Russia’s Norilsk smelter complex and a town in South Africa’s eastern coal mining province have the highest sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions in the world, according to satellite data from U.S. space agency NASA. The NASA-compiled data published on Monday was commissioned by environmental group Greenpeace India and used the space authority’s satellites to track anthropogenic sulphur dioxide emission hot spots around the world. Scientists say that excessive exposure to SO2 particles causes long-term respiratory difficulties and stunted growth in infants among other problems. Norilsk, 300km (186 miles) inside the Arctic Circle, has the largest individual SO2 emissions, followed by the South African town of Kriel, about 150km east of Johannesburg, Monday’s report found. The industrial city of Norilsk is home to Norilsk Nickel, the world’s leading nickel and palladium producer. The company is implementing  a massive program to improve the ecology of the city and its surroundings. The first stage of the program is complete. After the closure of an old nickel plant and reconstruction of nearby plants, emissions in the city’s residential area fell by 30%, Nornickel told Reuters on Monday. The second phase will involve a $2.5 billion sulphur project to help to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions in …

The first American spacecraft expected to land on the moon in nearly 50 years will be a robotic moon lander built by closely held Astrobotic Technology and launched in two years by United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, the companies told Reuters on Monday. Astrobotic was one of nine companies chosen in November to compete for $2.6 billion to develop small space vehicles and other technology for 20 missions to explore the lunar surface over the next decade. Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic picked Vulcan, being developed by a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to launch its Peregrine lander from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in summer 2021.  Barring schedule slips, Astrobotic said Peregrine would be the first American spacecraft to touch down on the moon since Apollo astronauts touched down in 1972. The mission will ferry technology and experiments to the moon under a NASA program that will lay the groundwork for astronaut trips by 2024 under the optimistic schedule laid out by the Trump administration. “Our first flight on Vulcan is also the first big step in going back to the moon,” United Launch Alliance Chief Executive Tory Bruno told Reuters ahead of the announcement. Astrobotic said in May that NASA awarded …

Walt Disney Co. said on Monday it will launch its Disney+ video streaming service in Canada and the Netherlands on Nov. 12, the same date as its previously announced United States launch. Disney+ will also launch in Australia and New Zealand a week later, the company said in a statement, adding that the service will be priced between $6 to $8 per month in these countries. Disney’s new service will exclusively stream its latest movies including “Avengers: Endgame,” “Aladdin” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” the company said. The service will also draw upon Disney’s library of its existing films. The owner of ESPN and theme parks had announced earlier this month that it would offer a bundle of its three streaming services, Disney+, sports service ESPN+, and Hulu, at a discounted price of $13 per month. That price is the same as Netflix Inc’s most popular plan, which allows streaming on two devices simultaneously. Video streaming competition is set to intensify, with Apple, WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Comcast’s NBCUniversal planning to roll out new services. U.S. customers are increasingly cutting the cord on cable TV, but now must decide how much they want to pay for digital offerings. …

Polish opposition parties have joined forces to try to win a majority in the upper house of parliament, the Senate, in parliamentary elections on Oct. 13, as they struggle to oust the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) from power. Opinion polls show PiS winning a second four-year term with more than 40 percent of the vote for the more powerful lower house, the Sejm, which is elected on a system of proportional representation based on party lists. But the Senate is chosen on a system of first-past-the-post, whereby the candidate who wins most votes in a given constituency is duly elected. By agreeing not to put up rival candidates, the opposition parties increase their chances of defeating PiS. “We believe that a list of jointly agreed candidates for the Senate offers us an opportunity to win the Senate elections,” Krzysztof Gawkowski, secretary-general of the leftist Wiosna party, told private Radio Zet on Sunday. The Senate scrutinizes, debates and can reject legislation passed by the Sejm. Critics say PiS has used its current majority in both the Sejm and the Senate to rush through bills without proper oversight or time to analyze their impact. PiS, a socially conservative, eurosceptic …

