Nigerian activist Ayuba Gufwan made sure his five children received polio vaccinations soon after they were born.     “I was determined to make sure none of my kids got the polio virus because I am a victim myself,” he said.  Gufwan came down with polio when he was 5 years old. Forced to crawl on the floor, he wasn’t able to attend school for years and faced ridicule.   These days, Gufwan is a popular advocate for the needs of polio survivors. His organization has supplied more than 26,000 locally produced wheelchairs for Nigerians living with the disease.    The government has been working with organizations such as UNICEF, Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to train health workers, procure the vaccine and spread awareness. This week, those efforts paid off. On Wednesday, Nigeria marked three years without a new case of wild polio virus.     It’s a status many say is a cause to celebrate, but Dr. Usman Adamu, who helps coordinate the Nigerian government polio eradication operations center, offered a more measured response.    “It’s not a celebration per se,” Adamu said. “It’s just marking the milestone, which is significant in our quest to achieve eradication …

Fires have been breaking out at an unusual pace in Brazil this year, causing global alarm over deforestation in the Amazon region. The world’s largest rainforest is often called the “lungs of the earth.” Here’s a look at what’s happening:  What’s burning? Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, which monitors deforestation, has recorded 76,720 wildfires across the country this year, as of Thursday. That’s an 85% rise over last year’s figure. And a little over half of those, 40,341, have been spotted in the Amazon region.    The agency says it doesn’t have figures for the area burned, but deforestation as a whole has accelerated in the Amazon this year. The institute’s preliminary figures show 3,571 square miles (9,250 square kilometers) of forest — an area about the size of Yellowstone National Park — were lost between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1. That already outstrips the full-year figure for 2018 of 2,910 square miles (7,537 square kilometers).      Stricter enforcement of environmental laws between 2004 and 2014 had sharply curbed the rate of deforestation, which peaked in the early 2000s at 9,650 square miles a year (25,000 square kilometers).    Meanwhile, large fires also have been burning in neighboring countries such as Bolivia, …

Tunisian police arrested presidential candidate Nabil Karoui on Friday after a court ordered his detention, the Interior Ministry said, in a case involving charges of money laundering but which Karoui’s party said was a politically motivated attempt to exclude him from the election race. Karoui’s own Nessma TV channel reported that the candidate had been arrested as he traveled to Tunis, and broadcast a video showing the police detaining him in his car. The 56-year-old media magnate is one of the main candidates contesting the Sept. 15 election following the death of President Beji Caid Essebsi. “The indictment chamber charged in the cases of financial corruption decided today to issue two prison deposit cards against Nabil Karoui and his brother Ghazi Karoui,” Saber Horchani, the spokesman for the appeal court, told state news agency TAP. Judge orders detention A judge ordered the detention of Karoui to face charges of tax evasion and money laundering, Mosaique FM radio reported. A judge decided in July this year to bar Karoui from traveling abroad after weeks of investigation on suspicion of money laundering. “The police arrested Karoui while we were on our way back from the city of Beja to Tunis,” said Osama …

The chief executive of the e-commerce firm Overstock.com has stepped down over his relationship with an alleged Russian intelligence operative jailed for meddling in U.S. politics.    Patrick Byrne only recently admitted that he had a close relationship with Maria Butina for three years, during the period when she beguiled top Republican and National Rifle Association officials with talk of strengthening Moscow-Washington relations and her flair with guns.    He said in an eccentric company statement last week that he had been pulled into the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by the “deep state” and “men in black,” charging that the FBI probe was “political espionage” more than law enforcement.    On Thursday he resigned, saying he had become “already far too controversial” to run the company and that he did “not wish to disrupt possible strategic discussions” about its future.    “The news that I shared is bubbling (however haphazardly) into the public,” he said.  “Though patriotic Americans are writing me in support, my presence may affect and complicate all manner of business relationships, from insurability to strategic discussions regarding our retail business.”  ‘Romantic’ ties to Byrne   Butina is serving 18 months in jail after becoming …

