July saw the highest number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in a single month since 2017, the U.N. mission said Saturday.   Its preliminary findings indicate more than 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded, mainly due to a spike in casualties from insurgent attacks. It did not provide a breakdown of deaths and injuries, but said the overall number was the highest for a single month since May 2017.   It said more than 50% of casualties were caused by bombings. A roadside bomb tore through a bus in western Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least 32 people. A complex attack on the office of the Afghan president’s running mate last weekend killed at least 20 people. The target of the attack, former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, escaped unharmed. No one has claimed either attack.   The Taliban, who effectively control half the country, carry out daily attacks on security forces and government targets that often kill and wound civilians. An Islamic State affiliate also operates in Afghanistan, targeting security forces as well as minority Shiites.   The Taliban have kept up a steady tempo of attacks despite holding several rounds of peace talks with the United States in recent …

India has deported a former Maldives vice president. Ahmed Adeeb was deported Saturday. He tried to enter India’s southern port of Tuticorin on Thursday aboard a tugboat. The tugboat crew and Adeeb were handed over to Maldivian authorities at the International Maritime Boundary Line. Adeeb is facing attempted murder and corruption charges at home. He has been accused of trying to assassinate then Maldives president Abdulla Yameen in 2015.   …

The African Union envoy to Sudan said Saturday the pro-democracy movement and the ruling military council have finalized a power-sharing agreement. Mohammed el-Hassan Lebatt told reporters that the two sides “fully agreed” on a constitutional declaration outlining the division of power for a three-year transition to elections. He did not provide further details, but said both sides would meet later Saturday to prepare for a signing ceremony. The pro-democracy coalition issued a statement saying they would sign the document Sunday. Mass protests, then coup The military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir in April following months of mass protests against his three-decade-long authoritarian rule. The protesters remained in the streets, demanding a rapid transition to a civilian government. They have been locked in tense negotiations with the military for weeks while holding mass protests. The two sides reached a preliminary agreement last month following pressure from the United States and its Arab allies, amid growing concerns the political crisis could ignite civil war. That document provided for the establishment of a joint civilian-military sovereign council that would rule Sudan for a little more than three years while elections are organized. A military leader would head the 11-member council for the first 21 …

Forty-eight insects are currently included on the U.S. Endangered Species List, and the only way any insect has ever come off the list is through extinction. This is especially troubling for the world’s butterfly populations, which have declined by 20% over the last decades.  This time of year, Nate Fuller can often be found counting butterflies. The director of the Sarett Nature Center in Benton Harbor, Michigan, needs an accurate count of Mitchell’s satyr butterflies, to help preserve one of their last known habitats. “They’re very particular in the kind of habitat where they can live, which is part of what makes them so rare and amazing indicators for our water quality,” he said. Hard to spot Emerging into a vast wetland of soupy ground covered in shoulder-high grasses and sedges, dotted with poisonous sumac trees, it’s slow going, but a cell phone app helps keep track of where butterflies have been spotted as well as when and how many, all important data for better understanding Mitchell’s satyr populations. Finding the small brown butterflies with golden-ringed eyespots on their wings can be difficult. There just aren’t many around. They also rest with their wings closed to blend in with their …

The United States has pulled out of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in order to develop its own new missiles, after the Russians refused to destroy new missiles that NATO says violate the pact. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise” because Moscow failed to return to compliance despite repeated warnings.  VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington on the end of a landmark treaty.   …

This story originated in FILE – Newly elected President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski, right, walks with outgoing president Gjorge Ivanov, during his inauguration ceremony in Skopje, North Macedonia, May 12, 2019. The country changed its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia in February, ending a more than two-decade dispute with Greece over its name, and removing an obstacle to EU and NATO membership. Just last week, EU commissioner Johannes Hahn said Skopje needs to reform the judiciary to ensure it can handle high-level crime and corruption cases before the EU can set a date to start accession talks, but that he was “confident that the decision (on the start of EU accession talks) will be taken in October.” Palmer said he’s optimistic talks can begin this fall, but that resolving the Janeva investigation will be key to ensuring it happens. Both of North Macedonia’s major political parties have been squabbling over the drafting of a law to regulate the prosecution, which will determine the fate of the special prosecutor’s office that Janeva used to run. “We believe that North Macedonia has earned that opportunity [to have EU accession talks begin this year], but … signals that the government sends …

