manipulation. Observers say a second defeat for Erdogan could have significant consequences, damaging his reputation of electoral invincibility empowering opponents both in and outside his party.

In what was a bitter campaign Yildirim appeared conciliatory. “If we’ve ever made any wrongdoing to any rival or brother in Istanbul, I would like to ask for their forgiveness and blessing,” he said after casting his vote.

 Some AKP supporters expressed similar sentiments. “Re-vote happens in other countries, too, the voting can be repeated,” said a woman who didn’t want to be named.  “It is very normal that we have a repeat as well. The candidate who deserves it should win. The person with experience will win. Also, for us, Binali Yildirim has the experience to run Istanbul.”

 Both the leading candidates mobilizing thousands of lawyers and monitors to scrutinize the vote, claiming to defend democracy, Istanbul is bracing itself for a tense election.

…

India says it is proud of its secular credentials as it rejected a U.S. report that said that religious freedom in the country has come under attack in recent years.

The latest U.S. State Department Report on International Religious Freedom released Friday said that right wing Hindu-groups claiming to protect cows that Hindus consider holy had used “violence, intimidation, and harassment” against Muslims and low-castes. It also noted that Christians have been targeted for proselytizing.

In a statement, the Indian Foreign Ministry said that no foreign government had the right to criticize its record. “We see no locus standi for a foreign entity to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.” It said that India is proud of “its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion.”

New Delhi’s sharply worded statement comes ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to India starting Tuesday. His talks in New Delhi are expected to lay the ground for a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Japan later next week.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party also rejected the U.S. report on religious freedom saying that the presumption that “there is some grand design behind anti-minority violence is simply false.”

In a statement, party media head Anil Baluni said that Prime Minister Modi and other BJP leaders have strongly deplored violence against minorities and weaker sections of the society.

The U.S. report had said that senior BJP officials had last year made “inflammatory speeches” against religious minorities and that despite Indian government statistics indicating that communal violence has increased sharply over the past two years, the Modi administration has not addressed the problem.

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In a surprise move, President Donald Trump said he would push back by a couple of weeks the raids planned for Sunday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border,” Trump wrote in a tweet Saturday afternoon from the presidential retreat in Camp David in Maryland.

At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019

The reports that ICE planned to conduct large-scale enforcement actions sparked an outcry from Democratic leaders in many major cities, who condemned the plan and initiated efforts to help affected residents.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had spoken with Trump Friday night, urging the delay, the Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the situation and not authorized to discuss it.

Pelosi asked him to call off the raids during the call. She also released a statement Saturday, before Trump’s tweet announcing the delay, and asked the president to show the same compassion he had on Friday, when he called off a strike on Iran.

“The president spoke about the importance of avoiding the collateral damage of 150 lives in Iran. I would hope he would apply that same value to avoiding the collateral damage to tens of thousands of children who are frightened by his actions,” she said in the statement, in which she called the raids “heartless.”

Pelosi responded later Saturday to Trump’s announcement to delay the raids, tweeting,  “Mr. President, delay is welcome. Time is needed for comprehensive immigration reform. Families belong together.”

Mr. President, delay is welcome. Time is needed for comprehensive immigration reform. Families belong together. https://t.co/R9PDrfaKWj

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 22, 2019

Just hours before his tweet that announced the postponement of the raids, as he departed the White House Saturday for Camp David, Trump said migrants who were to be targeted in a nationwide roundup should return to their native countries.

ICE Acting Director Mark Morgan told reporters days earlier the agency would round up and deport families who have received a removal order from a U.S. immigration court.

The operation, first reported by The Washington Post, had been expected to begin on Sunday, targeting up to 2,000 families in large cities that are major immigration destinations, including Houston, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles.

Trump tweeted Saturday morning that ICE agents will pursue those who “have run from the law and run from the courts.”

He added, “These are people that are supposed to go back to their home country. They broke the law by coming into the country, & now by staying.”

The Miami Herald reports the other cities to be targeted are Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco.

Announced earlier this week

On Monday, Trump had tweeted the U.S. would start deporting “millions of illegal aliens” from the country next week, but the announcement appeared to catch the country’s immigration officials by surprise.

Administration officials said the deportation plans have been under consideration for months, but immigration officials said earlier this week that raids on migrant families were not imminent.

