Saudi Arabia, for the first time, is opening up to international tourism. The historic move is widely seen as a way for the Middle Eastern country to lessen its dependence on revenue from oil. Friday, the kingdom will announce the 49 countries whose residents will be eligible for visas to Saudi Arabia. As part of the tourism scheme, Saudi Arabia is also relaxing its dress code for female tourists. Tourism Minister Ahmad al-Khateeb told Reuters female tourists will not have to wear the long black robes that Saudi women wear, but their dress must still be modest. Visas for unaccompanied women will also be available without any of the restrictions that have been imposed in the past. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina will remain off limits to non-Muslim tourists, and alcohol will still be banned. Until now, visas were mostly issued to resident workers and their dependents, business travelers and Muslim pilgrims. The new influx of tourists is expected to create 1 million jobs, according to Saudi officials. In addition to opening another income stream, the new visa program is widely seen as a means for Saudi Arabia to burnish its tarnished image after last year’s murder of …

The British-flagged Stena Impero tanker left Iran’s Bandar Abbas port Friday and was heading for Dubai so the crew could be repatriated, the owner said, after the ship was detained in July by Iranian forces during a row with Britain. The Stena Impero was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the Strait of Hormuz waterway for alleged marine violations two weeks after Britain detained an Iranian tanker off the territory of Gibraltar. The Iranian ship was released in August. “The ship is on the move,” Erik Hanell, the chief executive of Sweden’s Stena Bulk, the ship’s owner, told Reuters. He said the company had a well-prepared security plan for the vessel once it left Iranian waters, adding that it was expected to reach international waters about 1000 GMT. Ship seized mid-July The seizure of the ship July 19 ratcheted up tension in the region after attacks in May and June on other merchant vessels in Gulf waters, which the United States blamed on Iran, a charge Tehran denied. Stena Bulk said the Stena Impero was heading to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, on the opposite side of the Gulf, where the crew would receive medical checks and a debriefing. …

The remains of Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe, who died early this month, have been moved from his Harare house to his rural village ahead of burial expected this weekend, his family said Friday. After weeks of wrangling between government and his family over the final resting place for the country’s founding leader, the Mugabes have opted to entomb him at his birth place and rural home, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of the capital Harare. The body was moved Thursday evening under police and military vehicles escort, according to a video clip shared on Twitter. It was the second time Mugabe’s body made its way back to Kutama village in Zvimba district where he was born 95 years ago. When the body was first taken home last week for the public to pay their last respects, it was airlifted by a military helicopter. “The body arrived (at the village) around 1900 hours, yesterday,” family spokesman and Mugabe’s nephew Leo Mugabe told AFP Friday. The decision to bury Mugabe in the village is seen as a snub of the government offer to bury him at what was to be a specially built mausoleum at a national heroes shrine in …

Losing a job is seldom a good thing.  Repeatedly losing that job on the same day sounds nightmarish.  Get ready to feel sorry for a person who does not exist.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi plugs us in to an alternate reality created to help managers hone skills at performing an unpleasant but sometimes necessary task. …

Health experts warn we are due for a cataclysmic pandemic — they just don’t know when it will happen. The warning was delivered this week to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly by a special global health monitoring group that said the next pandemic could traverse the world in 36 hours, killing up to 80 million and causing devastating economic loss. The group, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, operates independently of the World Health Organization and the World Bank, the entities that created it last year with a mandate to issue an annual assessment. The first report was grim. A health worker vaccinates a child against malaria in Ndhiwa, Homabay County, western Kenya, Sept. 13, 2019, during the launch of a malaria vaccination campaign in the country. Lack of medical care a threat Despite remarkable gains in medicine, politics and social issues keep those in rich countries as well as poor ones from desperately needed medical care, and this threatens the entire world. Medical achievements of the past several decades are remarkable. AIDS once meant enduring a horrible death, but now treatment has changed that and research on a vaccine is promising. Moreover, there’s talk about ending malaria, a …

This week, world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly heard warnings about massive loss of life and diseases that could circle the global in just three days. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports that a special global preparedness monitoring group issued a report that says inaction will have grim consequences. The report said prevention heavily depends on political and social action as well as good medical care.   …

Every two years Democrats and Republicans come together for a charity Congressional Football Game. Together with former NFL professionals, lawmakers play against the U.S. Capitol Police and politics stays off the field. Daria Dieguts talked to some of the players after the game.  …

General Joseph Dunford, the nation’s top general as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is leaving office next week. As VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports, the top military adviser to the president will be remembered for his handling of the ISIS crisis, his tenure during the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and his efforts to strengthen the military amid growing tensions with Russia and China.   …

