Nearly 50,000 workers at General Motors are on strike, the largest labor action against the automaker in 50 years. It comes at a critical time in the industry as the economy slows and a major industry transition looms. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.   …

Australia will not extradite an Iranian academic to the United States, Australia’s attorney-general said over the weekend, following a 13-month detention of the researcher for allegedly exporting American-made military equipment to Iran. Attorney-General Christian Porter said in a statement that “in all the circumstances of this particular case” the academic, Reza Dehbashi Kivi, should not be extradited. “My decision was made in accordance with the requirements of Australian domestic legal processes and is completely consistent with the powers provided to the commonwealth attorney-general under our law,” Porter said. Iran releases Australian couple The statement came hours after Iran had agreed to free an Australian couple from a Tehran prison who were held on spying charges. Later Saturday, Iranian media reported that Dehbashi Kivi had already returned to Iran. Porter would not say whether the two cases were related. “The Australian Government does not comment on the details behind its consideration of particular cases,” Porter said in his e-mailed statement. “And while it is likely that because of Mr. Kivi’s nationality some will speculate regarding this matter, consistent with prior practice I do not intend to comment further on the particular details of this case, particularly when any such response from …

North Korea angrily walked away from working-level nuclear talks with the United States on Saturday, with Pyongyang’s top negotiator saying he was “greatly disappointed” with Washington’s inflexible approach. The quick breakdown of the first substantive nuclear negotiations in months raises the possibility North Korea will intensify its provocations, days after testing a new medium-range ballistic missile designed to be launched from a submarine. But the North’s decision to walk away may amount to little more than a rehash of a long-standing negotiating tactic meant to raise pressure on the U.S., some analysts say, predicting Pyongyang may soon return to the talks. After a day of negotiations on the outskirts of Stockholm, Sweden, North Korea’s top delegate to the talks read a brief statement to reporters explaining why the North ended the negotiations. North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Myong Gil is seen outside the North Korean embassy in Stockholm, Oct. 5, 2019. “It is entirely because the U.S. has not discarded its old stance and attitude that the negotiation failed this time,” Kim Myong Gil said outside North Korea’s embassy in the Swedish capital. “The U.S. came to the negotiations empty-handed and this shows after all it is not willing …

A U.S. senator and a well-known Indian activist were barred from visiting Indian-administered Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan territory where at least 10 people were injured Saturday in a grenade blast as a government security and communications lockdown entered a third month. Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh said the blast was caused by a militant attack and occurred near the office of a civil administrator in Anantnag. He said a police official and a journalist were among those hurt and suffered minor injuries. “It was a militant attack,” he said, without elaborating. “Police are probing to identify and nab the culprit.” Daily life disrupted Since removing several constitutional provisions in August that gave the state of Jammu and Kashmir semi-autonomy, Indian authorities have flooded the Kashmir Valley, the heart of a decades-old armed insurgency, with thousands of additional troops. Kashmiris protest Friday against the abrogation of article 370, near Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Oct. 4, 2019. For two months, mobile phone and internet services have been cut and the region stripped of its semi-autonomous powers. Mobile internet and phone services have been cut and landline phone access remains spotty, disrupting daily life and business in the valley, home to about 7 …

Hong Kong’s rail operator partially reopened the city’s metro system Sunday after an unprecedented shutdown but kept many typically busy stations closed as the Chinese territory braced for large demonstrations later in the day. Violent protests erupted across the Asian financial center Friday hours after its leader Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era emergency powers, last used more than 50 years ago, to curb months of unrest. The night’s “extreme violence” justified the use of the emergency law, Beijing-backed Lam said in a television address Saturday. Closed stores are seen inside a shopping mall in Admiralty district, in Hong Kong, Oct. 5, 2019. The city felt eerily quiet Saturday with the subway and most shopping malls closed and many roads deserted. Hundreds of anti-government protesters defied a ban on face masks and took to the streets across the city earlier in the day, but by evening they had largely dispersed. The former British colony has been roiled by increasingly violent protests for four months, which began in opposition to a bill that would have allowed extradition to mainland China but have spiraled into a broader pro-democracy movement. Hong Kong’s rail operator MTR Corp said that because of serious vandalism some stations will …

