Turkey on Wednesday slammed a new U.S. proposal for a so-called “safe zone” in northern Syria, saying it was “not satisfactory” and warning that Ankara may launch a new offensive to secure its border if an agreement isn’t reached soon. According to Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, U.S. envoy James Jeffrey and other U.S. officials held talks with Turkish officials in Ankara about Syria, including the setting up of a safe zone along the Turkey-Syrian border. “The United States must come with proposals that are satisfactory to us or are close to our proposals,” Cavusoglu said, adding that Turkey’s patience “has run out.” Turkey views Kurdish fighters who have battled the Islamic State group alongside U.S. forces as terrorists, allied with a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey. Ankara wants the safe zone established east of the Euphrates River to keep the Kurdish fighters away from the border region. Since 2016, Turkey has launched two cross-border offensives against IS and the Kurdish fighters. It has recently been sending reinforcements to its border area, signaling a possible new offensive. Cavusoglu, speaking to reporters at a joint news conference with visiting Nicaraguan counterpart, Denis Moncada, said the U.S. delegation had offered new proposals on the …

Good news for joke-tellers everywhere: Laughter can make a bad joke seem funnier, a study finds. People found jokes paired with laughter funnier than jokes without, and the more natural sounding the laughter was, the better. This effect was the same for people who have autism as it was for those who don’t, which suggests that autistic people may not interpret all social cues as differently as expected. “There’s quite a lot of research arguing that people with autism process social information differently, and there is a little bit of evidence that they process laughter differently,” said Sophie Scott, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London who was a co-author on the study published in Current Biology. This research suggests that the way people with autism interpret laughter may not be so different after all.  People with autism tend to have trouble with social interactions, which could stem from how they process social cues like laughter. In order to study how individuals with autism and those without process laughter, a research team led by University College London Ph.D. student Qing Ceci Cai leveraged the power of the pun. Ready, set, laugh Cai scoured the internet for simple jokes …

South Sudanese technology firms have launched the country’s first mobile money transfer platform, M-Gurush.  It allows customers to pay for goods and services across South Sudan, similar to platforms in Kenya and other African countries.  While a 2018 peace deal allowed for the service to be rolled-out across the country, there are still infrastructure challenges, as Sheila Ponnie reports from Juba …

Kenya’s presidency appointed Labor Minister Ukur Yatani as acting finance minister on Wednesday, a day after incumbent Henry Rotich was charged with corruption. Rotich, who has been in the finance post since 2013, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to corruption charges in connection with tenders for the construction of two dams. Rotich, who was bailed on a surety of 15 million shillings, is one of 26 people facing charges related to the project. He is due to return to court on Aug. 8. President Uhuru Kenyatta also replaced the finance ministry’s number-two official, Kamau Thugge, who was charged alongside Rotich, also pleading not guilty. Italian construction company CMC di Ravenna, which is also implicated in the corruption investigation, has denied any wrongdoing and said late on Tuesday it was co-operating with authorities. “The company is working with the Kenyan judicial authority to settle the matter as soon as possible,” it said in a statement. Kenyan director of public prosecution Noordin Haji said earlier on Tuesday that Nairobi was set to seek the extradition of one of the company’s directors to face charges. Prosecutors accuse the company and Rotich and other Kenyan officials of inflating the cost of building two dams …

India’s Catholic Church, already rocked by allegations that a bishop raped a nun, is facing an uprising by hundreds of priests against one of the country’s four cardinals following his reinstatement by Pope Francis. Francis last year effectively suspended Cardinal George Alencherry, head of the eastern rite Syro-Malabar church in the southern Indian state of Kerala, amid a controversy over disputed land sales. Francis named a temporary administrator to run Alencherry’s Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, resolve its financial problems and try to heal the divisions the dispute had caused among the priests. Last month, Francis reinstated Alencherry after the administrator turned in his report. The findings were never made public, and two auxiliary bishops who were suspended along with Alencherry remain suspended. About 450 priests, including 70 from outside of India, began a hunger strike and prayer vigil last week at the bishop’s house in city of Kochi to protest Alencherry’s reinstatement, the continued suspension of the two bishops and to demand information about the investigation. More than 360 priests signed a petition that was sent to the Vatican. “We were expecting a positive note from Vatican but unfortunately we got a shock that Vatican terminated the apostolic administrator and brought back …