Heightened tensions in Jammu and Kashmir will likely be in the spotlight Friday at the United Nations, when the leaders of India and Pakistan address the General Assembly. “He expects the international community to respond in time before there is a catastrophe,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told VOA of his prime minister, Imran Khan, who will be making his U.N. debut. FILE – Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi addresses a news conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, Aug. 8, 2019. Kashmir has been a regional flashpoint for decades. India and Pakistan have fought several wars over the majority-Muslim territory since they both gained independence from Britain in 1947. India’s Aug. 5 decision to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir has led to a security crackdown and communications blackout in the territory and a dangerous escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be making his first visit to the U.N. since his re-election in May, and it will be his first appearance at the annual debate in five years. Leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, have urged the two nations to open a dialogue to resolve the situation. The foreign ministers of China and Russia are also …

This story originated in FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend the welcome ceremony in Berlin, Germany, June 18, 2019. He was referring to Zelenskiy’s response to a remark by Trump, who had criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders for failing to provide Ukraine with adequate financial support for its fight against Russian-backed separatists. “Yes, you are absolutely right, not just 100%, but 1,000%,” Zelenskiy agreed. “I talked to Angela Merkel and met her,” Zelenskiy added. “I also met and talked to [French President Emmanuel] Macron and told them that they were not doing enough about sanctions. They do not impose sanctions. They are not acting as they should for Ukraine. “ Yelisieiev, who represented Ukraine in Brussels from 2010 to 2015, before serving as diplomatic adviser to former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, wrote that “Berlin — and, first and foremost, Merkel personally — along with Paris, have played a key role in the sustenance of a powerful EU economy and targeted sanctions against Russia.” Impending Normandy Format peace negotiations to end Ukraine’s war with Russia, which directly involve the leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany and Russia, Yelisieiev wrote, will be …

This article originated in VOA’s Persian service. VOA Persian’s Katherine Ahn contributed.     The Trump administration has provided few additional details of a newly announced entry ban on Iran’s senior officials and their family members, leaving unanswered questions about whom it will affect.     President Donald Trump declared the entry ban on Wednesday via a proclamation ordering U.S. authorities to “restrict and suspend” the ability of “senior government officials of Iran and their immediate family members” to enter the U.S. as immigrants or nonimmigrants. It was his latest move in what he has called a “maximum pressure” campaign to pressure Iran to end perceived malign behaviors.     In a Thursday statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered one new detail about the proclamation, saying it was targeted at “designated” senior Iranian officials. That refers to officials who have been placed by the U.S. government on its list of Specially Designated Nationals, whose assets under U.S. jurisdiction are blocked and whom Americans are generally prohibited from dealing with.    ‘No more’    “For years, Iranian regime elites have shouted, ‘Death to America.’ Meanwhile, their relatives have come here to live and to work. No more,” Pompeo said in remarks to reporters in New York.     …

Seven Catalan separatists arrested on suspicion of planning violent attacks have been charged with belonging to a “terrorist organisation” and remanded in custody, Spanish judicial authorities said on Thursday. The seven were among nine people detained on Monday on accusations they were planning attacks with possible explosives. The other two were released. A judge in Madrid ruled that there was evidence suggesting the seven were members of an organization intending to achieve Catalan independence “by any means including violence,” a court statement said. No details of the accused were given. The seven suspects have also been charged with making and possessing explosives. The arrests come just weeks before the second anniversary of the banned Catalan independence referendum which triggered one of Spain’s biggest political crises. Several hundred people demonstrated outside the Catalan parliament in Barcelona and then the city’s police headquarters shouting “freedom for political prisoners.” The parliament earlier Thursday approved a resolution calling for the “withdrawal from Catalan territory of the civil guard police,” described as a “type of political police.” A verdict is due next month in the trial of 12 separatist leaders for their roles in the attempted secession in 2017. Sentencing the separatist leaders could provoke …

An Iranian woman sentenced in the United States for violating sanctions against Tehran was released and has returned home, her lawyer told AFP Thursday, following her country’s unsuccessful attempt at a prisoner swap. A judge in Minneapolis sentenced Negar Ghodskani to 27 months in prison Tuesday, but determined the time she had spent in custody in Australia and the United States was enough to fulfill her punishment. Ghodskani “is now free in Iran with her family,” her lawyer Robert Richman said in an email. Arrested in Australia A legal resident of Australia, Ghodskani was arrested in Adelaide in 2017 after U.S. prosecutors said she sought U.S. digital communications technology by presenting herself as an employee of a Malaysian company. U.S. prosecutors said she in fact was sending the technology to Iranian company Fanamoj, which works in public broadcasting. After extradition to the United States, she confessed to participation in a conspiracy to illegally export technology to Iran in breach of sanctions, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Pregnant at the time of her arrest, she gave birth while in Australian custody. Her son was sent to Iran to live with his father. FILE – Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif …

