In US, Many Kids Take Passion for the Planet Back to School

For many kids, heading back to school means more than resuming classes and homework. It means getting back to clubs and student organizations focused on sustainability — everything from composting and recycling to reducing food waste and promoting cleaner oceans and waterways.

“Young people tend to be incredibly active in sustainability issues, much more so than many adults,” says April Peebler, executive director of Heirs to our Oceans (H2OO), a Berkeley, California-based organization that tries to help 12- to 17-year-olds from around the world learn about and advocate for the environment.

“There’s a lot of passion there, and a strong desire to deal with the problems facing the environment that they are going to be inheriting,”

Hannah Ono, 15, of Boston, has already been advocating for the environment for years. In fourth grade, she and some friends started a petition asking Dunkin Donuts to stop using Styrofoam cups. The Change.org petition drew 300,000 supporters, and helped persuade the company to ditch Styrofoam cups by 2020, she says.

“My next petition is for the City of Boston to ban Styrofoam containers. I just put it up a couple months ago on Change.org, and it has about 300 signatures so far,” says Ono, a rising sophomore at Phillips Academy Andover.

She’s also one of a group of students who got a $1,000 grant from her school to raise awareness this year about sustainable fashion. “We want people to know more about where their clothes are coming from. Fast fashion can be really harmful for the environment,” she says.

“We’re going to be the ones living with the consequences of climate change, so it’s important for us to take these steps,” Ono says of her generation.

Perhaps the most famous teen dedicated to the environment is Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who inspired coordinated climate-change strikes around the world last year. She arrived in New York on Wednesday and will speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, then join world leaders who will present plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Thunberg is taking a year off school to pursue her activism.

Joelle Alley heads a California non-profit, EarthTeam, that offers a paid internship program for kids interested in sustainability. She says the group starts each school year by presenting their program to around 10 under-resourced high schools in the Richmond, California, area.

“We recruit teams of 14 interns from each school, and the interns work with coaches to identify environmental problems on their campus and in their community. Then the kids come up with action campaigns to help solve the problems,” Alley says.

The kids “have a unique perspective on their families and communities, and often spot issues that outsiders would miss. They walk everywhere, they hang out in parks, and they see a lot of things. We provide the structure and tools and resources, but they are the ones identifying the issues and coming up with campaigns,” she says.

Through the Food Recovery Network, one of the largest student-led movements fighting food waste and hunger, students at college campuses in 44 states and the District of Columbia connect with college dining halls, local shelters and food pantries to make sure excess food is delivered to those in need, instead of going into the trash.

“We coach and mentor students to help them build local food recovery programs,” says the organization’s executive director, Regina Anderson. “There’s an incredible amount of food waste on university campuses and this is a very practical way to help our environment.”

Through the network, students have recovered 3.9 million pounds of food so far, Anderson says.

“At any given time, we work with 5,000 college students,” as well as some high school-age volunteers, she says.

Educators say students who care about sustainability can have a huge impact, particularly as they enter the workforce.

“We’re seeing this manifest in two ways,” says Jonathan Deutsch, professor of Food and Hospitality Management in the College of Nursing and Health Professions at Drexel University, in Philadelphia, where the Food Recovery Network has been active for years.

“Students are very mindful of their own impact, opting for reusable water bottles and coffee mugs. But it’s taken to a much wider-reaching level in the case of students in professional programs. Someone studying to be a food service manager in a hospital, for example, who is launching their career with a sustainability-oriented mindset, really moves the needle,” he says. “They are making decisions about thousands of meals a day, and that adds up to a huge environmental impact.”

Thunberg told political and business leaders in Davos recently: “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”

 

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CNN Apologizes for Misleading Hong Kong Headline  

CNN has apologized for a misleading headline that appeared on its website during its coverage Sunday of the Hong Kong riots.

At one point, a headline reading “Police Use Petrol Bombs and Water Cannons Against Hong Kong Protesters” flashed on the screen.

According to Hong Kong police, officers shot water cannons at barricades, not people, and it was the demonstrators who threw the gasoline bombs.

CNN’s Hong Kong bureau chief Roger Clark admitted in a letter to police that the headline was “erroneous.”

Clark said CNN is “working hard to ensure that reporting of the Hong Kong protests is fair and balanced at all times.”

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Swedish Teen Climate Activist Sails Into New York for UN Summit 

Teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg arrived in New York on Wednesday after crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a zero-emissions sailboat to attend a conference on global warming. 
 