The Museum of the Bible in Washington quietly replaced an artifact purported to be one of a handful of miniature Bibles that a NASA astronaut carried to the moon in 1971 after an expert questioned its authenticity. The move follows an announcement last year that at least five of 16 Dead Sea Scroll fragments that had been on display at the museum were found to be apparent fakes. The museum replaced the original microfilm Bible with one that was donated by an Oklahoma woman who wrote a book about the Apollo Prayer League, which arranged for Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell to carry tiny Bibles to the moon. “We know for sure that one on display right now went to the moon, but we could not verify for sure that the one we had originally on display had gone to the moon,” museum spokeswoman Heather Cirmo said. “We couldn’t disprove it, it just wasn’t certain.” In this Tuesday, April 18, 2017 photo, Carol Mersch holds a copy of a microfilm Bible that flew in orbit around the moon on Apollo 13 during an interview in her home in Tulsa, Okla. Behind her are some of the photographs and space program… …

Jordan’s government said Sunday it has reached a pay deal with the teachers union to end a one-month strike, the country’s longest public sector strike that disrupted schooling for more than 1.5 million students. The deal came after the strike threatened a deepening political crisis when the government last week began legal steps against the unions after they rejected meager pay hikes they said were “bread crumbs” and the government said it could not afford to give more. The pay deal that raises allowances from 35% to 60% to teachers from next year comes after weeks of deadlock with the government intransigent over meeting an original 50% pay rise demanded by the unions it said would strain the heavily indebted country’s finances. Officials said King Abdullah had ordered the government to reach the hefty wage deal which tests the ability of Prime Minister Omar al Razzaz to stay on track in implementing tough fiscal reforms backed by the International Monetary Fund aimed at reducing a record $40 billion public debt. The government fears new pay demands by other public sector employees, including doctors, and pension increases for retired soldiers would wreck efforts to restore fiscal prudence needed for a sustained …

Extra layers of security, intense on-screen action and a frightening incident inside a New York theater combined to create an unsettling experience for some moviegoers who went to see “Joker” on its opening weekend. A young man who was loudly cheering and applauding on-screen murders sent some people heading toward exits in a crowded theater in Manhattan’s Times Square on Friday night. Other patrons yelled at the man, who spit on them as they left early, said Nathanael Hood, who was in the theater. “I was scared. I’m sure a lot of other people were,” Hood said in an interview conducted by private messages. Social media users posted photos of police, security sweeps and safety notices at theaters in California and Florida. And in Tennessee, a drive-in theater banned moviegoers from wearing costumes to a screening of the R-rated “Joker,” which scored an October box-office record with $13.3 million in earnings. The Warner Bros. film, directed by Todd Phillips, presents the backstory of the man who becomes Batman’s classic foe. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, it probes the journey of a disturbed man with a penetrating laugh into a killer. While Phillips has said he hopes the film inspires discussions about guns, …

Most Republican leaders were silent or supportive of President Donald Trump’s public call for another foreign government, China, to investigate his political foe, while a handful voiced concern that the president was trying to enlist a rival power in his reelection effort. Several House and Senate leaders stayed mum as Trump escalated the controversy that has fueled an impeachment inquiry and plowed through another norm of American politics. The quiet continued as House Democrats released a trove of text messages showing U.S. diplomats conducted a campaign to push Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to face Trump next November, and Biden’s son Hunter. Foreign interference in elections has long been viewed as a threat to U.S. sovereignty and the integrity of democracy, and soliciting foreign help in an election is illegal. But Trump found support in his willingness to openly challenge that convention. Vice President Mike Pence made clear he backed the president and believes he is raising “appropriate” issues. Other allies agreed. “I don’t think there’s anything improper about doing that,” GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said of Trump’s call on China to investigate the …

Ecuadorean indigenous and union organizations kept protests going on Saturday and promised no let-up in their push to overturn austerity measures by President Lenin Moreno’s government that have convulsed the nation for three days. Demonstrations had been turning violent and shaping into a major challenge for Moreno, who won election in 2017 and has set his oil-producing nation on a centrist track after years of socialist rule under predecessor Rafael Correa. But he got a reprieve on Friday when transport unions called off their strike after paralyzing roads for two days in opposition to the end of fuel subsidies. Indigenous groups, however, continued on Saturday to block some roads around the Andean nation of 17 million people. “The indigenous movement is mobilizing indefinitely in the whole country,” Jaime Vargas, president of the CONAIE umbrella indigenous group, told Reuters. “With or without jail, our resolve is firm.” Moreno, 66, has declared a two-month state of emergency and authorities have arrested 379 people after protesters set up burning barricades and hurled stones at police on Thursday and Friday during Ecuador’s worst unrest for years. Struggling with a large foreign debt and fiscal deficit, Moreno’s government recently reached a three-year, $4.2 billion loan deal with …

