The Middle East. Trade tensions. Iran’s nuclear program. Venezuela’s power struggle. Civil wars in Syria and Yemen. Familiar flashpoints such as these got plenty of airtime at the U.N. General Assembly’s big annual gathering this week.

But some leaders used their time on the world stage to highlight international conflicts and disputes that don’t usually command the same global attention.

A look at some of the less-discussed controversies trying to be heard:

Nagorno-Karabakh

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan landed one of the coveted first few speaking slots, and he devoted a bit of his wide-ranging speech to a clash in the Caucasus: a standoff between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The mountainous, ethnic Armenian area of about 150,000 people is recognized as part of Azerbaijan in U.N. Security Council resolutions dating to the 1990s. But Nagorno-Karabakh and some neighboring districts have been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia, since a six-year separatist war ended in 1994.

Both Azerbaijan and Turkey have closed their borders with Armenia because of the conflict, cutting trade and leaving Armenia with direct land access only to Georgia and Iran.

Russia, the U.S. and France have co-chaired the so-called Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, attempting to broker an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In speeches and rebuttals at the General Assembly, Armenia and Azerbaijan accused one another of misstating history, disrespecting human rights and standing in the way of a settlement.

North Macedonia

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “state of the world” address was largely a grim one, but he pointed to a few matters moving “in promising directions” — among them relations between Greece and the new Republic of North Macedonia.

Greece and what the U.N. cumbersomely used to call the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” sparred for nearly three decades over the latter’s name. It was adopted when the nation, which has a current population of about 2.1 million, declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Greece said the use of “Macedonia” implied territorial claims on its own northern province of the same name and its ancient Greek heritage, not least as the birthplace of ancient warrior king Alexander the Great. Athens blocked its Balkan neighbor’s path to NATO and EU membership over the nomenclature clash.

It became “infamous as a difficult and irresolvable problem,” in the words of now-North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

Repeated rounds of U.N.-mediated negotiations proved fruitless until June 2018, when the Skopje government agreed to change the country’s name to North Macedonia. The switch took effect this February.

European Council President Donald Tusk said this month that North Macedonia is now ready to start EU membership talks. It expects to become the 30th NATO member soon.

The deal has been contentious within both countries, though, with critics accusing their governments of giving up too much. Regardless, North Macedonia’s prime minister highlighted it with pride from the world’s premier diplomatic podium.

“We can see nothing but benefits from settling the difference,” Zaev said, calling it “an example for overcoming difficult deadlocks worldwide.”

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis didn’t expand on the deal, saying only that his country supports EU bids by all the western Balkan countries if they respect their obligations to the EU and their neighbors.

Western Sahara

A mostly desert expanse along the northwest coast of Africa, Western Sahara has been a center of friction between Morocco and Algeria for almost half a century.

Morocco annexed the phosphate- and fishing-rich former Spanish colony in 1975, then fought the Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement until 1991, when the U.N. brokered a cease-fire and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor the truce and facilitate a referendum on the territory’s future.

The vote has never happened. Morocco has proposed wide-ranging autonomy for Western Sahara, while the Polisario Front insists that Western Sahara’s Sahrawi people — a population the independence movement estimates at 350,000 to 500,000 — have the right to a referendum.

Last year, the U.N. Security Council called for stepping up efforts to reach a solution to the dispute.

A U.N. envoy brought representatives of Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria and neighboring Mauritania together last December for the first time in six years, followed by a second meeting in March. But the issue of how to provide for self-determination remains a key sticking point.

The envoy, former German President Horst Kohler, resigned in May for health reasons.

At the General Assembly, Moroccan Prime Minister Saad-Eddine El Othmani said his country’s autonomy proposal “is the solution,” while Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum reiterated hopes for Western Sahara residents “to be able to exercise their legitimate right to self-determination.”

Cyprus

A U.N.-controlled buffer zone that cuts across the city of Nicosia evinces a fraught distinction: Cyprus is the last European country to have a divided capital.

After 45 years, could that finally change? There’s “a glimmer of hope,” Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades told to the assembly.

The eastern Mediterranean island has been split into an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of uniting the island with Greece. Turkey continues to maintain more than 35,000 troops in the northern third of the island, which only Turkey recognizes as an independent state. The U.N. also has a peacekeeping force in Cyprus.

