The NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program has been scouting and training girls and boys across the African continent for 17 years. Teenage girls taking part in the program say working with women from the continent who played for WNBA teams has motivated them to stay in the game. From Dakar, VOA’s Esha Sarai has more.   …

An Iranian serving a life sentence on a conviction of designing a pornographic website has fled the country while on short-term release from prison and has arrived in Canada, Iranian authorities and his family said. Iranian authorities Saturday confirmed state television reports that Saeed Malekpour, who is also a permanent resident of Canada, had left the Islamic Republic. “This individual was barred from leaving the country and has apparently left … via unofficial channels and has not returned,” said judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili. “This individual was sentenced to life in jail and had served more than 11 years of his sentence,” Esmaili said, quoted by the judiciary’s official news agency, Mizan Online. Didn’t return from furlough He said Malekpour was given a three-day furlough July 20 and by the end of it did not turn himself in to the prison. His sister posted a video on Twitter confirming he had returned to Canada. “The nightmare is finally over,” Maryam Malekpour said, thanking all those who supported the family. Payam Akhavan, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who supported Malekpour, told CBC TV that his family in Iran and his lawyer knew nothing about the escape. Original sentence: death Malekpour …

SRINAGAR, INDIA — Thousands of Indian students and visitors were fleeing Indian-controlled Kashmir over the weekend after the government ordered tourists and Hindu pilgrims visiting a Himalayan cave shrine “to curtail their stay” in the disputed territory, citing security concerns.     Meanwhile, tensions flared along the highly militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan as Pakistan accused India of using cluster munitions to target the civilian population, killing two people.     Hundreds of Indian and foreign visitors, including some Hindu pilgrims, on Saturday congregated outside the main terminal at the airport in Srinagar, the region’s main city, seeking seats on flights out. Most were unlikely to get tickets, however, as authorities had yet to arrange additional flights, officials said.    On Friday, Indian aviation authorities told airlines to be ready to operate additional flights from Srinagar to ferry pilgrims and tourists out, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.    Tourists and pilgrims also took buses out of the region after authorities went to hotels in the tourist resorts of Pahalgam and Gulmarg on Friday evening to tell them to leave. Authorities also bused out hundreds of Indian students from some colleges in Srinagar.    The order cited …

Yazidi women and girls who were enslaved and raped by Islamic State militants have few choices. They may have been freed, but they can’t bring home the children they had with the extremists. Five years ago Saturday, IS militants launched attacks on Yazidi villages in northern Iraq, kidnapping, enslaving and massacring thousands. The attacks were labelled genocide by the United Nations. The attacks traumatized the Yazidis, an ancient religious minority who are no strangers to persecution throughout the ages. But the brutality of the IS onslaught posed major challenges to the community. Although the Yazidis are a monotheistic faith, IS viewed them as heretics and sought to annihilate both the people and their religious sites.   FILE – Iraqi Yazidi women and children rescued from the Islamic State group wait to board buses bound for Sinjar in Iraq’s Yazidi heartland, April 13, 2019. In April, a month after the final military defeat of IS, Yazidi religious leaders made an apparent bid to protect the insular and still-grieving community by decreeing that they will embrace survivors of militant attacks. It was a move aimed at erasing the social stigma associated with rape. But in what appeared to be a response to …

Rosita Lopez said armed gang members demanded money from her and her partner at their small grocery store on the Guatemalan coast and threatened to kill them when they couldn’t pay. When her partner was shot soon afterward, they sold everything and fled north. Lopez was eight months pregnant when the couple arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last year with their 1-year-old daughter. Just more than a year later, an immigration judge in Los Angeles heard her case, denied her asylum and ordered her deported. “I’m afraid of going back there,” she told the judge. The decision for 20-year-old Lopez — who now has an American-born baby — was swift in an immigration court system so backlogged with cases that asylum-seekers often wait years for a hearing, let alone a ruling on whether they can stay in the country. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official aid people waiting to enter immigration court in Atlanta, June 12, 2019. U.S. authorities are fast-tracking families’ cases to discourage many from making the trip to seek refuge in the United States. 56,000 test cases But her case is one of 56,000 in a Trump administration pilot program in 10 cities from Baltimore to Los …

