Kosovo’s outgoing prime minister and wartime guerrilla commander Ramush Haradinaj, left Tuesday for the Hague to be interrogated by a war crimes court as a suspect, public RTK television said. Haradinaj has already been tried and acquitted twice for war crimes by the Hague based U.N. tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). “Freedom fighters always do what is right and just,” he wrote on Facebook. Haradinaj resigned last week as prime minister after being summoned by the war crimes court. He left Pristina in the afternoon on a private plane belonging to Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli, RTK reported. He is expected to be interrogated by the special tribunal on Wednesday. Created in 2015, the tribunal is in charge with investigations of the crimes allegedly committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against Serbs, Roma and ethnic Albanian political opponents during and after the 1998-99 war. The tribunal is part of the Kosovo judiciary but composed of international judges and based in the Hague to ensure the protection of witnesses. In a January interview, Haradinaj told AFP that he would respond to a possible summoning, but also that “there is a fatigue in Kosovo with this tribunal”. “I always responded to (requirements) …

Lebanon accused Israel on Tuesday of threatening its civilian infrastructure after Israel told the United Nations Security Council that Iran was exploiting the Port of Beirut to smuggle weapons to the Hezbollah movement. Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, said that in 2018 and 2019, “Israel found that Iran and the Quds Force have begun to advance the exploitation of the civilian maritime channels, and specifically the Port of Beirut.” “The Port of Beirut is now the Port of Hezbollah,” Danon told the 15-member Security Council. Israel sees Hezbollah, against which it fought a month-long war in 2006, as the biggest threat on its borders. Lebanese U.N. Ambassador Amal Mudallali said the Lebanese saw such accusations a “direct threats on their peace and civilian infrastructure.” Hezbollah is part of Lebanon’s coalition government. “If he is using them to prepare the ground and the international community for an attack on Lebanon’s civilian ports and airport and its infrastructure – as they did in 2006 – this council should not stay silent,” she said. Speaking in the council later on Tuesday, Iran’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Eshagh Al-Habib, did not directly address the Israeli accusations, but said Danon had “unsuccessfully tried to distract attention …

Amid the bombing campaign between the Syrian regime and rebel forces in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, a small group of young students tried to bring normalcy to the chaos by creating a secret library deep underneath a bullet-ridden building. The library was built to create a safe shelter for residents to gather and read.  For months, Mike Thomson, a British-based journalist, documented the students’ efforts in his book “Syria’s Secret Library: Reading and Redemption in a Town Under Siege.”  Damaged buildings line the street in Daraya after bombardment by the Syrian regime. “Most of the town was under sniper fire from the government soldiers who were based in high-rise buildings near the front lines,” Thomson told VOA about the operation.  “They gathered these books under sniper fire and sometimes under shell fire. They brought ladders with them to climb from windows. It was a dangerous exercise they often did during the night,” Thomson said.  Daraya, a suburb located 8 kilometers to the southwest of the Syrian capital, was one of the first areas to witness protests against the Syrian regime in 2011. It soon became a rebel stronghold and a major center of battle. The town suffered a brutal …

Australian researchers are looking to Africa and the Middle East for drought- and heat-resistant crops as many grain farmers face another failed season. Key farming regions in southern Queensland are forecast to miss their third winter grain crop in a row. The national crop this year is expected to be about 10 percent below the 10-year average. Australia’s Grains Research and Development Corporation, the GRDC, is carrying out a global search for climate-proof grains. GRDC’s northern panel chairman, John Minogue, says crops in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa could be adapted to help farmers become more resilient in the face of a warming climate and less rainfall. “We have got people in Syria, in Africa, in all of the parts of the world, which have historically had these crops grown for thousands of years,” he said. “We have a lot of investments in people on behalf of the grain growers searching the world for plants that are resistant to drought and also that are able to handle stress conditions and heat, and identifying the germplasm [genetic material] that we can then integrate into the Australian crops.” Large areas of eastern Australia have been in drought for …

Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a law returning the OPEC nation to a regional defense treaty on Tuesday, but opposition leader Juan Guaido sought to tamp down supporters’ hopes it could lead to President Nicolas Maduro’s imminent downfall. Opposition hardliners had been pressuring Guaido to join the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, as a precursor to requesting a foreign military intervention to oust Maduro, a socialist who has overseen an economic collapse and is accused of human rights violations. “The TIAR is not magic, it is not a button that we press and then tomorrow everything is resolved,” Guaido told a rally of supporters in Caracas, using the treaty’s Spanish initials. “In itself it is not the solution – it obliges us to take to the streets with greater force to exercise our majority.” The treaty states that an attack on one of the members – which include most large Western Hemisphere countries including the United States, Brazil and Colombia – should be considered an attack on all. Venezuela and other leftist Latin American countries left the alliance between 2012 and 2013. Venezuela plunged into a deep power struggle in January when Guaido invoked …

Russian activists confirmed Tuesday that a woman found dead of stab wounds in Saint Petersburg earlier this week was a well-known human rights activist who had been threatened over her work for LGBT rights and opposition causes. Yelena Grigoryeva, 41, was active with Russia’s Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBTQ for Equality and other activist causes, according to the Russian LGBT Network. “An activist of democratic, anti-war and LGBT movements Yelena Grigoryeva was brutally murdered near her house,” opposition campaigner Dinar Idrisov wrote on Facebook. He said she had recently reported threats of violence to the police, but they took no action. Friends and fellow activists said Grigoryeva’s name was listed on a Russian website that identified LGBT activists and called for vigilante action against them. Saint Petersburg online newspaper Fontanka said Grigoryeva was found with knife injuries to her back and face and had apparently been strangled. A 40-year-old male suspect from the region of Bashkortostan has been arrested, it reported. …

Cameroonian security forces moved Tuesday to quell uprisings in two prisons by inmates protesting the government’s crackdown on the Anglophone separatist movement and poor conditions of incarceration. Scores of people from English-speaking regions of the central African country have been arrested over the last two years during a conflict between the mostly French-speaking government and separatist rebels seeking to form an independent state called Ambazonia. The United Nations estimates the conflict in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions has killed about 1,800 people and displaced over 500,000 since late 2017. A Cameroonian security source confirmed that a riot took place in the central prison of the capital Yaounde and said several people were injured. Government spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Videos filmed by inmates and uploaded to Facebook showed protesters there crying “Ambazonia rising!” as they hurled debris at security forces inside the Kondengui prison in Yaounde. Loud crackles that sounded like gunfire could be heard in the background and fires could be seen burning in parts of the prison, sending thick plumes of smoke billowing into the air. “Our brothers are slaughtered, children killed,” said one unidentified man, speaking in English. “We are tired of …

An executive of state-owned EgyptAir said Tuesday that British Airways’ decision to suspend flights to Cairo, the Egyptian capital, for several days was “without a logical reason.” The vice chairman of EgyptAir Holding Co, Sherif Ezzat Badrous, told reporters at a ceremony marking the delivery of the carrier’s newest Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner that Cairo airport is safe and EgyptAir continues to operate in a “very safe environment.” British Airways, part of International Airlines Group, suspended flights to Cairo on Saturday for seven days “as a security precaution” as it reviews security at the Cairo airport. Later Saturday, Germany’s Lufthansa said it had canceled services from Munich and Frankfurt to Cairo, but it resumed flights Sunday. FILE – Tourists wait for their flight, as an Egyptair plane is seen, background, at a waiting hall in Cairo’s international airport in Egypt. “What happened three days ago was unexpected completely, and without a logical reason,” Sherif Ezzat Badrous said. “Until now, at this moment, we don’t have any logical reason” for the actions taken by British Airways. “You can ask them about the true reasons,” he added. On Sunday, Egypt’s aviation minister, Younis Al-Masry, “expressed his displeasure at British Airways’ taking a …

The Senate gave final legislative approval Tuesday to a bill ensuring that a victims’ compensation fund related to the Sept. 11 attacks never runs out of money. The 97-2 vote sends the bill to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The vote came after Democratic senators agreed to allow votes on amendments sponsored by two Republican senators who had been blocking the widely popular bill. The Senate easily defeated the amendments proposed by GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Lee and Paul voted against the bill’s final passage. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., speaks at a news conference on the 9/11 victims fund on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 18, 2019. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said 9/11 first responders and their families have had “enough of political games” that delayed passage of the bill for months. “Our 9/11 heroes deserve this program as written,” Gillibrand said. “Let our heroes go home and live in peace and finally exhale.”  The bill would extend through 2092 a fund created after the 2001 terrorist attacks, essentially making it permanent. The $7.4 billion fund is rapidly being depleted, and administrators recently …