Tensions have ticked up lately, particularly over natural gas exploration in waters in the internationally recognized state’s exclusive economic zone. Turkey is also drilling there, saying it’s defending Turkish Cypriots’ rights to energy reserves.

On-and-off talks about reunification have spanned decades.

Greek Cypriots have rejected Turkish Cypriots’ demands for a permanent Turkish troop presence and veto power in government decisions in a future federated Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots, meanwhile, want parity in federal decision-making, believing they would otherwise be relegated to junior partners to the majority Greek Cypriots.

A U.N. envoy made a shuttle-diplomacy effort in recent weeks in hopes of paving the way for formal talks, and Anastasiades suggested in his General Assembly speech there was some agreement on starting points for potential discussion. But he also complained that Turkey’s drilling and other activities “severely undermine” the prospect of negotiations.

Turkey’s Erdogan, meanwhile, complained about “the uncompromising position” of the Greek Cypriots.

Belize-Guatemala

It’s been a big year in a centuries-old argument between Belize and Guatemala.

Guatemala claims more than 4,000 square miles (10,350 square kilometers) of terrain administered by Belize — essentially the southern half of Belize. It’s an area of nature reserves, scattered farming villages and fishing towns, and some Caribbean beach tourism destinations.

The dispute’s roots stretch to the 19th century, when Britain controlled Belize and Spain ruled Guatemala.

Guatemala, which became independent in 1821, argues that it inherited a Spanish claim on the territory. Belize considers Guatemala’s claim unfounded and says the borders were defined by an 1859 agreement between Guatemala and Britain (Belize remained a British colony until 1981).

The land spat has strained diplomatic relations and at times even affected air travel between the two Central American countries.

Belize and Guatemala agreed in 2008 to ask the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, for a binding ruling.

Guatemalans voters gave their assent to the plan in a referendum last year, and Belizeans gave their approval this May.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales celebrated the developments in his General Assembly speech.

“This is a milestone for Guatemala, for Central America and for the world,” he said, emphasizing the peaceful process toward resolving the disagreement. “Currently, bilateral relations between Guatemala and Belize are the best they’ve ever been.”

Belizean Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington told the assembly Saturday that his country also looked forward to resolving “an age-old, atavistic claim that has hindered Belize’s development” and undercut friendship between the countries.

While Belize remains concerned about various activities by Guatemalan troops and citizens, he said, Belizeans “certainly have the most fervent wish to live side by side with the government and people of Guatemala in peace, harmony and close cooperation.”

…

A boat carrying at least 50 Europe-bound migrants capsized Saturday in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya, the U.N. refugee agency and the country’s coast guard said, while an independent support group said another 56 migrants on another boat were at risk in the sea.

Coast guard spokesman Ayoub Gassim told The Associated Press that a shipwreck took place off the western city of Misrata, 187 kilometers (116 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli.

UNHCR said rescue efforts were ongoing Saturday afternoon and released no details on casualties.

Alarm Phone, an independent support group for people crossing the Mediterranean, said a second boat for migrants was in distress, with “about 56 lives at risk.”

The group said it received a call from migrants on the boat, who left Libya’s shores days ago, saying that “they are desperately calling for help and are afraid to die.”

“They are still in distress at sea with no rescue in sight. They have now been at sea for over 60 hours,” Alarm Phone said.

Mediterranean crossing point

Libya became a major crossing point for migrants to Europe after the overthrow and death of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, when the North African nation was thrown into chaos, armed militias proliferated and central authority collapsed.

In recent years, the European Union has partnered with the coast guard and other Libyan forces to try to stop the dangerous sea crossings.

Rights groups say those efforts have left migrants at the mercy of brutal armed groups or confined in squalid detention centers that lack adequate food and water.

At least 6,000 migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and other nations are locked in dozens of detention facilities in Libya run by militias accused of torture and other abuses.

There are limited supplies for the migrants, who often end up there after arduous journeys at the mercy of abusive traffickers who hold them for ransom from their families.

…

French police repeatedly used tear gas and water cannons to break up a protest Saturday by nearly a 1,000 yellow vest demonstrators in the southwest city of Toulouse.

A police statement said officers made five arrests after being targeted by objects thrown by some of the protesters.

A group that observes police conduct at yellow vest protests said officers had attacked five of their number during the demonstration, injuring one of them.

