POPGAZETA

Algeria’s interim president fired the justice minister on Wednesday and named the Algiers public prosecutor to replace him, the presidency said, amid a series of corruption investigations involving allies of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Abdelkader Bensalah appointed Belkacem Zeghmati to replace Slimane Brahmi “after consultation with the prime minister,” the presidency said in a statement. The judiciary has been conducting probes and several former senior officials, including ex-prime ministers Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal, have been placed in custody over charges including “dissipation of public funds.” The investigations followed mass protests that erupted in the North African country on Feb. 22, with demonstrators calling for the removal of the ruling elite and the prosecution of people involved in corruption cases. Bouteflika resigned under pressure on April 2, but the demonstrations continued as protesters sought the departure of the remaining symbols of the elite that has governed the country since independence from France in 1962. The army is now the main player in Algeria’s politics, and its chief of staff, Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaed Salah has promised to help the judiciary and protect it from pressure. The departing justice minister, Brahmi, had been in the job since March 31, when Bouteflika …

The Israeli Cabinet unanimously approved a proposal to build over 700 housing units for Palestinians in addition to 6,000 Israeli settlement housing units in the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government advanced the proposal late on Tuesday, according to an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the closed-door meeting. The approval appeared timed to coincide with a visit by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and chief Mideast envoy Jared Kushner, who is expected in the region this week. The permits would be for construction in what is known as Area C — the roughly 60% of the West Bank where Israel exercises full control and where most Jewish settlements are located. Netanyahu’s government has approved the construction of tens of thousands of settler homes there, but permits for Palestinian construction are extremely rare. Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek these areas as parts of a future state. Most of the international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law and an impediment to a two-state solution to the conflict. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud …

Democratic presidential contenders struck off notes on the science of global warming and the state of the economy in their Detroit debate Tuesday night.  As much as scientists see the need for action on climate change, they don’t lay out a looming point of no return , as Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke asserted. Bernie Sanders almost certainly overstated how much new income is soaked up by the richest Americans. A look at some of their statements in the opening night of the second round of debates, with 10 more Democrats taking the stage Wednesday: Climate BETO O’ROURKE, former U.S. representative from Texas, on global warming: “I listen to scientists on this and they’re very clear: We don’t have more than 10 years to get this right. And we won’t meet that challenge with half-steps, half-measures or only half the country.” PETE BUTTIGIEG, mayor of South Bend, Indiana: “Science tells us we have 12 years before we reach the horizon of our catastrophe when it comes to our climate.”  THE FACTS: Scientists don’t agree on an approximate time frame, let alone an exact number of years, for how much time we have left to stave off the deadliest extremes of …

With its latest test Wednesday, North Korea has now launched seven ballistic missiles over the past three months, after having refrained from such launches for a year and a half. By firing missiles into the ocean, North Korea is expressing its anger at upcoming U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises and presumably trying to increase its leverage over the two allies amid stalled nuclear talks. But the missile tests have more than symbolic importance. North Korea appears to be perfecting a new short-range missile that represents a unique threat to U.S. interests in the region. Though the latest launch is still being analyzed, South Korean officials say the North appears to have tested some version of the same weapon each time: a modified version of a Russian-developed Iskander missile.  The North’s missile, dubbed KN-23 by U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials, is easy to hide, can be quickly deployed, and is difficult for U.S. and South Korean missile defenses to intercept, according to analysts.  “It is not appropriate to shrug off these tests as short range.” says Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “These missiles represent technological developments that threaten U.S. allies and forces in Asia.” Though …

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles early Wednesday, according to South Korea’s military, Pyongyang’s second launch in less than a week amid stalled nuclear talks.  The missiles, launched from near the eastern port city of Wonsan, flew for about 250 kilometers and reached an altitude of 30 kilometers, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.  The launch comes six days after North Korea’s previous ballistic missile test, which it said was a response to South Korea’s decision to purchase U.S. weapons and hold military drills with the United States. A South Korean defense ministry official said the missiles launched Wednesday appear to be similar to those launched last week, since they both flew at a relatively low altitude, according to the Yonhap news agency. South Korea’s National Security Council, which held an emergency meeting Wednesday, voiced “strong concerns” over the launch, which it said could have a “negative impact on efforts to establish peace on the Korean Peninsula.”  Pyongyang last week tested what appears to be its own version of a Russian-made Iskander short-range ballistic missile. The North also tested that missile in May.  The launches are consistent with North Korea’s recent pattern of escalating pressure on Washington and …