Three stone pillars were placed Monday near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, marking the final step in a $2 million effort to memorialize the bombing that killed three people. The understated monument of granite and bronze, which took four years to plan and develop, was supposed to be ready last year for the fifth anniversary of the April 15, 2013, attack, but underwent significant redesigns and other delays. “We hope that this will help demarcate the sacredness of this spot and give people the opportunity to slow down when they’re here,” said Bolivian-born sculptor Pablo Eduardo as he put finishing touches on the monuments Monday. Nichola Forrester, a Milton, Massachusetts, resident who completed the 2013 race long before the bombs detonated, was among those pausing to reflect on their lunch break. “I said a prayer for them,” she said after asking a bystander to take a photo of her beside one of the pillars. “I’m pretty sure these three victims had cheered for me when I was going through the finish line, so the least I could do was come out and show my support.” Patricia Campbell, the mother of bombing victim Krystle Campbell, said she was grateful …

Brazilian states containing the country’s Amazon rainforest said they want to negotiate directly with European nations who fund projects to curb deforestation after changes proposed by the federal government led Norway and Germany to suspend donations. Norway – by far the biggest donor to the Amazon Fund – said last week it had suspended its donations after the right-wing government of President Jair Bolsonaro changed the fund’s governance structure and closed down the steering committee that selects the projects to back. Germany has also suspended its funding. Waldez Góes, governor of Amapá state and president of an organization that groups the Amazon states, said in a statement over the weekend that the embassies of Norway and Germany had been informed of their willingness to negotiate. The states of the Amazon region regretted that Bolsonaro’s actions had led to a suspension of donations, the statement added. “Governors of the Amazon bloc want to directly participate in decisions to reformulate Amazon Fund rules, which are being established by state-run development bank BNDES,” Góes said. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro holds a press conference in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 1, 2019. The move comes amid increasing fears surrounding deforestation, which data suggest has soared since …

Bangladesh will work with the United Nations refugee agency to determine if more than 3,000 Rohingya refugees will accept Myanmar’s offer to return home, an official said Monday, nearly a year after a major repatriation plan failed. More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Rakhine for camps in Bangladesh after a military-led crackdown in August 2017 that the United Nations has said was perpetrated with “genocidal intent,” but many refugees refuse to go back, fearing more violence. “It will be a joint exercise led by UNHCR,” Abul Kalam, Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation commissioner, told Reuters by telephone Monday, referring to the refugee agency. The United Nations Security Council is due to discuss the latest repatriation plan behind closed doors Wednesday at the request of France, Britain, the United States, Germany and Belgium, diplomats said. FILE – Rohingya refugees gather at a market inside a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, March 7, 2019. Myanmar has cleared 3,450 people from a list of more than 22,000 refugees provided by Bangladesh, government spokesman Zaw Htay told a news conference in the capital Naypyitaw on Friday. “We have already negotiated with Bangladesh to accept these 3,450 people on August 22,” he said, adding they …

Zimbabwe’s minister of foreign affairs and international trade on Monday defended crackdowns on anti-government demonstrations and urged patience in turning around the country’s foundering economy. Though “everybody’s got the right to demonstrate,” there have “been a lot of insinuations and campaigns of violence,” Sibusiso B. Moyo told VOA in an interview. Citing public safety, he endorsed a Zimbabwe court’s ruling hours earlier to uphold a police ban on a protest organized by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) alliance. Former Major General Sibusiso Moyo, center, who was appointed Foreign Affairs and International Relations Minister speaks with a fellow minister, before taking the oath of office, Dec. 4, 2017, in Harare. Alliance leaders are pressing President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the ruling ZANU-PF party for a role in a transitional government. They had organized a demonstration Monday in Bulawayo, the country’s second-largest city, but police authorities banned it hours before its intended start. Two other opposition demonstrations still are planned this week: for the central city of Gweru on Tuesday and the southeastern city of Masvingo on Wednesday.   Police also had pre-emptively banned a demonstration in Harare last Friday, a decision upheld by a Zimbabwe court. Hundreds of MDC supporters …

 Mexico’s Zapatista indigenous rebel group announced that it is extending its control over so-called “autonomous” zones to 11 more areas in the southern state of Chiapas. The Zapatistas do not hide their dislike of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, but when he was asked about the announcement Monday, Lopez Obrador said the expansion was “welcome.” “Go ahead, because that means working to benefit the villages and the people,” Lopez Obrador said. “The only thing we don’t want is violence.” A statement signed by Zapatista “subcommander” Moises and posted over the weekend called it an “exponential growth that allows us to break the blockade again.” But some of the new autonomous zones are likely to be controversial.   A sign in the Zapatista zone with a message that reads in Spanish: ¨You are in the Zapatista rebel territory. Here the people rule and the government obeys.,” warns visitors in Chiapas, México, July 6, 2019. Some are on land the Zapatistas seized after they staged a brief armed uprising in 1994 to demand greater rights for the indigenous. But at least one of new rebel “autonomous” towns, Nuevo Jerusalen, is located in the ecologically sensitive Lacandon jungle, a nature reserve. The Zapatistas …

