POPGAZETA

Pope Francis said Sunday that the Amazon forest is vital for our Earth and is urging prayers that fires there are quickly controlled.    Francis added his voice to the chorus of international concern that the blazes in Brazil will have grave repercussions on the world’s environmental health.    The pontiff, who is from the neighboring South American nation of Argentina, told the public in St. Peter’s Square that “we’re all worried” about the vast Amazon fires. He warned that that green “lung of forest is vital for our planet.”    Francis said”let us pray so that, with the efforts of all, they are controlled as quickly as possible”   The blazes have sparked anti-government protests in Brazil and became a pressing issue for leaders at the Group of Seven summit in France.   Backed by military aircraft, Brazilian troops on Saturday deployed in the Amazon to fight the fires.   Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro also tried to temper global concern, saying that previously deforested areas had burned and that intact rainforest was spared.   Even so, the fires were an issue of top concern at the G-7 summit.   French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that leaders of major democracies …

Australia will send a warship and surveillance aircraft to the Persian Gulf to join an international effort to combat Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. Australia has for several weeks been considering joining the U.S.-led military effort, which also includes Britain and Bahrain. The Iranian supertanker Grace 1 sits anchored in the British territory of Gibraltar, Aug. 15, 2019, seized last month in a British Royal Navy operation. Tensions in the region increased after United Kingdom forces helped authorities in Gibraltar seize an Iranian tanker, believing it was carrying oil to Syria in breach of European Union sanctions. Iran retaliated by impounding a British ship in the Persian Gulf. Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on a visit to Sydney, urged Australia to join efforts to counter “Iran’s unprovoked attacks on international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.” The government in Canberra has decided to send a warship, surveillance aircraft and military personnel to join the U.S.-led mission. The navy frigate is scheduled to arrive in January. Officials believe any disruption to the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz is a “potential threat” to the Australian …

South Korea has begun two days of war games near a set of disputed islands that are also claimed by Japan.  The two countries have long disagreed on who has rightful claim to the islands known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.  The islands are “obviously an inherent part of the territory of Japan,”  Kenji Kanasugi, the director general of Japan’s foreign ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, told the South Korean Embassy in Tokyo in a statement.  The drills began Sunday, just days after Seoul decided to scrap a military intelligence sharing agreement with Tokyo.  Dokdo/Takeshima island The latest flare-up in tensions between the two Asian nations is rooted in Japan’s brutal 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula.  A major source of friction is how to compensate those forced into labor and sexual slavery in the colonist era.  Japan says the reparation issue was resolved with a 1965 treaty that normalized Japan – South Korea relations.   Japan has complained that subsequent South Korean governments have not accepted further Japanese apologies and attempts to make amends.  …

An Iranian-flagged oil tanker pursued by the U.S. amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington changed its listed destination to a port in Turkey after Greece said it wouldn’t risk its relations with America by aiding it. Meanwhile, Iran sanctioned a prominent Washington-based think tank that led criticism of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers over its alleged “economic terrorism,” something the organization described as a “badge of honor.” The crew of the oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, formerly known as the Grace 1, on Saturday updated its listed destination in its Automatic Identification System to Mersin, Turkey, a port city in the country’s south and home to an oil terminal. However, mariners can input any destination into the AIS, so Turkey may not be its true destination. Mersin is some 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of a refinery in Baniyas, Syria, where authorities alleged the Adrian Darya had been heading before being seized off Gibraltar in early July. Iranian state media did not acknowledge the new reported destination of the Adrian Darya, which carries 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil worth some $130 million. Nor was there any immediate reaction from Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan …

Seventy-five years ago, they helped free Europe from the Nazis. This weekend, U.S. veterans are back in Paris to celebrate, and commemorate. Now in their 90s, these men aren’t afraid to cry about what they saw in World War II. And they want everyone to remember what happened back then, so that it doesn’t happen again. “The veterans, all the veterans of World War II, I think we saved the world,” said Harold Angle, who came to France with the U.S. 28th Infantry Division in 1944, and recounted his experiences to The Associated Press in Paris. “To be under the domination of a dictatorship like the Hitler regime and some of the terrible, terrible things that they did. “When you talk about taking little kids out on a firing range and shooting them for target practice….” Emotion choked his voice. “I can’t imagine anybody doing things like that. So I think we really did save the world. The guy had to be stopped.” Now 96, he’s among Allied veterans, French resistance fighters and others taking part in ceremonies Saturday and Sunday marking the 75th anniversary of the military operation that liberated Paris from Nazi occupation. Angle, from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, landed …