Zimbabwe’s government workers, including public prosecutors, say they are being squeezed by inflation, which is now running at an annual rate of 175 percent. Some have asked to live in their places of work to cut down on the cost of rent and transportation. Thirty-one-year-old Munyaradzi Masiiwa is a high school teacher in Harare. Masiiwa says he went into the profession because he admired his teachers growing up, and saw them living in nice houses and driving nice cars. But now, he says, he has lost all motivation, because his salary of less than $30 per month isn’t enough to support his five dependents, including his 75-year-old mother and two children. This month, he says, the money lasted only three days. “I am going to work right now and l just got porridge. I cannot afford to buy a loaf of bread… It is very difficult, it is very difficult to get used to the situation. The family is looking up to me; l have nothing to offer. The kids are going to school with nothing to eat,” Masiiwa said. Munyaradzi Masiiwa, having porridge for breakfast at his home in Harare on July 23, 2019, as he cannot afford a …

Agriculturist Lauren Goodwin wants children to develop a passion for ethical agriculture. As Ghana’s capital Accra expands, green spaces diminish, and fast food starts to become a norm, Goodwin is teaching kids where their food comes from – and how to grow it themselves.  Stacey Knott reports for VOA, from Accra. …

As Ghana’s capital Accra expands, green spaces have diminished and fast food is starting to become a norm; however, agriculturist Lauren Goodwin wants to ensure that children understand where their food comes from – and how to grow it themselves.  Tucked away in one of Accra’s few green spaces, children are spending their school holiday learning about ethical agriculture and healthy living.  Ghana, like many nations across the world, is seeing a rise in fast food consumption and the associated health risks. Fried local street food and fast food restaurants are common sights throughout the capital. Goodwin, founder of the Under the Mango Tree Camp, says she sees people, especially in cities, becoming disconnected from their food source.  “I know that children need to be a part of this. This can’t be a conversation that we just keep for adults, it can’t be, you know. We are growing and we have our young people that are coming up; it’s so important they are exposed to this thing. They need to know how food grows,” Goodwin said. This month, the children have been learning about all aspects of ethical agriculture, from composting to creating natural pesticides. The camp is held at …

A political storm has erupted in India over remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to help mediate in the longstanding dispute between New Delhi and Islamabad over the region of Kashmir. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan thanked Trump and expressed surprise at India’s reaction. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.      …

Virtual reality, or VR, is not just a medium for software engineers who can code. Artists and filmmakers are exploring the stories they can tell with VR. A collection of such experiences are now a part of an art show called Robot Remix. The art show challenges visitors to rethink their relationship with technology, robots and the world. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from the show in Pasadena, California. …

French authorities in a meeting Tuesday with an Iranian envoy stressed the need for Tehran to quickly respect the 2015 nuclear accord it has breached and “make the needed gestures” to deescalate mounting tensions in the Persian Gulf region. A statement by the French Foreign Ministry said Seyed Abbas Araghchi gave a message to President Emmanuel Macron from Iranian leader Hassen Rouhani. Macron and Rouhani spoke last Thursday. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who met with Araghchi, is working with European partners on an observation mission to ensure maritime security in the Gulf, where tensions have mounted after Iran’s seizure last Friday of a U.K.-flagged oil tanker. Le Drian made no mention of a Europe-led “maritime protection mission” announced a day earlier by his British counterpart, Jeremy Hunt, offering instead what seems to be a softer version.   France is working “at this moment on a European initiative” with Britain and Germany, he told lawmakers, without elaborating. “This vision is the opposite of the American initiative, which is … maximum pressure” against Iran. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes Von der Muhll said at a briefing that the initiative involves “appropriate means of surveillance” aimed at “increased understanding of the situation at …