The Observatory of Police Practice (OPP) posted images and video on Twitter to support their account and posted an open letter to the authorities protesting the incident.

The police headquarters in Toulouse was not available to comment on the allegations Saturday evening.

Earlier this month, a member of the OPP filed a complaint alleging that he had been injured during a police charge at a yellow vest protest.

The march in Toulouse, which holds regular yellow vests protests on Saturday, was led by demonstrators brandishing a giant banner that read: “Fed up of surviving. We want to live.”

As staff at a McDonalds outlet closed up the premises, one of the parasols outside went up in flames.

Even after the use of tear gas and water cannons, demonstrators continued to gather in the city streets.

Calm in Paris

In the capital Paris, some yellow vests joined a climate protest march.

September’s protests have revived the yellow vest movement, though not to the levels seen late last year and in the first half of 2019.

Saturday’s protests came two days after the French government unveiled a draft 2020 budget with more than 9 billion euros in tax cuts for households.

It includes 5 billion euros in tax cuts for some 12 million households already promised by President Emmanuel Macron, the result of a “great national debate” he held to try to address the ongoing protests.

Macron swept to the presidency in 2017 with a pledge to get the country back on a solid financial footing. But he was caught short by the yellow vest movement that accused the former investment banker of ignoring the day-to-day struggles of many French.

Demonstrations have been banned on the Champs-Elysees after protesters clashed with police on the famous Paris avenue last Dec. 8, in the early days of the yellow vest protests.

On that weekend, police detained 900 people, the most since the anti-government protests began.

…

This interview originated in VOA’s Horn of Africa service. VOA Africa Division’s Thierry Kaore, Andrea Tadic and Salem Solomon contributed to the story.

Editor’s note: Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde gave an interview to Solomon Abate of the Voice of America’s Horn of Africa service, in New York. She spoke in Amharic and English. These highlights are from their conversation in English and have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Sahle-Work Zewde was elected president of Ethiopia by the country’s members of parliament in October 2018.  She became the first woman to hold this position in the country’s history. Sahle-Work previously served at the U.N. Special Representative to the African Union and Ethiopian Ambassador to France, Senegal and Djibouti.  She also headed the U.N. office in Nairobi.

Solomon Abate: Your Excellency Madame President, thank you very much for your time. I would like to start this interview with yourself. Please tell me a little about yourself, about your family…
 
Sahle-Work Zewde: I don’t know where to start. I grew up in a family of four girls. I’m the firstborn. But I had a very amazing family especially my father, who has always told us that there is nothing that a woman or a girl cannot do. So this has been my motto all my life and in whatever I did, by the way, I was the first woman to do this, the first woman to do that, so I was daring. I was courageous and I had my self-esteem as well.
 
All this has helped. So I started in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs then, no, Ministry of Education, rather, [and] then foreign affairs. I was [an] ambassador of Ethiopia for close to two decades. Too many countries and multilateral as well to the African Union. Then I joined the U.N. as an assistant secretary-general and a special representative of the SG (secretary-general) to the Central African Republic, where my main task was to stabilize the country and work on the peacebuilding for close to eight years. The only United Nations headquarters in the global south which is based in Nairobi as its first dedicated director-general, female or male, that was the first one and the first female of course. Yeah, so with that I’m co-founder Secretary-General. The last posting in the U.N. was to the African Union as a special representative of the SG again to the EU before I joined this office. That’s it in a nutshell.
 
Abate: And congratulations for becoming the first Ethiopian president your, excellency. And my next question would be on the peace and stability of Ethiopia. There are people who are very much concerned about the future of this country. There are people who predict [the] disintegration of that country. [In the] meantime, there are some optimistic views from the public and from the high officials of the country, including the prime minister of Ethiopia. How do you characterize the current situation in the country?
 
Sahle-Work: First of all, I always see the glass half full. If you don’t have that perspective, then it can distort your views. Second, I think we have to think of where we were like two, three years ago. I think we are [on] the right path. I think this is what we should be doing, consolidate. We have a conducive environment. Of course, it can be improved as we move on, but we have the conditions now for everybody to come in and play their role. So if we put the interests of our country first, the interests of our people first, the peace-loving people of Ethiopia because it’s the people who have suffered most. So I think we really have to come together to draw a red line not to cross when it comes to peace, because it cannot be used as political expediency. This is too serious of an issue. So, yeah with all this in mind and with the conducive situation in Ethiopia, I think we have a good opportunity to move along.
 
