Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval rating hit a new high because of his anti-crime work and populist appeal across class lines, a survey shows. While many nations and groups around the world criticize him, Duterte earned a net satisfaction rating of 68 in the second quarter of 2019, according to a July 8 public opinion survey by Manila area research institution Social Weather Stations. The rating marked a new “personal record high,” the president said on his office website. He had scored 66 in March as well as in June 2017. The president fared well in the heavily watched survey of 1,200 adults because his anti-crime campaign has made people feel safer in urban neighborhoods, common Filipinos and scholars in the country say. Duterte, elected in 2016, got there in part by letting police shoot drug crime suspects on the spot, outraged overseas rights groups believe. Duterte also makes sense to common people because of speech and demeanor that cast him as a political outsider, analysts say. Fast economic growth has given him a boost, they observe. “The way he presents himself is that he speaks street language,” said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at the University of the …

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Army Secretary Mark Esper to be secretary of defense, ending the longest period by far that the Pentagon has been without a permanent top official. As voting continued, the Senate overwhelmingly backed Esper, a former lobbyist for weapons maker Raytheon Co., to be President Donald Trump’s second confirmed leader of the Pentagon. Esper, 55, received strong bipartisan support despite some sharp questioning during his confirmation hearing by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren about his ties to Raytheon and his refusal to extend an ethics commitment he signed in 2017 to avoid decisions involving the company. Warren, a 2020 presidential hopeful, was the only member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to voice opposition to Esper’s confirmation during the hearing. Raytheon is the third-largest U.S. defense contractor. There has been no confirmed defense secretary since Jim Mattis resigned in December over policy differences with Trump. Many members of Congress from both parties have urged the Republican president to act urgently to fill the powerful position. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on members to support Esper as he opened the Senate on Tuesday morning. “The nominee is beyond qualified. His record of public service is beyond …

A judge in Puerto Rico has issued search warrants for the phones of the U.S. territory’s governor, Ricardo Rossello, and 11 of his political allies in connection with a texting scandal. The search warrants were issued for individuals who had not yet given up their phones as part of an investigation, a spokesperson for Puerto Rico’s Department of Justice told the Associated Press. The warrants were issued a day after protestors mobilized for a 10th straight day against embattled Governor Ricardo Rossello. Demonstrations ended late Monday with police using tear gas to disperse demonstrators who had gathered near the governor’s mansion in the capital, San Juan. A massive crowd estimated at 500,000 people, including pop singer Ricky Martin and other Puerto Rican-born entertainers, filled the streets of the earlier Monday demanding Rossello quit. The public fury erupted nearly two weeks ago when the island’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of online group chats between Governor Rossello and several top aides and associates that included profane messages laced with contempt for victims of 2017’s Hurricane Maria, as well as misogynistic and homophobic slurs against Rossello’s political opponents.   The publication of the chats unleashed long-simmering anger among Puerto …

The FBI has more than 1,000 investigations of U.S. intellectual property theft in all 50 states with nearly all leading back to China, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, calling China the No. 1 counter-intelligence threat to the United States. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Wray described the threat as “more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counter-intelligence threat that I can think of.” The Chinese threat ranges from cyber intrusions to corruption of insiders at U.S. companies small and large, Wray said, citing a series of recent Chinese economic espionage cases investigated by the FBI.  U.S. academia, he added, remains particularly vulnerable to Chinese spying efforts to steal publicly-funded proprietary research .      “It’s an all tools approach by them,” Wray said.  “Therefore, it requires an all tools approach by us.” FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 23, 2019. Asked about the upcoming 2020 U.S. elections, Wray reiterated previous comments that Moscow remains intent on interfering in them, calling Russia the No. 2 counter- intelligence threat to the United States. The testimony comes one day before former special counsel Robert Mueller …