Tokyo Electric Power plans to scrap its Fukushima Daini nuclear station, located a few miles south of the bigger Fukushima Daiichi plant where three reactors melted down in 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami, Kyodo News reported on Wednesday. Tomoaki Kobayakawa, president of Tepco, as the company is called, will visit the governor of Fukushima prefecture on Wednesday to convey the plan and its board will formally approve the decision later this month, Kyodo said, without citing sources. Three reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, which had six reactors and is located about 12 kilometers (7 miles) north of Fukushima Daini, suffered meltdowns after the giant March 2011 earthquake and tsunami shut down the plant’s cooling systems. The Daini station also came close to a disaster, but retained enough backup power to keep cooling going. Successive Fukushima governors have called for it to be scrapped. A Tepco spokesman told Reuters by phone that nothing has been decided on the issue. Scrapping the Daini station will leave Tepco with just one potentially operational nuclear station, Kawazaki Kariwa, where it is trying to get two reactors returned to service under new safety regulations against strong local opposition. It will also leave Japan with 33 …

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had imposed visa restrictions on Nigerians it said were involved in trying to undermine democracy in presidential and parliamentary elections this year. The department did not name the individuals or say how many were affected by the visa restrictions. President Muhammadu Buhari won a second term in February in an election marred by delays, logistical glitches and violence. “These individuals have operated with impunity at the expense of the Nigerian people and undermined democratic principles and human rights,” spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. “The Department of State emphasizes that the actions announced today are specific to certain individuals and not directed at the Nigerian people or the newly elected government,” Ortagus added. …

A wounded Arnel Joseph was lying on a stretcher, ready to be wheeled into an operating room at the Bonne Fin hospital of Les Cayes, a Caribbean seaport located in Haiti’s southern region, when members of a special unit of the National Police Force’s (PNH) swooped in to arrest him. “We’ve captured Arnel!” the officers shouted angrily, then they fired their weapons into the air, in a video seen by VOA Creole. The alleged gang leader, considered to be one of the country’s most dangerous and wanted fugitives, was awaiting surgery on his wounded leg, when he was found and captured, according to National Police Chief Michel Ange Gedeon. The leg was wounded during a fire fight with rival gang leader Ti Sourit, Arnel told reporters as they snapped photos and recorded video of him after his arrest. Police Chief Gédeon tweeted the news to a stunned nation.  🔴Le chef de gang Arnel Joseph très recherché depuis des mois par la Alleged gang leader Arnel Joseph lies on the ground as police puts boot on his chest. In a conversation with journalists posted on YouTube, he said he considers himself to be a “representative” of the Village de Dieu slum …

Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande each received 10 nominations for the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) on Tuesday, leading the race in the youth-orientated awards show, which this year includes two new categories, best K-pop and video for good. Singer-songwriter Billie Eilish scored nine nominations, including video of the year, best pop, best new artist and artist of the year, a category the 17-year-old will compete for against Grande, rapper Cardi B, pop rocker siblings Jonas Brothers as well as singers Halsey and Shawn Mendes. Grande’s breakup anthem “thank u, next” and Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down,” in which she criticises social media trolls and those who attack LGBTQ people, will contend for prizes including song of the year, best pop and the video of the year. That major category also includes Eilish’s “Bad Guy”, Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker,” “Old Town Road (Remix)” by rapper Lil Nas X featuring country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and “a lot” by rapper 21 Savage featuring J. Cole. The 29-year-old Swift, whose acceptance speech at the 2009 awards was famously interrupted by rapper Kanye West, also received nominations for “ME!” her upbeat duet with Brendon Urie, the lead singer of Panic! at the Disco. …

Kosovo’s outgoing prime minister and wartime guerrilla commander Ramush Haradinaj, left Tuesday for the Hague to be interrogated by a war crimes court as a suspect, public RTK television said. Haradinaj has already been tried and acquitted twice for war crimes by the Hague based U.N. tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). “Freedom fighters always do what is right and just,” he wrote on Facebook. Haradinaj resigned last week as prime minister after being summoned by the war crimes court. He left Pristina in the afternoon on a private plane belonging to Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli, RTK reported. He is expected to be interrogated by the special tribunal on Wednesday. Created in 2015, the tribunal is in charge with investigations of the crimes allegedly committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against Serbs, Roma and ethnic Albanian political opponents during and after the 1998-99 war. The tribunal is part of the Kosovo judiciary but composed of international judges and based in the Hague to ensure the protection of witnesses. In a January interview, Haradinaj told AFP that he would respond to a possible summoning, but also that “there is a fatigue in Kosovo with this tribunal”. “I always responded to (requirements) …