A flotilla of shipments from Venezuela gave Cuba some respite this week from crippling fuel shortages in the wake of tougher U.S. sanctions, while Russia’s prime minister pledged during a visit to the island on Friday to help develop its energy sector. But support from two of its closest allies looks unlikely to resolve Cuba’s energy problems and the government has extended many of the energy-saving measures it had introduced over the past month. Havana warned on Sept. 11 it had not secured sufficient shipments of refined fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, for the rest of the month due to sanctions imposed by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump in retaliation for its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. In response to the shortages, Cuba swiftly deepened austerity measures it had introduced since an economic meltdown in Venezuela, its principal supplier, choked off its energy imports. Cuban authorities cut public transport last month, decreased production at some factories, and encouraged the use of more animal-powered vehicles and wood-fired ovens. Venezuela responded by increasing oil shipments to its Caribbean ally, despite its own output issues and sanctions-related restrictions. Since late September, at least eight tankers carrying some 3.83 million barrels of crude …

VOA’s Muhammad Ikram contributed to this report. Pakistan remains at risk of being placed on the “blacklist” of Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog monitoring terror financing and money laundering around the world, experts warn. The global watchdog’s regional body — Asia Pacific Group (APG) — examined Pakistan’s performance on key issues related to terror financing and money laundering at a two-day preliminary meeting in Bangkok in early September. The final decision as to whether the country would be placed on the so-called blacklist is pending until the APG presents its final report to the FATF Plenary and Working Group meetings scheduled for later this month in Paris. With a final decision ahead, some experts warn the stakes are high for Pakistan to be placed in the black list given the country’s lack of notable progress on key demands of the FATF. “Since no major decisions are made until October, Islamabad must know that no matter what happened in Bangkok, it’s not out of the woods yet.” Michael Kugleman, deputy director of South Asia Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, said. “It’s hard to know what transpired in Bangkok, or whether it helped or hindered Pakistan’s prospects …

The prime ministers of India and Bangladesh have agreed on the need for greater efforts to facilitate the safe return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who have fled violence in Myanmar and taken refuge in Bangladesh, a joint statement said Saturday. The statement, issued during a visit to India by Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that she and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed that the measures should include improving security and socio-economic conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. India will provide additional humanitarian aid to help refugees living in camps in Bangladesh, according to the statement. In what has become Asia’s largest refugee crisis in decades, some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have taken shelter in Bangladesh. The two leaders also signed agreements on security, energy and transport. Hasina highlighted that the people of Bangladesh are awaiting implementation of a 2011 agreement for sharing water from the Teesta river, which flows from India into Bangladesh. Modi told her that his government is working with all stakeholders in India for the implementation of the agreement. The water sharing has been blocked by the chief minister of India’s West Bengal state, Mamata Banerjee, who has said the state can’t spare water …

Thousands marched in Edinburgh Saturday calling for Scottish independence, with a possible British exit from the European Union just weeks away and calls growing for a fresh vote in Scotland on breaking from Britain. The demonstrators, many carrying Scottish flags, some wearing kilts and a few playing musical instruments – including bagpipes – set off from Holyrood Park in the heart of the Scottish capital. Among them was lawyer and Scottish Nationalist (SNP) lawmaker Joanna Cherry, who was behind one of the successful legal challenges to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament. She was also one of main backers of a law passed last month forcing Johnson to ask the European Union for more time to avoid crashing out of the EU without a deal. The group organizing Saturday’s march, All Under One Banner, said were hoping to get 100,000 people to attend. Scotland voted against independence in a 2014 referendum by 55 percent. But nationalists argue that the 2016 British referendum in favor of Brexit means another independence referendum is necessary — because Scotland voted by 62 percent to stay in the EU. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, has argued that Brexit will …