Democratic White House hopeful Kamala Harris will introduce a Senate bill on Tuesday to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, erase past convictions and use funds from marijuana sales to invest in communities hit by the decades-long “war on drugs.” Harris, a U.S. senator from California and the state’s former attorney general, will be joined by Democratic U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, who will introduce the bill in the House of Representatives. Both serve on the judiciary panels in their respective chambers that would hold initial hearings on the measure. A preview of the Harris-Nadler legislation was provided to Reuters by Harris’ Senate office. “Times have changed — marijuana should not be a crime,” Harris said in a statement. “We need to start regulating marijuana, and expunge marijuana convictions from the records of millions of Americans so they can get on with their lives.” Harris’ marijuana stances have evolved. In May 2018, the former prosecutor signed onto a bill by now fellow White House contender Senator Cory Booker to fully legalize it after previously supporting legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing past convictions. Nadler said in a statement that as U.S. states have legalized marijuana use, those with past …

South Korean air force jets fired 360 rounds of warning shots Tuesday after a Russian military plane twice violated South Korea’s airspace off the country’s east coast, Seoul officials said in an announcement that was quickly disputed by Russia. South Korea said three Russian military planes — two Tu-95 bombers and one A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft — entered the South’s air defense identification zone off its east coast before the A-50 intruded in South Korean airspace. Russia said later that two of its Tu-95MS bombers were on a routine flight over neutral waters and didn’t enter South Korean territory. According to South Korean government accounts, an unspecified number of South Korean fighter jets, including F-16s, scrambled to the area and fired 10 flares and 80 rounds from machine guns as warning shots. Seoul defense officials said the Russian reconnaissance aircraft left the area three minutes later but later returned and violated South Korean airspace again for four minutes. The officials said the South Korean fighter jets then fired 10 flares and 280 rounds from machine guns as warning shots. South Korea said it was the first time a foreign military plane had violated South Korean airspace since …

When Robert Mueller testifies before Congress on Wednesday about his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, a key part of the U.S. public appears likely to tune out Republicans. According to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday, only 18% of Republicans said they planned on watching the former special counsel’s testimony when it is broadcast live on the major U.S. television networks. Sixty percent of Republicans said they would not watch and the rest were not sure. The poll also found that while 70% of Republicans said they knew Mueller was scheduled to be questioned in front of two Democratic-led House of Representatives committees this week, only 31% said it was “very” or “somewhat” important. Trump’s fellow Republicans have consistently backed him throughout his presidency, and their support has remained strong as Mueller’s team racked up convictions and guilty pleas from former members of Trump’s inner circle. On Monday, Trump said he himself was probably “not going to be watching,” but added: “Maybe I’ll see a little bit of it.” Trump has attacked the Mueller investigation and the FBI inquiry that preceded it as a politically motivated “witch …

The IMF on Tuesday slashed its economic growth expectation for Latin America in 2019 by more than half compared with estimates from just three months ago, citing its downgrades to growth in both Brazil and Mexico, the region’s largest economies. Latin America’s economic output is now expected to grow 0.6% this year, down from an expected 1.4% growth in the International Monetary Fund’s outlook from April. Globally, the IMF expects GDP to grow 3.2% this year, or about 0.1% below their previous estimate. Brazil’s 2019 growth estimate was cut to 0.8% from 2.1% in April, while Mexico’s fell to 0.9% from 1.6%. The sharp cut to Brazil, by far Latin America’s largest economy, stems mainly from uncertainty over the future of legislation including a key pension overhaul. An initial vote cleared the lower house of Congress earlier this month, but full passage is still pending. The initial vote, however, helped snap a run of 20 consecutive weeks of growth forecast downgrades by Brazilian economists in a central bank survey. Mexico, on the other hand, faces an increasingly tough environment as investors continue to lose confidence in the policies of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and as industrial output slides. The …

When Robert Mueller testifies to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, Democratic lawmakers are expected to try to pin down the former special counsel on a crucial question: did he intend for them to carry on where he left off in his investigation of President Donald Trump and the Russians? As Democrats craft their agenda heading into the 2020 elections in which the Republican president is seeking a second four-year term, they will be eager to hear from Mueller about the findings of his 22-month inquiry before deciding how they should tackle its unanswered questions. It is unclear how cooperative Mueller, a 74-year-old former FBI director and federal prosecutor, will be and whether he will stray far from the text of his 448-page report on the investigation, which Trump’s Justice Department released only in redacted form in April. The report found that Russia interfered with a campaign of hacking and propaganda in the 2016 presidential election to boost Trump’s candidacy. It found that people in Trump’s election campaign had numerous contacts with Russians. But it concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s team and Moscow. The report also described numerous instances in which Trump tried to …