The U.S. government’s final management plan for lands in and around a Utah national monument that President Donald Trump downsized doesn’t include many new protections for the cliffs, canyons, waterfalls and arches found there, but it does include a few more safeguards than were in a proposal issued last year.    The Bureau of Land Management’s plan for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southwestern Utah codifies that the lands cut out of the monument will be open to mineral extraction such as oil, gas and coal as expected, according to a plan summary the agency provided to The Associated Press.    The agency chose an option that doesn’t add any areas of critical environmental concern, increases lands open to cattle grazing and could raise the potential for “adverse effects” on lands and resources in the monument, the document shows.    At the same time, the agency tweaked the plan from last year to call for new recreation management plans to address impacts on several highly visited areas, opens fewer acres to ATVs and nixes a plan that would have allowed people to collect some non-dinosaur fossils in certain areas inside the monument.  The agency also determined that no land …

The State Department says it will assess its programming and redirect all funding on foreign aid, after U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned plans to cut $4 billion in spending on the grounds that it was wasteful and unnecessary. “As part of this discussion, we agreed to continue to assess our programming and redirect all funding that does not directly support our priorities,” said a State Department spokesperson on Friday. “This effort will ensure every foreign assistance program funded by U.S. taxpayers is both effective and supports our foreign policy priorities,” added the spokesperson.   One of the programs under assessment is U.S. foreign assistance to the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The State Department said those nations are not taking concrete actions to reduce the number of illegal migrants coming to the U.S. border.  Trump had considered cutting the spending on grounds that it was wasteful and unnecessary, but retreated when it became apparent that some key lawmakers were opposed. The Trump Administration officials briefly suspended State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development spending, eyeing a budget process known as “rescission” to cut up to $4.3 billion in spending already authorized and appropriated by the …

Across the country, teachers and school districts alike are grappling with the latest political and economic realities of educator pay.    The dynamics have been complicated by both the recent national teacher protest movement that’s emboldened the workforce to demand higher salaries and better conditions, and the steadily brewing shortage of educators that’s forced many school districts to confront the money issue with more urgency. The National Education Association’s latest salary data estimates that the average public school teacher in the U.S. saw a 2% pay raise over the past two years since the national Red4Ed protest movement spread across the U.S. At the same time, the number of teacher vacancies have exceeded 100,000 jobs in the past four years, said Elaine Weiss of the Economic Policy Institute.  …

David H. Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries Inc. and a long-time philanthropist, has died at age 79.   His older brother, Charles, announced the death on Friday, saying, “It is with a heavy heart that I now must inform you of David’s death.”   David Koch, a billionaire who lived in New York City, was the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential candidate in 1980. He was a generous donor to conservative political causes as well as educational, medical and cultural groups.   The Koch brothers were best known for a vast political network they built that became popularly known as the “Kochtopus” for its far-reaching tentacles in support of conservative causes. The brothers founded the anti-tax, small government group Americans for Prosperity.   “I was taught from a young age that involvement in the public discourse is a civic duty,” David Koch wrote in a 2012 op-ed in the New York Post. “Each of us has a right- indeed, a responsibility, at times – to make his or her views known to the larger community in order to better form it as a whole. While we may not always get what we want, the exchange of ideas betters the nation in the …

A Russian court has extended by more than two months the detention of a former U.S. Marine accused of espionage. In a closed hearing in Moscow’s Lefortovo Court Friday, the presiding judge prolonged Paul Whelan’s detention until October 29th — the latest phase in an eight-month investigation by the country’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, that appears to be grinding toward presentation of formal charges by year’s end.  “I am innocent of any charges resulting from this political kidnapping, No crime ever occurred,” said Whelan, 49, in a statement hurriedly read as police forced journalists from the courtroom following the judge’s ruling.  Accused spy and former US Marine Paul Whelan in a Moscow court today proclaiming his innocence from espionage charges. The court prolonged his detainment until October 29th pending an ongoing FSB investigation. pic.twitter.com/UmxGz6Z4io — Charles Maynes (@cwmiii3) August 23, 2019 “The latest that we’ve seen from the investigation plays into the hands of the defense,” Whelan’s Russian lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, said after the ruling. “Paul’s version that this crime was merely a provocation is justified in our view. Investigators think otherwise.” If convicted, Whelan faces the possibility of 10- to 20 years in prison. Entering the courthouse in handcuffs …