Mexican officials said Saturday they would investigate the killing of a journalist in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz who was the third reporter to be killed in a week in Mexico as the country grapples with a record homicide rate. Jorge Ruiz Vazquez, a reporter at the Grafico de Xalapa newspaper in Veracruz’s capital, died in spite of procedures in place to protect him, the state prosecutor’s office said. “The prosecutor will investigate why protection measures granted to the victim and his family, which were active, were not enforced,” the entity said in a statement. Ruiz’s death brings the number of Mexican journalists this year to at least eight compared with nine last year, according to free-speech advocacy group Article 19. A reporter in Guerrero state who also served as a municipal official was shot and killed Friday, while earlier last week, a reporter who covered the police in the same state was found dead in the trunk of a vehicle with signs he had been shot and tortured. Homicides in Mexico jumped in the first half of the year to the highest on record, according to official data. The spiraling violence underscores the challenges President Andres Manuel Lopez …

Mogadishu residents are mourning the loss of their mayor, who died Thursday of injuries suffered in a suicide bombing July 24 that killed at least six other people.    Abdirahman Omar Osman, 53, simply known as “Injineer Yariisow,” which translates from Somali as “the small engineer,” was the highest-level Somali government official killed in the city’s frequent deadly terrorist attacks in recent years.    With tears running down his face, Aden Osman stood motionless in front of Mogadishu’s city headquarters, the place where the late mayor was targeted as he was meeting with senior officials of his administration on security.    “Indeed, the terrorists that killed our mayor made us feel a deep pain and sadness inside, but we cannot let them tear us down and make us demoralize,” said Aden Osman, 21.    “The people of this city have lost a great man and a leader. We have been mourning for three days,” and flags will remain at half staff, Ibrahim Omar Mahadalle, deputy regional administrator of Mogadishu, told VOA Somali. “May Allah rest his soul in peace. He led this city by example.”   Statesman    Abdirahman Omar Osman fled from Somalia’s civil war in 1990s. He lived in Britain for 17 years, where he …

Police in El Paso, Texas, said Saturday that they were responding to an active- shooter situation at a shopping mall.    There was no immediate word on whether there had been injuries or fatalities in the reported shooting at a Walmart store in Cielo Vista Mall.  Police said multiple shooters were being reported and the area around the mall had been blocked off as authorities searched for suspects.    Stores in the area were locked down.     El Paso is a city in the far western part of southern state of Texas.  …

The Senate of Puerto Rico is set to hold public hearings Monday on the nomination of veteran politician Pedro Pierluisi to replace embattled former governor Ricardo Rossello, who resigned as promised Friday. Rossello handpicked Pierluisi to succeed him, thrusting the U.S. territory into a new period of uncertainty after weeks of protests over Rossello’s mismanagement and leaked communications in which Rossello and his advisors disparaged a range of Puerto Ricans. Pierluisi was sworn in Friday but said at a news conference after taking an oath, his term as governor might be short-lived because there are no guarantees the Senate will confirm him.   Pierluisi vowed to serve as governor only until the Senate hearing on his confirmation. Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz joined other critics in denouncing the nomination and declaring the transition process “unethical and illegal.”   The House of Representatives approved Pierluisi’s nomination Friday as secretary of state, an office next in line to the governorship. Pierluisi’s nomination now goes to the Senate, which moved up the hearings from Wednesday to Monday. Schatz and other senators maintain until the nomination is confirmed by both chambers, the law states next in line for governor is Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez, …