The 16-year-old Swede set sail from Plymouth, England, on Aug. 14. At 4 a.m., she tweeted:

Land!! The lights of Long Island and New York City ahead. pic.twitter.com/OtDyQOWtF5

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 28, 2019

Thunberg came to the U.S. for the U.N. climate summit and chose to sail rather than fly to avoid the greenhouse gas emissions that come with commercial jet travel. 
 
Thunberg said she first learned about climate change when she was 8 years old and became very concerned about the future of humanity.  
 
A few years later, she was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder and selective mutism.  “That basically means I only speak when I think it’s necessary,” she told the audience at a TED Talk last year. “Now is one of those moments.” 
 
In August 2018, Thunberg stopped attending school on Fridays and took to protesting alone outside the Swedish parliament. She called it a strike intended to draw attention to climate change.  
 
Thousands of students have since taken up her cause around the world, staying out of school on Fridays and demanding adults do something about climate change. 
 

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg sails into New York harbor aboard the Malizia II, a zero-emissions yacht, Aug. 28, 2019.

The boat carrying Thunberg, the Malizia II, has the hashtag #FridaysForFuture under “UNITE BEHIND THE SCIENCE” inscribed on the sails.  
 
The sailboat’s onboard electronics are powered by solar panels and underwater turbines. It has no toilet or fixed shower aboard, no windows below deck and only a small gas cooker to heat up freeze-dried food. 

Thunberg’s boat was greeted by a flotilla of 17 sailboats representing each of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals on their sails.
 
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed Thunberg on Twitter: 

Welcome to New York, @gretathunberg!

The determination and perseverance shown during your journey should embolden all of us taking part in next month’s #ClimateAction Summit.

We must deliver on the demands of people around the world and address the global climate crisis. pic.twitter.com/dGUZr9fFQM

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) August 28, 2019

Thunberg will speak at the U.N. Climate Action Summit next month and then attend a climate summit in Chile in December. She is taking a year off from school to pursue her activism.  

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US Won’t Reveal Mideast Peace Plan Until After Israeli Election

President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy says details of the U.S. peace plan will not be revealed until after next month’s Israeli election.

“We have decided that we will not be releasing the peace vision, or parts of it, prior to the Israeli election,” Jason Greenblatt tweeted Wednesday.

Trump said Monday parts of the political portion of the peace deal could be made public before the election. 

Israel’s Parliament voted to dissolve and hold another election after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a tightly contested April vote, but failed to put together a governing coalition. 

Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner announced the economic portion of his peace plan earlier this year. It would include $50 billion in international investment to help the Palestinian people.

Trump has called his administration’s peace plan “the deal of the century.” 

Palestinian leaders have already rejected the economic plan before all the details are known. They say it makes no mention of a two-state solution and say it is humiliating to believe Palestinians can be bought off. They also accuse the Trump administration of being openly and blatantly pro-Israel.

There have been no formal Israeli-Palestinian peace talks since 2014. 

 

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Trump Talks Up Credit Line for Iran, But No Sign of Imminent Policy Change

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

VOA Persian’s Katherine Ahn and White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed.

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly-stated openness to other nations offering Iran short-term loans to help it cope with punishing U.S. sanctions appears unlikely to become official U.S. policy anytime soon, analysts say.

Trump made his first public expression of interest in the idea at a Monday news conference with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Biarritz, France, where they had attended a G-7 summit.

Macron had told the conference that Iran might accept Trump’s demand to negotiate a new deal to curb its nuclear program and other perceived malign behaviors if world powers offer Tehran some form of “economic compensation … in terms of lines of credit or reopening certain economic sectors.”

Asked by a reporter what he thought of that idea, Trump said Iran may need a “short-term letter of credit or loan … to get them over a very rough patch.”

Iran has seen its inflation and unemployment soar since last year, when Trump began toughening U.S. sanctions as part of his pullout from a 2015 deal in which world powers offered Iran sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear activities. Trump had rejected the deal as not tough enough on Iran. 

Trump told the reporters he was talking about a new “letter of credit” that would be offered to Iran by “numerous countries”, excluding the U.S. He also said the potential loan program would be “secured by oil” and would be “paid back immediately and very quickly.”

FILE – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press availability at the State Department in Washington, Aug. 7, 2019.

