Russian President Vladimir Putin spent his pre-birthday weekend hiking the mountains of southern Siberia with his defense minister. Putin, who turned 67 on Monday, can be seen walking up steep hills and picking wild mushrooms in photos and video released by the Kremlin. Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu traversed the vast Taiga forest, at one point stopping to take in the views high on a mountain. “We are high above the clouds,” the Russian leader exclaimed. Putin has visited the area in the Tuva region near the Mongolian border several times over the past few years. In 2009, he was photographed riding shirtless on a horse. Two years ago, he and Shoigu fished bare-chested in the pristine lakes.   …

This article originated in Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani walks toward the podium before addressing the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 25, 2019. Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York last month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized the U.S. entry ban but also appeared to dismiss it as irrelevant, saying Iranian officials have no desire to travel to the U.S. except to participate in meetings of international bodies. Hook said the entry ban is as much about the immediate family members as it is about the senior Iranian officials. “We are aware of stories of children of regime elites who are enjoying U.S. educational, cultural and entertainment advantages that are denied to the Iranian people,” he said. In an October 2018 op-ed published by The Washington Times, Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior Iran analyst Tzvi Kahn identified several children of senior Iranian officials as being enrolled in U.S. universities. The State Department has said there are “thousands” of Iranian students studying in the U.S. each year. Trump’s proclamation said the entry ban would not apply to Iranians in three categories: lawful U.S. permanent residents; people already granted asylum and refugee status by …

President Donald Trump’s announcement of a U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria, paving the way for a Turkish military operation against a Kurdish militia in the area, is widely being seen as a diplomatic triumph for Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump made the surprise move in a telephone conversation with Erdogan on Sunday. Monday, Erdogan welcomed Trump’s resetting of Washington policy toward Syria, indicating a Turkish operation could be imminent. “We have said [in the past] that may suddenly arrive one night. We remain determined,” Erdogan said. For months, Turkish forces have been massed on the Syrian border facing off against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Ankara designates the YPG, the main force within the SDF, as terrorists, but the group is a critical ally in the Washington-led war against the Islamic State terror group. Under U.S. pressure, Ankara has held off from its plan to create a 30-kilometer-deep buffer zone to protect its border from the Kurdish militia. Erdogan also plans to use the territory to send back up to 2 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey. FILE – Turkish and American forces conduct their first joint ground patrol in the so-called “safe zone” on the Syrian side of the …

A whistleblower’s complaint about a July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has prompted the House of Representatives to launch an impeachment inquiry. The complaint also led the president to denounce the anonymous intelligence official as a “traitor” who deserves to be harshly dealt with.   But whistleblowers historically have played an important role in rooting out government corruption and abuse, and they enjoy legal protections under U.S. laws. Here is what you need to know about whistleblowers and the laws protecting them. What is a whistleblower? A whistleblower is anyone who figuratively  “blows the whistle,” or exposes wrongdoing in a public or private sector organization in hopes of putting a stop to it. In federal government, a whistleblower is an employee who reports “violations of law, agency mismanagement or ethical violations,” according to Congressional Research Service. Government whistleblowers usually report wrongdoing to internal watchdogs known as an “Office of Inspector General” which conduct oversight of government agencies.   How does the system generally work? The U.S. Congress has long encouraged whistleblowing as a safeguard against waste, fraud and mismanagement in the executive branch, and provided legal protections against reprisals by supervisors. In recent decades, …

The U.N. refugee agency warns the battle to stamp out global statelessness is being threatened by growing anti-refugee and migrant sentiment, as well as rising nationalism.  More than 220,000 people have acquired citizenship since the U.N. refugee agency launched a 10-year global campaign in 2014 to end statelessness.  Now at the mid-point of the campaign, activists welcome the progress that has been made, but note so much more remains to be done. They report at least four million people still live without legal documents to prove who they are. Australian actor and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett said statelessness has a devastating impact on their lives.  She said they experience marginalization and exclusion from cradle to grave. “And those of us who have a nationality and have a paper identity, it is often very hard for us to imagine, because we take this for granted, just like breathing. It is hard for us to imagine the degree of invisibility and despair often that stateless people experience,” she said.  FILE – Rohingya refugees gather to mark the second anniversary of the exodus at the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Aug. 25, 2019. Blanchett said stateless people do not belong anywhere. They are …