Another scientific study has confirmed that trees can have a far-reaching effect in stemming global warming by removing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Tree-planting advocates say this is something they’ve known for decades, and the world is finally getting the message. Mike O’Sullivan has more from Los Angeles. …

There are 48 insects included on the U.S. Endangered Species List, and the only way any insect has ever come off the list is through extinction. This is especially troubling for the world’s butterfly populations, which have declined by 20% in the last decades. Erika Celeste takes us to visit one of the rarest wild butterfly populations in the world, the Mitchell’s satyr butterfly at the Sarett Nature Center in Benton Harbor, Michigan.   …

An Afghani female entrepreneur has built a small manufacturing company in the Central Bamyan province to produce shoes and bags for women, primarily by women. It’s a modest business, but it’s changing lives. Zafar Bamyani has more from Bamyan in this report narrated by Kevin Enochs. …

Kentucky native Kelly Knight Craft will be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after winning confirmation by a slim majority in the Senate this week. Some Democrats complained about her lack of foreign policy experience going into a senior diplomatic post. VOA’s U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer has more. …

Hong Kong civil servants and supporters crowded into a public park Friday to join a pro-democracy movement that China’s top diplomat accused Western nations of provoking. Several thousand joined the rally for government workers in solidarity with protesters who have called for greater rights and government accountability over the past two months. As rain hit the umbrella-ready crowd, attendees dispersed willingly, avoiding the police clashes that have increasingly beleaguered demonstrations. “As civil servants, if we don’t stand up, that means we are disloyal,” said K. H. Wu, a retiree who worked for the government’s Census Department for 40 years. “Our loyalties are not to a particular government, but to the people.” Wu attended the rally with his wife, also a civil servant. He said this was the first time he participated in a rally in which he openly shared his status as a former government worker. He said he did so because he feels “there’s nothing to be afraid of.” “Right now the Hong Kong government is blindly leading the people,” Wu said. “They disregard the needs of the population. With Hong Kong like this right now, you have to rid yourself of all fear.” Civil servants attend a rally …

Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com. U.S. Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan and Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales shake hands before a bilateral meeting in Guatemala City, Guatemala Aug. 1, 2019. McAleenan traveled to Guatemala to promote safe third country agreement U.S. Homeland Security acting Secretary FILE – A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer looks on during an operation in Escondido, Calif., July 8, 2019. One family’s gripping account after an immigration raid The family opened the door thinking they were going to collaborate with law enforcement to help solve a crime. That is not what happened. It wasn’t local police. Children and adults play on pink seesaws along the U.S.-Mexico border in Sunland Park, N.M., July 28, 2019. US-Mexico Border and seesaw bridges Two California professors installed FILE – Yazmin Juarez, mother of 19-month-old Mariee, who died after detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, testifies before a House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and …

With farm bankruptcies rising and agricultural debt loads soaring, the U.S. Senate has passed a bill that will make it easier for more farmers with larger amounts of debt to file for bankruptcy protection. The bipartisan bill — called the Family Farmer Relief Act of 2019 — raises the ceiling on how much debt producers who file for Chapter 12 bankruptcy can have, to $10 million from the previous $4 million. Chapter 12 is a part of the federal bankruptcy code that is designed for family farmers and fishermen to reorganize their debts. It was created during the 1980s farm crisis as a simple court procedure to let family farmers keep operating while working out a plan to repay lenders. It costs far more now to run a U.S. farm than it did 30 years ago, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Without this change to the law, bankruptcy experts say, farmers whose debts exceed $4.15 million are forced to use Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which is more costly and onerous. The legislation, passed by the Senate on Thursday and earlier by the U.S. House of Representatives, is headed to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign, …

MEXICO CITY — A Mexican reporter in Guerrero state who also served as a municipal official was shot and killed Friday in a beachside resort, authorities said, the second journalist from the state slain in less than a week as Mexico’s endemic bloodletting reaches new heights.    Edgar Alberto Nava, who published news stories about the coastal resort city of Zihuatanejo on a Facebook page called La Verdad de Zihuatanejo, died after being shot several times, the Guerrero prosecutor’s office said.    Nava also worked as Zijuatanejo’s regulations director. It was not clear if the attack, in a Zihuatanejo restaurant, was related to Nava’s journalism work.    Homicides in Mexico jumped in the first half of the year to the highest on record, according to official data, underscoring the challenges President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has faced since taking office in December with a vow to reduce violence in the country ravaged by notorious drug cartels.    “This is a great loss for our government and for the journalism industry where he also worked,” Zihuatanejo Mayor Jorge Sanchez said in a statement lamenting Nava’s death.    Six other journalists in Mexico have been killed so far this year, according to free-speech advocacy group Article …