The Post said discussions about the scope of the operation continued Friday at the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE.

Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan has warned that an operation to arrest migrants in their homes and at work sites risks separating children from their parents.

Acting ICE Director Morgan told reporters this week the operation is necessary for the integrity of the immigration system.

He said families cannot be exempted from immigration law and said the law “must be applied fairly and equally.” He urged families with deportation orders to turn themselves in to immigration officials.

The Post said ICE is planning to “use hotel rooms as temporary staging areas to detain parents and children until all the members of a family are together and ready for deportation.”

Some officials refuse to help

The mayors of Los Angeles and Chicago said city police would not participate in the raids.

In a statement Friday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she had directed the Chicago Police Department to prevent ICE access to its databases related to federal immigration enforcement.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement that L.A. law enforcement officers “will never participate” in such raids.

Trump administration officials said the 1 million migrants who had been issued final deportation orders but were still living in the U.S. would be targeted first in the operation. However, the most the U.S. has ever deported in a single year was in 2013, when about 435,000 were sent home.

It is unusual for public officials to disclose law enforcement raids in advance, for fear of alerting the targets of the raids, and possibly endangering police and other law enforcement personnel.

Immigration activists say the president is using the operation for political purposes and warn it is causing fear in the immigrant community, leading migrants to miss work and school.

Sarah Pierce, an immigration policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said in an interview with USA Today the threat to deport “millions” of undocumented immigrants was “wildly unrealistic” and logistically not possible.

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Iran has increased its offensive cyberattacks against the U.S. government and critical infrastructure as tensions have grown between the two nations, cybersecurity firms say. 

In recent weeks, hackers believed to be working for the Iranian government have targeted U.S. government agencies, as well as sectors of the economy, including oil and gas, sending waves of spear-phishing emails, according to representatives of cybersecurity companies CrowdStrike and FireEye, which regularly track such activity.

It was not known if any of the hackers managed to gain access to the targeted networks with the emails, which typically mimic legitimate emails but contain malicious software.

U.S. sanctions

The cyber offensive is the latest chapter in U.S.-Iran cyber operations battle, with this recent sharp increase in attacks occurring after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Iranian petrochemical sector this month. 

Tensions have escalated since the U.S. withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran last year and began a policy of “maximum pressure.” Iran has since been hit by multiple rounds of sanctions. Tensions spiked this past week after Iran shot down an unmanned U.S. drone,  an incident that nearly led to a U.S. military strike against Iran on Thursday evening. 

“Both sides are desperate to know what the other side is thinking,” said John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at FireEye. “You can absolutely expect the regime to be leveraging every tool they have available to reduce the uncertainty about what’s going to happen next, about what the U.S.’s next move will be.”

CrowdStrike shared images of the spear-phishing emails with AP.

One such email that was confirmed by FireEye appeared to come from the Executive Office of the President and seemed to be trying to recruit people for an economic adviser position. Another email was more generic and appeared to include details on updating Microsoft Outlook’s global address book.

The Iranian actor involved in the cyberattack, dubbed “Refined Kitten” by CrowdStrike, has for years targeted the U.S. energy and defense sectors, as well as allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, said Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike.

The National Security Agency would not discuss Iranian cyber actions specifically but said in a statement to AP on Friday that “there have been serious issues with malicious Iranian cyber actions in the past.”

“In these times of heightened tensions, it is appropriate for everyone to be alert to signs of Iranian aggression in cyberspace and ensure appropriate defenses are in place,” the NSA said.

Fuel sectors, infrastructure

Iran has long targeted the U.S. oil and gas sectors and other critical infrastructure, but those efforts dropped significantly after the nuclear agreement was signed. Cyber experts said that after President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in May 2018, they saw an increase in Iranian hacking efforts.

“This is not a remote war [anymore],” said Sergio Caltagirone, vice president of threat intelligence at Dragos Inc. “This is one where Iranians could ‘bring the war home’ to the United States.”

Caltagirone said as nations increase their abilities to engage offensively in cyberspace, the ability of the United States to pick a fight internationally and have that fight stay out of the United States physically is increasingly reduced.

The U.S. has had a contentious cyber history with Iran.

