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France and Germany on Sunday condemned a Russian police crackdown on a banned opposition rally that saw hundreds detained, with Paris criticizing an “excessive use of force” after a second weekend of protests over the exclusion of opposition candidates from local Moscow polls next month. Berlin said the police action on Saturday “violated” Russia’s international obligations and undermines the right to fair elections in the country. The arrests on Saturday were “out of all proportion to the peaceful nature of the protests against the exclusion of independent candidates” from city elections in Moscow, the German government said. Crowds had walked along the capital’s central boulevard in a protest “stroll” over the refusal by officials to let opposition candidates run in September polls for city parliament seats — a local issue that has turned into a political crisis. Police say 1,500 people took part in the demonstration. AFP observed dozens of arrests along the route, as police formed human chains and grabbed people indiscriminately. Sobol detained again An ally of detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Lyubov Sobol, who is currently three weeks into a hunger strike after being barred from taking part in the election, was dragged from a taxi and …

VOA’s Ibrahim Rahimi contributed to this report from Paktia, Afghanistan. A mini-bus carrying the employees of a private television station in Afghanistan has been struck by a magnetic bomb pasted to the vehicle, killing two people and injuring three others, all civilians, Afghan officials said Sunday. Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs said Sunday that a bomb was placed inside the vehicle carrying the employees of Khorshid TV, a privately-owned TV station that is headquartered in the capital, Kabul. According to officials, two people have been killed in the attack including the driver of the vehicle and a civilian passing by. Three others were wounded, two are employees of Khorshid TV and the third person is a civilian who was near the vehicle. No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but this is not the first time that journalists have been targeted in the country by militant groups. Incident follows reporter’s killing Last month, unknown armed assailants killed a reporter for a local radio station in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province. Nader Shah Sahibzada, a reporter for Voice of Gardiz local radio, went missing in July and authorities found his body a day later …

After two mass shootings in a span of 13 hours, there have now been more than 250 such events this year in which at least four people were shot or killed, besides the shooter. Officials in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, report 29 fatalities and at least 50 injured from shootings this weekend in those cities.  Republican and Democrat politicians shared their reactions to the massacres. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …

Turkey will carry out a military operation in a Kurdish-controlled area east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, its third offensive to dislodge Kurdish militia fighters close to its border.   Turkey had in the past warned of carrying out military operations east of the river, but put them on hold after agreeing with the United States to create a safe zone inside Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey that would be cleared of the Kurdish YPG militia.   But Ankara has accused Washington of stalling progress on setting up the safe zone and has demanded it sever its relations with the YPG. The group was Washington’s main ally on the ground in Syria during the battle against Islamic State, but Turkey sees it as a terrorist organization.   Erdogan said both Russia and the United States have been told of the planned operation, but did not say when it would begin. It would mark the third Turkish incursion into Syria in as many years.   “We entered Afrin, Jarablus, and Al-Bab. Now we will enter the east of the Euphrates,” Erdogan said on Sunday during a highway-opening ceremony.   Asked about Erdogan’s comments, …

As the nation reeled from two mass shootings in less than a day, President Donald Trump spent the first hours after the tragedies out of sight at his New Jersey golf course, sending out tweets of support awkwardly mixed in with those promoting a celebrity fight and attacking his political foes. Trump was to travel back to Washington later Sunday and aides said he would likely address reporters, but the nation did not glimpse the president in the immediate aftermath of a shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed at least 20 people and, hours later, one in Dayton, Ohio, that claimed at least nine lives. Never seemingly comfortable consoling a nation in grief, Trump will be carefully watched for his response to the attacks, again inviting comparison to his predecessors who have tried to heal the country in moments of national trauma. Investigators focused on whether the El Paso attack was a hate crime after the emergence of a racist, anti-immigrant screed that was posted online shortly beforehand. Detectives sought to determine if it was written by the man who was arrested. In recent weeks, the president has issued racist tweets about four women of color who serve in …

