As Guinea’s president visits the U.S. preaching economic development, a debate rages back home about term limits. President Alpha Condé spent the week visiting U.S. diplomats, granting interviews and meeting with business leaders. He said his goal is to attract investment and transform his country’s economy, which historically has been heavily dependent on mineral extraction. “Guinea has potential. We don’t want to be providers of primary materials. We want businesses to come here, work here and create value,” he told VOA’s French to Africa service. “My dream is that Africa [becomes] not only a factory for Africa but a factory for the world.” Voices of concern Guinea, Africa But observers are voicing concern about the state of Guinea’s young democracy. Condé was elected in 2010 in the country’s first free and fair election in nearly 50 years. According to Guinea’s Constitution, he must leave office next year after his second term expires. But a campaign has emerged, believed to be supported by Condé and his allies, to strike down the term limits restriction. Condé instructed Prime Minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana to travel the country and gather opinions about the amendment. “Changing those term limits requires writing a completely new constitution …

The Associated Press contributed to this report. SYDNEY/BANGKOK — Thousands of students took to the streets of Australia and other Asia-Pacific countries Friday to kick off a global strike demanding world leaders gathering for a U.N. climate summit adopt urgent measures to stop an environmental catastrophe. “We didn’t light it, but we’re trying to fight it,” read one sign carried by a student in Sydney, as social media posts showed huge demonstrations around the country, including outback towns like Alice Springs. “The oceans are rising and so are we,” read another sign held by a protester wearing school uniform in Melbourne. Protests inspired by the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg are planned in about 150 countries Friday as people rally to demand governments take immediate action to limit the harmful effects of manmade climate change. Incredible pictures as Australia’s gathering for the Thousands of protesters, many of them school students, gather in Sydney, Sept. 20, 2019, calling for action against climate change. Australia’s acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack has described ongoing climate rallies as “just a disruption.” By early afternoon, the Sydney protesters were overflowing out of a 34-hectare (84-acre) open space in the city. Similar crowds were reported in …

More than a half century ago, a group of Puerto Ricans moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, to work the nearby mushroom fields. Since then the Latino and Hispanic population of the city itself has mushroomed — to 65% of the total. That majority-minority population is being closely watched politically because it is a key constituency in a swing state considered a must-win for both parties in next year’s presidential election. VOA’s White House bureau chief, Steve Herman reports from Reading.   …

Remnants of tropical storm Imelda have caused serious flooding in eastern Texas, including parts of Houston, forcing evacuations, flight cancellations, school closures and causing some outages. Reports of other environmental disasters come from various parts of the world, as the United Nations General Assembly prepares to discuss climate change, which is linked to human activity such as pollution and gas-fueled transportation. Zlatica Hoke reports the Trump administration so far has shunned efforts to curb pollution, and there are no signs this will change.   …

Afghanistan has been awash in violence for decades, and hundreds of thousands of civilians have died in the fighting. A memorial designed to remember those lost and help survivors heal recently opened in Mazar-e-Sharif. VOA’s Mirwais Bezhan visited this exhibition and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard. …

U.S. lawmakers at a congressional hearing Thursday pushed for answers on stalled peace talks with the Taliban following President Donald Trump’s suspension of the negotiations earlier this month. The open hearing followed a closed door session in which the top U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, complied with a congressional demand for more information on the negotiations. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more on the questions being raised about the future of the U.S. role in Afghanistan.   …

The Washington Monument reopened to the public on Thursday after being closed for years to replace its aging elevator and security system. First lady Melania Trump attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Here’s more from White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara.   …