Lebanon accused Israel on Tuesday of threatening its civilian infrastructure after Israel told the United Nations Security Council that Iran was exploiting the Port of Beirut to smuggle weapons to the Hezbollah movement. Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, said that in 2018 and 2019, “Israel found that Iran and the Quds Force have begun to advance the exploitation of the civilian maritime channels, and specifically the Port of Beirut.” “The Port of Beirut is now the Port of Hezbollah,” Danon told the 15-member Security Council. Israel sees Hezbollah, against which it fought a month-long war in 2006, as the biggest threat on its borders. Lebanese U.N. Ambassador Amal Mudallali said the Lebanese saw such accusations a “direct threats on their peace and civilian infrastructure.” Hezbollah is part of Lebanon’s coalition government. “If he is using them to prepare the ground and the international community for an attack on Lebanon’s civilian ports and airport and its infrastructure – as they did in 2006 – this council should not stay silent,” she said. Speaking in the council later on Tuesday, Iran’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Eshagh Al-Habib, did not directly address the Israeli accusations, but said Danon had “unsuccessfully tried to distract attention …

Amid the bombing campaign between the Syrian regime and rebel forces in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, a small group of young students tried to bring normalcy to the chaos by creating a secret library deep underneath a bullet-ridden building. The library was built to create a safe shelter for residents to gather and read.  For months, Mike Thomson, a British-based journalist, documented the students’ efforts in his book “Syria’s Secret Library: Reading and Redemption in a Town Under Siege.”  Damaged buildings line the street in Daraya after bombardment by the Syrian regime. “Most of the town was under sniper fire from the government soldiers who were based in high-rise buildings near the front lines,” Thomson told VOA about the operation.  “They gathered these books under sniper fire and sometimes under shell fire. They brought ladders with them to climb from windows. It was a dangerous exercise they often did during the night,” Thomson said.  Daraya, a suburb located 8 kilometers to the southwest of the Syrian capital, was one of the first areas to witness protests against the Syrian regime in 2011. It soon became a rebel stronghold and a major center of battle. The town suffered a brutal …

Australian researchers are looking to Africa and the Middle East for drought- and heat-resistant crops as many grain farmers face another failed season. Key farming regions in southern Queensland are forecast to miss their third winter grain crop in a row. The national crop this year is expected to be about 10 percent below the 10-year average. Australia’s Grains Research and Development Corporation, the GRDC, is carrying out a global search for climate-proof grains. GRDC’s northern panel chairman, John Minogue, says crops in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa could be adapted to help farmers become more resilient in the face of a warming climate and less rainfall. “We have got people in Syria, in Africa, in all of the parts of the world, which have historically had these crops grown for thousands of years,” he said. “We have a lot of investments in people on behalf of the grain growers searching the world for plants that are resistant to drought and also that are able to handle stress conditions and heat, and identifying the germplasm [genetic material] that we can then integrate into the Australian crops.” Large areas of eastern Australia have been in drought for …

Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a law returning the OPEC nation to a regional defense treaty on Tuesday, but opposition leader Juan Guaido sought to tamp down supporters’ hopes it could lead to President Nicolas Maduro’s imminent downfall. Opposition hardliners had been pressuring Guaido to join the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, as a precursor to requesting a foreign military intervention to oust Maduro, a socialist who has overseen an economic collapse and is accused of human rights violations. “The TIAR is not magic, it is not a button that we press and then tomorrow everything is resolved,” Guaido told a rally of supporters in Caracas, using the treaty’s Spanish initials. “In itself it is not the solution – it obliges us to take to the streets with greater force to exercise our majority.” The treaty states that an attack on one of the members – which include most large Western Hemisphere countries including the United States, Brazil and Colombia – should be considered an attack on all. Venezuela and other leftist Latin American countries left the alliance between 2012 and 2013. Venezuela plunged into a deep power struggle in January when Guaido invoked …

