POPGAZETA

Turkey said Sunday that six of its nationals were being held by a Libyan force and vowed to respond to any attacks on its vessels or interests. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement it would consider Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter’s “illegal militia forces” to be “legitimate targets” if the Turks are not released. Earlier, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said there would be “heavy” consequences to any “hostile attitude or attacks.” His comments came after a spokesman for Hifter’s self-styled Libyan National Army called Turkish assets in Libya “legitimate targets,” accusing Turkey of helping rival militias allied with the U.N.-supported government. Hifter’s forces have received aid from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and France. Akar said Turkey was in Libya to support “regional peace and stability.” His comments were carried by the official Anadolu news agency. The LNA controls much of eastern and southern Libya. In April it launched an offensive against Tripoli, where a weak, U.N.-aligned government is based. The LNA said in a brief statement that its air force targeted a Turkish drone near the Matiga airport, which is controlled by the Tripoli government. The airport said all flights were canceled after the attack. Matiga …

A Sudanese doctors group says five people have been killed and several seriously wounded in a day of demonstrations against continued military rule in Sudan. Tens of thousands of protesters rallied across the country Sunday calling for a civilian government nearly three months after the army forced out the long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir. Marchers demand the generals who took over power from al-Bashir make way for civilians. The protesters, some of them waving Sudanese flags, chanted “Civilian rule! Civilian rule!” and “Burhan’s council, just fall,” targeting General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of the military council. Security forces fired tear gas at the demonstrators. “We’re fed up with the military. For decades, this country has been ruled by the military. It didn’t work and it will not work,” one demonstrator said. Sunday’s protests were the first since June 3 when security forces violently broke up a protest camp in Khartoum. The opposition says at least 128 were killed while the government puts the death toll at 61. “Despite what they did at the sit-in, despite the people they killed…the revolution will not die in the hearts of the youth,” the demonstrator said. General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the military …

Five Japanese whaling ships are set on Monday to begin the first commercial whale hunt in more than 30 years. Japan stopped commercial whaling in 1988 after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a moratorium on killing the giant mammals. But despite the global ban, Japan continued to hunt whales for what it claimed was scientific research. Critics have long disputed that claim, calling it commercial whaling in disguise. In the 2017-2018 whaling season, Japanese sailors killed 333 minke whales in Antarctic waters. More than 120 were pregnant females. In December, Japan announced it was leaving the IWC on June 30. The whaling fleet will sail from the port of Kushiro, on the northern island of Hokkaido. Its ships will hunt minke, sei and Bryde’s whales in Japanese waters. Japan’s return to commercial whaling has created an international outcry. Kitty Block, president of Humane Society International, said: “Japan leaving the IWC and defying international law to pursue its commercial whaling ambitions is renegade, retrograde and myopic. It is undermining its international reputation for an industry whose days are so clearly numbered, to produce a product for which demand has plummeted.” But some experts say Japan’s move might be a blessing …

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took his global message urging immediate climate action to officials gathered in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, where production of hydrocarbons remains a key driver of the economy.   Guterres is calling on governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020, cut greenhouse emissions by 45% over the next decade and overhauling fossil fuel-driven economies with new technologies like solar and wind. The world, he said, “is facing a grave climate emergency.”   In remarks at a summit in Abu Dhabi, he painted a grim picture of how rapidly climate change is advancing, saying it is outpacing efforts to address it.    He lauded the Paris climate accord, but said even if its promises are fully met, the world still faces what he described as a catastrophic three-degree temperature rise by the end of the century.   Arctic permafrost is melting decades earlier than even worst-case scenarios, he said, threatening to unlock vast amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas.   “It is plain to me that we have no time to lose,” Guterres said. “Sadly, it is not yet plain to all the decision makers that run our world.”    He spoke at the …