Afghanistan called on Tuesday for an explanation of comments by U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said he could win the Afghan war in just 10 days by wiping out Afghanistan but did not want to kill 10 million people. Trump’s remarks followed a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House on Monday at which Trump voiced optimism that Pakistan could help broker a political settlement to end the nearly 18-year-old war in Afghanistan. The remarks drew a stiff response from Afghanistan’s presidential palace, which has been excluded from talks between the United States and the Taliban and which accuses Pakistan of supporting the insurgency. “The Afghan nation has not and will never allow any foreign power to determine its fate,” the presidential palace said. “While the Afghan government supports the U.S. efforts for ensuring peace in Afghanistan, the government underscores that foreign heads of state cannot determine Afghanistan’s fate in absence of the Afghan leadership,” it said in a statement. It called for clarification of Trump’s statement. Trump Says US Could End War In Afghanistan In One Week video player. FILE – U.S. envoy for peace in Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad speaks during a debate …

A senior U.S. official tasked with finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue told the United Nations Tuesday that international law and consensus are not the keys to resolving the decades-old dispute. “Those who continue to call for international consensus on this conflict are doing nothing to encourage the parties to sit down at the negotiating table and make the hard compromises necessary for peace,” Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “In fact, they are doing the opposite –  allowing people to hide behind words that mean nothing.”    Greenblatt said that international consensus is often “nothing more than a mask for inaction.”   “So let’s stop kidding ourselves. If a so-called international consensus had been able to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it would have done so decades ago. It didn’t,” he said. “This conflict is also not going to be resolved by reference to “international law” when such law is inconclusive.”   Greenblatt also took aim at the Security Council resolutions agreed on the issue since 1967 – all are binding under international law – saying they have not succeeded and would not provide a path to peace.   The council has laid out the basic principles for …

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval rating hit a new high because of his anti-crime work and populist appeal across class lines, a survey shows. While many nations and groups around the world criticize him, Duterte earned a net satisfaction rating of 68 in the second quarter of 2019, according to a July 8 public opinion survey by Manila area research institution Social Weather Stations. The rating marked a new “personal record high,” the president said on his office website. He had scored 66 in March as well as in June 2017. The president fared well in the heavily watched survey of 1,200 adults because his anti-crime campaign has made people feel safer in urban neighborhoods, common Filipinos and scholars in the country say. Duterte, elected in 2016, got there in part by letting police shoot drug crime suspects on the spot, outraged overseas rights groups believe. Duterte also makes sense to common people because of speech and demeanor that cast him as a political outsider, analysts say. Fast economic growth has given him a boost, they observe. “The way he presents himself is that he speaks street language,” said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at the University of the …

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Army Secretary Mark Esper to be secretary of defense, ending the longest period by far that the Pentagon has been without a permanent top official. As voting continued, the Senate overwhelmingly backed Esper, a former lobbyist for weapons maker Raytheon Co., to be President Donald Trump’s second confirmed leader of the Pentagon. Esper, 55, received strong bipartisan support despite some sharp questioning during his confirmation hearing by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren about his ties to Raytheon and his refusal to extend an ethics commitment he signed in 2017 to avoid decisions involving the company. Warren, a 2020 presidential hopeful, was the only member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to voice opposition to Esper’s confirmation during the hearing. Raytheon is the third-largest U.S. defense contractor. There has been no confirmed defense secretary since Jim Mattis resigned in December over policy differences with Trump. Many members of Congress from both parties have urged the Republican president to act urgently to fill the powerful position. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on members to support Esper as he opened the Senate on Tuesday morning. “The nominee is beyond qualified. His record of public service is beyond …

A judge in Puerto Rico has issued search warrants for the phones of the U.S. territory’s governor, Ricardo Rossello, and 11 of his political allies in connection with a texting scandal. The search warrants were issued for individuals who had not yet given up their phones as part of an investigation, a spokesperson for Puerto Rico’s Department of Justice told the Associated Press. The warrants were issued a day after protestors mobilized for a 10th straight day against embattled Governor Ricardo Rossello. Demonstrations ended late Monday with police using tear gas to disperse demonstrators who had gathered near the governor’s mansion in the capital, San Juan. A massive crowd estimated at 500,000 people, including pop singer Ricky Martin and other Puerto Rican-born entertainers, filled the streets of the earlier Monday demanding Rossello quit. The public fury erupted nearly two weeks ago when the island’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of online group chats between Governor Rossello and several top aides and associates that included profane messages laced with contempt for victims of 2017’s Hurricane Maria, as well as misogynistic and homophobic slurs against Rossello’s political opponents.   The publication of the chats unleashed long-simmering anger among Puerto …