The U.N. high commissioner for refugees is calling for urgent action to resolve the global forced displacement crisis as increasing numbers of people flee conflict, natural disasters and grinding poverty. Filippo Grandi was speaking at the opening of UNHCR’s annual weeklong refugee conference. Forced displacement has reached record highs. In recent years, nearly 71 million people have been uprooted from their homes. More than one-third are refugees; the rest are displaced within their own countries. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi says the issue of forced displacement is far more complex now than in 1951. That was when the United Nations adopted the Refugee Convention to protect and assist millions of refugees who survived the horrors of World War II.   Grandi says refugee protection since has become more complex. He notes the world now is faced with what he calls mixed flows of refugees and migrants. The commissioner also says putting economic migrants and asylum seekers into the same category is eroding protections for refugees, who are people fleeing from war, persecution and violence.   In Mexico last week, he says he saw examples of refugee integration coupled with increasing migratory pressures from the region, but also from …

The NBA statement originally made in English had a different twist when it came out in Chinese. The NBA’s Chinese social media account posted a statement Monday saying the league was “extremely disappointed” by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s “inappropriate” tweet that showed support for Hong Kong anti-government protesters, adding that Morey’s view “severely hurt the feelings of Chinese fans.” Thing is, the league never actually said those words. NBA spokesman Mike Bass’ statement, which had only one version and was delivered in English, began like this: “We recognize that the views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable.” It continued, but never said “extremely disappointed,” ″inappropriate” or “severely hurt the feelings” of anyone. “There should be no discrepancy on the statement issued last night,” Bass said Monday. “We have seen various interpretations of the translation of the Mandarin version, but our statement in English is the league’s official statement.” The “hurt feelings” phrase is commonly used by Chinese authorities to describe perceived gaffes by foreign parties. Similar phrasing was used by Mercedes-Benz in February 2018 when it had to apologize for quoting the …

Britain and the European Union appeared to be poles apart Monday on a potential Brexit deal, with the Dutch government urging the British government to offer “more realism and clarity,” and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisting that the bloc must soften its stance. Last week the British government sent the EU what it called a “reasonable compromise” that will allow Britain to leave the bloc with a divorce deal at the end of this month.   But Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said after meeting with Britain’s Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay on Monday that “important questions still remain.”                     The British government says the country will leave the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal. Many in the EU and in Britain are skeptical of that claim, because the U.K. Parliament has passed a law compelling the government to ask the EU for a delay to Brexit if no deal is agreed upon by Oct. 19. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will obey the law, but will not ask for a delay. It’s unclear how the two statements can be reconciled. Johnson was working the phones on Monday, speaking to a series of EU …

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar has filed for divorce from her husband. The freshman Democrat cited an “irretrievable breakdown” of her marriage with Ahmed Hirsi in her filing Friday in Hennepin County District Court. Aside from a period of separation in which Omar married another man — Ahmed Nur Said Elmi — Omar has been with Hirsi for years and he is the father of her three children.   Marriage license and divorce records show Omar legally married Hirsi in 2018, after her divorce from Elmi was finalized.   Omar’s filing comes more than a month after a Washington, D.C., woman in her own divorce filing accused Omar of having an affair with her husband, Tim Mynett. Mynett has worked as a political consultant for Omar.   When Omar was asked at the time whether she was separated from her husband or dating someone, she told WCCO-TV “No, I am not.” She has since declined to discuss her personal life.   Mynett has denied in court papers his wife’s assertion that he admitted to an affair with Omar.     …