There has been no public comment from the Trump administration on the details of the loan program discussed by the president. But U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking to U.S. network NBC on Tuesday, responded to a question about Trump’s loan remarks by saying that “when the Iranian leadership chooses to comply” with conditions set by the president, the U.S. will be “happy to provide them the resources and the capital they need to be a successful country.” Pompeo had prefaced his response by saying the U.S. wants Iran to be a “normal nation” and the Iranian people to be “successful in changing the behavior of their leadership.”

Iran has vowed to resist U.S. sanctions and demanded their removal before agreeing to meetings or negotiations with the Trump administration. U.S. officials have vowed to keep expanding the sanctions as part of a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Iran to accept U.S. demands.

In another sign that a credit line for Iran is not ready for official endorsement by world powers, an EU spokesperson responsible for diplomatic discussions with Iran on the margins of the G-7 summit declined to discuss with VOA Persian the specifics of a loan program. 

“We support and welcome any diplomatic efforts to find the way out of the crisis, deescalate the situation in the region and preserve the JCPOA,” the spokesperson said, referring to the acronym of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that the EU still supports.

Michael O’Hanlon, foreign policy research director at Washington’s Brookings Institution, told VOA Persian in a Tuesday interview that Trump’s talk of a credit line for Iran may have been intended to point out that if Iran has humanitarian or medicine needs, short-term loans could be a way to supply those needs even while the country is under U.S. sanctions. “But the pressure will continue. He’s not really interested in easing the economic pain that Iran is feeling today. He wants that pain to intensify and to endure,” added O’Hanlon.

FILE – A picture shows export oil pipelines at an oil facility in Iran’s Kharg Island, on the shore of the Persian Gulf, Feb. 23, 2016.

In another VOA Persian interview, Doug Bandow, a senior foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said he believes Trump recognizes that Tehran needs financial help. “He doesn’t want them to get the money from conventional means because he wants to maintain his policy of maximum pressure,” Bandow said. “He’s looking for an alternative, but I’m not convinced this one will work.”

Bandow said he doubts Iran will accept loans in place of selling its oil to international customers. Iran relies on oil exports for most of its revenue, but its exports have been cut significantly since Washington unilaterally banned all nations from buying Iranian crude in May as part of the U.S. sanctions campaign.

“And who wants to give a loan (to Iran) unless you are guaranteed that the oil (that secures the loan) will be sold and Iran will pay (the loan) back. Otherwise (the creditors) are going to get stuck with a great big IOU (from Iran),” Bandow added.

Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, said developing a credit line for Iran is a mistake. “Any alleviation of pressure would give the Iranian regime breathing room and harden its position ahead of any negotiations,” Berman told VOA Persian. “The Trump administration’s pressure is very clearly working, and it wouldn’t make strategic sense to lessen it or to roll it back in advance of getting anything tangible from Iran.”

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New DRC Cabinet Prompts Accusations that Kabila’s Regime Still Holds Power

As the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s new president unveils his coalition government, opposition members are complaining about being left out. 

On Monday, President Felix Tshisekedi announced his cabinet, seven months after winning a contested election that landed him in the country’s highest office. The 65-member cabinet includes 23 appointees from Tshisekedi’s Direction for Change Party and 42 from former President Joseph Kabila’s Common Front for Congo coalition. But members of the DRC’s numerous other political parties are warning that the cabinet gives too much power to allies of the former president and not enough to opposition voices. 

Emery Kalwira, president of the opposition group Congolese Coalition, said that Tshisekedi’s predecessor, Kabila, maintains the majority of the seats in the government and doesn’t want to leave power. 

“He is [Kabila] still the main leader of the DRC and Tshisekedi isn’t the real president,” he told VOA’s Daybreak Africa radio program. “That is why we want to call all the people to get up and to put them out and to begin a good transition with our popular salvation authority.”

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In January, Tshisekedi took office, despite critics saying the election he won was rigged. Now opposition voices are accusing the new president of being a puppet.

“You know that Kabila is controlling the two parliamentary senate and the parliament and the biggest majority from the government composition is from him. That shows that … Congolese people will still be suffering, and that’s why we say Mr. Kabila must go out. Because Tshisekedi is not the real president,” Kalwira added. 

But Abraham Lukabwanga, president of the press to Tshisekedi, told VOA that the 76% of the cabinet are new to the government in an interview with Africa News Tonight. “Those are people that have never been into politics. They never had the position, so this can lead to a really big change,” he said.