Abate: Madame President, the situation of women in Africa is one of the greatest challenges. … Ethiopia, of course, is not an exception. What do you think governments should do to elevate the ability and the participation of women and what should their contribution be?
 
Sahle-Work: Yeah, I mean, if the history of Africa was written by Africans and by women Africans, I think we would find many unsung heroes. But that’s not enough. We know the state of affairs. In Ethiopia, the government has taken a bold decision to bring gender equality and women’s empowerment at the heart of what we do. My coming here is a result of that, half of the Cabinet [are women] and so on.

 
Abate: Yeah, you mentioned that in the general assembly. 
 
Sahle-Work: I wanted to test them if they closed their eyes and say, ‘Oh, we closed our eyes and we call to the podium the president of…,’ they will wake up to say, ‘Oh, is it a woman?’ Because it’s so rare. So, I think we have had two or three female presidents addressing this assembly out of 54. So there is a lot to do, but there is a good prospect in Ethiopia. The job has started, has started in a very big way. It’s for all of us now to make sure that the gap is filled that women can grow along the ladder and be selected to any position to have more women in the marketplace. In the job marketplace, [we should] have more women entrepreneurs and so on. There is a huge awareness currently that women should have their place. That they should get their due. So, I think this will help us move forward. But, of course, this will be done also with other countries with similar situations. We have seen some encouraging steps when you look at what has happened in Sudan. We have more females in key positions, so this definitely will have to continue.
 
Abate: And at last, Madame President, let me take you to the regional issues. The Horn of Africa is always volatile and full of tense situations and at this point, including Ethiopia, we see some ups and downs in the area. What should these governments do and what role can you play to bring these countries together? And how can you picture the relationship between Egypt and Ethiopia in relation to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Ethiopia is building now?
 
Sahle-Work: What is characteristic [of] the current government regarding the region is that it has a bold regional agenda. The government has understood that the progress of Ethiopia could be limited if the Horn region doesn’t come together. So we’re working hard, you know, we’ve been heading [Intergovernmental Authority on Development] IGAD,  we’re still heading IGAD. We have been at the core of the revitalization of IGAD, which might need another revitalization, but nevertheless this is the vehicle that we have currently. So, I really admire this position that the government has that, as much as we think about national, we also think about regional. Our faith is interrelated in any case. We have supported peace processes and in our neighboring countries. But let me tell you something we have to change the narrative about the Horn. If you look at Africa, we had the Horn, which was in a turmoil two decades ago civil war everywhere. Central Africa, which was also very problematic, and the West was relatively calm and we didn’t know what would come. The storm that was going to come. This has changed and we have seen many countries going into big trouble, crisis, in West Africa. And in the Horn, we had peace accord, and so at leas guns have been silenced and political processes have started. I think we have a very good opportunity now to rise from that. We have suffered for too long that we really need to get back on our two feet and work together. Ethiopia is playing its role in order to be a good regional player. A regional player for the positive side of it, a regional player for fast-tracking integration-free movement of people and so on and so forth. So this is what the government is doing. It’s the only way to do it if we want to progress and progress fast. On Egypt, we have a good relationship with Egypt. I can’t say otherwise. But the issue of the Nile is to have an equitable and sustainable share and there is a framework, a legal framework for that. So we want those who are not in the fold to come into the fold and agree that this is the way we should be doing things. The prime minister, one of his first trips was to Cairo, to reassure our neighbor. So we are optimistic. The discussion has to continue.
 
Abate: Do you think the Egyptians trust the prime minister? 
 
Sahle-Work: Well, I don’t know why it shouldn’t be, why it should be otherwise. But, the principle is not to harm anyone in any case. So, we can’t go against it. In any case, this is where we are and we really would like to create a conducive environment for the technical people to work on it and to [provide] evidence-based results so that the politicians decide. 

…

In the United States, if your parents attended a college or university, there is a good chance that you will, too.

But your chances are reduced if you come from a family with financial needs, a community with limited educational resources or have no one to follow as an example.

Helping those attain a college education is the motivation behind “nudging” or nudge theory, a way of changing people’s behavior through suggestion and support. Popularized in the 2008 book “Nudge,” the concept was a project of a legal expert and an economist with the University of Chicago.