U.S. President Donald Trump is in Biarritz, France for the G-7 summit where his first order of business Sunday was a working breakfast with new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom the American president once referred to as “Britain’s Trump”. “He’s going to be a fantastic prime minister,” said Trump, adding that Johnson “needs no advice” on Brexit and that he’s “the right man for the job”.  “It didn’t make your predecessor very happy, but I’ve been saying it for a long time,” Trump added, referring to Theresa May who resigned over her failure to deliver Brexit, Britain’s exit from the European Union Johnson responded, “You’re on message there. I’m very grateful for that”. But Johnson pushed Trump back on the issue of free trade after the American leader, responding to a reporter’s question, said that allies are not pressuring him to stop the trade war with China. “No, not at all,” said Trump, “I think they respect the trade war, it has to happen”. Johnson then congratulated Trump on the American economy, but added, “Just to register the faint sheep like note of our view on the trade war, we’re in favor of trade peace on the whole.” Trump …

In the age of the internet, instant messaging, and smartphones, a handwritten note still has the power to amaze — with an assist from technology.    That seems to be the lesson after an Alaskan man discovered a message in a bottle from a Soviet sailor written 50 years ago.   Tyler Ivanoff, 36, of the village of Shishmaref, Alaska, was picking berries and gathering driftwood for a fire for his family when he stumbled across a green bottle along the state’s western shore earlier this month.  “I noticed that the bottle had a note in it. It was sealed really well,” Ivanoff told VOA.  “And when I opened the bottle and took out the message, I recognized that it was Russian handwriting.”  Naturally, he turned to social media for help.  “I found a message in a bottle today,” wrote Ivanoff to A message that was placed in a bottle 50 years ago was found on the shoreline in Shishmaref, Alaska, August 5, 2019, by Tyler Ivanoff, a teacher’s aide, who was gathering firewood when he discovered the bottle. Back in the USSR  “Heartfelt greetings!” began the letter, dated June 20, 1969.   The sender, Captain Anatoly Botsanenko, explained he was from …

Backed by military aircraft, Brazilian troops on Saturday were deploying in the Amazon to fight fires that have swept the region and prompted anti-government protests as well as an international outcry. President Jair Bolsonaro also tried to temper global concern, saying that previously deforested areas had burned and that intact rainforest was spared. Even so, the fires were likely to be urgently discussed at a summit of the Group of Seven leaders in France this weekend. Some 44,000 troops will be available for “unprecedented” operations to put out the fires, and forces are heading to six Brazilian states that asked for federal help, Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo said. The states are Roraima, Rondonia, Tocantins, Para, Acre and Mato Grosso. The military’s first mission will be carried out by 700 troops around Porto Velho, capital of Rondonia, Azevedo said. The military will use two C-130 Hercules aircraft capable of dumping up to 12,000 liters (3,170 gallons) of water on fires, he said. An Associated Press journalist flying over the Porto Velho region Saturday morning reported hazy conditions and low visibility. On Friday, the reporter saw many already deforested areas that were burned, apparently by people clearing farmland, as well as a …

President Donald Trump is threatening to use the emergency authority granted by a powerful but obscure federal law to make good on his tweeted “order” to U.S. businesses to cut ties in China amid a spiraling trade war between the two nations. China’s announcement Friday that it was raising tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. imports sent Trump into a rage and White House aides scrambling for a response. Trump fired off on Twitter, declaring American companies “are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China.” He later clarified that he was threatening to make use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in the trade war, raising questions about the wisdom and propriety of making the 1977 act used to target rogue regimes, terrorists and drug traffickers the newest weapon in the clash between the world’s largest economies. It would mark the latest grasp of authority by Trump, who has claimed widespread powers not sought by his predecessors despite his own past criticism of their use of executive powers. “For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at …