The FBI has more than 1,000 investigations of U.S. intellectual property theft in all 50 states with nearly all leading back to China, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, calling China the No. 1 counter-intelligence threat to the United States. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Wray described the threat as “more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counter-intelligence threat that I can think of.” The Chinese threat ranges from cyber intrusions to corruption of insiders at U.S. companies small and large, Wray said, citing a series of recent Chinese economic espionage cases investigated by the FBI.  U.S. academia, he added, remains particularly vulnerable to Chinese spying efforts to steal publicly-funded proprietary research .      “It’s an all tools approach by them,” Wray said.  “Therefore, it requires an all tools approach by us.” FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 23, 2019. Asked about the upcoming 2020 U.S. elections, Wray reiterated previous comments that Moscow remains intent on interfering in them, calling Russia the No. 2 counter- intelligence threat to the United States. The testimony comes one day before former special counsel Robert Mueller …

Democratic White House hopeful Kamala Harris will introduce a Senate bill on Tuesday to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, erase past convictions and use funds from marijuana sales to invest in communities hit by the decades-long “war on drugs.” Harris, a U.S. senator from California and the state’s former attorney general, will be joined by Democratic U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, who will introduce the bill in the House of Representatives. Both serve on the judiciary panels in their respective chambers that would hold initial hearings on the measure. A preview of the Harris-Nadler legislation was provided to Reuters by Harris’ Senate office. “Times have changed — marijuana should not be a crime,” Harris said in a statement. “We need to start regulating marijuana, and expunge marijuana convictions from the records of millions of Americans so they can get on with their lives.” Harris’ marijuana stances have evolved. In May 2018, the former prosecutor signed onto a bill by now fellow White House contender Senator Cory Booker to fully legalize it after previously supporting legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing past convictions. Nadler said in a statement that as U.S. states have legalized marijuana use, those with past …

South Korean air force jets fired 360 rounds of warning shots Tuesday after a Russian military plane twice violated South Korea’s airspace off the country’s east coast, Seoul officials said in an announcement that was quickly disputed by Russia. South Korea said three Russian military planes — two Tu-95 bombers and one A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft — entered the South’s air defense identification zone off its east coast before the A-50 intruded in South Korean airspace. Russia said later that two of its Tu-95MS bombers were on a routine flight over neutral waters and didn’t enter South Korean territory. According to South Korean government accounts, an unspecified number of South Korean fighter jets, including F-16s, scrambled to the area and fired 10 flares and 80 rounds from machine guns as warning shots. Seoul defense officials said the Russian reconnaissance aircraft left the area three minutes later but later returned and violated South Korean airspace again for four minutes. The officials said the South Korean fighter jets then fired 10 flares and 280 rounds from machine guns as warning shots. South Korea said it was the first time a foreign military plane had violated South Korean airspace since …

When Robert Mueller testifies before Congress on Wednesday about his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, a key part of the U.S. public appears likely to tune out Republicans. According to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday, only 18% of Republicans said they planned on watching the former special counsel’s testimony when it is broadcast live on the major U.S. television networks. Sixty percent of Republicans said they would not watch and the rest were not sure. The poll also found that while 70% of Republicans said they knew Mueller was scheduled to be questioned in front of two Democratic-led House of Representatives committees this week, only 31% said it was “very” or “somewhat” important. Trump’s fellow Republicans have consistently backed him throughout his presidency, and their support has remained strong as Mueller’s team racked up convictions and guilty pleas from former members of Trump’s inner circle. On Monday, Trump said he himself was probably “not going to be watching,” but added: “Maybe I’ll see a little bit of it.” Trump has attacked the Mueller investigation and the FBI inquiry that preceded it as a politically motivated “witch …