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied across Sudan on Sunday against the ruling generals, calling for a civilian government nearly three months after the army forced out the long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir. The mass protests, centered in the capital, Khartoum, were the first since a June 3 crackdown when security forces violently broke up a protest camp. In that confrontation, dozens were killed, with protest organizers saying the death toll was at least 128, while authorities claim it was 61, including three security personnel. Sunday’s demonstrators gathered at several points across Khartoum and in the sister city of Omdurman, then marching to the homes of those killed in previous protests. The protesters, some of them waving Sudanese flags, chanted “Civilian rule! Civilian rule!” and “Burhan’s council, just fall,” targeting Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of the military council. Security forces fired tear gas at the demonstrators. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the military council, said the generals want to reach an “urgent and comprehensive agreement with no exclusion. We in the military council are totally neutral. We are the guardians of the revolution. We do not want to be part of the dispute.” The European Union and several …

More than 50,000 people rallied in support of the Hong Kong police on Sunday as the semi-autonomous territory braced for another day of protests on the anniversary of the former British colony’s return to China.   The crowd filled a park in front of the legislature and chanted “Thank you” to the police, who have been criticized for using tear gas and rubber bullets during clashes with demonstrators that left dozens injured on June 12. Some carried Chinese flags. Police estimated the turnout at 53,000. A protest march has been called for Monday, the third in three weeks, this one on the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997. Activists have also said they will try to disrupt an annual flag-raising ceremony attended by senior Hong Kong and mainland Chinese officials in the morning.   Police have erected tall barriers and shut off access to Golden Bauhinia Square, where the flag-raising will be held, to prevent protesters from massing there overnight.   The anniversary always draws protests, but this year’s is expected to be larger than usual because of widespread opposition to a government proposal to allow suspects to be extradited to mainland …

The International Organization for Migration says more than 32,000 migrants worldwide have died or gone missing between 2014 and 2018, with most fatalities occurring on the deadly Mediterranean Sea crossing from North Africa to Europe. The U.N. migration agency says its global figures underestimate the true nature and extent of the problem as many migrant deaths are never reported and many bodies are never recovered. Nevertheless, researchers say the statistics paint a very grim picture of the perils awaiting the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants risking their lives in search of protection or a better life. The report shows nearly 18,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean between 2014 and 2018. It says the remains of almost two thirds of those victims have not been found. IOM spokesman, Joel Millman said Rohingya refugees comprise the vast majority of the 2,200 deaths recorded in South-East Asia and most of the 288 deaths recorded in South Asia since 2014 were of Afghan migrants. “Despite the conflict in Yemen, people continue to attempt the sea crossing from the Horn of Africa across the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. At least 125 people drowned off the shores …

The seventh and latest round of peace talks between the U.S. and Taliban is “critical,” said Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen on Sunday, the second day of talks with Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in the Mideastern state of Qatar, where the militant group maintains a political office. Shaheen told The Associated Press both sides are looking for “tangible results” as they try to hammer out the fine print of agreements that will see the eventual withdrawal of over 20,000 U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan, and end America’s longest-running war. The agreements are also expected to provide guarantees that Afghanistan will not again harbor terrorists to carry out attacks worldwide. The talks began on Saturday and are expected to continue into the next week.  The two sides sat down to negotiate just days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was hopeful of a deal to end Afghanistan’s protracted war by Sept. 1. “Getting a comprehensive peace agreement with the Taliban before Sept. 1 would be nothing short of a miracle,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson’s Center.  “That said, I could certainly envision a more limited deal being in place …

The forces of Libya’s Khalifa Hifter said Friday that Turkish vessels and interests are “legitimate targets” in its battle to seize the capital of Tripoli, after it accused Turkey of helping rival militias allied with the U.N.-supported government. The self-styled Libyan National Army, led by Hifter, already controls much of the country’s east and south. It launched an offensive against the weak Tripoli-based government in April. The fighting has threatened to plunge Libya into another bout of violence on the scale of the 2011 conflict that ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi and led to his death. A spokesman for the LNA, Ahmed al-Mesmari, said the country had “come under illegitimate Turkish aggression” in recent weeks. “Turkey has become directly involved in the battle (for Tripoli), with its soldiers, planes, sea ships and all the supplies that now reach Misrata, Tripoli and Zuwara directly,” al-Mesmari said. He said Turkey had helped push the LNA out of the town of Gharyan, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Tripoli. The town was a key supply route for Hifter’s forces pushing toward the capital. Turkish forces also bombed LNA positions and provided air cover for militias allied with the Tripoli-based government to retake the …