A U.N. racism rapporteur has criticized the recently implemented Dutch burqa ban as doing “more harm than good.” Tendayi Achiume, a rapporteur for the U.N. Human Rights Council, said Monday that the small number of women who wear face-covering Islamic veils reported suffering more harassment since the law went into force on Aug. 1. While the law bans all sorts of face-covering clothing on public transportation, in government buildings and at health and education institutions, Achiume said “the political discourse surrounding it has made clear that Muslim women are its intended targets.” She added: “This law has no place in a society that prides itself in promoting gender equality.” Dutch Parliament Approves Limited Ban on Burqa, Niqab The Netherlands has approved a limited ban on “face-covering clothing” in public places, including Islamic veils and robes such as the burqa and niqab but not the hijab, which covers only the hair. In a preliminary report following a visit to the Netherlands, Achiume also touched on the thorny issue of Dutch colonial history. She said the government should do more to teach people about the “histories of slavery and colonialism as histories of systematic racial subordination.” Last month, a museum in Amsterdam …

The White House says the next round of U.S-China trade talks will begin in Washington on Thursday. “United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin will welcome a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He for continued trade negotiations between the two countries starting on October 10, 2019,” a White House statement said. “The two sides will look to build on the deputy-level talks of the past weeks. Topics of discussion will include forced technology transfer, intellectual property rights, services, non-tariff barriers, agriculture, and enforcement.” The two sides last held major talks in July but there was no major breakthrough in the trade dispute between the world’s top two economies. Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a series of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs for more than a year, sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s initial demand for changes in China’s trade, subsidy and intellectual property practices.  China says U.S. trade policies are aimed at trying to stifle its ability to compete. The situation has cast uncertainty on financial markets and left companies scrambling to cope with the effects of the tariffs. President Trump announced last month that he was postponing a new round of …

Students in Bangladesh staged protests and blocked major roads Monday after an undergraduate was beaten to death, allegedly by ruling party activists, for criticizing the government over a water-sharing deal with India. Protests broke out at several universities in Dhaka and the northern city of Rajshahi following the killing of Abrar Fahad of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. Students chanted slogans demanding “justice” and blocked major roads in the two cities. Teachers joined some of the protests. Dhaka deputy police commissioner Munstasirul Islam told AFP that Fahad was beaten to death and that ruling party activists were in custody for questioning. His body was found in his university dormitory and media quoted other residents as saying that members of the student wing of the ruling Awami League had interrogated and beaten him. Ashikul Islam Bitu, a vice-president of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), told NTV that Fahad had been questioned over alleged links to an Islamist party’s youth group. Hours earlier, Fahad put up a post on Facebook that went viral. In it, he criticized the government for signing an accord that allowed India to take water from a river that lies on the boundary the two countries share. …

Abdullah was a 23-year-old business administration student when Islamic State fighters swept through northern Iraq in 2014. Two years later, he fled the battle between IS and coalition-backed Iraqi forces. He was arrested and accused of being a terrorist. “We ran from our home because there was no food or water and we were being bombed,” he says, crowded into a tent scattered with dirty, thin mattresses, mobile phone chargers and about 10 other men. “I couldn’t survive.” As IS lost holdings across Iraq and Syria between 2016 and 2018, women and men would be separated as authorities searched for militants, pictured near Baghouz, Syria, Feb. 27, 2019. (H.Murdock/VOA) In a trailer by the main gates, Rashid Darwesh, the senior camp manager, is quick to point out that the isolation of so many people associated with IS is a humanitarian issue at present, but could quickly turn into a security disaster. This impossible limbo is creating an ideal situation for extremists to grow their ranks, he says. “We have to support people when they get out of prison and help them build a normal life at home,” Darwesh says. “Otherwise they will feel they have no choice but to go …