The Pentagon says the U.S. military has tested a ground-based cruise missile with a range that would have been banned just three weeks ago.   The missile, launched Sunday at San Nicolas Island, California, “accurately impacted its target after more than 500 kilometers of flight,” the Pentagon announced in a news release Monday. “Data collected and lessons learned from this test will inform the Department of Defense’s development of future intermediate-range capabilities,” it added. The United States previously was unable to pursue ground-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers because of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a decades-old arms control pact with Russia.  Washington withdrew from that pact on Aug. 2, citing years of Russian violations. The Pentagon stressed that the cruise missile was configured to carry a conventional payload, not a nuclear weapon. New FILE – U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper briefs the media in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 4, 2019. “It’s about time that we were unburdened by the treaty and kind of allowed to pursue our own interests, and our NATO allies share that view as well,” Esper said. He declined to discuss when or where in Asia the missiles could be deployed …

Turkish authorities have expelled the mayors of the three main cities in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, provoking protests and political condemnation. Their expulsion comes as Turkish forces are poised to launch a military operation against Syrian Kurdish militants. The pro-Kurdish HDP mayors in Van, Mardin, and Diyarbakir, were replaced by state-appointed trustees Monday. The ruling AKP accuses the mayors of supporting the Kurdish insurgent group the PKK, an allegation the HDP denies. The Turkish Interior Ministry said the personnel action was part of a terrorism investigation. “For the health of the investigations, they have been temporarily removed from their posts as a precaution,” read an Interior Ministry statement. A protester is detained by police during a demonstration against the Turkish government’s removal from office of three pro-Kurdish mayors, Aug. 19, 2019, in Ankara. More than 400 people were detained Monday in a nationwide operation against the outlawed PKK, which Turkey, the European Union and United States have designated as a terrorist organization. “This is a new and clear political coup. It also constitutes a clearly hostile move against the political will of the Kurdish people,” read a joint statement by the HDP leadership. Under emergency powers introduced after a failed …

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence urged China on Monday to “act in a humanitarian manner” to resolve differences with pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Pence called on Beijing to honor its 1984 agreement with Britain, which led to Britain’s 1997 turnover of Hong Kong to China’s control, but allowed freedoms not permissible in mainland China, including the right to protest. Pence, in an address to the Detroit Economic Club, quoted President Donald Trump as saying that “it’ll be much harder” for the U.S. to reach an accord on a new trade deal with China “if something violent happens in Hong Kong.”  Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Economic Club of Detroit, Aug. 19, 2019. “I want to assure you, our administration will continue to urge Beijing to act in a humanitarian manner and urge China and the demonstrators in Hong Kong to resolve their differences peaceably,” Pence said. Pence’s remarks came as Twitter, the social media company, said that 936 accounts originating in China, in “a coordinated state-backed operation,” have been attempting to undermine “the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement” in Hong Kong.  In addition, Facebook said it had suspended numerous accounts that are tied to …

Being president of the United States comes with numerous perks and the fringe benefits continue decades after the nation’s chief executives exit the White House. Presidents are currently paid $400,000 annually, an amount set by Congress. The nation’s leaders have received five pay increases since 1789, when George Washington became the country’s first president. Washington, and the 17 chief executives who followed him, were paid $25,000. In 1873, presidents got a raise to $50,000. In 1909, the presidential paycheck increased to  $75,000 annually. When President Harry Truman started his second term in 1949, he got a raise to $100,000. President Richard Nixon was the first president to get $200,000 in 1969. The current rate of $400,000 took effect in 2001 with President George. W. Bush.     President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in the White House theater on February 1, 2009. Pensions and other allowances were set in place in 1958 after President Truman faced lean times after leaving office. Unlike many other ex-presidents, Truman wasn’t rich and worried about accepting offers that gave the appearance of cashing in on the presidency. However, he eventually sold his memoirs to Life magazine for $600,000, about $5.7 million in …