Thai authorities are casting suspicion on southern separatists while suggested broader political motives for a series of bombings that shook Bangkok Friday during a summit of top diplomats from the U.S., China and the region. A low-level insurgency has been simmering for years in Thailand’s far south — where Muslim militants want to break away from the Buddhist-majority country — but rarely spread as far north as the capital. Analysts say any insurgents involved in Friday’s attacks may have been acting as mercenaries for other groups, as they have before. The blasts hit five locations across Bangkok during the Friday morning rush hour, including a government office complex, army headquarters, the office of the defense secretary and a public transit train station, leaving four people with minor injuries. Police arrested two men from Thailand’s far south suspected of planting a pair fake bombs without explosives outside police headquarters on Thursday, near the venue where U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi were meeting with fellow foreign ministers from across Southeast Asia. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and authorities have yet to assign blame, though officials have said they were likely meant mainly to …

More than 100 migrants from Togo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Benin are stranded in Cameroon after they were rescued by the central African state’s military from their capsizing vessel in the Atlantic Ocean. The migrants, who are calling on their governments for help, say they do not have food or money.  One-hundred-seventeen men, women and children lie on the bare floor at the government school in Ebodje, a Cameroon village on the west coast of Africa near the Atlantic Ocean. Stranded migrants in Ebodje, Cameroon, Aug. 3, 2019. ( Moki Kindzeka, VOA) Christian Djongo, village chief of Ebodje, says officials have been looking after the unexpected visitors for five days. He says on July 29, his community joined the Cameroon military to save the lives of the migrants from the sea. He says immediately after removing them from their vessel that was almost capsizing, the community gave them clothing, coffee and food. He says townspeople are now hoping for assistance from the government because they no longer have food for the stranded migrants. Christian Djongo, village chief of Ebodjevillage says they need help to take care of the migrants, Aug. 3, 2019. ( Moki Kindzeka, VOA) They say their vessel, …

A munitions blast killed 31 regime and allied fighters at a military airport in central Syria on Saturday, a war monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain and relies on a network of sources on the ground, said it was unclear what had caused the deadly explosion at the Shayrat airbase in Homs province. But state news agency SANA reported that a “technical fault during the transport of expired ammunition” had killed an unspecified number of victims. The Shayrat airbase is one of the regime’s most significant installations in the centre of the country. Iranian fighters – who support the regime in Syria’s ongoing civil war – are based there, according to the Observatory. In 2017, US air strikes hit the base in response to a suspected sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun in northwest Syria that killed more than 80 people. According to the Pentagon, US intelligence had established that the base was the launchpad for the alleged chemical attack. Syria’s war has killed more than 370,00 people since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. …

Russian police detained nearly 200 people Saturday at a Moscow protest against unfair elections, a monitoring group said. The non-governmental group OVD-Info, which monitors arrests, said 194 people were arrested along thoroughfares in the city center, where Russian officials said unauthorized opposition protests were held. Prominent activist Lyubov Sobol was among those who were detained, as were six journalists, according to the French news agency. Police took Sobol into custody from a taxi minutes before the protest began. Activists called for the demonstration after a number of opposition candidates were prohibited from participating in Moscow’s city council election being held in September. Authorities contend the candidates failed to collect enough authentic signatures to register for the election, which is seen as a dry run for the country’s 2021 national parliamentary election. Some of the opposition candidates have been jailed along with opposition politician Alexei Navalny. At a demonstration for the same cause last week during which there were violent outbreaks, police arrested more than 1,000 people, sparking widespread global condemnation. Russian investigators said Saturday they launched a criminal investigation into Navalny’s alleged laundering of more than $15 million through and anti-corruption foundation he established.  …