Thousands of angry and frustrated Rohingya refugees marked the second anniversary of their exodus from Myanmar into Bangladesh on Sunday by demanding their citizenship and other rights in the country they fled from. The event came days after Bangladesh with the help of the U.N. refugee agency attempted to start the repatriation of 3,450 Rohingya Muslims but none agreed to go back voluntarily. Myanmar had scheduled Aug. 22 for the beginning of the process but it failed for a second time after the first attempt last November. The repatriation deal is based on an understanding that the return has to be “safe, dignified and voluntary.” The refugees also insisted on receiving Myanmar citizenship and other rights, which the Buddhist-majority nation has refused to grant so far. More than 1 million Rohingya live in Bangladesh. On Sunday morning, more than 3,000 gathered at a playground in Kutupalong camp. Some carried placards and banners reading “Never Again! Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day,” and “Restore our citizenship.” A prayer session was scheduled for the victims of the killings, rape and arson attacks by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist militias. Security was tight in the camps despite the Rohingya groups’ pledge that they would protest peacefully. …

VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this article. CAMP H. M. SMITH, Hawaii – A senior U.S. Indo-Pacific Command officer August 15 confirmed Cambodia and China are proceeding on a base for China’s navy in the Southeast Asian country’s Preah Sihanouk province.  Army Brigadier General Joel B. Vowell said construction would begin next year at Ream Naval Base, confirming to a group of regional journalists here that Cambodia will grant China access to the deep coastal waters on the Gulf of Thailand.  “We have information that tells us that there will be some development by the People’s Republic of China to facilitate a naval base at Ream,” said Vowell, the command’s deputy director for strategic planning and policy. “So that tells me they want to build something there, facilities to wharf, to house and sustain naval projection of combat power from Ream,” he said. Pentagon officials in Washington would not comment on Vowell’s remarks. Vowell called China’s military extension plans in Cambodia “a big concern” for the U.S. and its allies in the region.  The Ream base offers deep-water access to the Gulf of Thailand, which gives ready access to the South China Sea. China claims most of …

Syria’s air defenses responded late Saturday to “hostile” targets over Damascus, shooting down all incoming missiles before they reached their targets, state media reported, while Israel said its air force struck several targets southeast of the capital.    State TV did not give further details about the Israeli attack, which occurred shortly before midnight.      An Israeli military spokesman, Avichay Adraee, tweeted that warplanes struck several targets in the village of Aqraba, southeast of Damascus. He said the strikes aimed to abort a “terrorist attack” that Iran’s Quds Force, an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard, and other Shiite militias were planning to carry out against Israeli targets.     Israel frequently conducts airstrikes and missile attacks inside war-torn Syria but rarely confirms them. Israel says it targets mostly bases of Iranian forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in Syria.     The last such attack occurred Aug. 1, when Syria said Israel carried out a missile attack in the country’s south, causing material damage.  …

U.S. President Donald Trump is in Biarritz, France, for the G-7 summit, where he will be meeting world leaders who oppose his stances on many issues, including tariffs, Brexit, climate protection, China, Iran and Russia.  But in this meeting of the leaders of the world’s major industrialized countries, there could be areas of cooperation where Trump is willing to offer support, or at least not resist: women’s empowerment and Africa.  French President Emmanuel Macron, as the G-7 2019 president and summit host, has chosen combating inequality as the theme, with gender equality and partnership with Africa as key issues. He will be pushing several initiatives, including the Biarritz Partnership for Gender Equality and Partnership for the African Sahel. Macron also will be calling for renewed support for Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa.  Despite Trump’s skepticism of foreign aid and his rejection of globalism, including his famous statement in front of the 2018 U.N. General Assembly that the U.S. “will not tell you how to live or work or worship,” his administration has indicated it may support at least some of these initiatives, noting that the White House has launched similar efforts.  On Sunday Trump will participate in a G-7 working lunch …

Six people were injured Saturday when lightning struck a 60-foot pine at the Tour Championship where they were taking cover from rain and showered them with debris, Atlanta police said.  A pine tree is stripped of bark after being hit by lightning at East Lake Golf Club during the third round of the Tour Championship golf tournament, Aug. 24, 2019, in Atlanta. The third round of the season-ending PGA Tour event at East Lake Golf Club had been suspended for about 30 minutes because of storms in the area, and fans were instructed to seek shelter. The strike hit the top of the tree just off the 16th tee and shattered the bark all the way to the bottom.  Ambulances streamed into the private club about 6 miles east of downtown Atlanta. The players already had been taken into the clubhouse before the lightning hit.  Brad Uhl of Atlanta was among those crammed under a hospital tent to the right of the 16th hole that was open to the public.  “There was just a big explosion and then an aftershock so strong you could feel the wind from it,” Uhl said after the last of the ambulances pulled out of …