There are hundreds of thousands of churches in the United States. And though some 4,000 to 5,000 new congregations open their doors in the country each year, just as many close, mainly due to economic reasons. The vacant churches are then remodeled and reused as apartment complexes, bookstores and museums. Or turned into breweries, as was done in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Nataliya Leonova has the story. …

Augmented technology, or AR, has been around for a few years.  Just ask anyone who ever played the Pokemon Go game on a cell phone.  But at a university in London, Augmented Reality is literally taking on a new life.  Arash Arabasadi brings this story into the world. …

Professors at the University of Maryland are looking to dramatically improve basic artificial intelligence as they attempt to teach robots how to think and use their past experience to perform new tasks. Nastassia Jaumen visited the University to find out more. …

Mexican immigration officials say they have returned 81 migrants to Haiti after attending to “technical” considerations and seeing to the security of the captain of the plane taking them to the Caribbean nation. Local media reported that several Haitians tried to flee the plane parked at an airport in the southern state of Chiapas on Saturday. El Sol de Mexico newspaper said the uprising took four hours to control and that 10 Mexican police were injured.  Dozens of Haitians were removed from the deportation plane before it took off for Port-au-Prince. Mexico is under intense pressure to reduce the flow of migrants traveling through the country to reaching the U.S. Most of the migrants are from Central America, but others are from African, Asian or Caribbean countries. …

The Trump administration has agreed to postpone implementing a rule allowing medical workers to decline performing abortions or other treatments on moral or religious grounds while the so-called “conscience” rule is challenged in a California court.  The rule was supposed to take effect on July 22 but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its opponents in a California lawsuit mutually agreed Friday to delay a final ruling on the matter until Nov. 22. The agency called it the “most efficient way to adjudicate” the rule. A federal judge in San Francisco permitted the change on Saturday. A California lawsuit alleges that the department exceeded its authority with the rule, which President Trump announced in May.  The measure known as Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care; Delegations of Authority would require institutions that receive money from federal programs to certify that they comply with some 25 federal laws protecting conscience and religious rights.  Most laws pertain to medical procedures such as abortion, sterilization and assisted suicide. The department has previously said that past administrations haven’t done enough to protect such rights in the medical field. The rule is a priority for religious conservatives, but critics fear it …

A volatile mix of intercommunal conflict and violent extremism near Mali’s border with Niger and Burkina Faso has become a looming crisis, experts are warning.    Yearslong regional violence has spiked in recent months, making headlines and raising concerns that overstretched security forces could lose control of an already tenuous situation.    FILE – A Fulani herder leads his cattle to the landfill next to the internally displaced persons camp in Faladie, Mali, where nearly 800 IDPs have found refuge after fleeing intercommunal violence, on May 14, 2019. On June 14, gunfire near Liptako, Mali, forced a French Gazelle helicopter to make an emergency landing, defenceWeb, a South African defense news site, reported. The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, a local affiliate of ISIS, claimed responsibility for the attack, which wounded the crew, the report added.   Counterterrorism    The helicopter and its crew were part of Operation Barkhane, a French-led counterterror operation based in the Sahel. At the time, they were conducting an attack on ISGS hideouts, which left 20 suspected militants dead.     Pauline Le Roux, a visiting assistant research fellow with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, said ISGS emerged in 2015 from the remnants of other extremist groups in the region. …

Members of Sudan’s powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces prevented protest leaders from addressing journalists on Saturday, the eve of a mass rally against the ruling generals, protest organizers said.    Sudan’s umbrella protest movement, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, has called for a “million man” march Sunday in Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman, against the ruling generals, who have resisted calls to cede power to civilians.    The movement’s key group, the Sudanese Professionals Association, had called for a media briefing on Saturday evening to unveil plans for the rally, but it was blocked by members of the RSF, protest leader Ahmed al-Rabie said.    “Before we could start the press conference, three vehicles from RSF, full of armed men, came to our building and told us not to hold the press conference,” Rabie said.    They “also ordered all the people there to leave the building,” he added.    A Sudanese journalist at the site confirmed that armed men had prevented him and other journalists from attending the briefing in Khartoum’s eastern district of Burri, a hotbed of protests.    Rabie said two leaders from the movement had been arrested on Friday.    Sunday’s mass protest is the first such …