In 2010, the so-called Stuxnet virus disrupted the operation of thousands of centrifuges at a uranium enrichment facility in Iran. Iran accused the U.S. and Israel of trying to undermine its nuclear program through covert operations. 

Iran has also shown a willingness to conduct destructive campaigns. Iranian hackers in 2012 launched an attack against state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, releasing a virus that erased data on 30,000 computers and left an image of a burning American flag on screens.

Banks, dam

In 2016, the U.S. indicted Iranian hackers for a series of punishing cyberattacks on U.S. banks and a small dam outside New York City.

U.S. Cyber Command refused to comment on the latest Iranian activity. “As a matter of policy and for operational security, we do not discuss cyberspace operations, intelligence or planning,” Pentagon spokeswoman Heather Babb said in a statement. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite the apparent cyber campaign, experts say the Iranians would not necessarily immediately exploit any access they gain into computer systems and may seek to maintain future capabilities should their relationship with the U.S. further deteriorate.

“It’s important to remember that cyber is not some magic offensive nuke you can fly over and drop one day,” said Oren Falkowitz, a former National Security Agency analyst. It takes years of planning, he said, but as tensions increase, “cyber impact is going to be one of the tools they use and one of the hardest things to defend against.”

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Oregon state Republicans would rather go AWOL than let a climate bill pass that they say would raise costs for rural Oregonians. 

A bill requiring polluters to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions seemed poised to clear the state’s Democrat-controlled Legislature this week. But as the measure headed to a vote in the northwest U.S. state’s Senate, Republican members left the state, leaving the chamber short of a quorum and grinding legislative business to a halt. 
 
Putting a price on carbon pollution, as Oregon’s plan would do, is the climate change strategy economists swear by. Even Republican elder statesmen back it.
 
But the Oregon walkout is the latest demonstration that it can still be a tough sell politically. 
 
Pay to pollute 
 
After roughly two centuries of polluting for free, economists say fossil fuel industries should pay for the damage their greenhouse gases cause to the climate. And making carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions more expensive, they say, is the most efficient way to reduce them. 
 
Oregon’s cap-and-trade proposal is one way to accomplish that. 
 
The state would set a limit, or cap, on total CO2 emissions. Power plants, factories, refineries and other industries would have to buy allowances for each ton they produce. 
 
That provides an incentive to emit less. And companies with allowances left over can trade them with those having a harder time reducing pollution. 
 

Who pays? 
 
Industries that have to buy carbon allowances would most likely pass the cost on to consumers. 
 
One place consumers would most likely see that cost is at the gas pump. By some estimates, the program would raise fuel prices at least 16 cents per gallon in the first year and go up from there. 
 
Critics say the cost would fall harder on rural residents, who tend to drive farther than city dwellers. And farmers would pay more to drive planting and harvesting equipment. 
 
“We are against job-killing bills that will decimate rural Oregon, who many of my caucus members represent,” Senate Republican leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. said in a statement after the bill cleared the Oregon state House. 
 
But studies have shown that rural areas fare better under cap-and-trade programs than urban areas do. One study found the relatively small losses fell more heavily on urban areas. Another found net gains from increased energy efficiency, with bigger benefits to rural residents.  
 
Supporters say the bill’s writers were careful. 
 
“There are tons of details that really speak to how tailored the policy became for specifics of Oregonians,” said Pam Kiely with the Environmental Defense Fund. “It’s not cut-and-paste.” 
 
The bill includes measures to cushion the blow for some industries and residents. 
 
A tax credit would help low-income people defray higher fuel costs. Part of the revenue from selling pollution allowances would be used to help them weatherize their homes, reducing their heating and cooling bills. 
 
“We want to make sure this program doesn’t create an overall burden on low-income people,” said state Sen. Michael Dembrow, one of the bill’s Democratic backers. 
 
Also, heavy-polluting industries that might leave the state and set up shop elsewhere would get a break on their emissions allowances. 
 

‘Come armed’ 
 
Oregon’s state Senate Republicans are not sold. 
 
When Democratic Gov. Kate Brown sent the state police to find the missing lawmakers and return them to the capital, Republican Sen. Brian Boquist responded, “Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.” 
 