This week on #VOAOurVoices, our team travels to Hampton, Virginia, for a special broadcast from Fort Monroe, the arrival site of the first African slaves in Britain’s American colonies. Africans were abducted, trafficked, and enslaved in America for more than 200 years. Many call it, “America’s original sin.” Today, there is fiery debate across the United States about reparations for the descendants of African slaves. This week, we ask, “Are slave trade reparations also due to the African countries where millions of people were taken from, in order to build America’s economy?” …

Australia and Vietnam on Friday expressed serious concern over tensions in the disputed South China Sea, where Hanoi says China’s gas survey ship has infringed on its territory and has disrupted Vietnam’s exploration activities.   Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison met in Hanoi with his counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc and both leaders called for respect of international law and freedom of navigation.   Earlier the United States said it was deeply concerned that China is continuing to interfere with Vietnam’s longstanding oil and gas activities in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. China claims the South China Sea virtually in its entirety and has deployed a survey vessel with armed escorts into waters off Vietnam, ignoring Hanoi’s calls to leave the area. “We all need to uphold) principles that relate to freedom of navigation, freedom of overfly, ensuring that nations can pursuit and develop the opportunities that exist within their EEZ and within their sea boundaries, and they can go about that business in a way that is uninhabited and supported and upheld by the regional architecture and the rule of law that support that free conduct of activities,” Morrison told reporters.   Phuc said that the countries were united in their …

A Tanzanian journalist has been arrested for “publishing false information” after broadcasting a story about police brutality, his lawyer said Friday, in the latest crackdown on free press in the country. Joseph Gandye, who works for local station Watetezi TV, was arrested Thursday in the financial capital Dar es Salaam and held in police custody overnight. His lawyer, Jones Sendodo, said Gandye was transferred to Iringa in Tanzania’s south on Friday. “He is accused of publishing false information,” Sendodo told AFP. The Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition, which found Watetezi TV last year, said Gandye was arrested after airing a story on August 9 about police in Iringa forcing six young detainees to sodomise each other. His arrest comes less than a month after another Tanzanian journalist, Erick Kabendera, was detained in circumstances condemned by rights groups. Kabendera, a respected journalist and government critic, was initially questioned over his citizenship before being threatened with sedition charges. But in court these were dropped, and he was charged with organised crime and financial offences. The US and British embassies in Tanzania have formally expressed their concern over a “steady erosion of due process” in the country, underscoring Kabendera’s plight as a case …

South Korea’s decision to end a military intelligence sharing pact with Japan won’t necessarily have an immediate impact on regional security, but the move could challenge the U.S.-South Korea alliance at a particularly tense moment, analysts warn.  South Korea announced Thursday it does not plan to renew the intelligence sharing agreement, escalating Seoul’s bitter trade dispute that is rooted in historical tensions with its colonial occupier Japan. The move was a blow for the United States, which helped negotiate the deal in hopes it would allow South Korea and Japan to work more closely on challenges including North Korea, China, and Russia.  Japan and South Korea will still technically be able to share military intelligence without the agreement, signed in late 2016. But the process will be more difficult and possibly slower, with much of the intelligence now likely passing first through the United States.  That could hamper cooperation in a crisis. It could also complicate efforts to monitor North Korean provocations at a particularly tense time; North Korea has conducted eight short-range missile launches since May and has threatened to resume nuclear or long-range missile tests. But the biggest immediate impact could be how the decision affects relations between …