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has slammed China’s “destabilizing” actions in the Indo-Pacific region during his first trip to the region. Speaking to reporters in Sydney with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and their Australian counterparts, Esper said the United States is “firmly against a disturbing pattern of aggressive behavior, destabilizing behavior from China.” Esper and Pompeo pointed to Beijing’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea and accused it of promoting the state-sponsored theft of other nation’s intellectual property, and “predatory economics.” The last was an apparent reference to so-called “debt traps” like a 2017 arrangement that gave China control of a port in Sri Lanka. After failing to keep up with its debt payments to China, Sri Lanka handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land to the Chinese government for 99 years. China has arguably undertaken the largest transfer of intellectual property in human history, according to Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Bowman told VOA that intellectual property stolen by Beijing has been used to modernize Chinese weapons which, in the event of a future military conflict, would be used …

Updated Aug.4, 2:10PM In 13 hours of carnage in the United States, two shooters in separate incidents killed 29 people and injured dozens, leaving authorities searching for motives behind the mayhem. A gunman wearing body armor and carrying extra magazines of ammunition was shot to death by police less than a minute after he opened fire early Sunday in a popular nightlife area in the Midwest city of Dayton, Ohio. The man killed nine people including his own sister and injured at least 27, four of them seriously. Law enforcement officers work the scene of a shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas, Aug. 3, 2019. Police said they believe there was only one shooter in the incident, but have yet to suggest a motive. News accounts identified the shooter as 24-year-old Connor Betts, who identifies himself on social media as a psychology student at a community college in the Dayton area. Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said the quick response by police “saved literally hundreds of lives” in the crowded Oregon district of the city filled with bars, restaurants and theaters. Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley speaks during a news conference regarding a mass shooting earlier in the morning, …

Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue of the communist Khmer Rouge regime that destroyed a generation of Cambodians, died Sunday, the country’s U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal said. He was 93. Nuon Chea was known as Brother No. 2, the right-hand man of Pol Pot, the leader of the regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The group’s fanatical efforts to realize a utopian society led to the death of some 1.7 million people — more than a quarter of the country’s population at the time — from starvation, disease, overwork and executions.   Researchers believe Nuon Chea was responsible for the extremist policies of the Khmer Rouge and was directly involved in its purges and executions.   He was serving life in prison after convictions by the U.N.-backed tribunal on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.   But Nuon Chea never admitted his guilt.   At the long-awaited Khmer Rouge trials, he told a court that he and his comrades were not “bad people,” denying responsibility for any deaths.   For decades after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea lived quietly with his family in a wooden house in Pailin, a former guerrilla stronghold near the border with …

Lawmakers from Israel’s ruling Likud party say they will only accept Benjamin Netanyahu as the party’s candidate for prime minister, “regardless of the election results.” Netanyahu’s party issued a statement Sunday saying that all of its Knesset members signed a “unity petition” affirming that Netanyahu “is the only Likud candidate for prime minister – and there will be no other candidate.” The move appeared aimed at quashing any demand by potential coalition partners that Netanyahu step down. Netanyahu passed David Ben-Gurion last month as Israel’s longest serving prime minister and seeks re-election for a fourth consecutive term. Israel is holding an unprecedented repeat election on September 17 after Netanyahu failed to form a government following April’s vote. He also faces a pre-indictment hearing in a series of corruption cases.   …

The U.N. food agency on Sunday said it reached an agreement with Yemen’s rebels to resume food deliveries to rebel-controlled parts of the country after suspending the aid for over a month. The partial suspension of aid to the capital, Sana’a, began in June amid accusations that the rebels, known as Houthis, were diverting the food from the hungriest people in the war-torn country, which has been pushed to the brink of starvation. The suspension affects 850,000 people in Sana’a, where the World Food Program says the bulk of the looting takes place. The Houthis, who have controlled the capital since 2014, denied the charges and accused the WFP of sending spoiled food. The agency said some of the food that was held for long periods of time in rebel-controlled areas had indeed gone bad. WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel told The Associated Press that the agreement to resume food deliveries was “an important step towards safeguards that guarantee the accountability of our humanitarian operation in Yemen.” Verhoosel did not detail the provisions of the deal or when the agency would resume aid deliveries. He said the two sides were working out technical details, which they “hope can be agreed in …