The International Organization for Migration has helped 143 Somali refugees, stranded in war-torn Yemen, return home earlier this week.   The group of Somali refugees, including 56 children, set off by boat from the port of Aden on Monday and arrived at the port of Berbera in Somaliland the following day. The U.N. migration agency’s spokesman, Joel Millman, said government officials and representatives from humanitarian agencies were on hand to greet them and provide assistance. “With the conflict having effects on the economic and security situation in Yemen, many migrants and refugees find themselves without the means to provide for themselves and their families.  Stranded, they then turn to humanitarian organizations for return assistance,” Millman said. The return project is funded by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center and the Kuwaiti government. Since it began last November, Millman said more than 1,500 Somali refugees have been repatriated. Somalis comprise the bulk of the 250,000 refugees in Yemen.  Many have been there since the 1980s. That’s when civil war broke out in Somalia, leading to the overthrow of President Mohamed Siad Barre. The safety enjoyed by Somali refugees in Yemen for many years has long since dissipated. Yemen has …

Iraqi officials say one person was killed in Baghdad as police fired on anti-government protesters Saturday, the first day of demonstrations since a two-day curfew was lifted. Demonstrators began taking to the streets last Tuesday to protest unemployment, poor public services and corruption.   Saturday’s protests came one day after former Shi’ite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads the largest opposition bloc in parliament, called on the government to resign and said “early elections should be held under U.N. supervision.”   Iraqi forces have been opening fire on the protesters, and medical and security sources say at least 65 people have been killed this week.   The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a statement Friday saying “the deaths of civilians and the growing number of wounded at the ongoing protests across the country is particularly worrying, as is the use of firearms for restoring public order.” The ICRC has called on both sides to show restraint as it monitors developments on the ground. Iraqi protesters take part in a demonstration against state corruption, failing public services, and unemployment, in the Iraqi capital Baghdad’s central Khellani Square, Oct. 4, 2019. ‘Difficult choices’ Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said …

Thousands of residents of Pakistan-held Kashmir rallied Saturday on board vehicles and motorbikes to press for their demand that India lift a two-month old controversial clampdown in its controlled portion of the disputed region. The protest came on a day when U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen arrived in Pakistan after visiting India, where he was refused permission to personally visit Kashmir to assess the situation. While speaking in the eastern Pakistan city of Multan, Van Hollen urged New Delhi to ensure protection of human rights, restore communications and release political prisoners in the disputed territory. The protesters in Pakistani-administered Kashmir were calling for the region’s independence from both the countries and they were headed to the Line of Control (LoC), which divides the Himalayan territory, vowing to force their way into the Indian side. “We want freedom on this [Pakistani] side and that [Indian] side,” chanted the slowly moving and charged up crowd that is expected to reach the boundary line on Sunday. Local police have placed roadblocks just a few kilometers from the LoC, however, to prevent the rally from reaching the de facto border. “I am going with this march to express solidarity with our Kashmiri brothers, who …

A man wielding a long metal object rampaged through New York City early Saturday attacking sleeping homeless people, killing four and leaving a fifth in critical condition.   New York Police Department Detective Annette Shelton said the men were brutally assaulted in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood with the object that authorities recovered.   Police responded to a 911 call just before 2 a.m. as one assault was in progress.   A 24-year-old suspect is in custody but has yet to be charged, the detective said.   The victims apparently were asleep when they were attacked in three different locations. The first died of blunt trauma to the head. A second man was attacked nearby but survived. He was taken to New York Downtown Hospital in critical condition.   The other three victims, attacked about a block away, also died of trauma to the head.        The New York Post published photos of two of the victims under a white sheet, one slumped in a blood-spattered doorway. The other lay under a sheet on the sidewalk. The identities of the victims have not been released.   New York City’s homeless population has grown in recent years, to a great extent because …

U.S. and North Korean officials are set to resume working-level nuclear talks in Stockholm. They will be the first formal negotiations since U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed in June to restart them after they collapsed in February at a summit in Vietnam. The talks broke down over how to pace sanctions relief with steps to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Greece Saturday he is “hopeful” progress would be made and that U.S. negotiators arrived in Stockholm “with a set of ideas.” It is not clear if either side has softened their negotiating stance, though recent developments suggest an increased willingness to work towards a deal. Late last month, Trump said a “new method” to the nuclear talks would be “very good,” echoing similar language North Korean officials have used for months. North Korea has repeatedly said it is not willing to unilaterally surrender its nuclear weapons. Pyongyang, instead, prefers a phased approach in which the U.S. takes simultaneous steps to relieve sanctions and provide security guarantees. Until recently, most Trump White House officials insisted they were not interested in a phased approach, and that North …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday defended the Trump administration’s approach to Ukraine that is at the center of an impeachment inquiry. He rejected allegations it was at best inappropriate or at worst an illegal abuse of power for which Congress should remove President Donald Trump from office. Pompeo maintained that the investigation the United States sought from Ukraine’s government involved possible interference from Ukraine in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He did not speak to Trump’s stated desire for Ukraine to specifically investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s and his son Hunter, which impeachment investigators are focused on since a whistleblower complaint surfaced last month. Pompeo criticized the impeachment inquiry as “clearly political” and said the actions of the State Department were aimed solely at improving relations with the new government of Ukraine that took office this spring. He also said the work of a former special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, was based on the direction of the president to do just that. Kurt Volker, a former special envoy to Ukraine, is leaving after a closed-door interview with House investigators as House Democrats proceed with the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in …