Nudging includes emailing and texting students, offering advice and help. A growing number of U.S. colleges and universities look to nudging as way to support poor, minority and first-generation college students. 

But recent studies show that nudging is imperfect, and influencing large groups of students is not easy.

Alejandra Acosta is a higher education policy expert at New America, an independent research group. She said for the messages to be effective, they should meet certain benchmarks, such as:

* A nudge must be time-sensitive, meaning they reach college students well before the date a student is required to take action.

* A nudge should also be informative and written clearly. For example, if a student starts to struggle in class, school officials should offer more information than simply advising them to seek academic support, Acosta said. The message should include what kinds of support the college or university offers and how the student can make use of them.

* A nudge should be interactive, she added. Students should be able to ask questions or be directed to a website. Colleges and universities must ensure their support services are in place and working.

“You can’t expect to just send a nudge in a text or an email and be like, ‘OK, we’re done,’” Acosta said. “To change behavior, there has to be other supporting structures there, too.”

When nudges work, they can do a lot of good.

In 2017, a nudging campaign at four U.S. community colleges targeted nearly 10,000 first-year students in Ohio and Virginia. Older and minority students who agreed to receive nudges were 16 percent to 20 percent more likely to continue into their second year than those who did not.

However, Iris Palmer, a senior adviser for higher education and the workforce at New America, warns that even clear, informative and timely nudges can sometimes hurt more than help.

“An example of this would be: I’m a student who has never been to college before, my family has never been to college before. I come to college and I wonder if I’m college material,” Palmer said. “I get a message that says, ‘You’re getting a failing grade in this class. You need to come talk to your adviser.’ 

“And I think, ‘Oh, I’m failing. I wasn’t even college material to begin with. I should just leave now,’ ” she said.

Palmer said school officials should shape nudges to fit a student’s needs, including having nudge messages offer alternative solutions, as well as seeming to offer the student more than one option.

Nudges need to be personal and individual, appearing to be written for the individual, not a large group, she said.

Kelly Rosinger, assistant professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Penn State University, agrees. Nudging can be a low cost, useful way of getting students to meet relatively simple goals on time, she said, such as completing the U.S. government documents necessary for financial aid.

In fact, Rosinger said nudging has not been successful when dealing with large groups.

Rosinger and researchers studied nudging of more than 800,000 students through emails and text messages. Their study found that nudging had almost no effect on the number of students starting college, using financial aid or continuing from one year to the next.

Rosinger said she believed the study showed nudges failed because they were trying to reach a large number of students. This made the messages seem more general and, as a result, less effective. She suggested nudging works best when it comes from a local group working with a smaller numbers of students.

“Just getting a message from an organization you are familiar with can create more of that personalization,” she said. “It may make the message more salient to students when they’re getting it.”

…

For many homeless people, finding shelter sometimes isn’t nearly as important as finding a meal. Providing food is the main mission of Manna House, a charity organization, where homeless and underprivileged people get breakfast and other services for free. Nilofar Mughal is giving a view from the inside of Manna House located in Baltimore in the state of Maryland.
 

…

President Donald Trump told two Russian officials in a 2017 meeting that he was not concerned about Moscow’s meddling in the U.S. election, which prompted White House officials to limit access to the remarks, the Washington Post reported Friday.

A summary of Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and its ambassador to the U.S. was limited to a few officials in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly, the Post said, citing former officials with knowledge of the matter.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Whistleblower complaint

A whistleblower complaint about a July phone call in which Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic political rival Joe Biden is at the heart of the U.S. House of Representatives impeachment inquiry launched this week.

A member of the U.S. intelligence community who filed the complaint against Trump said notes from other conversations the president had with foreign leaders had been placed on a highly classified computer system in a departure from normal practice in a bid to protect information that was politically sensitive, rather than sensitive for national security reasons.

Trump’s 2017 meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak was already considered controversial after it was learned that Trump disclosed highly classified information about a planned Islamic State operation.

On election interference, Trump told Lavrov and Kislyak he was not concerned about Russian meddling because the United States did the same in other countries, the Post reported.

Limited access to other conversations

CNN, citing people familiar with the matter, said efforts to limit access to Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders extended to phone calls with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters that procedures for handling records of Trump’s conversations with world leaders had changed early in his tenure after calls with Mexico’s president and Australia’s prime minister were leaked.
 