Hong Kong protests devolved into violence for a second consecutive night Sunday, with police firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators who threw rocks and bricks at a police station. The weekend marches have continued for the past two months to protest what they see as Beijing’s growing control over the officially autonomous Chinese territory. In an ominous warning Sunday, a major Chinese news outlet warned that Beijing will not let the protests continue. As with previous marches, Sunday’s protests began peacefully with demonstrators singing and playing musical instruments as large crowds filled the streets. But as evening fell, smaller groups marched on a police station and the Liaison Office, the local headquarters of the mainland government. Hundreds of masked demonstrators blocked streets in a district in Hong Kong’s New Territories and hurled rocks and bricks at a police station, smashing windows. Police responded with tear gas to drive back the crowd. A separate group of protesters was turned back from the Liaison Office. A day earlier, protesters marched across Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po on Hong Kong’s Kowloon peninsula before converging in Tsim Sha Tsui, a waterfront shopping district popular with tourists from China, where they briefly barricaded a …

Pope Francis is offering prayers for the dead and the injured in three U.S. mass shootings this week. Francis told a crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the weekly Angelus blessing Sunday that “I am spiritually close to the victims of the episodes of violence that have bloodied Texas, California and Ohio, in the United States, striking defenseless people.” He appealed to the faithful “to join my prayer for the people who lost their lives, the injured and their family members.” Nine people in Ohio have been killed in the second mass shooting in the United States in less than 24 hours, following the shooting deaths of 20 people Saturday at a Texas shopping area. Just days before, on July 28, a gunman killed three people at a food festival in California.   …

Iranian media say the Revolutionary Guard has seized an oil tanker carrying 700,000 liters of “smuggled fuel” in the Persian Gulf. The semi-official Fars news agency says seven crew members were detained when the ship was seized late Wednesday. It did not provide further details on the vessel or the nationality of the crew. This would mark the third commercial vessel seized by Iranian forces in recent weeks and the second accused of smuggling fuel. Tensions have soared in the Gulf in recent months as the U.S. has boosted its military presence and oil tankers have been seized by Iranian forces or targeted by unknown saboteurs. The tensions are rooted in the U.S. decision last year to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear accord and impose sweeping sanctions on Iran.   …

Thousands of protesters took to Hong Kong’s streets Sunday, a day after violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police, and as China’s official news agency warned Beijing will not let the situation in the Asian financial hub continue. The Chinese-controlled city has been rocked by months of protests against a proposed bill to allow people to be extradited to stand trial in mainland China and a general strike aimed at bringing the city to a halt is planned for Monday. Police said in a statement early Sunday that they had arrested more than 20 people for offenses overnight including unlawful assembly and assault. On Saturday, police fired multiple tear gas rounds in confrontations with black-clad activists in the city’s Kowloon area. On Sunday, thousands of demonstrators marched peacefully in the town of Tseung Kwan O in the New Territories brandishing colorful banners and leaflets. Dressed in black, the protesters cheered as they called for a mass strike across Hong Kong Monday. Henry Tong, wearing a helmet and a first aid vest associated with the anti-extradition bill protests, poses for pictures with his wife, Elaine To, after getting married in Hong Kong, Aug. 4, 2019. The placard reads,”Let’s go for it …

Updated Aug. 4, 5:07 a.m. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Nine people were killed and 16 more were wounded early Sunday morning in Dayton, Ohio, police said. It was the second mass shooting in the U.S. in less than 24 hours. Dayton police said on its Twitter account: “We had officers in the immediate vicinity when this shooting began and were able to respond and put an end to it quickly.” Police say the gunman, whose identity has not been released, is dead. The FBI is assisting in the case, police added. The shooting, which began around 1 a.m. local time, in the Oregon district of the city came just hours after a mass shooting Saturday at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where 20 people were killed and 26 were wounded. Last Sunday a gunman killed three people and injured 13 at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. The Oregon District is a historic neighborhood known for its entertainment in the city of Dayton in the Midwestern U.S. state of Ohio. The tweets from Dayton police early Sunday did not include further details, but described the shooting as “a large scene and investigation.” Miami Valley Hospital spokeswoman Terrea Little said 16 …