The Democratic presidential contenders opened a second round of debates in Detroit, Michigan, Tuesday, with a flurry of attacks on President Donald Trump. But the 10 Democrats also went after each other at times and showed some growing strains between moderate and progressive candidates. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone reports on the first of two nights of debate. …

Tanzania is planning to build a cable car service on Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest peak and a world heritage site. The country wants to boost tourist numbers but a quarter million porters and mountain guides worry the quick ride up the mountain will threaten their livelihoods.  Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa, keeps the town of Moshi, Tanzania, alive with trade and tourism.  The mountain is a source of income for many people here, including porters like 37-year-old Sintia Mwita. A mother of three, Mwita says the job helps her a lot.  “I am the one who pays for their school fees and daily expenses in my family.” Mwita says. While authorities say the cable car will cater to the physically disabled, the elderly and children, it will also help tourists get up the mountain faster. Jennifer Francis, a deputy chairman for Kili Meru Mountain Guides Society, says the government has not been as transparent as it could be regarding the project. “They only tell us the advantages but we don’t know its negative effects on the current generation and the next generation.  This confuses us,” Francis said. Around 50,000 tourists climb Kilimanjaro annually, bringing tens of millions of dollars …

The first night of the second round of Democratic presidential candidate debates took place in Detroit Tuesday. The candidates answered questions on a range of issues, including health care, recent mass shootings, immigration and foreign trade. Here are some quotes from each candidate: Steve Bullock, in responding to a discussion on gun violence, discussed a personal story, saying: “I’m a gun owner, I hunt, like far too many people in America, I have been personally impacted by gun violence. I had an 11-year-old nephew, Jeremy, shot and killed on a playground. We need to start looking at this as a public health issue, not a political issue.” Pete Buttigieg, who as South Bend, Indiana, mayor has been criticized for his handling of a recent racially tinged shooting, said about race: “As an urban mayor serving a diverse community, the racial divide lives within me. I’m not saying that I became mayor and racism or crime or poverty ended on my watch. But in our city, we have come together repeatedly to tackle challenges like the fact that far too many people were not getting the help they needed in their housing and so we directed it to a historically underinvested African …

Christy Lee contributed to this report which originated on VOA’s Korean Service. The National Defense University, an institution funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, has published a journal article suggesting Washington should share its nuclear tactical missiles with Japan and South Korea to deter North Korea’s growing nuclear threat to East Asia and the U.S.  “The United States should strongly consider … sharing of nonstrategic nuclear capabilities during times of crisis with select Asia-Pacific partners, specially Japan and the Republic of Korea,” according to “Twenty-First Century Nuclear Deterrence,” published by the university in the current issue of Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ). The Republic of Korea is the official name for South Korea. Publication guidelines on the university’s site say “The views expressed by this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.” Sharing American nuclear capabilities with Japan and South Korea would involve deploying its nuclear weapons in the territories of its two allies in East Asia so that the weapons can be used in such time as a nuclear war, as the U.S. does with five member states of …

Story updated on July 31, at 12:18 am. U.S. health care policies took center stage Tuesday night at the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, with more moderate challengers attacking Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the leading progressives looking to oust President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Warren and Sanders have both called for a sweeping end to the country’s current health care system centered on private company insurance plans offered to 150 million workers through their employers. But their views were under attack almost from the start of the debate on a theater stage in Detroit, Michigan, the country’s auto industry hub. “We don’t have to go around and be the party of subtraction and telling half the country who has private health insurance that their health insurance is illegal,” former Maryland Congressman John Delaney said. “It’s also bad policy. It’ll under-fund the industry, many hospitals will close, and it’s bad politics.” Often political allies Warren, a former Harvard law professor, and Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, are friends of long-standing and often political allies. They now are both looking for votes from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Both defended their position calling for a government-run health …