Still seething over the whistleblower complaint that triggered a House of Representatives impeachment query, President Donald Trump returned to Washington on Thursday lashing out at congressional Democrats and the news media and darkly hinting at retribution for government officials who assisted the whistleblower in accusing the president of misusing his powers of office. Trump returned to the White House from several days in New York attending the U.N. General Assembly. He returned the same time the House Intelligence Committee was holding a hearing on the administration’s delay in submitting the whistleblower’s complaint to Congress. The complaint asserts that Trump in a July 25 phone call sought help from the new president of Ukraine in digging up dirt about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son that would hurt Biden’s prospects of winning the Democratic presidential nomination and challenging Trump in 2020. Military assistance Trump instructed his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back nearly $400 million in military assistance for Ukraine at least a week before the call, according to The Washington Post, to put pressure on the Ukrainian leader — a claim Trump bitterly disputes. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff talks to the media after acting Director …

They came from the same country. They were in town for the same reason — as diplomatic representatives of their government. And they took pains to make sure their paths never, ever crossed. Two separate diplomatic delegations represented Venezuela at the U.N. General Assembly this year, shadowing and circling each other in a fierce fight for international recognition as the country reels from an economic collapse and political uncertainty. One set of diplomats represented President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s head of state in the eyes of the United Nations system. The other group represented the shadow government of opposition leader Juan Guaido, recognized as Venezuela’s rightful president by the U.S. and more than 50 other countries that have condemned Maduro’s 2018 re-election as fraudulent. Neither rival leader showed up at the world gathering. But Venezuela nonetheless commanded attention, with U.S. President Donald Trump personally hosting one of four high-level meetings on the country’s political and humanitarian crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro during their meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Sept. 25, 2019. Instead of facing his angry neighbors, Maduro flew to Moscow for an impromptu visit to his top ally, Russian President Vladimir …

The Pentagon is sending a Patriot missile battery, four radar systems and about 200 troops to Saudi Arabia to boost the kingdom’s air defenses against further attacks. Chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Thursday that the deployment “will augment the kingdom’s air and missile defense of critical military and civilian infrastructure.” Two more Patriot batteries and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system are also preparing to deploy there to defend against missiles, if needed, Hoffman added. The movement is the first step in responding to what officials call an Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities earlier this month. One U.S. official told VOA the attack originated in “southwest Iran” and that the U.S. has more proof “than just debris” to back up this claim, although no evidence has been released by the U.S. to date. Tehran has denied responsibility for the attack. U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper speaks to reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon, Aug. 28, 2019. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, first announced Trump’s decision to send forces and equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Friday night at the Pentagon. …

The leader of Sierra Leone demanded Thursday that the U.N. Security Council reconfigure itself to add permanent representation for Africa, saying the continent’s “patience is being tested” by its long-standing exclusion.     Julius Maada Bio, president of the West African nation, used blunt words in his annual U.N. General Assembly speech to amplify calls by African countries that they have a more robust voice on the body that represents the most powerful political and global-security authority of the United Nations.     Bio, who also advocated for two additional nonpermanent seats to be held by Africans, was anything but indirect. “Africa’s patience is being tested,” he said.     For decades, there have been calls to expand the U.N.’s most powerful body. It has 10 members elected for two-year terms and five permanent members: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.    Competing national and regional interests have prevented council reform so far.    Africa has no permanent seat on the council, and three nonpermanent seats are allocated for the continent of more than 1.2 billion people.  ‘Urgent action’ That’s not acceptable to Bio, who oversees a nation still recovering from a brutal civil war that ended in 2002 and only now beginning …

Iran has launched an inspection of security at its key Persian Gulf oil and gas facilities, including preparedness for cyberattacks, the Oil Ministry news agency SHANA said, following media reports of Washington weighing possible cyberattacks on Tehran.  U.S. media reports have said the United States is considering possible cyberattacks against Iran after the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi oil sites that U.S. officials have blamed on Tehran. The Islamic republic has denied being behind the raids, which were claimed by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group.  Pirouz Mousavi, head of the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone (PSEEZ), inspected the area and met with senior managers, including those in charge of cybersecurity and emergency response, SHANA said Wednesday.  The PSEEZ was set up in 1998 to develop the oil and gas resources in the South Pars field, the world’s largest natural gas reservoir. The offshore field is shared between Iran and Qatar, which calls it North Field.  Separately, Gholamreza Jalali, head of civil defense, which is in charge of cybersecurity, called for beefing up security at industrial installations. “Our enemies consider the cyber domain as one of the main areas of threat against nations, especially Iran,” the semiofficial news agency Fars quoted Jalali as saying.  After reports on social media last Friday of a cyberattack on some petrochemical and other companies in Iran, a state body in charge of …