Government hospitals in Zimbabwe have started turning away patients as a strike by doctors and nurses drags on. Negotiations have been held up by the disappearance of the strike leader, Peter Gabriel Magombeyi, whom fellow health workers believe was arrested or abducted by security forces. For much of Thursday, the entrance to Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe’s biggest hospital, was turned into a place to protest and to address journalists. No patients were being treated at the facility. Zimbabwe Hospitals Turn Away Patients as Doctors Strike Drags on video player. Copy WATCH: Zimbabwe Hospitals Turn Away Patients as Doctors Strike Drags on “With these petitions, we are trying to send a message to the responsible authorities to account for the whereabouts of our acting president, Dr. Peter Magombeyi, because as doctors we can’t go back to work. We feel threatened and our safety is not guaranteed. We believe that the government has a responsibility for the security of its citizens. So we want them to address all those concerns.” While the standoff between the government and health workers continues, patients like Tembo go untreated, with no choice but to wait until the situation is resolved. …

Online shopping giant Amazon revealed a carbon footprint Thursday that rivals that of a small country and vowed to reduce the damage to the planet by cutting its use of fossil fuels. The company, which ships more than 10 billion items a year on fuel-guzzling planes and trucks, said it has ordered 100,000 electric vans that will start delivering packages to shoppers’ doorsteps in 2021. It also plans to have 100% of its energy use come from solar panels and other renewable energy by 2030. That’s up from 40% today. “We’ve been in the middle of the herd on this issue and we want to move to the forefront,” said Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, who announced the initiatives at an event in Washington. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during his news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Sept. 19, 2019. Bezos announced the Climate Pledge, setting a goal to meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early. Amazon said it emitted 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, a number that comes close to pollution rates of some small nations. “Its greenhouse gas emissions are about 85% of the emissions of Switzerland or Denmark,” said …

The U.S. military is joining federal, state and local officials on the frontlines of the battle to protect the country’s elections from foreign interference. Defense Secretary Mark Esper made the announcement Thursday, saying that, from now on, election security will be one of the military’s enduring missions, and that his department will seek to take the fight to the country’s enemies. “The lines between war and peace have now blurred,” Esper said, citing an exponential expansion of dangers in cyberspace. “Our paradigm for war has changed.” “Our adversaries see cyberwarfare as a way to take on the United States and impose costs without confronting our traditional strengths,” he said. FILE – U.S. Department of Homeland Security election security workers monitor screens in Arlington, Va., Nov. 6, 2018. Election security The decision to make election security a core part of the military’s mission comes with campaigning for the 2020 U.S. presidential election well underway, with more than a dozen candidates looking to unseat President Donald Trump. It also represents a significant expansion of the military’s role in protecting the integrity of U.S. elections, which until now had been more modest. Despite concerns about Russian and Chinese efforts to meddle in last …

As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met Thursday with President Donald Trump and other critics of the tech industry, the Senate’s most vocal detractor offered a challenge: Sell your WhatsApp and Instagram properties to prove you’re serious about protecting data privacy. It may have been more than Zuckerberg expected from his private meeting with Sen. Josh Hawley, a conservative Republican from Missouri, in his Capitol Hill office. Zuckerberg left the hourlong meeting — one of several with lawmakers on Capitol Hill — without answering questions from a throng of reporters and photographers pursuing him down a hallway. FILE – Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks during a hearing of a Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, March 6, 2019. Hawley, though, had plenty to say. “The company talks a lot. I’d like to see some action,” he told reporters. “I will believe Facebook when I see some real action out of Facebook.” Rather than moving users’ personal data from properties such as WhatsApp and Instagram to the core Facebook platform, the company should put a wall around the services or, better yet, sell them off, Hawley said he told Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg, who requested the meeting, “did not think that was a great idea,” …