Oregon is not the first state to struggle with the politics of pricing carbon. 
 
New Jersey withdrew from the nation’s first cap-and-trade program under Republican Gov. Chris Christie in 2011. The state is now returning to the nine-state program under Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. 
 
This year, Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration issued rules to join the program, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But the state’s Republican legislature blocked them. 
 
It’s a global phenomenon. 
 
Australia’s Labor government launched a carbon-pricing program in 2012. Two years later, a new conservative government repealed it.  
 
Canada imposed a nationwide carbon tax this year under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Several Canadian provinces led by Conservatives are fighting it in court. 
 
Meanwhile, in Oregon, legislative business is piling up as the June 30 end of the session nears. Brown has threatened to fine absent lawmakers $500 per day. 

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The World Health Organization says nearly half of the world’s population is at risk of contracting malaria. Efforts to fight the disease take two paths, fighting the disease itself and fighting the mosquitos that carry the disease. University of Maryland researchers are testing a novel new way to kill mosquitos in Burkina Faso. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.

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Muslims started settling in America in the 1600s. From the Northeast to Midwest, they have left their mark on U.S. history. Even in some Midwestern states where few Muslims live, there are historic milestones of their presence. Muslim homesteaders in Ross, North Dakota, built a mosque in the 1920s, making it one of the first mosques built in America. Saqib Ul Islam gives us a look in this report.

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Istanbul votes again in a mayoral election Sunday, after authorities voided an opposition victory in March that ended 15 years of control by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP Party.

The CHP’s Ekrem Imamoglu, a once-obscure opposition figure, pulled off the political upset, but it was eventually undone by Turkey’s president, who cited mistakes in the appointment of polling station officials. Imamoglu was booted out of his office and Turkish officials ordered a re-run.

Erdogan Turns to Kurds to Win Istanbul Election

The injection of a jailed Kurdish rebel leader into the mayor’s race is seen as a last-ditch effort by Erdogan to avert the defeat of his party in the local vote

Erdogan, in what is being seen as a last-minute bid to win Sunday, is looking to an imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader in an effort to deny the opposition key Kurdish votes.

Jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, in a handwritten letter, called on Kurds to remain “neutral” in Sunday’s vote.

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Istanbul Goes Back to Polls in Critical Vote video player.

Now, Imamoglu is back on the campaign trail, targeting electoral strongholds of his opponent.

Thousands turned out Wednesday to hear his message in Istanbul’s Sancaktepe district, a faraway suburb dominated by AKP supporters.

“What do we love?” Imamoglu asked, speaking on top of a campaign bus. “We love democracy. We love freedom, we love fraternity (brotherhood), we love peace. We love being united with our nation.”

Defending democracy slogan

Imamoglu’s message of reaching across Turkey’s deep political divide is widely seen as having been key to his victory in the March poll. Coupled with his slogan of defending democracy in Turkey, some see him picking up steam on the campaign trail.

“We are definitely putting up a struggle for rights, law and justice. We are putting up a fight against those who stole our democratic rights on March 31st,” he said to the cheering crowd.

The message of democracy resonated with some voters listening to Imamoglu.

“For me, Imamoglu had already won,” said a retiree, who declined to be named. “As this is a case of stealing, we will go and vote for Imamoglu again just to spite them.”

With 1 in 3 youth unemployed in Istanbul, a city hit hard by the country’s economic slowdown, it is the economy that matters most for some.

“He promises jobs. We are unemployed. We are university graduates but have no jobs. We don’t get posts,” said Neslihan, who only gave her first name. “People are hungry. They cannot take bread to their homes. All the beautiful things will come with Imamoglu.”

“Republican People’s Party (CHP) received a very positive reaction that it had not seen for a long time and could increase its share of votes compared to past,” says Nazli Okten, who teaches sociology at Istanbul’s Galatasaray University.

AKP candidate fights back

Across the city in the Kucukcekmece district, AKP candidate Binali Yildirim avoids talking about the economy and focuses on his claim the March election was stolen from him by fraud, a charge not upheld by the electoral authorities.

“Do not forget that we have unfinished business left from March 31st,” said Yildirim in a speech to supporters in Istanbul.

The crowd shouts back, “We will not forget.”