Hopes by small aviation museum in southwestern Iowa that a stamp in its possession was rare enough to parlay into a fortune crashed Friday when experts told them it wasn’t real, and likely not even worth the paper it was glued upon. The Iowa Aviation Museum in Greenfield, Iowa, has had what it thought was a 1918 “Inverted Jenny” stamp on public display for some 20 years, dating back to when it was donated to the museum, glued to a board along with several other stamps. A notation from the donor attached to the board speculated then that it was worth about $73,000. Experts at the national stamp convention meeting in Omaha knew immediately the stamp wasn’t authentic, said Ken Martin with the American Philatelic Society that’s holding the show through Sunday. Likely cut from a catalog “It wasn’t the right size. It was too small,” Martin said. “This version was likely cut out of a postage stamp auction catalog.” An examination under a microscope confirmed experts’ initial doubt. A 100-year-old stamp would have been printed from an artist’s engraving, so the image under a microscope would appear as a series of lines. A reproduction for printed material decades later …

Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives voted Friday to confirm Pedro Pierluisi as secretary of state, removing an important obstacle to the veteran politician becoming governor with an hour to go before Ricardo Rossello was expected to step down. The House voted 26-21, with one abstention, to confirm Rossello’s nominee and potential successor. The legislature, which is controlled by Pierluisi’s New Progressive Party, erupted into cheers when the deciding vote was cast. But Pierluisi’s fate remains unclear. The secretary of state is next to line for the governor’s chair when the chief executive resigns. However, the issue of who is rightfully governor is almost certain to go to court.  Rossello was due to step down at 5 p.m., a resignation he promised in response to weeks of popular protest over mismanagement, and a series of leaked chats in which he and advisers denigrated a range of Puerto Ricans. If Pierluisi, 60, does not become governor, the position is taken by Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez, who is not widely popular and already is the target of protests. The down-to-the-wire maneuvering risked political chaos and a constitutional crisis and sowed bitterness and pessimism among Puerto Ricans about the fate of their island, which …

BOSTON — Authorities said Friday that they were looking to toxicology reports for clues to the death of Saoirse Kennedy Hill, a granddaughter of assassinated U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.    The Kennedy family confirmed the death in a statement after police responded to a call Thursday afternoon about a possible drug overdose at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The statement was issued by Brian Wright O’Connor, a spokesman for Saoirse Hill’s uncle, former U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II.    Hill, 22, was the daughter of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s fifth child, Courtney, and Paul Michael Hill, who was one of four people falsely convicted in the 1974 Irish Republican Army bombings of two pubs. The two are now divorced.    “She lit up our lives with her love, her peals of laughter and her generous spirit,” the statement said, adding she was passionate about human rights and women’s empowerment and worked with indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico.  ‘Gifted student’   Hill, whose first name is pronounced SIR-shuh, attended Boston College, where she was a member of the Class of 2020. The college issued a statement Friday saying she was a communications major and “a gifted …

 The U.S. Navy has identified the pilot killed in the crash of a fighter jet in the California desert. A Navy statement Friday says the pilot was 33-year-old Lt. Charles Z. Walker.   The Navy released a photo of Walker but provided no additional information, such as his hometown. Walker’s F/A-18E Super Hornet crashed July 31 in Death Valley National Park while flying through a canyon where military pilots routinely conduct low-level training missions. Seven park visitors on a canyon overlook suffered minor injuries caused by debris from the crash. The Super Hornet was assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-151 based at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California’s Central Valley. The cause of the crash remains under investigation. …

The latest batch of tariffs that President Donald Trump plans to impose on Chinese goods would likely cost U.S. households an average of $200 a year, some economists have estimated. That would come on top of the roughly $831 imposed per household from Trump’s existing tariffs, according to a New York Federal Reserve analysis. Trump plans to tax $300 billion of Chinese imports at 10% starting in September with the goal of accelerating trade talks with Beijing to favor the United States. The new tariffs would be in addition to 25% tariffs Trump has imposed on $250 billion in Chinese products. Those are mostly industrial goods. By contrast, the new tariffs would target products used by American consumers such as shoes, clothing and cellphones. President Donald Trump meets with China’s President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. By Friday, Trump’s new planned tariffs had triggered worries, especially among retailers, about the consequences. Retail stores, many of which have been struggling, would have to make the painful choice of either absorbing the higher costs from the new tariffs or imposing them on price-conscious customers. Additionally, China has …