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Lukabwanga stressed that the cabinet is diverse and includes representatives of all 26 of DRC’s provinces, including women and young people who previously did not have a voice in government. He said they are determined to address pressing issues in the country, including corruption and an ongoing Ebola outbreak. 

“What you’ve seen the last 48 hours since the government has been published is the joy of, the satisfaction of, I may say, the majority of people who are happy to say that now we do have a government. It’s time to work. We don’t have time to waste,” he said.

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‘Now or Never’: Hong Kong Protesters Say They Have Nothing to Lose

Exasperated with the government’s unflinching attitude to escalating civil unrest, Jason Tse quit his job in Australia and jumped on a plane to join what he believes is a do-or-die fight for Hong Kong’s future.

The Chinese territory is grappling with its biggest crisis since its handover to Beijing 22 years ago as many residents fret over what they see as China’s tightening grip over the city and a relentless march toward mainland control.

The battle for Hong Kong’s soul has pitted protesters against the former British colony’s political masters in Beijing, with broad swathes of the Asian financial center determined to defend the territory’s freedoms at any cost.

Faced with a stick and no carrot – chief executive Carrie Lam reiterated on Tuesday protesters’ demands were unacceptable – the pro-democracy movement has intensified despite Beijing deploying paramilitary troops near the border in recent weeks.

“This is a now or never moment and it is the reason why I came back,” Tse, 32, said, adding that since joining the protests last month he had been a peaceful participant in rallies and an activist on the Telegram social media app. “If we don’t succeed now, our freedom of speech, our human rights, all will be gone. We need to persist.”

Since the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997, critics say Beijing has reneged on a commitment to maintain Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms under a “one country, two systems” formula.

Opposition to Beijing that had dwindled after 2014, when authorities faced down a pro-democracy movement that occupied streets for 79 days, has come back to haunt authorities who are now grappling with an escalating cycle of violence.

“We have to keep fighting. Our worst fear is the Chinese government,” said a 40-year-old teacher who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions. “For us, it’s a life or death situation.”

‘If we burn, you burn’

What started as protests against a now-suspended extradition bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party, has evolved into demands for greater democracy.

“We lost the revolution in 2014 very badly. This time, if not for the protesters who insist on using violence, the bill would have been passed already,” said another protester, who asked to be identified as just Mike, 30, who works in media and lives with his parents.

He was referring to the 79 days of largely peaceful protests in 2014 that led to the jailing of activist leaders. “It’s proven that violence, to some degree, will be useful.”

Nearly 900 people have been arrested in the latest protests.

The prospect of lengthy jail terms seems to be deterring few activists, many of whom live in tiny apartments with their families.

“7K for a house like a cell and you really think we out here scared of jail,” reads graffiti scrawled near one protest site.

HK$7,000 ($893) is what the monthly rent for a tiny room in a shared apartment could cost.

The protests pose a direct challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, whose government has sent a clear warning that forceful intervention to quell violent demonstrations is possible.

Some critics question the protesters’ “now or never” rallying cry, saying a crackdown by Beijing could bring an end to the freedoms in Hong Kong that people on the mainland can only dream of.

The campaign reflects concerns over Hong Kong’s future at a time when protesters, many of whom were toddlers when Britain handed Hong Kong back to Beijing, feel they have been denied any political outlet and have no choice but to push for universal suffrage.

“You either stand up and pull this government down or you stay at the mercy of their hands. You have no choice,” said Cheng, 28, who works in the hospitality industry.

“Imagine if this fails. You can only imagine the dictatorship of the Communists will become even greater … If we burn, you burn with us,” he said, referring to authorities in Beijing.

“The clock is ticking,” Cheng added, referring to 2047 when a 50-year agreement enshrining Hong Kong’s separate governing system will lapse.

‘Not China’

As Beijing seeks to integrate Hong Kong closer to the mainland China, many residents are recoiling.

A poll in June by the University of Hong Kong found that 53% of 1,015 respondents identified as Hong Kongers, while 11% identified as Chinese, a record low since 1997.

With the prospect of owning a home in one of the world’s most expensive cities a dream, many disaffected youth say they have little to look forward to as Beijing’s grip tightens.

“We really have got nothing to lose,” said Scarlett, 23, a translator.

As the crisis simmers, China’s People’s Liberation Army has released footage of troops conducting anti-riot exercises.

But graffiti scrawled across the city signals the protesters’ defiance.

“Hong Kong is not China” and “If you want peace, prepare for war” are some of the messages.

Tse said he believes violence is necessary because the government rarely listens to peaceful protests.