Kucukcekmece is an AKP stronghold. Yildirim is also seeking to rally the base with a message of defending democracy.

“Justice will be served, that is how we should call it,” said Hanife, a shop owner. “Justice will be served. Our votes were not counted, in the last election. Where did they disappear? Where has my vote gone?”

Hanife is one of many who credit their success to AKP party rule in Istanbul.

“I am a shop owner for 12 years and have been living here for 22 years. I own a clothing store, a boutique, and I opened it with my state’s support. I got a credit from our state and opened it. That is why I support them,” Hanife said.

With Istanbul accounting for a third of the Turkish economy and its $8 billion budget, the stakes are high in Sunday’s poll.

“Politically, this is a vital importance in terms of the use and distribution of Istanbul resources,” sociologist Okten said. “The side that uses these resources wisely will get a significant share of votes in the general elections in the long run.”

In a last-minute move, Erdogan has stepped into the campaign as the latest opinion polls point to a resounding defeat for his candidate, a signal the Istanbul election could prove to be as much about his future as the city’s.

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If you want to know what’s trending in news, health, sports and lifestyle, then tune in to Africa 54. Airing Monday through Friday, this 30-minute program takes a closer look at the stories Africans are talking about, with reports from VOA correspondents, and interviews with top experts and analysts. Africa 54 also serves viewers with timely information about health, education, business and technology. And for the young and young at heart, Africa 54 provides a daily dose of pop culture, including music, fashion and entertainment.

On our Programs:
Watch for more political, health, sports, and feature stories on YouTube.

Meet the Team:

Vincent Makori is the Managing Editor of Africa 54, Voice of America’s daily TV program for Africa. He also serves as a producer and writer for Africa 54. Vincent is a versatile journalist with 20 years of experience, working in Africa, Europe and the U.S. He has been at VOA for more than 11 years.

Vincent has covered a wide range of stories including the Africa Union Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, The U.N. General Assembly in New York, International Trade and Technology Fairs in Berlin and Hanover Germany. The International AIDS Conference, in Mexico City, Mexico, and the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He has interviewed people of all walks of life, including high ranking officials and presidents, among them, former U.S. President George W. Bush, President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, former President of Ghana John Kufuor, President Ifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia ; Noble Laureate Wangari Maathai and academic luminaries like Professor Ali Mazrui.

He holds a post-graduate degree in mass communication from the School of Journalism of the University of Nairobi and a Bachelor of Arts Degree, majoring in English Literature from Moi University, Kenya. He has attended numerous training programs in journalism, in Kenya, Germany and the U.S.

Linord Moudou is the producer & host of the Africa Health Network on Africa 54. She also produces and hosts Health Chat on the Voice of America radio, a live call-in program that addresses health issues of interest to Africa.

She started her career with Voice of America television as the producer & host of Healthy Living, a weekly health news magazine covering African health issues including malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS. She also shared new discoveries and medical breakthroughs, and provided tips and advice on how to prevent diseases and live a healthier life.

Before joining VOA, Linord worked as a broadcast and print journalist, traveling between Africa, Europe and the United States. In 2000, she created, produced, and hosted “Spotlight on Africa,” a bilingual (French-English) television and radio program on Public Access Television and New World Radio in Washington, D.C. With “Spotlight on Africa,” Linord dedicated herself to promote a more positive image of Africa internationally, through information and entertainment.

Her print experience includes “Africa Journal,” a Corporate Council on Africa publication, and AMINA Magazine, a Paris-based magazine about women of Africa and the Diaspora.

Linord Moudou was born and raised in Côte d’Ivoire. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and media productions from George Mason University, and a certificate in television and radio productions from the Columbia School of Broadcasting. The veteran broadcaster is fluent in French, English and conversational in Spanish and Creole.
 

Internship Opportunities

In the competitive and changing television industry, nothing is more valuable for job-seekers than “real world” experience. The Straight Talk Africa internship program offers motivated and outstanding students exciting opportunities to experience practical journalism. In addition to helping to get our weekly studio programs on-the-air, interns also produce a final project for their portfolios. Projects include writing and producing promos, stories, and even full-length documentary or magazine shows.

Watch our interns in action

For more information and/or send your resume to: 
africatv@voanews.com, 
Attention to Clara Frenk.

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