Marvelous Nyahuye contributed to this report from New York. WASHINGTON –  Tererai Trent appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2009 and inspired the world with her story of overcoming enormous odds to pursue her dreams of education. This week, she finds herself immortalized alongside Winfrey with a bronze statue in New York City. She is the only African woman to have received this honor. The Zimbabwean educator and humanitarian is one of 10 “Statues For Equality” created by sculptors Gillie and Marc Schattner. Trent’s statue depicts her with her arms aloft, surrounded by the flame lily, the country’s national flower. “It comes without saying that, by projecting these women into larger-than-life-size sculptures, it will help change our society — a change that will elevate the lives of women all around the world. A change that can trigger gender equality in careers, industries and the home,” Gillie Schattner said at the ceremony. “I come from a very poor place, and I grew up very poor. I had four babies before I was even 18 years of age, and to think that because of the power of believing in a dream and today I am being celebrated,” Trent said. “And to …

The U.S. and China imposed new tariffs on each other’s exported goods on Sunday, the latest skirmish in the lengthy and contentious trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. U.S. President Donald Trump levied 15% taxes on about $112 billion worth of Chinese exported products headed to the United States, with the tariffs likely resulting in higher prices paid by U.S. shoppers on some foods, sports equipment, sportswear, musical instruments and furniture. Meanwhile, Beijing started adding 5% and 10% tariffs on some of the $75 billion worth of U.S. exports being sent to China that it has said it will tax in the tit-for-tat tariff war with Washington. Initially, China said the American export of frozen sweet corn, pork liver, marble and bicycle tires were among the more the 1,700 products it would tax. Trump on Friday ruled out any delay in the new tariffs on the imported Chinese goods, saying, “They’re on.” As they took effect Sunday, Trump declared, “We can’t allow China to rip us off anymore.” China’s official Xinhua news agency said, “The United States should learn how to behave like a responsible global power and stop acting as a ‘school bully.’ As the world’s only …

Israel said it was returning fire Sunday after anti-tank missiles were launched at its territory from Lebanon, raising fears of a serious escalation with Hezbollah after a week of rising tensions. “A number of anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon towards an (Israeli military) base and military vehicles,” an Israeli army statement said. “A number of hits have been confirmed. (Israel’s military) is responding with fire towards the sources of fire and targets in southern Lebanon.”       …

Greek-born French director Costa-Gavras has been recognized for his “particularly original contribution to innovation in contemporary cinema” at the Venice Film Festival, where the Oscar winner also presented his new movie about the Greek debt crisis. The 86-year-old filmmaker, known for “Z” and “Missing”, was presented with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award late on Saturday. While in Venice, he also presented “Adults in the Room”, which is adapted from the book by former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and follows Greece’s bailout negotiations in 2015. “There’s a lot of muddled politics in Europe, it has to clear itself up one day, not in the way it’s been clearing itself up over the past few years,” Costa-Gravas told a news conference, citing concerns over rising populism. “I hope that all of that will change.”   …

Where’s the pope? He’s stuck in a Vatican elevator. Thousands of people who were gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the traditional Sunday on-the-dot-of-noon appearance by Pope Francis were watching for the window of the Apostolic Palace to be thrown open so they could listen to the pope’s remarks and receive his blessing. But after seven minutes, people were looking at each other quizzically: no pope? Then Francis popped out and answered their question: “First of all I must excuse myself for being late. I was blocked in an elevator for 25 minutes.” Apparently referring to electrical power, Francis explained that there was a “drop in tension,” causing the elevator to get stuck. “Thank God the firefighters intervened,” Francis said, referring to tiny Vatican City State’s own fire department. He then asked for a round of applause for his rescuers, and went ahead with his regular remarks and blessings, concluding with an announcement that he has chosen 13 churchmen to become the Church’s newest cardinals. The Vatican didn’t say if the pope was alone in the elevator or accompanied by any of his aides.   …

Pope Francis leaves on Wednesday for Africa, where poverty, the environment, foreign exploitation of resources and corruption are expected to be high on his agenda as he visits the continent where Catholicism is growing fast. He will spend most of the Sept. 4-10 trip in Mozambique and Madagascar and briefly visit Mauritius at the end. Fires in the Amazon have given new urgency to the pope’s calls to protect the environment, tackle climate change and promote sustainable development. Aides say the trip, his second trip to sub-Saharan Africa, is a key opportunity to renew appeals enshrined in his 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si” on environmental protection. Rampant deforestation has plagued Mozambique and Madagascar. Deforestation, along with soil erosion, made Mozambique more vulnerable when two cyclones hit the country this year. According to the World Bank, Mozambique has lost 8 million hectares of forest, about the size of Portugal, since the 1970s. “Here in Mozambique we like to say that not even our wood is ours because the Chinese are taking it all away, said Costantino Bogaio, head of the Comboni religious order in Mozambique. “The earth is ours and we have to protect it more.” As Asian supplies of valuable hardwoods …