Moroccan lawmakers passed a draft law on Monday evening that would pave the way for strengthening the place of French in Moroccan schools, overturning decades of Arabisation. The legislation was adopted in the lower house by 241-4, with 21 abstentions. Most members of the mainly Islamist co-ruling PJD and conservative Istiqlal lawmakers abstained from voting on the articles stipulating the use of French as a language of instruction. The text will enter into force after a second reading in the upper house and its publication in the official bulletin. The country’s official languages are Arabic and Amazigh, or Berber. Most people speak Moroccan Arabic — a mixture of Arabic and Amazigh infused with French and Spanish influences. French reigns supreme, however, in business, government and higher education, giving those who can afford to be privately schooled in French a huge advantage over most of the country’s students. Two out of three people fail to complete their studies at public universities in Morocco, mainly because they do not speak French, according to education ministry figures. To curb the number of university dropouts and equip people with the language requirements needed for jobs, the government proposed reintroducing French as a language of …

A tenth day of protests in Puerto Rico against embattled Governor Ricardo Rossello ended late Monday with police using tear gas to disperse protesters who had gathered near the governor’s mansion in San Juan. A massive crowd estimated at 500,000 people, including pop singer Ricky Martin and other Puerto Rican-born entertainers, filled the streets of the capital earlier in the day demanding Rossello resign.  The public fury erupted nearly two weeks ago when the island’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of online group chats between Gov. Rossello and several top aides and associates that included several profane messages laced with contempt for victims of 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people and left the island without power for months, as well as numerous misogynistic and homophobic slurs against Rossello’s political opponents.   The publication of the chats unleashed a long-simmering anger among Puerto Ricans worn down by years of public corruption and mismanagement that left the U.S. territory under the control of a congressionally-mandated oversight board to guide it out of a multi-billion dollar debt crisis.   Rossello stepped down as leader of the New Progressive Party during a televised address Sunday and said he would not …

Saint Louis, Senegal is home to generations of fishermen, who say they know no other life or way to make a living.   But rising sea levels and new international regulations are forcing them to change how they work.  Though most fishermen here learned from their fathers, who learned from theirs, most say the work today is nothing like it was for older generations. “Our parents were lucky – traditional rules in the fishing community were well established and respected,” fisherman Ousmane Diop told VOA. “But things have changed now. Families are expanding and using new materials.” According to Diop, the saturation of the market is one of their biggest challenges. Most fishermen in Saint Louis are polygamous – taking multiple wives to have as many sons as possible. The more sons they have, the more they can expand their family staff on their fishing boats. But other challenges have led to increased market saturation – namely, increased security in the neighboring waters of Mauritania. For years, many fishermen based in Saint Louis fished in Mauritania’s maritime territory.  But over the past year, the Mauritanians have increased both their own fishing as well as security in their waters. Senegalese fishermen who …

Trump says he wants Pakistan’s help to end war in Afghanistan peacefully because he did not want to wipe the country “off the face of the earth” …

The hot summer months often mean very hot asphalt roads. The dark asphalt absorbs more light and emits more heat.  But now the city of Los Angeles is trying to find a way to cool off these asphalt roads, and is testing so-called cool pavement.  Officials say a special coating helps lower the surface temperature by 10 degrees Fahrenheit or more. Angelina Bagdasaryan has this report narrated by Anna Rice. …

South Korea says it fired warning shots at a Russian military aircraft after the plane breached South Korea’s airspace. South Korea’s Defense Ministry says three Russian aircraft entered its air defense identification zone early Tuesday morning off its east coast before one of them breached the airspace. South Korean air force jets were deployed to intercept the plane and forced the Russian plane to leave the airspace.  But the aircraft violated the airspace 20 minutes later, and stayed briefly before South Korean fighter jets fired another warning shot. The ministry says it was the first time a Russian military aircraft violated South Korean airspace. Two Chinese aircraft also flew into the South’s air defense identification zone off the east coast hours earlier. The ministry says it will summon both Russian and Chinese embassy officials later Tuesday to lodge a formal protest. The violation happened near a disputed group of islands claimed by both South Korea, which calls it Dokdo, and Japan, which calls it Takeshima.   …