The three Baltic countries on Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the 1989 “Baltic Way,” a historic anti-Soviet protest that involved nearly 2 million people forming a human chain more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) long. On Aug. 23, 1989, as the Soviet Union was weakening, the gesture was a powerful expression on the part of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians that they were not giving up on their independence even after decades of Soviet occupation. “People holding hands can be stronger than people holding guns,” said Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas in a tweet.   The celebrations come as the inhabitants of the three nations _ and many beyond _ worry about Russia’s renewed ambitions to influence the region. “We must remember the courage and dreams of the participants. But let it also be a reminder that freedom and democracy can never be taken for granted,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said in a statement. The Baltic News Service recalled Friday that then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Moscow “started realizing very clearly that the three Baltic nations were moving toward political independence.” The main commemorations are taking place in Vilnius, the capital of the southern-most Baltic country, and along the …

As with any war, there are winners and losers. That is also the case with the U.S.-China trade war. As the two countries battle, companies affected by high tariffs are looking to manufacture their products elsewhere, and businesses outside of the U.S. and China are seeing economic booms. Two factories in Vietnam currently make electric bicycles for Pedego, an American company based in Fountain Valley, California. Eighty percent of Pedego’s bike parts used to be from China, but not anymore. “Now, we’re probably 70% in Vietnam, and 30% in Taiwan,” said Don DiCostanzo, Pedego’s co-founder and CEO. US-China Trade War is Good News for Some Countries video player. FILE – China Shipping Company containers are stacked at the Virginia International’s terminal in Portsmouth, Va., May 10, 2019. Return manufacturing to US Manufacturing and outsourcing in a global economy is a fickle business, however. Any weather disruptions, political instability or the emergence of a cheaper competitor can cause businesses to shift to a different manufacturing hub. “Manufacturing has shown itself to be mobile in a way that we never could have imagined years ago,” Klowden said. Some companies in the U.S., such as Pedego, eventually would like to manufacture their products …

Among the more than 20 Democratic presidential hopefuls, the scramble is on to qualify for the next candidates’ debate in September. The debate is now set for Sept. 12-13 in Houston, Texas. Former Obama administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro got some good news this week, when he became the 10th Democrat to qualify for the debate, the third such event. Several other Democrats likely will not make the cut for the next debate, however, hampering their chances of building support in the crowded and at times chaotic primary battle. Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro and his son Cristian tour the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, Aug. 9, 2019. Looking to surge For Castro, a whirlwind of campaigning paid off when he qualified. “I believe we can get stronger and stronger. We still have five months to go until the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. And by that time, if we work hard, I can be a front-runner,” Castro told supporters last week in New Hampshire. He was referring to two of the state-level events that are part of the party’s delegate-selection process before its national convention in …

A team of Cameroonian entrepreneurs has created a mobile application that helps the farmers detect crop disease.  The app also proposes treatments and offers prevention measures. In Binguela, Cameroon, Anne Nzouankeu has this report narrated by Moki Edwin Kindzeka.   …

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Friday used his first statement after being released from jail to predict that opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin and protests against the authorities would only grow. Navalny, who tries to garner popular support by exposing what he says is appalling official corruption, was speaking minutes after being freed from prison where he had served 30 days for encouraging a protest calling for free elections. “Now we see that lies and fraud are not enough for them. It’s not enough for them to ban candidates from an election. They deliberately want to arrest dozens and to beat up hundreds. … This shows that there is no support for this regime. They feel this and they are afraid,” Navalny told reporters. “I have no doubt that despite genuine acts of intimidation and terror that are happening now as random people are being arrested that this wave (of protests) will increase, and this regime will seriously regret what it has done,” he said. Call for demonstrations The 43-year-old lawyer and activist was jailed last month after calling for people to demonstrate in central Moscow over the exclusion of opposition candidates from a local election in the Russian …