A global fund for education in emergencies is seeking $1.8 billion by 2021 to provide schooling for nine million children and youths caught in conflict and other situations of crisis.  The fund, called Education Cannot Wait was set up at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 to provide education for children deprived of this opportunity. The Fund has raised $500 million since it began operating in 2017. In its first two years, it has provided emergency education for more than 1.5 million young people caught in armed conflict, forced displacement, natural disasters and other crises in 29 countries. Director of Education Cannot Wait, Yasmine Sherif, said significant investments are being made in the Sahel, in countries such as Burkina Faso and Niger where the needs are among the greatest on earth. She said children in Cameroon have not gone to school for two years as a part of a tactic of war. She told VOA education is specifically designed to deal with the suffering experienced by children caught in armed conflict, all of whom are seriously traumatized. “So, quality education requires mental health and psycho-social services. That is number one. And, that is one of our absolute top priorities…Two. It …

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reaffirming his pledge to impose Israeli sovereignty on West Bank settlements. Speaking Sunday at a ceremony opening the new school year in the settlement of Elkana, Netanyahu says there “will be no more displacements” and all the communities will be “part of the state of Israel.” Such a move would be a sharp departure from long-standing Israeli government policy. Netanyahu made a similar pledge to begin annexing part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank on the eve of April elections this year but did not act on it. With just more than two weeks to go to repeat elections, Netanyahu looks to be seeking to shore up his right-wing base again. More than 600,000 Israelis live on war-won land, two-thirds of them in the West Bank.    …

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2004, only four Afghani women have competed in the Olympics for their country. But one 22-year-old kickboxer is hoping to change that. She is challenging women’s  roles in this male-dominated society and training other girls to fight alongside her. Kevin Enochs narrates this report by Hedayatullah Noori.   …

Fifty-seven percent of full-time American college students had a drink in the last month, and about 38% of those students were binge drinking, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. What influences such heavy drinking on campuses? Sahar Majid has more in this report narrated by JimBertel.   …

A new floating laboratory onboard a boat on the Potomac River is keeping tabs on the water quality that flows through the nation’s capital and surrounding area. A local environmental group, the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, is collecting water samples at several sites to measure the amount of bacteria that cause pollution. As VOA’s Deborah Block reports, the data will be used to help clean up polluted areas in the future and is already informing the public when it is safe to swim in the river.   …

Dutch Ambassador to Washington Hendrik Jan Jurriaan Schuwer has had ample opportunities to indulge his U.S.-acquired fondness for American country and western music, thanks at least in part to the election of President Donald Trump. It’s “no secret” that Trump’s election surprised most European governments, Schuwer explains in an interview reflecting on his four-year tenure in the U.S. capital, which ended this month. And in an effort to better understand the social dynamic behind that election, he has traveled more widely in the Southern and Western U.S. states where both Trump and country music are most popular. Schuwer says he would listen to the car radio during those travels, ranging from the Smoky Mountains of the U.S. Southeast to the mountainous northwestern state of Idaho, as well as to Nashville, Tennessee, the country music recording capital. “For some reason I was really taken by country and western music,” he says, beginning with his first assignment in the United States at the Dutch consulate in Los Angeles 20 years ago. “Country and western music tells a story; it’s a ballad, and I like story-telling.” Netherlands Ambassador to the U.S. Hendrik Jan Jurriaan Schuwer speaks during the forum “Is NATO Still Relevant …

Using water cannons, gunshots, batons and tear gas, Hong Kong police pursued protesters through city streets and into subway stations, seeking people who defied and blocked police in several districts on a tense and chaotic Saturday. The demonstrations coincided with the fifth anniversary of Beijing’s denial of free, unimpeded elections in the territory. Before midnight, riot police stormed into two subway stations in the city’s Kowloon area seeking suspects. Videos aired and shared online showed officers snagging a few people, as a phalanx of police charged a train car, whipping and beating seemingly random passengers who cowered and sobbed. A demonstrator throws a Molotov cocktail at police during a protest in Hong Kong, Aug. 31, 2019. The event was a shocking reminder of the attack in Yuen Long on July 21, when more than 100 white-shirted assailants savagely beat passengers as people frantically called police who didn’t arrive for 39 minutes. Just four men have been charged in the attacks and police actions are under investigation by the city’s corruption agency. On Saturday, police officials claimed that some protesters vandalized the customer service center and damaged ticket machines in the Mong Kok MTR Station and assaulted citizens and damaged property …