With world leaders about to gather in New York for a U.N. Climate Action Summit next week, millions of young people from Australia to Iceland will take off from school or work on Friday to demand urgent measures to stop environmental catastrophe.  Protests, inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 16, are planned in 150 countries. The aim is for students and others from around the world to speak in one voice about the impending effects of climate change on the planet.  “Soon the sun will rise on Friday the 20th of September 2019. Good luck Australia, The Philippines, Japan and all the Pacific Islands. You go first!” Thunberg posted Thursday on Instagram.  Solo start Thunberg has galvanized young people around the world since she started protesting alone with a sign outside the Swedish parliament building in August 2018. Over the past year, young people in other communities have staged scattered strikes in solidarity with her Fridays for Future movement.  FILE – Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, speaks in front of a crowd of people after sailing into New York harbor aboard the Malizia II, Aug. 28, 2019. In conjunction with the U.N. summit this week, organizers on Friday will hold coordinated strikes around the world for a third time, with Thunberg spearheading a …

Christy Lee contributed to this report, which originated with VOA’s Korean Service. WASHINGTON — Increased international cooperation is essential for curtailing the ship-to-ship transfers that Pyongyang continues to use to evade sanctions, said a former United Nations panel expert on North Korean sanctions enforcement. “Every member state (of the United Nations) has one or two pieces of the puzzle,” said Neil Watts, a maritime expert who served as a member of the United Nations panel that monitors North Korea sanctions compliance from 2013 to 2018. “And if they all cooperate, they can put together the full picture.” North Korea seemingly is receiving a steady supply of oil through illegal transshipments, said Watts, as indicated by fuel prices that he said have been stable for the last 18 months in North Korea. Two essential tactics Watts told VOA’s Korean Service Tuesday that two things are essential for going after Pyongyang’s illicit ship-to-ship transfers at sea: Identify key North Koreans driving illicit transshipping networks, and follow the money trails. FILE – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends the testing of a super-large multiple rocket launcher in North Korea, in this undated photo released Sept. 10, 2019, by North Korea’s Korean Central …

Flash floods caused by torrential rains that began Sunday have displaced thousands of people in rebel-controlled Ayod County in Fangak state, according to local rebel officials Thursday. Residents say they have lost everything and are pleading for humanitarian aid. Yien Nhial Madhier, the Ayod County SPLM-IO-appointed commissioner, says the floods have submerged shelters, water sources and crops in six payams, or sub-counties. Madhier says more than 4,000 households are especially hard hit and in dire need of help. “We do have here 4,413 households affected by the floods. There are no alternatives for me to help them. Just, I really report it to all the humanitarian aid [organizations], and [request that they] come to assist the situation happening in Gorwai,” Madhier told South Sudan in Focus. Thow Dor Pouch, who represents a group called Christian Mission for Development in Ayod County, says a preliminary assessment carried out two days ago indicates more households were affected than previously thought, including Yien, Juach, Kher, Werial Pajiek, Buotand Kuotyang payams. “It may be almost 6,000 [households]. Six payams is beyond 15,000 [people], a very high number,” Pouch told South Sudan in Focus. A typical South Sudanese household is six people or more, according …

U.S. gun manufacturer Colt has announced it will stop making rifles for the civilian market, including the popular AR-15. In a statement released Thursday, the company’s chief executive officer, Dennis Veilleux, said, “over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity,” forcing the company to withdraw from the market. He said Colt will continue producing rifles for its military and law enforcement clients. Veilleux said Colt will also continue “to expand our network of dealers across the country and to supply them with expanding lines of the finest quality 1911s and revolvers.” The National Rifle Associate calls Colt’s AR-15 the “most popular rifle in America.” It estimates there are some 8 million rifles in America. The AR-15 rifle has come under scrutiny by gun-restriction proponents because it has been the gun of choice for recent mass murderers in the U.S. It was used in some of the deadliest shootings in recent history, including Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 26; the Las Vegas strip that killed 58; San Bernardino, California, that killed 16; and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17. …