VOA Asia’s Ira Mellman contributed to this report. Myanmar is beginning to yield to international pressure to repatriate the more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, but rights advocates worry its commitment is only surface level. The country stepped up its efforts over the weekend, when Myanmar permanent foreign secretary U Myint Thu led a 10-member delegation to talks with refugee representatives last weekend at Kutupalong — the largest refugee camp in the world. Rohingya representatives put citizenship and guaranteed safety up as requirements for the ethnic group’s return, but government representatives only offered a path to naturalized citizenship, beginning with an application for a national verification card.  “[Myanmar] is essentially playing games with the discussions about citizenship,” Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, told VOA Asia. Some Rohingya worried that the cards, which the government also proposed in 2018, could be used to further persecute against group members.  Refugees rejected a previous repatriation offer made in October. International pressure Myanmar has been hit with increasing international pressure to repatriate the Rohingya, especially from Bangladesh. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen told VOA Bangla earlier in July that the country expected to hold Rohingya …

One of the country’s biggest credit card issuers, Capital One Financial, is the latest big business to be hit by a data breach, disclosing that roughly 100 million people had some personal information stolen by a hacker.  The alleged hacker, Paige A. Thompson, obtained Social Security and bank account numbers in some instances, as well other information such as names, birth dates, credit scores and self-reported income, the bank said Monday. It said no credit card account numbers or log-in credentials were compromised.  Capital One Financial is just the latest business to suffer a data breach. Only last week Equifax, the credit reporting company, announced a $700 million settlement over its own 2017 data breach that impacted half of the U.S. population. Other companies that have had breaches include the hotel chain Marriott, retail giants Home Depot and Target. What happened? Thompson, 33, who uses the online handle “erratic,” allegedly obtained access to Capital One data stored on Amazon’s cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services in March. She downloaded the data and stored it on her own servers, according to the complaint.  Thompson was a systems engineer at Amazon Web Services between 2015 and 2016, about three years before the …

 A Puerto Rico legislator said Tuesday that the U.S. territory’s embattled governor plans to nominate former congressional representative Pedro Pierluisi as secretary of state. Rep. Jose Melendez told The Associated Press that the president of the island’s House of Representatives shared the information with legislators and asked them to be ready to meet in a special session. Pierluisi ran against Gov. Ricardo Rossello in the 2016 primaries of the New Progressive Party and lost. He served as Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress from 2009 to 2017. If the House and Senate approved the nomination, Pierluisi would become Puerto Rico’s next governor after Rossello resigns Friday as scheduled following nearly two weeks of big street protests. However, Melendez and other members of Rossello’s party have said they will not vote in favor of Pierluisi, in part because he works as for a law firm that represents the federal control board overseeing Puerto Rico’s finances. “That’s a serious conflict of interest,” Melendez said. A special session to vote on Pierluisi is scheduled for Friday, just four hours before Rossello is supposed to resign. Pierluisi, who could not be immediately reached for comment, took a leave of absence starting Tuesday, according to …

One in three Egyptians is living in poverty, the official statistics agency reported Monday, following years of austerity measures aimed at reforming the economy. The report said 32.5% of Egyptians lived below the poverty line in 2018, up from 27.8% in 2015 and 16.7% in 2000. It said 6.2% of Egyptians live in extreme poverty. It set the poverty line at around $1.45 per day and the extreme poverty line at less than a dollar a day. Egypt has been struggling to rebuild its economy following years of unrest since the 2011 uprising. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has repeatedly urged Egyptians to be patient with the economic reforms as authorities have waged a sweeping crackdown on dissent. FILE – A general view of Ezbet al-Nakhl, a shanty town north of the Egyptian capital Cairo, is seen Oct. 13, 2018. The new report from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics was the first official look at poverty and income since the government secured a $12 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund in 2016. As part of the reform program, the government floated the currency, slashed subsidies on fuel, services and utilities, and imposed a value-added tax. The IMF …

Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya will not defend her 800-meters title at the World Championships in September after the Swiss Federal Tribunal reversed a ruling that temporarily lifted the IAAF’s testosterone regulations imposed on her, a spokesman for the athlete said Tuesday. Semenya is appealing the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) ruling that supported regulations introduced by the sport’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). These say that XY chromosome athletes with differences in sexual development (DSDs) can race in distances from 400 meters to a mile only if they take medication to reach a reduced testosterone level. “I am very disappointed to be kept from defending my hard-earned title, but this will not deter me from continuing my fight for the human rights of all of the female athletes concerned,” Semenya said in a statement from her representative. CAS is based in Lausanne and comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland’s highest court. The IAAF said they would only comment once they have read the full reasoning behind the judgment. “We understand the Swiss Federal Tribunal will be publishing its full decision on this order tomorrow [Wednesday] and the IAAF will comment once the tribunal makes …