Islamic State militants in Somalia say they will release jihadist materials in Amharic — a step unmistakably aimed at winning recruits in restive, neighboring Ethiopia. The announcement came in the form of a three-minute video released last month by pro-Islamic State sites and endorsed by the official IS media. The video posted the words to one of Islamic State’s best-known chants in Amharic and promised IS will release more materials in the language, one of the two most-spoken tongues in Ethiopia. Matt Bryden, an Africa analyst with Kenya-based Sahan Research, believes Islamic State — also known as ISIS — is reaching out to Ethiopia’s Muslim community in an attempt to take advantage of ongoing ethnic and political unrest in Africa’s second most populous nation. “I think ISIS sees in Ethiopia a potential opportunity. We know the group has been expanding its influences and its activities across Africa quite aggressively — so far with small results in much of the continent but they are persisting,” Bryden told VOA’s Somali service. He says Ethiopia’s unrest may be worsening despite political reforms enacted by Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed, including the release of thousands of political prisoners and the signing of a peace treaty …

New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that citizenship appears to narrow the economic gap between the foreign-born and native-born in the United States. The 2018 figures released Monday offer a view of immigrants’ education, wealth, and the jobs they work in. They also look at differences between naturalized immigrants and those who aren’t citizens.   Their release come as the U.S. is engaged in one of the fiercest debates in decades about the role of immigration.   Stopping the flow of immigrants into the U.S. has been a priority of the Trump administration, which has proposed denying green cards to immigrants who use Medicaid and fought to put a citizenship question on the decennial Census questionnaire.   Monday’s figures show naturalized immigrants had a slightly smaller median income than the native-born.        …

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday was forced to postpone a conference it organized in the West Bank city of Ramallah after Palestinian officials and factions called for a boycott and threatened to organize protests.     The Palestinians cut all ties with the U.S. after it recognized disputed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017, and view the Trump administration as unfairly biased following a series of actions seen as hostile to their aspirations for an independent state. The embassy had organized a conference this week to bring together alumni of U.S. educational and cultural programs, including dozens of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who received permission from Israel to attend. The territory has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power there in 2007. The Palestinian leadership viewed the conference as an attempt to circumvent its boycott of the U.S. administration. “We are aware of recent statements regarding a planned event for alumni of U.S. educational and cultural programs,” the U.S. Embassy said. “In order to avoid the Palestinian participants being put in a difficult situation, we have decided to postpone the event for now.”   It said this and other …

In Uganda, a coach’s passion for baseball is getting schools to embrace America’s favorite pastime.  But a lack of government support means baseball in Uganda is heavily dependent on donations.  Halima Athumani reports from Kampala. …

President Donald Trump is calling on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by at least a full percentage point “over a fairly short period of time,” saying such a move would make the U.S. economy even better and would also “greatly and quickly” enhance the global economy. …..The Fed Rate, over a fairly short period of time, should be reduced by at least 100 basis points, with perhaps some quantitative easing as well. If that happened, our Economy would be even better, and the World Economy would be greatly and quickly enhanced-good for everyone! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2019 In two tweets Monday, Trump kept up his pressure on the Fed and its chairman Jerome Powell, saying the U.S. economy was strong “despite the horrendous lack of vision by Jay Powell and the Fed.”   He says Democrats were trying to “will” the economy to deteriorate ahead of the 2020 election.   Trump administration officials in recent days have sought to calm worries about a potential U.S. recession that were heightened by last week’s steep stock-market decline.     …

George Wilson Mukhobe has worked as a baseball coach in Uganda for the last decade, and for the last three years as a Major League Baseball scout in Africa. He says there is impressive talent in Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. But Mukhobe says few sports shops sell baseball equipment and there is a lack of facilities and support. “Baseball faces a big challenge.  Because, since people have little knowledge about baseball and is damn expensive game, they say, maybe next time,” he told VOA. “They run for quick sports like soccer, athletics and volleyball, you know, basketball.  But with baseball, it’s really tough, even the coaches themselves need to have enough knowledge, to convince the kid that yes, you know the game, so that he can teach them.” Need donations Uganda’s baseball players are heavily dependent on donations from the U.S. and Japan, where Americans introduced the sport.    Uganda’s National Council of Sports says baseball is not among their priorities. “One of the things that lack currently, that you could think that they could do much better, baseball and as government, is to give the team the chance to compete,” said  Ismael Kigongo Dhakaba, the council’s spokesperson. …