As the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline approaches, Ireland’s ambassador to the United States is expressing a degree of optimism that a creative solution may be found, but he insists there has to be a legally binding agreement “that there can never be a hard border on the island of Ireland.”      The so-called “backstop” negotiated between former British Prime Minister Theresa May and the European Union “is a guarantee that there can never be a hard border on the island of Ireland,” Ambassador Daniel Mulhall said in an interview with VOA.    “It is not enough for us to be told that ‘we promise you, there will not be a problem,’” he said. “There has to be a legally binding agreement, and that’s where I think we have to work hard over the next six weeks between the United Kingdom and the European Union to find a solution to this problem, because nobody wants to see Britain crash out of the European Union.”  NAFTA example   Mulhall cited the process of the renegotiation of a trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico as an example of how things could work out.    “When the U.S. wanted to replace NAFTA, they had …

A federal judge on Thursday handed President Donald Trump a victory in his effort to keep his financial information secret, siding with his campaign’s effort to block a California law aimed at forcing him to release his tax returns.   The ruling by U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. comes as the president faces multiple Democratic-led efforts to force him to reveal his returns. Also Thursday, Trump sued to block New York prosecutors from their push obtain the returns as part of a criminal investigation.   Trump has bucked decades of precedent by refusing to release them, arguing they are under audit.   England, an appointee of former Republican President George W. Bush, plans to issue a written ruling by Oct. 1, and California is expected to appeal.   The law signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in July says candidates for president must release five years of tax returns by November to run in the California primary, which is scheduled for March 2020.   Attorneys for Trump and the Republican Party argued the law violates the U.S. Constitution by adding an additional requirement to run for president. England also seemed open to their argument that a federal law requiring …

The Niger Delta is where Africa’s largest oil producer pumps out its most lucrative natural resource. But while companies like Shell and ExxonMobile operate there and extract billions of dollars worth of crude oil, most of the people in the region are extremely poor. Their traditional livelihoods as farmers and fishermen have been badly affected by more than 6,000 oil spills that have damaged the environment over the past 50 years. People ride a boat past an oil discharge facility in Lagos, Nigeria, Nov. 10, 2016. A 33-year-old local activist and petroleum engineer, Legborsi Yamaabana, has come out to denounce a $1 billion environmental remediation project that was launched in the community of Ogoni in 2016. The project, recommended by the Members of the joint task force, part of the Bodo oil spill clean-up operation, inspect the site of an illegal refinery near the village of Bodo in the Niger Delta, Aug.2, 2018.   Yamaabana is the president of the Ogoni Youth Federation, which claims to have 11,000 members. The federation has filed a lawsuit against HYPREP, the government agency in charge of coordinating the cleanup.   The Federation wants to know exactly how the money is being spent.  It also …

A team of French diggers has restored three Sudanese artifacts, including a 3,500-year-old wall relief, and it handed them to the African country’s national museum Thursday, a French archaeologist said.    The three artifacts were discovered at separate archaeological sites in recent years in Sudan and were restored by a French team of experts.    The items are a wall painting of an ancient Kandaka Nubian queen, a Meroite stela and a wall relief inscription believed to be almost 3,500 years old.  A stela, discovered at Sedeinga pyramids, is displayed at the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum, Sept. 19, 2019. “The idea is to give back to the museum the most important archaeological pieces discovered and restored,” said Marc Maillot, director of the French archaeological unit deployed in Sudan.    The wall painting was found at El-Hassa site, the stela at Sedeinga and the relief at the temple of Soleb, where French diggers along with Sudanese counterparts have conducted extensive archaeological work for several years.    On Thursday, the three artifacts were handed over to the Sudan National Museum to mark the completion of 50 years of French archaeologists’ presence in the country.    For decades, international archaeologists have worked extensively in Sudan, proving that the northeast …