Brazil seized 25.3 tons of cocaine bound for Europe and Africa in the first half of 2019, up more than 90 percent on the same period last year, officials said Monday. Nearly half of the drugs were found at Santos port in southern Brazil, not far from where police recently arrested two men suspected of belonging to Italian mafia ‘Ndrangheta. Customs officials attributed the increase in seizures to better intelligence and increased vigilance along Brazil’s borders. “Last year we seized 31.4 tons of cocaine, a record that we will surely beat again,” Arthur Cazella told AFP.  The amount of cannabis confiscated more than doubled to 10.2 tons in the January-June period, up from 3.9 tons year-on-year. Brazil, which has some 17,000 kilometers (10,500 miles)of land borders, is an important hub for international drug trafficking.  Drugs produced in Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Paraguay are smuggled into Brazil and then sent to mainly European markets.  Some routes to Africa are also opening up, Cazella said. Cocaine seizures have soared in recent years, from 958 kilograms in 2014 to last year’s record 31.4 tons. …

Once upon a time, not too far from Hollywood, two of the world’s biggest movie stars were talking about what it’s like to screw up on set.   “Messing up the lines in front of the entire cast and crew?” Leonardo DiCaprio said.  “It’s the going to school in your underwear nightmare.” “It’s awful,” Brad Pitt chimed in. “When a scene’s not working. When YOU’RE not working in a scene…It goes beyond not being able to get the lines. You have 100 people there who are all ready to get on with their day and get home.” DiCaprio hasn’t exactly had to resort to dunking his head in ice water after a too-late and too-fun night out, as his actor character does in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” But Pitt? “Oh I’ve done that,” he laughed. The two actors, who skyrocketed to fame around the same time more than a quarter century ago, have joined forces for the first time in a major motion picture to take on their own industry, their own town and even their own egos in a time of great change — 1969 Hollywood. Out nationwide Friday, it’s also reunited them with Quentin Tarantino. …

Mexico’s economy, the 2nd largest in Latin America, has hit a rough patch, weighed down by dwindling business confidence and an industrial slump. But ahead of GDP data for the second quarter due on July 31, a debate has raged over whether all that gloom adds up to a recession. Several banks say definitely yes – an assessment that could call into question the ability of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s eight-month-old government to deliver on his promises of development and improved fortunes for the country’s poor. “We estimate GDP will also contract in the second quarter, putting Mexico in a technical recession, two consecutive quarters of negative growth,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a client note in late June. The government strongly disagrees. “There has been a slowdown on a global level,” said Finance Minister Arturo Herrera in his first press conference earlier this month, after his predecessor abruptly resigned. “But we are very, very far from thinking that we are close to a recession.” In theory, defining whether there is a recession in Mexico could decide whether policymakers need to take action. “If the government thinks there is a danger of recession, it could implement countercyclical …

High-profile Philippine journalist Maria Ressa’s libel trial opens Tuesday in a case that press freedom advocates see as government retaliation for her news site’s critical reporting on President Rodrigo Duterte. Ressa, who leads online outlet Rappler and was named a Time Magazine “Person of the Year” in 2018 for her journalism, is out on bail and faces years in prison if convicted. This case is among a string of criminal charges that have hit Ressa and Rappler over the past year, prompting allegations that authorities are targeting her and her team for their work, The news portal has reported extensively and often critically on Duterte’s policies, including a deadly crackdown that rights groups say may be a crime against humanity. “The message that the government is sending is very clear,” Ressa told reporters in February as she posted bail after spending the night in jail over the libel case: “Be silent or you’re next.” FILE – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures during the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-LakasBayan (PDP-LABAN) meeting in Manila, May 11, 2019. The case that opens Tuesday centers on a Rappler report from 2012 about a businessman’s alleged ties to a then-judge of the nation’s top court. Government investigators …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is hailing a new chapter in U.S. relations with Latin America following a whirlwind trip to four countries in South and Central America. The top U.S. diplomat, who stopped in El Salvador, Mexico, Ecuador, and Argentina during his trip, said countries that commit themselves to fighting crime and corruption and promoting democracy will reap the benefits. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine traveled with the U.S. secretary of state and filed this report …