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that things are going well with China, insisting U.S. consumers are not paying for import taxes he has imposed on goods from that country although economists say Americans are footing the bill. “Things are going along very well with China. They are paying us Tens of Billions of Dollars, made possible by their monetary devaluations and pumping in massive amounts of cash to keep their system going. So far our consumer is paying nothing – and no inflation. No help from Fed!” Trump said on Twitter. He also said – without presenting evidence – that countries are asking to negotiate “REAL trade deals,” saying on Twitter, “They don’t want to be targeted for Tariffs by the U.S.” Trump abruptly decided on Thursday to slap 10% tariffs $300 billion in Chinese imports, stunning financial markets and ending a month-long trade truce. China vowed on Friday to fight back. Tariffs are intended to make foreign goods more expensive to boost domestic producers, unless international exporters reduce prices. But there has been no evidence that China is cutting prices to accommodate Trump’s tariffs. A study published by the National Bureau of Economic research in March found …

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper says he wants to see American ground-based intermediate-range conventional missiles deployed to Asia. Speaking to reporters on his first international trip as head of the Defense Department, Esper said the weapons were important due to the “the great distances” covered in the Indo-Pacific region. The United States previously was unable to pursue ground-based missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers because of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a decades-old arms control pact with Russia. Washington withdrew from that pact on Friday, citing years of Russian violations. “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 they could be deployed until the weapons were ready, but said he hoped the deployments come within months. While analysts have primarily focused on what the INF treaty withdrawal means for signatory nations Russia and the United States, the change also allows the United States to strengthen its position against China. Esper said China has more than 80% of its missile inventory with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers. “So …

Pakistan has accused rival India of breaching international humanitarian laws by using “cluster munitions” in the latest cross-border skirmishes in Kashmir, saying the weapons killed at least two civilians and injured 11 others on the Pakistani side of the divided region. The allegations come a day after India again rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate a resolution of the Kashmir dispute between the two nuclear-armed countries. A statement by Pakistan’s military said Saturday the civilian casualties occurred on July 31 in the scenic Neelum Valley near the Line of Control (LoC), the defacto border separating Pakistani and Indian portions of the disputed Himalayan territory. It alleged the Indian army used cluster ammunitions delivered by artillery on July 31 in the valley, deliberately targeting the civilian population. Cluster munitions are weapons consisting of a container that opens in the air and scatters a large number of explosive submunitions over a wide area. The related global convention adopted in 2008 prohibits the use of cluster munitions. There was no immediate reaction from India to the allegation. Indian authorities for their part also accuse Pakistani forces of indulging in unprovoked cross-border shelling, causing civilian and military casualties on their side Security …

The U.N. refugee agency welcomes the closure of three detention centers in Libya but voices concern about the whereabouts and fate of the refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who were held in the facilities. The U.N. refugee agency has been advocating for the release of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants from Libya’s detention centers for a long time.  And, so it says it is pleased that three of the country’s largest facilities–Mistrata, Tajoura and Khoms–have been shut. However, UNHCR spokesman, Andrej Mahecic tells VOA he has no idea what has happened to the inmates. “To our knowledge, there are 19 official detention centers run by the authorities that are currently active in Libya with nearly 5,000 refugees and migrants that are arbitrarily detained there,” Mahecic said. Mahecic says UNHCR is closely following developments. He says refugees should not be put in detention.   In Libya, he says people held in facilities near battle zones are at particular risk, as was seen in the tragic events that unfolded in Tajoura last month. The Tajoura detention center on the outskirts of the capital Tripoli was hit by an airstrike on July 2.  More than 50 people, including children were killed and 130 injured.   …

July saw the highest number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in a single month since 2017, the U.N. mission said Saturday.   Its preliminary findings indicate more than 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded, mainly due to a spike in casualties from insurgent attacks. It did not provide a breakdown of deaths and injuries, but said the overall number was the highest for a single month since May 2017.   It said more than 50% of casualties were caused by bombings. A roadside bomb tore through a bus in western Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least 32 people. A complex attack on the office of the Afghan president’s running mate last weekend killed at least 20 people. The target of the attack, former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, escaped unharmed. No one has claimed either attack.   The Taliban, who effectively control half the country, carry out daily attacks on security forces and government targets that often kill and wound civilians. An Islamic State affiliate also operates in Afghanistan, targeting security forces as well as minority Shiites.   The Taliban have kept up a steady tempo of attacks despite holding several rounds of peace talks with the United States in recent …