“Tactically I think we should have a higher level of violence,” he said. “I actually told my wife that if we’ll ever need to form an army on the protester side I will join.”

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Are Water Shortages Driving Migration? Researchers Dispel Myths

Water scarcity is one factor driving millions of people from their homes each year but is often not the only reason why they move, researchers told an international conference on Tuesday.

In most cases, other economic and social problems like conflict, corruption or a lack of jobs contribute to the decision to leave, they said.

They warned against over-simplifying the links between water and migration, and said many of those who do move – at least partly because of water-related pressures such as floods, droughts and pollution – may not travel far.

“International migration is very expensive and very risky and it lies beyond the reach of many of the poorest people who are most vulnerable to water security and drought,” said Guy Jobbins of the London-based Overseas Development Institute.

Those who suffer water-related shocks to their livelihoods – losing animals or crops – “are less likely to have the funds to start again in South Africa or France”, he told an audience at World Water Week in Stockholm.

Conversely, there was some evidence to suggest that people who have better access to secure, affordable water are more likely to have enough financial resources to migrate, he added.

Although much is made of international migration, most movement related to water is inside countries, often from one rural place to another, said Sasha Koo-Oshima, deputy director of land and water at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

FILE – Newly-arrived women who fled drought queue to receive food distributed by local volunteers at a camp for displaced persons in the Daynile neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital Mogadishu, in Somalia, May 18, 2019.

Three out of four of the world’s poor live in rural areas and rely heavily on agricultural production, with food insecurity, water contamination and drought forcing people from their homes – especially the young, she added.

Efforts should be stepped up to prevent water scarcity and make it profitable for young people to stay on rural land, she said.

But if people do leave, “it is not necessarily a negative phenomenon”, as humans have always moved in search of a better life, she added.

Refugee scapegoats

Researchers also called for a more sophisticated analysis of how mass migration impacts on water supplies.

In Jordan – the world’s second most water-scarce country, according to Hussam Hussein, a Middle East water researcher at Germany’s University of Kassel – a large influx of refugees from Syria, after civil war broke out there in 2011, led to tensions with their host communities, especially in cities.

Jordan hosts about 750,000 Syrians, the vast majority in urban areas, according to the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR). But contrary to public discourse, their presence is not the main cause of the country’s water shortages, said Hussein.

“When we look at the numbers, the impact of refugees is not as important as unsustainable use (of water) in the agricultural sector,” he said.

Mismanagement of water resources, leaks, illegal wells and intensive farming made up the majority of water losses in parched Jordan, he added.

In war-torn Syria, water scarcity and climate-related events such as drought had been a “trigger” for the conflict but not a primary cause, said Fatine Ezbakhe of the Mediterranean Youth for Water Network.

Instead a lack of water amplified political instability and poverty that fueled migration and unrest, she added.

Now improvements to water supplies could be used to persuade people to return home, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“If we actually invest in water, we could… try to make people go back and restart (in) the rural areas they left in the first place,” she said.

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US Military Approves Border Wall Expansion

U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall is expanding.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper recently approved another 32 kilometers (20 miles) of barriers for the United States’ southern border with Mexico, a defense official has confirmed to VOA.

The official said Esper is using an expected surplus to build the additional barrier. To date, nearly 250 kilometers of the barrier wall have been funded by shifting military funds originally marked for other purposes.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court in July allowed the administration to start using disputed Pentagon funds to construct more than 100 miles of fencing along the border.

The justices lifted a lower court freeze that was designed to block $2.5 billion in spending while lawsuits by the Sierra Club and another advocacy group went forward. Those cases may still go trial.

The Pentagon had previously approved the reprogramming of funds into its counter-drug account, which is authorized to spend money on border barrier construction in order to block potential drug smuggling corridors.

In May, Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan confirmed the transferred Pentagon funds included money the Pentagon was saving for training Afghanistan security forces. At the time, he added he would not reprogram any more money for the border wall.

A defense official told VOA Tuesday that in addition to the Afghan training money, funds were also reprogramed to the border wall from personnel and recruiting, upgrades to the E-3 aircraft and Minuteman III, and from lower-than-negotiated contract savings for air launch cruise missiles and Predator Hellfire missiles.

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Biden: Racism in US is Institutional, ‘White Man’s Problem’

Racism in America is an institutional “white man’s problem visited on people of color,” Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday, arguing that the way to attack the issue is to defeat President Donald Trump and hold him responsible for deepening the nation’s racial divide.