Russian activists confirmed Tuesday that a woman found dead of stab wounds in Saint Petersburg earlier this week was a well-known human rights activist who had been threatened over her work for LGBT rights and opposition causes. Yelena Grigoryeva, 41, was active with Russia’s Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBTQ for Equality and other activist causes, according to the Russian LGBT Network. “An activist of democratic, anti-war and LGBT movements Yelena Grigoryeva was brutally murdered near her house,” opposition campaigner Dinar Idrisov wrote on Facebook. He said she had recently reported threats of violence to the police, but they took no action. Friends and fellow activists said Grigoryeva’s name was listed on a Russian website that identified LGBT activists and called for vigilante action against them. Saint Petersburg online newspaper Fontanka said Grigoryeva was found with knife injuries to her back and face and had apparently been strangled. A 40-year-old male suspect from the region of Bashkortostan has been arrested, it reported. …

Cameroonian security forces moved Tuesday to quell uprisings in two prisons by inmates protesting the government’s crackdown on the Anglophone separatist movement and poor conditions of incarceration. Scores of people from English-speaking regions of the central African country have been arrested over the last two years during a conflict between the mostly French-speaking government and separatist rebels seeking to form an independent state called Ambazonia. The United Nations estimates the conflict in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions has killed about 1,800 people and displaced over 500,000 since late 2017. A Cameroonian security source confirmed that a riot took place in the central prison of the capital Yaounde and said several people were injured. Government spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Videos filmed by inmates and uploaded to Facebook showed protesters there crying “Ambazonia rising!” as they hurled debris at security forces inside the Kondengui prison in Yaounde. Loud crackles that sounded like gunfire could be heard in the background and fires could be seen burning in parts of the prison, sending thick plumes of smoke billowing into the air. “Our brothers are slaughtered, children killed,” said one unidentified man, speaking in English. “We are tired of …

An executive of state-owned EgyptAir said Tuesday that British Airways’ decision to suspend flights to Cairo, the Egyptian capital, for several days was “without a logical reason.” The vice chairman of EgyptAir Holding Co, Sherif Ezzat Badrous, told reporters at a ceremony marking the delivery of the carrier’s newest Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner that Cairo airport is safe and EgyptAir continues to operate in a “very safe environment.” British Airways, part of International Airlines Group, suspended flights to Cairo on Saturday for seven days “as a security precaution” as it reviews security at the Cairo airport. Later Saturday, Germany’s Lufthansa said it had canceled services from Munich and Frankfurt to Cairo, but it resumed flights Sunday. FILE – Tourists wait for their flight, as an Egyptair plane is seen, background, at a waiting hall in Cairo’s international airport in Egypt. “What happened three days ago was unexpected completely, and without a logical reason,” Sherif Ezzat Badrous said. “Until now, at this moment, we don’t have any logical reason” for the actions taken by British Airways. “You can ask them about the true reasons,” he added. On Sunday, Egypt’s aviation minister, Younis Al-Masry, “expressed his displeasure at British Airways’ taking a …

The Senate gave final legislative approval Tuesday to a bill ensuring that a victims’ compensation fund related to the Sept. 11 attacks never runs out of money. The 97-2 vote sends the bill to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The vote came after Democratic senators agreed to allow votes on amendments sponsored by two Republican senators who had been blocking the widely popular bill. The Senate easily defeated the amendments proposed by GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Lee and Paul voted against the bill’s final passage. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., speaks at a news conference on the 9/11 victims fund on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 18, 2019. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said 9/11 first responders and their families have had “enough of political games” that delayed passage of the bill for months. “Our 9/11 heroes deserve this program as written,” Gillibrand said. “Let our heroes go home and live in peace and finally exhale.”  The bill would extend through 2092 a fund created after the 2001 terrorist attacks, essentially making it permanent. The $7.4 billion fund is rapidly being depleted, and administrators recently …