A federal judge has rejected President Donald Trump’s challenge to the release of his tax returns for a New York state criminal probe.   Judge Victor Marrero ruled Monday. He said he cannot endorse such a “categorical and limitless assertion of presidential immunity from judicial process.”   The returns had been sought by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. His office is investigating the Trump Organization’s involvement in buying the silence of two women who claimed to have had affairs with the president.   Trump’s lawyers have said the investigation is politically motivated and that the quest for his tax records should be stopped because he is immune from any criminal probe as long as he is president.   …

U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks have collapsed yet again, after Pyongyang angrily walked away, blaming Washington. But it does not necessarily mean the demise of the talks. Both North Korea and the U.S. have repeatedly walked away during the past year and a half of negotiations, only to later return. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul, both sides have incentives to continue talking, despite a lack of progress.   …

Arrests, the threat of long jail terms and the harassment of political and environmental activists doesn’t appear to be having the desired effect for the Kremlin in deterring anti-government protests, according to a new study. In the first half of 2019 there were 863 protests and by year’s end the total is likely to be in excess of 2,000 rallies— most of them against the government and law-enforcement agencies or organized to complain about environmental degradation or benefit cuts. “There are fewer and fewer regions that aren’t reporting protests,” says the study’s author Anna Ochkina of the Moscow-based NGO the Center for Social and Labor Rights. Only two regions have so far remained largely unaffected this year by a wave of protest activity — Chukotka, a far-flung north-eastern region which is mostly roadless, and Chechnya, which has been in the iron grip since 2005 of Ramzan Kadyrov, whose militias have been accused by rights groups of killings and kidnappings. Chechnya regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov speaks during a news conference in Grozny, March 7, 2011. The study only looked at the first six months of the year and has not accounted for the mass anti-government rallies that have been unfolding in …

“El Nuevo Diario,” one of Nicaragua’s oldest newspapers is shutting down, after close to 40 years of printing and informing Nicaraguans. Newspaper executives reported they closed due to economic circumstances and challenging times for journalists in the Central American country. VOA’s Donaldo Hernández has this report narrated by Cristina Caicedo Smit.  …

Hong Kong struggled to recover on Monday, with the metro only partially functioning and infrastructure extensively damaged, after scores of protesters were arrested in violent clashes overnight that drew the first warning from the Chinese military. Tens of thousands of protesters marched peacefully through the center of the Chinese-ruled city on Sunday, wearing face masks in defiance of colonial-era emergency powers that threaten them with a maximum of one year in prison for hiding their faces. However, the rallies deteriorated into running clashes as night fell. Police fired tear gas and used baton charges in an attempt to disperse petrol bomb-throwing protesters in several locations across the Asian financial hub. Scores of protesters were arrested and bussed away under the new emergency laws, which came into effect on Friday night, after some of the most violent clashes in four months of protests virtually shut the city down on Saturday. The protests have plunged the former British colony into its worst political crisis in decades and pose the biggest popular challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012. The Hong Kong government said in a statement early on Monday, a public holiday in the city, “public …

As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic. Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans. Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump. But the effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine’s new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry’s past political donors. It’s unclear if Perry’s attempts to replace board members at Naftogaz were coordinated with the Giuliani allies …

A series of memes that have gone viral in Bolivia show President Evo Morales combating raging forest fires with a toy water gun or a flame-thrower, while others superimpose his image on the original cast of the “Ghostbusters” film. Many young Bolivians have used the memes to poke fun at South America’s longest-serving leftist leader and what they say was his delayed response to thousands of forest fires they blame on his push to develop areas with slash-and-burn agriculture. As the blazes raged, Morales appeared in televised images personally battling flames with a water-filled backpack and nozzle. Supporters of Bolivia’s first indigenous president say that showed the lengths to which he will go to protect the country’s forests, but many young people don’t buy it. And with young voters making up about a third of Bolivia’s electorate, they could determine the Oct. 20 election in which Morales is seeking a fourth term. Rolando Condori, chef at his own fast food restaurant, poses for a portrait in his restaurant’s kitchen in El Alto, Bolivia, Sept. 14, 2019. “If the president would have acted before, we wouldn’t be mourning so much loss or the death of so many animals … I’m reconsidering …