Taking aim at incendiary racial appeals by Trump, Biden said in an interview with a small group of reporters that a president’s words can “appeal to the worst damn instincts of human nature,” just as they can move markets or take a nation into war.

Biden is leading his Democratic challengers for the presidential nomination in almost all polls, largely because of the support of black voters. He has made appealing to them central to his candidacy and vowed to make maximizing black and Latino turnout an “overwhelming focus” of his effort. The interview, more than an hour long, focused largely on racial issues.

“White folks are the reason we have institutional racism,” Biden said. “There has always been racism in America. White supremacists have always existed, they still exist.” He added later that in his administration, it would “not be tolerated.”

By highlighting the nation’s racial tensions and placing blame on Trump, Biden is showing that he, too, is willing to make race a core campaign issue, but from the opposite perspective of the president. Turnout and enthusiasm among black voters will be critical for the Democratic nominee, notably to try to reclaim states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. He also emphasized a crossover appeal to both black voters and non-college-educated white voters.

To accentuate his appeal to black voters, Biden said that he will advertise in black publications and engage with cultural institutions like the black church, black fraternities and sororities, and historically black colleges.

“The bad news is I have a long record. The good news is I have a long record,” Biden said when asked about his enduring support among black voters. “People know me — at least they think they know me. I think after all this time, I think they have a sense of what my character is, who I am.”

“I’ve never, ever, ever in my entire life been in a circumstance where I’ve ever felt uncomfortable being in the black community,” he added, suggesting that his familiarity was not matched by many of his competitors.

While he did not specify to whom he was referring, Biden said he believes there are “assertions and assumptions” made about black voters that he believes are inaccurate, and he said that “a lot of people haven’t spent much time in the community.”

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a candidates forum at the 110th NAACP National Convention, July 24, 2019, in Detroit.

Without mentioning her by name, Biden also referenced California Sen. Kamala Harris’ attack on him during the first presidential debate on the issue of busing as a solution to school desegregation.

“All I know is I don’t think anybody in the community thinks I am — what’s the phrase?” Biden asked, paraphrasing Harris’ comment that “I know you’re not a racist, Joe.”

“I don’t think anyone thinks that about me,” Biden said.

Biden was also asked whether he would select a woman or person of color as his running mate should he become the nominee. He said that while he would “preferably” do so, he is ultimately seeking a partner on the ticket who is “simpatico with what I stand for and what I want to get done.”

“Whomever I pick would be preferably someone who was of color and who was of a different gender, but I’m not making that commitment until I know that the person I’m dealing with I can completely, thoroughly trust, is authentic, and is on the same page.”

Looking ahead to the next Democratic debate in Houston in September, he said that he understands why he has a target on his back but cautioned that Democrats “shouldn’t be forming a circular firing squad and shooting” because it only helps Trump.

Trump’s reelection campaign dismissed Biden’s accusation that Trump had inflamed racial tensions in the country.

“Having moved on from the Russia Hoax, Democrats are now employing the oldest play in the Democrat playbook: falsely accusing their opponent of racism, extending it even to the President’s supporters. Calling half the country racist is not a winning strategy,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director.

Biden also said that the Democratic field would narrow and allow for more meaningful exchanges. In the current crowded field, he said it’s difficult to have any meaningful debate at all, calling it a “non-debate debate.”

Biden, who has been attacked most forcefully by Harris, said that he believed “those who made the most direct attacks on one another haven’t really benefited much by it at the end of the day.”

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Syrian Activists: Insurgents Strike Back in Rebel Stronghold

Syrian insurgents launched counterattacks Tuesday in and near areas recently taken by government forces in the country’s last remaining rebel region, after a series of setbacks they suffered in recent weeks, opposition activists said.

The fierce fighting killed more than 50 fighters on both sides, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It also underscored that President Bashar Assad’s forces will face a long, hard fight as they try to chip away at the last rebel-held territory.

The counterattacks began early in the morning and government forces called in Syria’s air force to repel them, the Observatory said. It said 29 Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen were killed, as well as 23 insurgents.

The insurgents captured two villages, Salloumieh and Abu Omar, and pushed into the nearby village of Sham al-Hawa, it said.

The Ibaa media outlet of the al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group said its fighters were attacking Syrian positions east of Khan Sheikhoun, a major town that was held by rebels until they lost it last week.

Pro-government activists said on social media that Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen are repelling the attack.