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States has concluded that the Syrian government used chemical weapons in an attack in May. Speaking in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, Pompeo said U.S. officials had determined that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government had used chlorine in the attack on opposition forces in Idlib province on May 19.   He said the U.S. would provide an additional $4.5 million to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to fund investigations into other instances of suspected Syrian chemical weapons use. Pompeo also called on the Assad government to release thousands of unjustly detained prisoners, including American journalist Austin Tice. Tice has been missing and presumed held by the government for seven years. …

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the task of forming a new coalition government Thursday after inconclusive elections Sept. 17. The move comes even though Netanyahu’s Likud party obtained one seat less than challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party in the election. Likud won 32 seats to Blue and White’s 33. President Reuven Rivlin gave Netanyahu the first chance to form the government Wednesday, deeming Netanyahu the one with the best odds of success. Rivlin made the decision after talks on a unity government between the two parties foundered. Such an arrangement would involve some kind of power-sharing or rotation of prime minister. FILE – Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz delivers a statement in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept. 19, 2019. “The people do not want another election,” Rivlin said several times during a speech. The president said Netanyahu had more Knesset members nominating him to be prime minister than Gantz. Fifty-five members of the Knesset backed Netanyahu, compared to 54 for Gantz. A 61-seat parliamentary majority is required to form a coalition government. The most recent election was already the second this year, after Netanyahu fell one short of the 61-seat majority coalition following a vote in …

A Los Angeles businessman was sentenced Thursday to four months in prison for paying $400,000 to get his son into Georgetown University as a fake tennis recruit. Stephen Semprevivo, 53, pleaded guilty in May to fraud and conspiracy. He is the third parent to be sentenced in a sweeping college admissions scandal that has ensnared dozens of wealthy mothers and fathers. Authorities say Semprevivo conspired with admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer to get his son into Georgetown as a tennis recruit, even though he did not play the sport competitively. His son was admitted to Georgetown in 2016 but was expelled over the scheme earlier this year. Semprevivo was also sentenced to two years of supervised release, 500 hours of community service, a $100,000 fine and possible restitution to Georgetown to be decided later. Prosecutors had asked for 13 months in prison. Semprevivo’s lawyers said he deserved probation or home confinement, plus 2,000 hours of community service” In an Aug. 17 letter asking for leniency, Semprevivo said he was driven by “foolish ambition” for his son’s happiness. He said he accepts “total and full” responsibility but also said he was drawn in and manipulated by Singer. “Looking back, I can …

Sudan’s transitional government ordered the immediate closure of the nation’s borders with Libya and Central African Republic on Thursday, citing unspecified security and economic “dangers”. A statement by the Sovereign Transitional Council said vehicles had been illegally crossing the borders with the two nations, which have both been mired in violence. The council did not give further details about what the “dangers” were. The announcement followed a meeting between the council and the government of South Darfur State, part of Sudan’s western Darfur region that has suffered from violence since 2003 when a conflict erupted between mainly non-Arab tribes and the Arab-led national government of ousted President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Sudan has often complained about arms trafficked through its borders with Libya and Central African Republic. Conflicts in both nations have left their governments with little or no control of security over swathes of their territory. The statement did not mention Chad, which has a long border with Sudan’s Darfur region. Chad and Sudan have security pacts in place and joint forces patrol the boundary. …

Israel, one of the pioneers of drone warfare, is now on the front lines of an arms race to protect against attacks by the unmanned aircraft. A host of Israeli companies have developed defense systems they say can detect or destroy incoming drones. But obstacles remain, particularly when operating in crowded urban airspaces. “Fighting these systems is really hard … not just because you need to detect them, but you also need to detect them everywhere and all the time,” said Ulrike Franke, a policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations. Drones present unique challenges that set them apart from traditional airborne threats, such as missiles or warplanes. They can fly below standard military radar systems and use GPS technology to execute pinpoint attacks on sensitive targets for a fraction of the price of a fighter jet. They can also be deployed in “swarms,” which can trick or elude conventional defense systems. Even small off-the-shelf drones can be turned into weapons by rigging them with explosives or simply crashing them in crowded areas. A series of drone strikes across the Middle East, including an attack on a Saudi oil field and processing plant that jolted international markets earlier …