Children on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border had a chance to play together, despite the physical barriers that divide them.  Two California professors installed three pink seesaws through the steel border fence on the outskirts of El Paso in Texas and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. Ronald Rael, an architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an associate design professor at San Jose State University, first came up with the concept of Teetertotter Wall for the border more than 10 years ago. This week, they saw it become a reality. “The wall became a literal fulcrum for U.S.-Mexico relations, and children and adults were connected in meaningful ways on both sides with the recognition that the actions that take place on one side have a direct consequence on the other side,” Rael said on Instagram. In a video posted on social media, children and adults on both sides of the fence could be seen playing and interacting. Rael said the event was about bringing “joy, excitement and togetherness at the border wall.” “The symbolism of the seesaw is just magical,” said Claudia Tristan, director of Latinx messaging for 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. “A …

A top human rights group is suing the Trump administration, accusing it of still separating migrant children from their parents despite last year’s court order against it.  The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge Tuesday in San Diego to block the practice. “It is shocking that the Trump administration continues to take babies from their parents. Over 900 more families join the thousands of others previously torn apart by this cruel and illegal policy,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said. According to the ACLU, nearly 1,000 children have been taken away from their parents since President Donald Trump ordered family separations stopped in June 2018, followed by a court order to reunite the families. Trump said then that his policy is to “maintain family unity” unless the parent poses a risk to the child. But the group says border patrol agents are snatching migrant children away from their mothers and fathers because of alleged minor crimes such as traffic tickets.  ACLU filing The ACLU’s court filing describes how a guard took a little girl away from her father because she had a wet diaper. The guard allegedly called the father a bad parent.  Another toddler was having trouble walking …

The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Tuesday the Syrian province of Idlib is at risk of becoming “the worst humanitarian disaster the world has seen so far this century,” as Russian-backed Syrian government forces continue a campaign against one of the last rebel hold outs.  “For more than 90 days now, bombing and shelling by the government of Syria, backed by the Russian Federation, has produced carnage in the so-called de-escalation zone of Idlib,” Mark Lowcock told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.  He said at least 450 civilians have been killed since late April, including more than 100 just in the past two weeks. More than 440,000 have been displaced, many for the fourth or fifth time. U. N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock attends a news conference for the launch of the “Global Humanitarian Overview 2019” at the United Nations in Geneva, Dec. 4, 2018 “You in this Security Council have ignored all the previous pleas you have heard,” Lowcock said. “You know what is happening and you have done nothing for 90 days as the carnage continues in front of your eyes.” He asked if they would shrug their shoulders or listen …

North Korea fired multiple projectiles from its east coast early Wednesday, according to South Korea’s military. The projectiles were launched from near North Korea’s Hodo peninsula in South Hamgyung province, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. “Our military will keep monitoring for additional launches,” the message said. The launch comes six days after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles, in what it said was a response to South Korea’s decision to purchase U.S. weapons and continue joint military drills with Washington.  FILE – Amphibious assault vehicles of the South Korean Marine Corps travel during a military exercise as a part of the annual joint military training called Foal Eagle between South Korea and the U.S. in Pohang, South Korea, April 5, 2018. North Korea has said it could restart intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear tests if Seoul and Washington go ahead with the exercises. Pyongyang has also said it may not resume working-level nuclear talks with the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has not responded to the latest launch, but shrugged off North Korea’s launches last week as short-range missiles that “lots test.”  “I have a good relationship with him. I like him. He likes me. We’ll …

Nicaragua granted citizenship Tuesday to Salvadoran ex-President Mauricio Funes, who has been in the country under political asylum since 2016 and is wanted back home on allegations of illicit enrichment and embezzlement. The decision by President Daniel Ortega’s government, which took legal effect with its publication in the official Gazette, also made Funes’ wife and two sons citizens. The move would block current Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele from bringing Funes and his family before that country’s justice system, as Nicaragua’s constitution prohibits extradition of Nicaraguan nationals. Funes tweeted an image of that constitutional article, saying: “Not today, nor in the first 100 days of [Bukele’s] government, nor in years will extradition be possible.” Bukele’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Funes, El Salvador’s president from 2009 to 2014, faces four arrest warrants for alleged corruption and the purported diversion of $351 million in state money. He denies the allegations. The certification of Nicaraguan citizenship was signed by immigration director-general Juan Emilio Rivas Benitez, who said Funes “has fulfilled the requirements and formalities established by Law to acquire Nicaraguan nationality,” taking into account his continued presence in national territory and being a permanent resident of the country. …