India has deported a former Maldives vice president. Ahmed Adeeb was deported Saturday. He tried to enter India’s southern port of Tuticorin on Thursday aboard a tugboat. The tugboat crew and Adeeb were handed over to Maldivian authorities at the International Maritime Boundary Line. Adeeb is facing attempted murder and corruption charges at home. He has been accused of trying to assassinate then Maldives president Abdulla Yameen in 2015.   …

The African Union envoy to Sudan said Saturday the pro-democracy movement and the ruling military council have finalized a power-sharing agreement. Mohammed el-Hassan Lebatt told reporters that the two sides “fully agreed” on a constitutional declaration outlining the division of power for a three-year transition to elections. He did not provide further details, but said both sides would meet later Saturday to prepare for a signing ceremony. The pro-democracy coalition issued a statement saying they would sign the document Sunday. Mass protests, then coup The military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir in April following months of mass protests against his three-decade-long authoritarian rule. The protesters remained in the streets, demanding a rapid transition to a civilian government. They have been locked in tense negotiations with the military for weeks while holding mass protests. The two sides reached a preliminary agreement last month following pressure from the United States and its Arab allies, amid growing concerns the political crisis could ignite civil war. That document provided for the establishment of a joint civilian-military sovereign council that would rule Sudan for a little more than three years while elections are organized. A military leader would head the 11-member council for the first 21 …

Forty-eight insects are currently included on the U.S. Endangered Species List, and the only way any insect has ever come off the list is through extinction. This is especially troubling for the world’s butterfly populations, which have declined by 20% over the last decades.  This time of year, Nate Fuller can often be found counting butterflies. The director of the Sarett Nature Center in Benton Harbor, Michigan, needs an accurate count of Mitchell’s satyr butterflies, to help preserve one of their last known habitats. “They’re very particular in the kind of habitat where they can live, which is part of what makes them so rare and amazing indicators for our water quality,” he said. Hard to spot Emerging into a vast wetland of soupy ground covered in shoulder-high grasses and sedges, dotted with poisonous sumac trees, it’s slow going, but a cell phone app helps keep track of where butterflies have been spotted as well as when and how many, all important data for better understanding Mitchell’s satyr populations. Finding the small brown butterflies with golden-ringed eyespots on their wings can be difficult. There just aren’t many around. They also rest with their wings closed to blend in with their …

The United States has pulled out of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in order to develop its own new missiles, after the Russians refused to destroy new missiles that NATO says violate the pact. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise” because Moscow failed to return to compliance despite repeated warnings.  VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington on the end of a landmark treaty.   …

This story originated in FILE – Newly elected President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski, right, walks with outgoing president Gjorge Ivanov, during his inauguration ceremony in Skopje, North Macedonia, May 12, 2019. The country changed its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia in February, ending a more than two-decade dispute with Greece over its name, and removing an obstacle to EU and NATO membership. Just last week, EU commissioner Johannes Hahn said Skopje needs to reform the judiciary to ensure it can handle high-level crime and corruption cases before the EU can set a date to start accession talks, but that he was “confident that the decision (on the start of EU accession talks) will be taken in October.” Palmer said he’s optimistic talks can begin this fall, but that resolving the Janeva investigation will be key to ensuring it happens. Both of North Macedonia’s major political parties have been squabbling over the drafting of a law to regulate the prosecution, which will determine the fate of the special prosecutor’s office that Janeva used to run. “We believe that North Macedonia has earned that opportunity [to have EU accession talks begin this year], but … signals that the government sends …

Another scientific study has confirmed that trees can have a far-reaching effect in stemming global warming by removing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Tree-planting advocates say this is something they’ve known for decades, and the world is finally getting the message. Mike O’Sullivan has more from Los Angeles. …