…

Afghans headed to the polls Saturday to elect a new president amid high security and Taliban threats to disrupt the elections, with the rebels warning citizens to stay home or risk being hurt.

Still at some polling stations in the capital voters lined up even before the centers opened, while in others election workers had yet to arrive by poll opening time.

Imam Baksh, who works as a security guard, said he wasn’t worried about his safety as he stood waiting to mark his ballot, wondering who he would vote for.

“All of them have been so disappointing for our country,” he said.

The leading contenders are incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and his partner in the 5-year-old unity government, Abdullah Abdullah, who already alleges power abuse by his opponent. Cameras crowded both men as they cast their vote, with Ghani telling voters they too had a responsibility to call out instances of fraud.

Fear and frustration

At least 15 people were wounded after a bomb attack on a local mosque where a polling station is located, a hospital in the southern city of Kandahar said.

The doctor with the Southern Kandahar Hospital said the wounded included one police, several election officials, and Afghans who came to cast their ballots in the national elections on Saturday.

Polling station complaints

Even in the early hours of voting, complaints had begun to be raised such as polling stations in the posh Wazir Akbar region opening late and biometric machines, aimed at curbing fraud, not working.

In the northern Taimani neighborhood of mostly ethnic Hazaras, two-thirds of the voting registration papers had yet to arrive and angry voters were told their names were not on the list. 

Abdul Ghafoor, who spoke on behalf of dozens of men waiting to cast their ballot, said that of about 3,000 registered voters only 400 appeared on the list that had arrived at the center.

Ghafoor said he was told to return at 2 p.m. and that he would be allowed to vote even if his name was not on the list and without using the biometric machine.

“But how can they do this? My vote won’t count if I am not on a list,” he said.

In Khoja Ali Mohfaq Herawi mosque in Kabul’s well-to-do Shahr-e-Now neighborhood, election workers struggled with biometric machines as well as finding names on voters’ lists.

Ahmad Shah, 32, cast his vote, but said the election worker forgot to ink his finger — which is mandatory to prevent multiple voting by the same person.

“What sort of system is this?” he asked, frustrated that he had risked his safety to vote and expressed fear that fraud will mar the election results. “It’s a mess.”

Still, 63-year old Ahmad Khan urged people to vote.

“It is the only way to show the Taliban we are not afraid of them,” he said, though he too worried at the apparent glitches in the process.

Security officers fan out

Tens of thousands of police, intelligence officials and Afghan National Army personnel have been deployed throughout the country to protect the 4,942 election centers. Authorities said 431 polling centers will stay closed because it was impossible to guarantee their security since they were either in areas under Taliban control or where insurgents could threaten nearby villages.

Neighbor Pakistan, routinely accused of aiding insurgents, announced it was closing its borders with Afghanistan Saturday and Sunday to further protect security in the war-weary country.

…

General Joseph Dunford, the nation’s top general as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is leaving office next week. 

As the top military adviser to the president, he will be remembered for his handling of the ISIS crisis, his tenure during the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and his efforts to strengthen the military amid growing tensions with Russia and China.

Dunford led the U.S. military under two very different presidents, garnering respect from both sides of the political aisle — and from military experts.

“I think General Dunford has been one of the best chairmen we’ve ever had, and it’s not always easy to measure by the state of the world,” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute.

Iran and Afghanistan

The general is retiring amid increased tensions with Iran and rising violence in Afghanistan.

“When I think about Afghanistan, I think about two things,” Dunford said. “No. 1 is we don’t want Afghanistan to be a sanctuary from which the homeland can be threatened, the American people and our allies can be threatened. And the other is we want peace and stability in Afghanistan for the Afghan people.”

Ensuring these objectives strained negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban.

Dunford has pushed throughout the process to make sure the military can still take out terrorists there despite President Trump’s desire to pull some troops out of the country.

The spokesman for the chairman, Air Force Col. Pat Ryder pointed out in a recent briefing that in the Middle East, Dunford led the charge that crushed the Islamic State caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

“When you go back four years and you look at the difference in terms of the presence of ISIS and — and what they had achieved then and where they are today, certainly there’s been progress,” Ryder said.

Calm, steady hand

And experts like O’Hanlon credit Dunford’s calm, steady leadership with keeping the U.S. out of a conflict with North Korea.