The continuing trade war between the U.S. and China may be causing businesses in both countries extreme anxiety, but the trade dispute is good news for businesses in other countries as many companies have or are moving their manufacturing away from China. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details on why Vietnam is attractive to one company in Southern California.   …

Italian President Sergio Mattarella agreed to a new round of consultations with party leaders Tuesday to resolve Italy’s political crisis. Speaking to reporters in Rome Thursday, two days after the collapse of the country’s populist government, the president said if no coalition wins a parliamentary approval, he could form a caretaker government or hold early elections. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Italian political leaders have started negotiations in an effort to avert a snap vote.   …

The first Official Comic Book Convention or Comic Con for short, happened in New York in 1964. Since then, the world of comic books has moved to TV, the movies, and video games, and these conventions have become huge events. We visited one to get a feel for how they work. VOA’s Dhania Iman reports.   …

China “will not sit idly by” if the U.S. proceeds with a sale of advanced F-16V fighter jets to Taiwan, a Chinese general said, while warning of other potential countermeasures in addition to punishing foreign firms involved in the deal. Beijing considered the sale a violation of previous U.S. commitments to China regarding the island it considers its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary, Maj. Gen. Chen Rongdi, chief of the Institute of War Studies at the Academy of Military Sciences, said. He did not elaborate on what additional measures China might take. “China will not sit idly by,” Chen said Thursday at a forum sponsored by China’s official journalists’ association. “Of course, we don’t rule out additional measures.” Sanction companies Beijing has repeatedly said it will levy sanctions against U.S. companies linked to a planned $8 billion sale and demanded Washington cancel it immediately. China has made such threats regarding previous arms sales by the U.S., but they’ve had limited effect because the companies involved are either important to China’s own nascent commercial aviation industry or have little or no business with the country. Most recently, China pledged sanctions against the U.S. in July when the …

Japan’s prime minister said Friday that South Korea’s decision to end a military intelligence sharing deal with Tokyo damages mutual trust. Shinzo Abe, speaking a day after Seoul announced its decision, said Tokyo “will continue to closely coordinate with the U.S. to ensure regional peace and prosperity, as well as Japan’s security.” In an escalation of its bitter dispute with Japan, South Korea decided Thursday to scrap its military intelligence sharing agreement with Tokyo, opening a new divide in trilateral security cooperation among the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. South Korea’s presidential Blue House said Thursday it is not in its national interest to continue the deal. Seoul will inform Tokyo of its decision before the Saturday deadline to renew the agreement, the South Korean statement said. FILE – Plaintiffs’ attorneys Lim Jae-sung, right, speaks as Kim Se-eun listens during a press conference in Tokyo, Dec. 4, 2018. Lawyers for South Koreans forced into wartime labor have taken legal steps to seize the South Korean assets of a Japanese company. Worsening tensions The decision will worsen tensions between South Korea and Japan, which are involved in a dispute rooted in Japan’s use of forced labor during its colonial occupation of …

TASIILAQ, GREENLAND — From a helicopter, Greenland’s brilliant white ice and dark mountains make the desolation seem to go on forever. And the few people who live here — its whole population wouldn’t fill a football stadium — are poor, with a high rate of substance abuse and suicide. One scientist called it the “end of the planet.” When U.S. President Donald Trump floated the idea of buying Greenland, it was met with derision, seen as an awkward and inappropriate approach of an erstwhile ally. Greenland Aladdin’s Cave of resources? But it might also be an Aladdin’s Cave of oil, natural gas and rare earth minerals just waiting to be tapped as the ice recedes. The northern island and the rest of the Arctic aren’t just hotter because of global warming. As melting ice opens shipping lanes and reveals incredible riches, the region is seen as a new geopolitical and economic asset, with the U.S., Russia, China and others wanting in. “An independent Greenland could, for example, offer basing rights to either Russia or China or both,” said Fen Hampson, the former head of the international security program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation think tank in Waterloo, Ontario, …