Any attack on Iran by the U.S. or Saudi Arabia will spark an “all-out war,” Tehran’s top diplomat warned Thursday, raising the stakes as Washington and Riyadh weigh a response to a drone-and-missile strike on the kingdom’s oil industry that shook global energy markets. The comments by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif represented the starkest warning yet by Iran in a long summer of mysterious attacks and incidents following the collapse of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, more than a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the accord. They appeared to be aimed directly at U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who while on a trip to the region earlier referred to Saturday’s attack in Saudi Arabia as an “act of war.” Along with the sharp language, however, there also were signals from both sides of wanting to avoid a confrontation. In his comments, Zarif sought to expose current strains between the Americans and the Saudis under Trump, who long has criticized U.S. wars in the Middle East. Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been challenged by opponents following the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last year …

Chinese tech giant Huawei launched its latest high-end smartphone in Munich on Thursday, the first of its mobile devices not to carry popular Google apps because of U.S. sanctions. “Today because of the U.S. ban … we cannot pre-install” Google’s applications, said Richard Yu, who heads Huawei’s consumer business group, as he unveiled the group’s latest Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro models. But heading off fears that a phone without popular apps like Whatsapp, YouTube or Google Maps could not succeed, he stressed that the equivalent platform by the Chinese giant offered a choice of 45,000 apps through the Huawei App Gallery. Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group, speaks on stage during a presentation to reveal Huawei’s latest smartphones Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro in Munich, Germany, Sept. 19, 2019. Yu added that the Chinese giant was investing US$1 billion (900,000 euros) into its Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) core software ecosystem, as he urged app developers to bring their creations to the system. Huawei, targeted directly by the United States as part of a broader trade conflict with Beijing, was added to a “blacklist” in Washington in May. Since then, it has been illegal for American …

VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.   WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Donald Trump is uttering his oft-cited ‘Fake News’ accusation to rebut reports he made a ‘promise’ to a foreign leader that sparked an American intelligence official to file a whistleblower complaint. “Is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially ‘heavily populated’ call. I would only do what is right anyway, and only do good for the USA!” the president tweeted on Thursday. Trump, who has frequently accused the U.S. intelligence community of being part of a ‘Deep State’ opposition to his presidency, said he is aware that “virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. No problem!” Another Fake News story out there – It never ends! Virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. No problem! — Donald J. Trump …

New images of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wearing blackface makeup emerged on Canadian television Thursday, throwing his floundering re-election bid into further disarray. Released by broadcaster Global News, and confirmed to AFP by his campaign as being Trudeau “in the early 1990s,” the footage depicts the Liberal leader in ripped jeans and a t-shirt, his arms up and dark makeup on his face. Late Wednesday, Trudeau apologized after Time magazine published a photograph of him wearing dark makeup at a party 18 years ago. He also admitted to wearing similar makeup in his teens when he sang Harry Belafonte’s 1956 hit “Banana Boat Song (Day-O)” at a high school talent contest. “I have worked all my life to try to create opportunities for people, fight against racism and intolerance,” he told a televised news conference on his campaign aircraft. “I can say I made a mistake when I was younger and I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had known better then, but I didn’t and I’m deeply sorry for it.” “Now I recognize it was something racist to do,” he said, acknowledging that his enthusiasm for costumes — which has also included dressing as Clark Kent/Superman and a “Star …

U.S. and Chinese deputy trade negotiators were set to resume face-to-face talks on Thursday for the first time in nearly two months as the world’s two largest economies try to bridge deep policy differences and find a way out of a bitter and protracted trade war. The negotiations, on Thursday and Friday, are aimed at laying the groundwork for high-level talks in early October that will determine whether the two countries are working toward a solution or are headed for new and higher tariffs on each other’s goods. A delegation of about 30 Chinese officials, led by Vice Finance Minister Liao Min, were set to launch talks on Thursday morning at the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office near the White House. The U.S. side is expected to be led by Deputy Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish. The discussions are likely to focus heavily on agriculture, including U.S. demands that China substantially increase purchases of American soybeans and other farm commodities, a person with knowledge of the planned discussions told Reuters. Two negotiating sessions over the two days will cover agricultural issues, while just one will be devoted to the strengthening of China’s intellectual property protections and the forced transfer of U.S. …