California’s Democratic governor signed a law Tuesday requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns to appear on the state’s primary ballot, a move aimed squarely at Republican President Donald Trump. But even if the law withstands a likely legal challenge, Trump could avoid the requirements by choosing not to compete in California’s primary. With no credible GOP challenger at this point, he likely won’t need California’s delegates to win the Republican nomination. ”As one of the largest economies in the world and home to one in nine Americans eligible to vote, California has a special responsibility to require this information of presidential and gubernatorial candidates,” Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in his veto message to the state Legislature. “These are extraordinary times and states have a legal and moral duty to do everything in their power to ensure leaders seeking the highest offices meet minimal standards, and to restore public confidence.” New York has passed a law giving congressional committees access to Trump’s state tax returns. But efforts to pry loose his tax returns have floundered in other states. California’s first attempt to do so failed in 2017 when then-Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed the law, raising questions …

A multi-day international music festival in Lebanon said Tuesday that it’s cancelled a planned concert by a popular Mideast rock band whose lead singer is openly gay, apparently caving to pressure after weeklong calls by some Christian groups to pull the plug on the show, as well as online threats to stop it by force. Festival organizers released a statement saying the “unprecedented step” of cancelling the performance by Mashrou’ Leila was done “to prevent bloodshed and maintain peace and stability.” ”We apologize for what happened, and apologize to the public,” it added. Some church leaders and conservative politicians set off a storm of indignation on social media this week when they demanded that the Mashrou’ Leila concert be canceled, accusing the Lebanese group of blasphemy and saying some of its songs are an insult to Christianity. The band, known for its rousing music and lyrics challenging norms in the conservative Arab world, soon became the center of a heated debate about freedom of expression. Online, some groups and users posted threats suggesting they would violently stop the concert. Mashrou’ Leila was scheduled to perform in the coastal city of Byblos on Aug. 9, marking the third time the group …

South Africa says unemployment has reached its highest level in a decade at 29%. Second-quarter figures released Tuesday show the number of unemployed rose by 573,000 over the past year, with only 21,000 jobs created. It is the latest grim report for Africa’s most developed economy, which in May announced that growth had dropped by the most in a decade during the first quarter. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration is under public pressure to turn around the economy and clean up corruption. That dissatisfaction led to the worst election showing in 25 years for Ramaphosa’s ruling African National Congress in May. The unemployment numbers were released on the same day that South Africa’s struggling state-owned power utility Eskom announced losses of more than 20 billion rand ($1.4 billion) last fiscal year. Eskom supplies about 95% of the country’s electricity and is at the center of Ramaphosa’s efforts to rid state-owned enterprises of corruption and mismanagement. When Ramaphosa won election in May “we expected a solid emergency plan to address the economic challenges and these unemployment challenges,” Lumkile Mondi, an economics lecturer at Witwatersrand University, told The Associated Press. “But that has not been forthcoming and all we have had so far …

The U.N. human rights office criticized the Trump administration’s decision to reinstate federal executions after a 16-year hiatus, saying it bucks the national and international trend to abolish the death penalty.  The U.N. human rights office says Washington’s decision to resume executions of federal inmates on death row flies in the face of the most basic human right, that of the right to life.  It says it also is a blow to progress toward universal abolition of capital punishment. The United Nations reports around 170 of 194 U.N. member sates either have abolished the death penalty altogether in law or in practice. Human rights spokesman Rupert Colville says executing people is wrong on many levels.  He says a major concern is the risk of putting to death people who are innocent of the crime for which they are charged.  He says reports in the United States based on DNA evidence have shown that some states have put innocent people to death. “There is also really an absence of any proof that the death penalty actually serves as a deterrent, which is often given as a reason for using it,” Colville said. “And, there also, of course, are considerable concerns, especially …