Syrian government forces captured wide areas from insurgents over the past weeks in an offensive that began on April 30. The areas taken include all rebel-held parts of Hama province as well as villages on the southern edge of Idlib, the last remaining rebel stronghold in Syria.

Tuesday’s clashes came after Syrian warplanes pounded the rebel-held town of Maaret al-Numan and nearby villages over the past two days — their likely next target for takeover.

Maaret al-Numan, like Khan Sheikhoun, sits on the highway linking Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest. Government forces are trying to eventually open that highway.

Taher al-Omar, a citizen journalist with the al-Qaida-linked militants, wrote on social media that they have carried out several suicide attacks so far.

The months of fighting have displaced more than half a million civilians toward northern parts of Idlib, already home to some 3 million people, according to U.N. humanitarian officials.

Elsewhere in northern Syria, a bomb exploded on a minibus, killing two people and wounding nine near the town of Azaz. The town is controlled by Turkish troops and Turkey-backed opposition fighters, according to pro-government media and the Azaz media center, an activist collective.

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Thai Palace Shares Photos of king, Newly Named Royal Consort

Thailand’s royal palace has released photos of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his recently anointed royal consort, though the official website hosting the images became inaccessible within a few hours.

The photos released Monday show the 67-year-old monarch and Sineenatra Wongvajirabhakdi in formal regalia as well as in casual settings. She was named Chao Khun Phra Sineenatra Bilasakalayani last month on the king’s birthday, becoming the first to receive the title of royal noble consort since 1921, during an era of absolute monarchy.

The king married longtime companion Suthida Vajiralongkorn Na Ayudhya in May a few days before his coronation and named her his queen. Like Sineenatra, she has been serving as a senior officer in palace security units.

Vajiralongkorn was married three times previously, fathering seven children.

Vajiralongkorn assumed the throne after the 2016 death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for 70 years. During his decades as crown prince, Vajiralongkorn’s personal life was often the subject of hushed gossip, though public discussion was hampered by the country’s harsh lese majeste law, which mandates prison terms of up to 15 years for those found guilty of insulting some members of the royal family.

Some of the new palace images show 34-year-old Sineenatra, who holds the army rank of major general, engaging in activities in uniform such as piloting a fighter jet, aiming a rifle on a firing range and preparing for what appears to be a night-time parachute jump.

Others show her and the king holding hands, unusually intimate photos for members of the royal family.

Unflattering unauthorized photos of the king and his consort taken by paparazzi in Germany, where the monarch maintains a residence, have circulated widely on social media. The most recent such pictures were published by the German tabloid Bild earlier this month.

Although there were no details accompanying Monday’s official photos, the palace also posted a biography of Sineenatra, who was born in the northern province of Nan.

It said that after serving as an army nurse from 2008-2012, she joined the Royal Household Bureau, working at the palace’s handicraft store. She later transferred to the offices of Vajiralongkorn, then the crown prince. Vajiralongkorn assumed the throne after the 2016 death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Sineenatra was said to have undergone rigorous military training as well as taking flying lessons, and holds several positions in the palace bureaucracy.

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Iranian President: First Lift Sanctions, Then Let’s Talk

Iran’s president back-pedaled Tuesday on possible talks with Donald Trump, saying the U.S. president must first lift sanctions imposed on Tehran, otherwise a meeting between the two would be a mere photo op.

Hassan Rouhani’s change of heart came a day after Trump said Monday that there’s a “really good chance” the two could meet on their nuclear impasse after a surprise intervention by French President Emmanuel Macron during the G-7 summit to try to bring Washington and Tehran together after decades of conflict.

“Without the U.S.’s withdrawal from sanctions, we will not witness any positive development,” Rouhani said in a televised speech on Tuesday, adding that Washington “holds the key” as to what happens next.

“If someone intends to make it as just a photo op with Rouhani, that is not possible,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, Rouhani expressed readiness to negotiate a way out of the crisis following America’s pullout from the nuclear deal.

“If I knew that going to a meeting and visiting a person would help my country’s development and resolve the problems of the people, I would not miss it,” he had said. “Even if the odds of success are not 90% but are 20% or 10%, we must move ahead with it. We should not miss opportunities.”

Rouhani also shielded his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, against criticism from hard-liners over his surprise visit Sunday to France’s Biarritz, where leaders of the Group of Seven rich democracies were meeting.

Iran’s English-language Press TV issued a vague, anonymous statement later on Monday, rejecting Macron’s initiative.