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris told Iowa voters on Sunday that they can help refute questions about her electability if they support her in the caucuses. “Iowans have the ability to show our country what can be, even if we’ve never seen it before,” Harris said during an event on Iowa State University’s campus. The visit to Ames marked her first to the state since Harris announced plans to recommit her focus on Iowa, as part of an effort to turn around a campaign that has thus far struggled to gain traction. The California senator is planning to campaign in Iowa for half the month of October, will double her campaign staff from 65 to 130 and add 10 field offices over the next month. Harris told reporters after the event, however, that nothing overall would change about her strategy in the Hawkeye State beyond her plans to focus more of her time here. “It’s the plan that we’ve always had, which is after Labor Day, double the resources here,” she said. “It’s basically about doing what is, I think, an important part of the process, which is engaging with people on the ground, where they live, in their neighborhoods, in their …

A total of 110 million toilets constructed for 600 million people in 60 months. Citing these figures, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced October 2 that the open defecation in rural India has ended. However, the results of the world’s biggest toilet-building program rolled out by his government five years ago are more mixed. While huge progress has been made in providing toilets across hundreds of thousands of villages, experts say open defecation has not been eliminated in a country where venturing into the fields is accepted as normal and where not everyone has access to a toilet yet. FILE – A man chats with an auto rickshaw driver standing next to a portrait of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi outside a public toilet in New Delhi, India, Feb. 14, 2019. The experience of 37-year-old Komal Godiwal, who migrated from her village in the northern Rajasthan state to work as a housemaid in New Delhi, highlights the gains and shortfalls of Modi’s flagship $20 billion “Clean India” mission. Two years ago, she rushed to her village when, like millions of poor people, she received a government subsidy of about $200 to build a latrine. Her sister, who lives in the same …

Energy Secretary Rick Perry encouraged President Donald Trump to speak to Ukraine’s president — but on energy and economic issues, Perry’s spokeswoman said Sunday, addressing Perry’s role in a telephone call that’s at the center of a congressional impeachment probe for Trump. “Secretary Perry absolutely supported and encouraged the president to speak to the new president of Ukraine to discuss matters related to their energy security and economic development,” Perry’s Energy Department spokeswoman, Shaylyn Hynes, said in an email. Hynes’ remark comes as Perry becomes the latest administration official drawn into inquiries in a House impeachment probe of Trump. Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the July 25 call to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter — sparking a whistleblower complaint and now the impeachment inquiry. Trump on Friday evening told House Republicans that it was Perry who had teed up the July call with Ukraine, according to a person familiar with Trump’s new comments who was granted anonymity to discuss the private conference call. But Trump did not suggest that Perry had anything to do with the pressure on Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, or a U.S. holdup in military aid to the country, …

Bence Pardy spent his summers as a child by Hungary’s second main river, the Tisza. Now, at 32, he has given up his job to move back there permanently to collect plastic waste which pollutes its waters. The Tisza, one of the main rivers in eastern Europe, starts in Ukraine and flows across Hungary to join the Danube in Serbia. It then flows eastwards to empty into the Black Sea. Over the past three months, working all day on his own from a small motorboat, Pardy has collected by hand plastic bottles from the river and its floodplains to fill 466 huge binbags. In many places there are floating waste islands made up of plastic bottles already overgrown with lush vegetation. “We used to have a house in a nearby small village and came here for the summers. There was no waste at that time… there wasn’t this craze for plastic plates and forks,” Pardy said, picking empty bottles and plastic bags from the grass and trees hanging over the slow-moving river. He worked as a waiter in Budapest before he moved to Tiszafured, a town nearby, and now lives in a small caravan. As his money was running out, …