When a “Himalayan tsunami” roars down from the rooftop of the world, water from an overflowing glacial lake obeys gravity. Obliterating everything in its path, a burst is predictable only in its destructiveness.    “There was no meaning in it,” one person who withstood the waters in India’s Himalayas told a Public Radio International reporter. “It didn’t give anyone a chance to survive.”     Christian Huggel, a professor at the University of Zurich in Switzerland who specializes in glaciology and geomorphodynamics (the study of changing forms of geologic surfaces), said thousands of cubic meters of water moving down a mountain “is really quite destructive and it can happen suddenly.”    That water comes from glacial lake outburst floods, or GLOFs, which are increasing in frequency as climate change increases the rate of glacial melting. This catastrophic lake drainage occurs wherever there are glaciers in places such as Peru and Alaska.     The most devastating GLOFs occur in the Himalayan regions of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal and the Tibetan Plateau. When combined, the area has the third-largest accumulation of snow and ice after Antarctica and the Arctic.   Melting glaciers    In the Himalayas, climate change melted glaciers by a vertical foot …

The U.N. refugee agency said Saturday that 8,500 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Kasai province had spontaneously abandoned their camp in Angola and were heading to the homes they fled more than one year ago.  The march home from the Lovua settlement in Angola’s Lunda Norte province began one week ago.  U.N. refugee spokesman Andrej Mahecic said more than 1,000 refugees already had crossed into DRC and many more were moving toward the border with DRC’s Kasai region.  “This appears to be in response to reports of improved security in some of their places of origin,” Mahecic said. “It is also linked to their wish to return, as well as to be back home in time for the beginning of the new school year.”  Displaced by violence Violence broke out in the Kasai region in August 2016, triggered by tensions between traditional chiefs and the government.  Deadly clashes intensified between the government and armed groups in March 2017, displacing about 1.4 million people from their homes.  An estimated 37,000 others fled across the border into Angola in search of refuge.    Mahecic told VOA the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees was engaged in tripartite discussions with Angolan and Congolese authorities to make sure this …

The Taliban said Saturday that they expected negotiations with the United States to conclude the following day, finalizing a peace deal to end the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan.  The crucial ninth round in the yearlong dialogue between the two adversaries started Thursday in the traditional venue, the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. Afghan-born U.S. diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad is leading the American team of negotiators.   Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA on Saturday that the two sides were fleshing out details of a mechanism for U.S.-led foreign troops to withdraw from the country.  ‘We are hopeful’   “Inshallah [God willing], this time we are hopeful that each and every thing will be finalized. Work is underway to streamline the mechanism, but there is no such sticking point left that is not agreeable,” Mujahid said.    He said the “mechanism” would outline the nature of an American troop drawdown, areas where it will begin and the duration needed to complete the process.    Mujahid said Taliban and American negotiators would require “one more day” to shape up the details. He spoke to VOA just before the two sides resumed a third day of discussions Saturday night in Doha, Qatar. Mujahid would not discuss the foreign troop withdrawal timeline, nor has …

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced Saturday a new state commission to review educational standards for teaching black history in the state, as officials observed the arrival of enslaved Africans to what is now Virginia 400 years ago.    Northam, who noted “we are a state that for too long has told a false story of ourselves,” spoke at the 2019 African Landing Commemorative Ceremony in Hampton. The event was part of a weekend of ceremonies that are unfolding in the backdrop of rising white nationalism across the country and a lingering scandal surrounding Northam and a blackface photo.   Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam speaks at the 2019 African Landing Commemorative Ceremony, observing the 400-year anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia, in Hampton, Va., Aug. 24, 2019. Northam said he signed a directive to create the commission to review instructional practices, content and resources currently used to teach African American history in the state.      “We often fail to draw the connecting lines from those past events to our present day, but to move forward, that is what we must do,” said Northam, a Democrat. “We know that racism and discrimination aren’t locked in the past. They …