“We went through 2017, the locked and loaded, fire and fury, my button’s bigger than yours — all that brinkmanship needed to be survived and be prevented from taking us into war, and I think Dunford had a role in that as well,” O’Hanlon said.

While the United States remains entangled in conflicts, most agree the American military is stronger under his leadership, modernizing and growing in an effort to stay ahead of great powers Russia and China.

…

Egyptian security forces completely sealed off Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the so-called Arab Spring uprising in 2011, to prevent possible protests on Friday against the country’s president.

The closures come amid a harsh security clampdown following rare demonstrations in several cities last weekend, all of which were broken up by police. Lawyers say over 2,000 people have been arrested since then. Egypt’s general prosecutor claims his office has questioned no more than 1,000 people over the latest protests

Street demonstrations have been almost completely silenced the past years by draconian measures imposed under President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, a former general.

The demonstrations erupted over corruption allegations earlier this month against the military and el-Sissi by an Egyptian businessman living in self-imposed exile. El-Sissi warned Friday against “deceitful” attempts to discredit his rule.

Riot police had barricaded streets and bridges leading into Tahrir Square, where hundreds of thousands had gathered in 2011 to demand the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. Several nearby subway stations were closed for alleged maintenance.

The government effectively banned all public protests in 2013, shortly after el-Sissi led the military’s overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president.

Earlier this month, Mohamed Ali, the self-exiled contractor who said he had worked with the military for 15 years, posted inflammatory videos accusing the president and some military commanders of misuse of public funds to build presidential palaces and a tomb for the president’s mother. Ali has renewed his call for Egyptians to take to the streets Friday, the first day of the weekend.

El-Sissi arrived Friday morning to Cairo from New York, where he had been attending the U.N. General Assembly at the time the protests broke out. “It is all based on lies, distortion and fabrication. You should be aware of that,” el-Sissi said upon his arrival at Cairo airport. Hundreds of his supporters rallied to greet him, raising his picture and waving Egyptian flags.

Human Rights Watch said Friday that Egypt’s authorities should respect the right of peaceful assembly by allowing protests, and should release all those arrested.

“The nationwide crackdown on protests suggests that President Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi is terrified of Egyptians’ criticisms,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s Middle East and North Africa director.

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Sri Lanka’s cricket team begins play in Lahore Friday, the first time since 2009 that a foreign team will undertake a two-week tour of Pakistan.

Security is extremely tight for the match, and the Sri Lanka team is basically confined to their hotel except for practices and matches.

Sri Lanka’s team bus was attacked in Lahore as it arrived for a match ten years ago.  The ambush killed eight people and injured several players.

Since then Pakistan’s team has toured other countries, but few international matches have been played in the country.

A number of Sri Lanka’s top players withdrew from the tour because of lingering security concerns.

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More than 300 captives, most of them children and many in chains, have been rescued from a building in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, a police spokesman said on Friday.

All the children seen by a Reuters reporter at the scene were boys aged from around five to their late teens. Some had their ankles manacled together and others were chained by their legs to large metal hubcaps.

Police said the building housed an Islamic school and that seven people had been arrested in the raid on Thursday. It was not clear how long the children had been held there.

“The state government is currently providing food to the children who are between the ages of five and above,” said Yakubu Sabo, the Kaduna police spokesman.
“We have identified two of the children to have come from Burkina Faso, while most of them were brought by their parents from across mostly northern Nigerian states,” he added.

He said those arrested were teachers at the school.

Reports carried by local media said the captives had been tortured, starved and sexually abused. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm those reports, though sores that appeared consistent with injuries inflicted by a whip were visible on one boy’s back.

Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria – a country that is roughly evenly split between followers of Christianity and Islam.

Parents in northern Nigeria, the poorest part of a country in which most people live on less than $2 a day, often opt to leave their children to board at the schools.
The children have been moved to a temporary camp at a stadium in Kaduna, and would later be moved to another camp in a suburb of the city while attempts are made to find their parents, police said.

Some parents who had already been contacted went to the school to retrieve their children.

“We do not know that they will be put to this kind of harsh condition,” one parent told Reuters.

Islamic schools in Nigeria have for years been dogged by allegations of abuse and accusations that some children have been forced to beg on the streets of northern Nigerian cities.

Earlier this year, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, himself a Muslim, said it planned to eventually ban the schools, but would not do so immediately. It followed a number of reports in the Nigerian media that the government planned to outlaw such schools.

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