For more than a century, coal has kept the lights on in the industrialized world. But coal-fired power plants are closing across the United States and Europe. Market forces have shifted to cheaper natural gas and renewables, not to mention the concerns about climate-changing carbon dioxide that the plants produce. But in the state of Wyoming, where coal is an important part of the economy, the government is trying to put the brakes on the transition. VOA’s Steve Baragona reports.   …

In 2018, the United States reached an agreement with Mexico and Canada — two of its biggest trading partners — to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. The new USMCA Trade Agreement is billed as “more balanced and reciprocal,” but as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, the lack of a vote in the U.S. Congress to ratify the agreement is a source of frustration for U.S. farmers. …

The Taliban has launched an attack on a second Afghan city in two days, even as a ninth round of negotiations with the United States on ending the war wind down. Officials in Baghlan province said the insurgents were on the outskirts of the capital. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said its fighters stormed Afghan security posts around Pul-e-Khumri and they are now inside the provincial capital.  “The governor house is under siege and enemy has sustained heavy losses,” Mujahid said. Afghan security forces stand guard during a fight against Taliban fighters in Kunduz province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 31, 2019. The Taliban launched a large-scale attack on one of Afghanistan’s main cities, Kunduz. First Kunduz Saturday the Taliban staged a “large-scale” predawn attack on Kunduz, the capital of the province with the same name, from several directions, triggering an intense day of gun battles with Afghan government forces. Meanwhile, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad announced Sunday via Twitter he has concluded the ninth round of peace talks with Taliban in Qatar and was leaving for Kabul to brief Afghan leaders in his discussions with the insurgents. Members of Khalilzad team remain in Doha and some technician level talks will take …

Authorities in the Bahamas made a last-minute plea to residents and tourists Saturday to seek shelter as time ran out before powerful Hurricane Dorian hits, warning those who refused to move that their lives were at risk. “Hurricane Dorian is a devastating, dangerous storm approaching our islands,” Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said in a nationally televised news conference. Packing maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (240 kph), the Category 4 storm was forecast to hit the Bahamas Sunday with more than two feet of rainfall in places, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Dorian was later likely threaten Georgia and the Carolinas, possibly sparing Florida a direct hit, as communities in those states raised alert levels. A woman carries a girl after being evacuated from a nearby Cay because of the danger of floods posed by Hurricane Dorian in Sweeting’s Cay, Grand Bahama, Bahamas, Aug. 31, 2019. In its direct, immediate path the monster storm was headed for the Bahamian northwestern islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco. Minnis said that 73,000 people and 21,000 homes were at risk of storm surges of up to 15 feet (4.6 meters). “Dorian will now create prolonged periods of large swells, surges along …

A list of some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in the last two years:    — Aug. 31, 2019: Five people were killed in West Texas in shootings in the area of Midland and Odessa.    — Aug. 4, 2019: A gunman wearing body armor shot and killed nine people at a popular nightlife area in Dayton, Ohio. Police were patrolling the area and killed the suspect.     — Aug. 3, 2019: A gunman opened fire at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring more than two dozen. A suspect was taken into custody.    — May 31, 2019: Longtime city worker DeWayne Craddock opened fire in a building that houses Virginia Beach government offices. He killed 12 people and wounded several others before police shot him.    — Feb. 15, 2019: Gary Martin killed five co-workers at a manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, during a disciplinary meeting where he was fired. He wounded one other employee and five of the first police officers to arrive at the suburban Chicago plant before he was killed during a shootout with police.    — Nov. 7, 2018: Ian David Long killed 12 people at …

Read more at https://projects.voanews.com/election-2020/english/candidates/background.html …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s next round of tariffs on Chinese imports is scheduled to take effect Sunday, escalating the trade war between the world’s two largest economies with a big hit to consumer goods. Trump has targeted about $300 billion in annual goods imports from China for 15% tariffs in two parts, on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. If fully imposed, virtually all Chinese imports, worth about $550 billion, would be subject to punitive U.S. tariffs imposed since July 2018. Here is a look at U.S. tariffs and expected Chinese retaliation scheduled over the next several months. FILE – A woman shops for Chinese made shoes, Aug. 24, 2019, at a store in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles. Sept. 1 tariffs The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency will begin collecting tariffs for Chinese goods at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) Sunday. Guidance issued Friday indicated there will not be a grace period for cargoes that left China before that time, unlike that granted for goods in transit when the United States imposed a tariff increase in May. The Sept. 1 list covers about $125 billion worth of mostly consumer products, based on a Reuters analysis of 2018 U.S. …