U.S. President Donald Trump has asked for a substantial cut in the National Security Council staff, Bloomberg reported late on Friday, citing five people familiar with the plans. The step was described by some sources cited in the report as part of an effort from the White House to make its foreign policy arm leaner. FILE – National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien (R) talks with White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney during a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, Sept. 23, 2019. The request to do so was conveyed to officials in the agency by current White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien earlier this week, according to Bloomberg. The reductions at the agency, in which currently 310 people work, will be carried out through attrition, Bloomberg reported. The report did not mention the exact number by which Trump is looking to cut the agency’s staff. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. The development comes as Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are examining whether there are grounds to impeach Republican Trump based on …

A global education fund is providing tens of thousands of Sahelian children in crisis with a quality education, bringing hope to boys and girls who have known nothing but violence and sorrow in their young lives. Education Cannot Wait, a funding mechanism set up at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, globally is helping more than 1.4 million children in emergencies go back to school. More than 75 million children caught in conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies are being deprived of an education.  Children in the Sahel, a region just south of the Sahara Desert, are among the most vulnerable.  In Central Mali, armed conflict has forced the closure of more than 900 schools, depriving an estimated 280,000 children of an education. Director of the nonprofit Education Cannot Wait Yasmine Sherif (L. Schlein/VOA) The director of Education Cannot Wait, Yasmine Sherif, recently returned from a mission to Mali.  She describes the heart-wrenching condition of children she met in a camp for displaced people in the city of Mopti.  She told VOA of the psychological distress suffered by children forced to flee for their lives with nothing but the clothes on their backs. “They have fled some horrifying violence in …

Iraqi authorities lifted a dayslong curfew in Baghdad on Saturday that anti-government protesters had defied, as the toll from four days of violent unrest rose to 72 killed and hundreds injured. Traffic ran as normal through the Iraqi capital and streets and main squares were otherwise quiet. Concrete barriers blocked off areas where protesters in the thousands clashed with police during the week. Iraq’s semi-official High Commission for Human Rights said security forces had detained hundreds of people for demonstrating but then let most of them go. Police snipers shot at protesters Friday, Reuters reporters said, escalating violent tactics used by the security forces that have included live fire, tear gas and water cannons. The security forces have accused gunmen of hiding among demonstrators to shoot at police. Several police officers have died. Anti-government protesters set fires and close a street during a demonstration in Baghdad, Oct. 4, 2019. Security forces opened fire directly at hundreds of anti-government demonstrators in Baghdad, killing some protesters and injuring dozens. The protests over unfair distribution of jobs, lack of services and government corruption erupted Tuesday in Baghdad and quickly spread to other Iraqi cities, mainly in the south. It is the deadliest unrest …

Singers and songwriters from U.S. tribes and Canada’s First Nations are using their art to honor and raise awareness of missing and murdered indigenous people. The following is a small sampling of their efforts. “Little Star” The stop-motion animated video featuring the song “Little Star” was produced by Ontario filmmaker Sarah Legault. Sung by Cree singer and songwriter iskwē, or “blue sky woman,” the song was written to protest injustice surrounding the murders of two indigenous youth in Canada — 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, a member of the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba, whose body was later pulled from the Red River in Winnipeg in 2014; and Colten Boushie, 22, a member of the Red Pheasant Cree First Nation in Saskatchewan, who in 2016 was fatally shot by a white farmer. In both incidents, the cases against their accused murderers were dismissed.   “Missing You” Singer and composer Joanne Shenandoah is one of the most critically acclaimed Native American artists today. A member of the Wolf Clan of the Oneida Nation of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy and based in Syracuse, New York, Shenandoah is a founding board member of the Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Knowledge. The song “Missing You” …