Macron said he hoped Trump and Rouhani could meet within weeks in hopes of saving the 2015 nuclear deal that Tehran struck with world powers, but which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from last year. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

On Tuesday, Macron acknowledged his efforts to bring Iran and the U.S. together are “fragile” but said he still sees a “possible path” to rapprochement between the two.

Inviting Zarif to the G-7 summit as a surprise guest was a risky diplomatic maneuver but it helped create “the possible conditions of a useful meeting,” Macron said.

It’s France’s responsibility to play the “role of a balancing power,” Macron said, adding that his efforts allowed hope for a “de-escalation” of tensions.

Since the U.S. pullout from the nuclear deal, Iran has lost billions of dollars in business deals allowed by the accord as the U.S. re-imposed and escalated sanctions largely blocking Tehran from selling crude abroad, a crucial source of hard currency for the Islamic Republic.

Rouhani’s U-turn can be seen as a result of pressure from hard-liners in the Iranian establishment who oppose taking a softer tone toward the West.

But it could also reflect that the paradigm of grand photo op summits in exotic locations — such as Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — while stringent sanctions remain in place, does not necessarily appeal to Rouhani, whose signature accomplishment was the nuclear deal, which started unravelling with Trump’s pullout.

The hard-line Javan daily, which is close to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, warned Rouhani in large font on its Tuesday front page: “Mr. Rouhani, photo diplomacy will not develop the country.”

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Tropical Storm Dorian Heads toward Windward Islands

The government of Barbados urged residents of the eastern Caribbean island to remain vigilant Tuesday even as Tropical Storm Dorian appeared to have done little damage as it heads toward the northern Windward islands and Puerto Rico.

Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson said the storm “is said to be weakening and that is great news, but we are not out of danger yet.”

The U.S. National Hurricane Center on Tuesday had tropical storm warnings in effect for Martinique, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Tropical storm watches were in force for Dominica, Grenada, Saba and St. Eustatius and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

The center says the storm has maximum sustained winds near 50 miles per hour (85 kph) and is forecast to strengthen during the next 48 hours as it moves toward Puerto Rico.

“Dorian is forecast to be a hurricane when it moves near Puerto Rico and eastern Hispaniola,” the center said.

The storm was expected to dump between 3 to 8 inches (8 to 20 centimeters) of rain in the Windward islands, with isolated amounts of 10 inches (25 centimeters).

Much of Barbados shut down Monday as Dorian approached and authorities urged residents to remain indoors amid reports of electrical outages and other minor incidents.
 
In St. Lucia, Prime Minister Allen Chastanet announced that everything on the island of nearly 179,000 people would shut down by 6 p.m. EDT on Monday, with the hurricane expected to hit around 2 a.m. EDT on Tuesday.

“We are expecting the worst,” he said.

Some were still boarding up windows and buying food and water, but not Joannes Lamontagne, who lives in the island’s southwest region. He said by phone that everything at his hotel, Serenity Escape, was already protected.

“I don’t wait until it’s announced,” he said of the storm. “We’re always prepared no matter what.”

In Puerto Rico, hundreds of people have been crowding into grocery stores and gas stations to prepare for Dorian, buying food, water and generators, among other things. Many are worried about power outages and heavy rains on an island still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that hit in September 2017. Some 30,000 homes still have blue tarps as roofs and the electrical grid remains fragile and prone to outages even during brief rain showers.

Forecasters said the storm could pass near or south of Puerto Rico on Wednesday and approach the Dominican Republic on Wednesday night.

On Monday, Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vazquez signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency and provided a list of all the new equipment that public agencies have bought since Hurricane Maria.

“I want everyone to feel calm,” she said. “Agency directors have prepared for the last two years. The experience of Maria has been a great lesson for everyone.”

She said public schools will close Tuesday afternoon and that at least one cruise ship canceled its trip to Puerto Rico. She said those without a proper roof can stay in one of the 360 shelters around the island.

Also on Monday, a new tropical depression formed between the U.S. eastern coast and Bermuda. It was located about 320 miles (515 kilometers) southeast of Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and was moving east at 3 mph (6 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph). It was expected to become a tropical storm by Tuesday night.

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Trump May Meet With Iran’s Rouhani

U.S. President Donald Trump says there is a good chance he will meet with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in the near future. Speaking at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, on Monday, Trump said he does not want Iranians to suffer under the economic sanctions but that the United States “can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”  VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

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