Mexico set a new record for homicides in the first half of the year as the number of murders grew by 5.3% compared to the same period of 2018, fueled partly by cartel and gang violence in several states.  Mexico saw 3,080 killings in June, an increase of over 8% from the same month a year ago, according to official figures. The country of almost 125 million now sees as many as 100 killings per day nationwide.  The 17,608 killings in the first half of 2019 is the most since comparable records began being kept in 1997, including the peak year of Mexico’s drug war in 2011. Officials said 16,714 people were killed in the first half of 2018.  In particular, drug cartel turf wars have become increasingly bloody in the northern state of Sonora, where the number of homicides was up by 69% in the first half of the year. But in Sinaloa, where the cartel of convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is based, homicides declined by 23% so far this year compared to last. Given cutbacks and a widespread reorganization of security forces under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, it is not clear who, if anyone, …

Behind America’s late leap into orbit and triumphant small step on the moon was the agile mind and guts-of-steel of Chris Kraft, making split-second decisions that propelled the nation to once unimaginable heights. Kraft, the creator and longtime leader of NASA’s Mission Control, died Monday in Houston, just two days after the 50th anniversary of what was his and NASA’s crowning achievement: Apollo 11’s moon landing. He was 95. Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. never flew in space, but “held the success or failure of American human spaceflight in his hands,” Neil Armstrong, the first man-on-the-moon, told The Associated Press in 2011. Kraft founded Mission Control and created the job of flight director — later comparing it to an orchestra conductor — and established how flights would be run as the space race between the U.S. and Soviets heated up. The legendary engineer served as flight director for all of the one-man Mercury flights and seven of the two-man Gemini flights, helped design the Apollo missions that took 12 Americans to the moon from 1969 to 1972 and later served as director of the Johnson Space Center until 1982, overseeing the beginning of the era of the space shuttle. Armstrong once …

Marvel’s push for more women and people of color in its immensely popular film franchise is extending to behind the camera as it launches its next round of films after the massive success of “Avengers: Endgame.” Of the five films the superhero studio announced at Comic-Con on Saturday, only one is set to be directed by a white man.  “It’s about fresh voices and new voices and great filmmakers who can continue to steer the (Marvel Cinematic Universe) into new places,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said in an interview after the studio’s explosive Hall H panel. “And I am as proud of that lineup of directors as you saw today as any.” In addition to a slew of women and people of color at the helm of the upcoming Marvel films, the weekend’s announcements promised more diversity on screen.  Rachel Weisz, left, and Scarlett Johansson participate during the “Black Widow” portion of the Marvel Studios panel on day three of Comic-Con International on July 20, 2019, in San Diego. First up for release is the long-awaited solo film starring Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, the lethal assassin she has played for nearly a decade. The film is set …

U.S. space agency NASA on Monday asked American aerospace companies to offer detailed ideas for vehicles that could bring two astronauts to the moon by 2024, an American objective that was reconfirmed on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. NASA called the request for input a “major step” forward for its new moon mission, dubbed Artemis — who in Greek mythology was Apollo’s twin sister. The space agency published documents explaining in detail what it is looking for in a lunar lander that will bring the two astronauts, one a woman, to the moon’s south pole, where they will stay for six-and-a-half days. In May, 11 companies including sector mainstays Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman were picked to lead feasibility studies and develop prototypes by November. Also on the list were newcomers such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. That same month, Blue Origin unveiled its lander project, Blue Moon. Now, NASA has provided dozens of pages of specifications that must be met in terms of onboard electronics, communications, and spacesuits. Any company can reply, not just the 11 shortlisted earlier in the year. “On the heels of the 50th Anniversary of #Apollo11, we’ve …