The IMF on Tuesday slashed its economic growth expectation for Latin America in 2019 by more than half compared with estimates from just three months ago, citing its downgrades to growth in both Brazil and Mexico, the region’s largest economies. Latin America’s economic output is now expected to grow 0.6% this year, down from an expected 1.4% growth in the International Monetary Fund’s outlook from April. Globally, the IMF expects GDP to grow 3.2% this year, or about 0.1% below their previous estimate. Brazil’s 2019 growth estimate was cut to 0.8% from 2.1% in April, while Mexico’s fell to 0.9% from 1.6%. The sharp cut to Brazil, by far Latin America’s largest economy, stems mainly from uncertainty over the future of legislation including a key pension overhaul. An initial vote cleared the lower house of Congress earlier this month, but full passage is still pending. The initial vote, however, helped snap a run of 20 consecutive weeks of growth forecast downgrades by Brazilian economists in a central bank survey. Mexico, on the other hand, faces an increasingly tough environment as investors continue to lose confidence in the policies of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and as industrial output slides. The …

When Robert Mueller testifies to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, Democratic lawmakers are expected to try to pin down the former special counsel on a crucial question: did he intend for them to carry on where he left off in his investigation of President Donald Trump and the Russians? As Democrats craft their agenda heading into the 2020 elections in which the Republican president is seeking a second four-year term, they will be eager to hear from Mueller about the findings of his 22-month inquiry before deciding how they should tackle its unanswered questions. It is unclear how cooperative Mueller, a 74-year-old former FBI director and federal prosecutor, will be and whether he will stray far from the text of his 448-page report on the investigation, which Trump’s Justice Department released only in redacted form in April. The report found that Russia interfered with a campaign of hacking and propaganda in the 2016 presidential election to boost Trump’s candidacy. It found that people in Trump’s election campaign had numerous contacts with Russians. But it concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s team and Moscow. The report also described numerous instances in which Trump tried to …

Moroccan lawmakers passed a draft law on Monday evening that would pave the way for strengthening the place of French in Moroccan schools, overturning decades of Arabisation. The legislation was adopted in the lower house by 241-4, with 21 abstentions. Most members of the mainly Islamist co-ruling PJD and conservative Istiqlal lawmakers abstained from voting on the articles stipulating the use of French as a language of instruction. The text will enter into force after a second reading in the upper house and its publication in the official bulletin. The country’s official languages are Arabic and Amazigh, or Berber. Most people speak Moroccan Arabic — a mixture of Arabic and Amazigh infused with French and Spanish influences. French reigns supreme, however, in business, government and higher education, giving those who can afford to be privately schooled in French a huge advantage over most of the country’s students. Two out of three people fail to complete their studies at public universities in Morocco, mainly because they do not speak French, according to education ministry figures. To curb the number of university dropouts and equip people with the language requirements needed for jobs, the government proposed reintroducing French as a language of …

A tenth day of protests in Puerto Rico against embattled Governor Ricardo Rossello ended late Monday with police using tear gas to disperse protesters who had gathered near the governor’s mansion in San Juan. A massive crowd estimated at 500,000 people, including pop singer Ricky Martin and other Puerto Rican-born entertainers, filled the streets of the capital earlier in the day demanding Rossello resign.  The public fury erupted nearly two weeks ago when the island’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of online group chats between Gov. Rossello and several top aides and associates that included several profane messages laced with contempt for victims of 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people and left the island without power for months, as well as numerous misogynistic and homophobic slurs against Rossello’s political opponents.   The publication of the chats unleashed a long-simmering anger among Puerto Ricans worn down by years of public corruption and mismanagement that left the U.S. territory under the control of a congressionally-mandated oversight board to guide it out of a multi-billion dollar debt crisis.   Rossello stepped down as leader of the New Progressive Party during a televised address Sunday and said he would not …

Saint Louis, Senegal is home to generations of fishermen, who say they know no other life or way to make a living.   But rising sea levels and new international regulations are forcing them to change how they work.  Though most fishermen here learned from their fathers, who learned from theirs, most say the work today is nothing like it was for older generations. “Our parents were lucky – traditional rules in the fishing community were well established and respected,” fisherman Ousmane Diop told VOA. “But things have changed now. Families are expanding and using new materials.” According to Diop, the saturation of the market is one of their biggest challenges. Most fishermen in Saint Louis are polygamous – taking multiple wives to have as many sons as possible. The more sons they have, the more they can expand their family staff on their fishing boats. But other challenges have led to increased market saturation – namely, increased security in the neighboring waters of Mauritania. For years, many fishermen based in Saint Louis fished in Mauritania’s maritime territory.  But over the past year, the Mauritanians have increased both their own fishing as well as security in their waters. Senegalese fishermen who …

Trump says he wants Pakistan’s help to end war in Afghanistan peacefully because he did not want to wipe the country “off the face of the earth” …