In August of 1619, several Africans were brought to Virginia in bondage, beginning more than two centuries of slavery in the United States. 400 years later, scholars at VOA’s town hall with Norfolk State University take a look at slavery’s bitter roots and it’s lasting impacts in the nation.  VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has this report. …

After Clinton Kanu was arrested and charged with murder in 1993, he spent 13 years in prison awaiting trial. He waited another 14 years on death row at a prison in southern Nigeria.    He says that prison is horrible and that his entire youth was wasted in an awful situation.  In April this year, Nigeria’s Supreme Court acquitted Kanu, saying there was not enough evidence to prove he committed murder. After 27 years in prison, Kanu was released.    Suspects sit on a bus taking them to prison after a hearing at the Federal High Court in Lagos, March 7, 2011. The prison service is now called the Nigerian Correctional Service. It’s cases like Kanu’s that a prison reform bill signed into law this month by President Muhammadu Buhari is aimed at addressing. The new law, which changed the name of the Nigerian Prison Service to the Nigerian Correctional Service, has been described as unprecedented in Nigeria.    Francis Enobore, the spokesperson for the Nigerian Correctional Service, told VOA the new law was inspired by prison reform initiatives being taken in other countries.    Nigeria’s prison service currently has about 250 prisons and 74,000 inmates.     The recently passed law may fix what many say is the most glaring …

Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen whom Russia accuses of being a spy, will remain in custody while Russian authorities continue their investigation of the former U.S. Marine. Whelan, his family and the United States believe the charges are baseless. Yulia Savchenko reports from Moscow. …

Syrian state media report that government forces now control all of northern Hama province for the first time since 2012 and that they have encircled a Turkish military monitoring post in the town of Morek. Turkish President Erdogan says that he will discuss the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they meet next week. Supporters of the Syrian government in the country’s fourth largest city of Hama shot fireworks into the air overnight, following news by state media that the Syrian military had captured all of northern Hama province for the first time since 2012. A Syrian Army spokesman announced the victory over state TV late Friday. He said Syrian Army forces have pursued their advance in the north of Hama and the south of Idlib provinces, liquidating armed rebel groups after inflicting heavy casualties on them, and that army forces are intent on continuing operations to liberate all Syrian territory. Amateur video showed Syrian Army forces encircling a Turkish military monitoring position in the northern Hama town of Morek. Syrian forces did not, however, attack the Turkish position. Turkish media reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will protest the Syrian government advance to Russian President Vladimir Putin when …

India’s former finance minister, Arun Jaitley, died Saturday in a New Delhi hospital months after he stepped away from the job due to deteriorating health. A close associate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the 66-year-old Jaitley was credited with steering landmark economic reform that helped create a single market in India for the first time since the country’s independence in 1947.   It was also under his watch that Modi announced his controversial decision to scrap 86 percent of India’s currency.   One of Modi’s most articulate ministers in parliament who was often called upon to defend the government, the former lawyer turned politician was known as one of the sharpest minds in the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. He also briefly headed the Defense Ministry.   A diabetic, he had undergone a kidney transplant in 2018 and opted out of Modi’s cabinet after the BJP’s resounding victory in May of this year. He was admitted to a hospital two weeks ago with breathing problems.     “I have lost a valued friend, whom I have had the honour of knowing for decades,” Modi said on Twitter. “His insight on issues and nuanced understanding of matters had very few …

The United Nations reports nearly two months of heavy rains and flooding in Sudan have wiped out livelihoods, rendered tens of thousands of people homeless and created a humanitarian emergency that needs a swift international response. At least 54 people are known to have died from the torrential rains that have hit Sudan since the beginning of July.  Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission reports nearly 194,000 people have been affected and more than 37,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports 15 of Sudan’s 18 states have been affected, with White Nile State taking the biggest hit. OCHA spokesman, Jens Laerke, said flood victims urgently need emergency shelter, food, health services, and clean water and sanitation.   He says vector control to limit the spread of water-borne diseases by insects is crucial. “In many places families have lost their livestock which may aggravate already rising food insecurity.   Across Sudan, the number of severely food-insecure people rose to an estimated 5.8 million at the beginning of the lean season in July this year, an increase of more than two million compared with the start of the 2018 season,” Laerke said. Laerke said many …