The United States on Sunday welcomed a cease-fire in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region after months of deadly government bombardments but insisted attacks against civilians must stop. Airstrikes on Idlib province stopped Friday after the Syrian regime agreed to a truce on the condition that Turkey, which backs the rebels, implements a buffer zone in the area. Most of the region and parts of Hama, Aleppo, and Latakia, which currently hosts about 3 million people, are controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group led by Syria’s former al-Qaida affiliate. The area is supposed to be protected from a massive government offensive under a September Turkish-Russian deal, but it has come under increasing fire by Damascus and its backer Moscow since the end of April. The government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has accused Turkey of dragging its feet in implementing the deal, which provided for a buffer zone of up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) between the two sides, free of heavy- and medium-sized weaponry. Washington welcomed the conditional ceasefire, but “attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure must stop,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. “The United States believes there can be no military solution to …

Rescuers plucked more bodies from rough seas where three ferry boats capsized after being buffeted by fierce wind and waves off two central Philippine provinces, bringing the death toll to 25 with six missing, police said Sunday. Regional police spokesman Joem Javier said the dead were mostly passengers of two ferries that flipped over in sudden gusts of wind and powerful waves Saturday off Guimaras and Iloilo provinces. Fifty-five other passengers and crew were rescued. A third ferry, which was not carrying any passengers, also capsized in the Iloilo Strait but its four crewmen survived, Javier said. Survivors recounted how the sky suddenly turned dark midway on their trip followed by strong wind and rain that battered their ferries. A rescue worker carries a survivor after three ferry boats capsized in bad weather off central Philippines, Aug. 3, 2019. Authorities wondered why a third ferry was allowed to sail about three hours after two other ferries overturned almost at the same time in bad weather. Forecasters have warned of heavy monsoon rains, thunderstorms and rain-triggered landslides amid a tropical depression more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) off the country’s eastern coast. Classes and work were suspended in metropolitan Manila Friday …

A daredevil French inventor succeeded Sunday in his second attempt to cross the English Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard, taking off from the northern French coast amid a crowd of onlookers. Franky Zapata, 40, has to swap out his backpack full of kerosene by landing on a boat about halfway through the expected 20-minute trip toward St. Margaret’s Bay in Dover, on England’s southern coast. Zapata failed to pull off the tricky refueling maneuver during the first attempt on his Flyboard July 25, hitting the platform and tumbling into the waters of the busy shipping lane. He hopes to make the 35-kilometer (22-mile) crossing at an average speed of 140 kilometers an hour (87 mph) and at a height of 15-20 meters (50-65 feet) above the water. This time the refueling boat will be bigger and have a larger landing area, and French navy vessels in the area will again be keeping an eye out in case of trouble.  …

For one intense week, 40 boys and 20 girls from 29 African countries were chosen for a highly selective program to train with current and former players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).  The NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program has been scouting and training girls and boys across the continent for 17 years. Teenage girls who took part say working with women from the continent who played for WNBA teams has motivated them to stay in the game.  Iris was scouted by the program from her local team in Gabon. (E. Sarai/VOA) “This experience has been so enriching for us,” Iris, a 16-year-old from Gabon, told VOA. “It’s helped me a lot, I’ve learned new things and it’s renewed my enthusiasm, my desire to keep going and to become someone in the world of basketball.” Iris says she was scouted for the program by organizers who watched her local team play in Gabon. Iris was then asked to produce a video of her playing and was later informed that she’d been accepted to the program. The coaches and mentors are helping these young players through drills and matches, but also serve as role models …

White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed to this report. Police officials in El Paso, Texas, say they are investigating as a possible hate crime the mass shooting Saturday at a Walmart that ended with at least 20 people killed and 26 wounded. Police chief Greg Allen said the police have an online posting reportedly written by the 21-year-old white male suspect now in custody, that indicates the shooting spree was intended to target Hispanics. The post appeared online about an hour before the shooting and included language that complained about the “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. The author of the manifesto wrote that he expected to be killed during the attack. Shoppers exit with their hands up after a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, Aug. 3, 2019. “This vile act of terrorism against Hispanic Americans was inspired by divisive racial and ethnic rhetoric and enabled by weapons of war,” Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said in a statement. “The language in the shooter’s manifesto is consistent with President Donald Trump’s description of Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders,’” said Castro, who is also the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “Today’s shooting is a stark reminder of the …

There are an estimated 12,000 homeless people living in Seattle, in the Northwest U.S. state of Washington, according to the U.S. government. Among those homeless, a significant but difficult to quantify number don’t speak English. But one nonprofit is working to serve English learners and end homelessness all at the same time. VOA’s Valdya Baraputri reports.   …

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 …