Democratic U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan plan to host a news conference Monday afternoon on travel restrictions to Israel and Palestine, after they were denied entry into Israel last week.   At the urging of President Donald Trump, Israel denied entry to the two Muslim representatives over their support for the Palestinian-led boycott movement. Tlaib and Omar, who had planned to visit Jerusalem and the Israeli-occupied West Bank on a tour organized by a Palestinian group, are outspoken critics of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and support the Palestinian-led international movement boycotting Israel. Before Israel’s decision, Trump tweeted it would be a “show of weakness” to allow the two representatives in. Israel controls entry and exit to the West Bank, which it seized in the 1967 Mideast war along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip – territories the Palestinians want for a future state. Trump’s request to a foreign country to bar the entry of elected U.S. officials and Israel’s decision to do so were unprecedented and drew widespread criticism, including from many Israelis as well as staunch supporters of Israel in Congress. Critics said Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision was a …

Democratic U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan plan to host a news conference Monday afternoon on travel restrictions to Israel and Palestine, after they were denied entry into Israel last week.   At the urging of President Donald Trump, Israel denied entry to the two Muslim representatives over their support for the Palestinian-led boycott movement. Tlaib and Omar, who had planned to visit Jerusalem and the Israeli-occupied West Bank on a tour organized by a Palestinian group, are outspoken critics of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and support the Palestinian-led international movement boycotting Israel. Before Israel’s decision, Trump tweeted it would be a “show of weakness” to allow the two representatives in. Israel controls entry and exit to the West Bank, which it seized in the 1967 Mideast war along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip – territories the Palestinians want for a future state. Trump’s request to a foreign country to bar the entry of elected U.S. officials and Israel’s decision to do so were unprecedented and drew widespread criticism, including from many Israelis as well as staunch supporters of Israel in Congress. Critics said Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision was a …

Specialists shoring up fire-damaged Notre-Dame Cathedral returned Monday to the Paris site for the first time in nearly a month, this time wearing disposable underwear and other protective gear after a delay prompted by fears of lead contamination. A worker sprays a gel on the ground to absorb lead during a decontamination operation at Saint Benoit school near Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, Aug. 8, 2019. Meanwhile, cleanup teams swept, sprayed and vacuumed neighboring streets Monday to scrub away any lead left over from the April blaze that decimated Notre-Dame’s roof and toppled its spire. Toxic dust spewed into the air as hundreds of tons of lead melted in the fire.   At the cathedral itself, activity resumed Monday under strict new lead-protection measures for the stonemasons, cleanup workers and scientists working on the monument, according to the Culture Ministry. They include throwaway full-body clothing, obligatory showers and a new decontamination zone to ensure that no one tracks pollution outside the site.   The workers are clearing out hazardous debris and studying and consolidating the medieval monument — a crucial first step to prepare the fragile cathedral for a yearslong, multimillion-euro reconstruction effort.   But even this first step is taking longer …

Voters who prefer hand-marked paper ballots are challenging the validity of the new voting system chosen by Georgia election officials. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last month announced the selection of a system that includes touchscreen voting machines that print a paper summary of voters’ selections.   A petition signed by more than 1,450 Georgia voters and submitted to Raffensperger’s office Monday requests a re-examination of that system. It says the system doesn’t meet the requirements of Georgia’s voting system certification rules and doesn’t comply with the state election code.   Additionally, plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the voting machines in use since 2002 amended their complaint on Friday to target the new system.   Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said secretary of state’s office lawyers were reviewing the arguments.   …

Eirran Betka-Pope was on her lunch break when she spotted hundreds of Donald Trump supporters protesting outside the office of Rep. Justin Amash, the first Republican on Capitol Hill to say Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the president. The protesters, who stood on the sidewalk with “Squash Amash” signs, saw his comments as the ultimate betrayal of a president they adore. But for Betka-Pope, a Trump critic, Amash’s actions were commendable — and worthy of a counterprotest. The 32-year-old from Grand Rapids, who works in theater and sketch comedy, put on a Trump mask she happened to have in her car and joined the crowd on the sidewalk. She held up a piece of paper that read “I suck.” For the next half-hour, Betka-Pope stood silently as some people insulted her. A few passing drivers honked in support. More than one person flashed a middle finger. Betka-Pope happily took the abuse for the congressman. But the one thing the Democrat says she won’t do to show her appreciation for Amash is vote for him. “There are other candidates more aligned with my values,” she said. Amash’s is another cautionary tale for GOP lawmakers who consider opposing Trump, whose job …