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a deal on Friday to sell more American beef to Europe in what was a modest win for an administration that remains mired in a trade war with China. Trump gathered European Union officials and cowboy-hatted American ranchers in the White House Roosevelt Room to announce the pact. “The agreement that we sign today will lower trade barriers in Europe and expand access for American farmers and ranchers,” Trump said. He spoke shortly before the agreement was signed by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Stavros Lambrinidis, the European Union’s ambassador to the United States and EU representative Jani Raappana. The European Commission has stressed that any beef deal will not increase overall beef imports and that all the beef coming in would be hormone-free, in line with EU food safety rules. An agreement would need to be approved by the European parliament. After the agreement was signed, Trump joked at the podium that his administration was working with the EU “on a 25% tariff on all Mercedes-Benz and BMWs coming into our nation.” “So, we appreciate — I’m only kidding,” he said to laughter. The beef deal could help alleviate some of the damage to …

Military authorities in Sudan have arrested more suspects in the shooting deaths of protesters in the cities of el-Obeid on Monday and Omdurman on Thursday. Four Sudanese paramilitary soldiers were arrested Friday in the deaths of six protesters in el-Obeid. On Thursday, the Transitional Military Council arrested seven members of the Rapid Support Forces in connection with that incident. Another two suspects have been arrested for the killing of four demonstrators in Omdurman. Despite the killings and the tensions, the TMC and civilian Forces for Freedom and Change Coalition resumed talks Thursday evening on forming a power-sharing government. The sides are trying to agree on a constitutional outline for a government that will lead Sudan for the next three years, until elections. This week’s protests were sparked by demands for justice for all those killed and wounded in the protests of the past six months. Alaa Abdulahadi, who joined a march Thursday in the Burri neighborhood east of Khartoum, said her cousin was killed during the June 3 military crackdown on protesters outside army headquarters in Khartoum. “We have lost so many lives and the old regime destroyed our country. We have witnessed the deterioration of our economy and the abuse of …

In a speech Friday to a regional youth leadership program in Thailand, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended new U.S. tariffs on China, saying, “We want free and fair trade, not trade that undermines competition.” Pompeo’s statements came after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would impose a 10 percent tariff on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports starting September first. Pompeo chided China for “decades of bad behavior” that have stalled free trade. “It’s time for that to stop,” he said. He also mentioned the massive anti-government protests in Hong Kong. “We also believe in human rights and freedom,” he said. “The current unrest in Hong Kong clearly shows that the will and the voice of the governed will always be heard.” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo crosses his arms for the traditional ‘ASEAN handshake’ with Chinese FM Wang Yi and fellow diplomats, during the 26th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Bangkok, Thailand, Aug. 2, 2019. Pompeo, who has assured his Southeast Asian partners this week that they do not have to choose between the U.S. and China, used his speech Friday to contrast U.S. and Chinese investment. He described Chinese investment as exploitative, and U.S. investment as …

U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed a new round of North Korean missile tests early Friday, five months after his last denuclearization talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and with pressure building to iron out a deal. “These missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement,” he wrote on Twitter, later acknowledging that the missile tests could have violated United Nations resolutions. The two men met in Singapore in June of last year. Kim Jong Un and North Korea tested 3 short range missiles over the last number of days. These missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement, nor was there discussion of short range missiles when we shook hands. There may be a United Nations violation, but.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials assess the projectile as likely a “short-range ballistic missile” that shares flight characteristics with other recent North Korean launches, South Korea’s presidential Blue House said in a statement to reporters. The Friday launch was first reported by U.S. officials, who said the move did not appear to threaten North America. North Korea has test-fired at least six short-range weapons in just over a …

The United States said Friday it would bar two Venezuelan officials accused of human rights violations from traveling to the United States in its latest action to pressure Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro into stepping down. The U.S. State Department said in a statement the two officials, Rafael Enrique Bastardo Mendoza, the commander of Venezuela’s special forces, and Ivan Rafael Hernandez Dala, the chief of counterintelligence, had committed “gross violations of human rights.” The United States imposed financial sanctions on the two officials, as well as three other people, in February. The State Department’s move allows it to revoke any visas the two officials, their spouses and minor children may have and renders them ineligible for travel into the United States.  …