Imagine listening to a violin concert in one of New York City’s majestic cathedrals or in the National Arboretum, surrounded by blooming magnolias. Now anyone can experience this exquisite scene with the use of VR glasses. A team of researchers from the University of Maryland at College Park came up with new immersive technologies that allow people from all over the world to experience performing arts in a breathtakingly beautiful setting without getting up from their couch. Nastassia Jaumen has the story.

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Every day, cutting-edge research is being performed in government and university labs across the country. Tech transfer is the process of taking that research out of the lab and transforming it into a business. One company jump-starts the process by introducing entrepreneurs to that research. Tina Trinh explains.

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Sudan’s Transitional Military Council and opposition parties formally signed a political agreement this weekend after months of protests. Though many protesters are wary of the compromises made in the deal, the signing was marked by celebrations across the capital. In Khartoum, Esha Sarai and Naba Mohiedeen have more.

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Hong Kong pro-democracy protests that started in June have now spread around the world. Parallel demonstration took place in the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, France and other countries on Sunday. But as, VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, demonstrators in some places were confronted by pro-Beijing rallies.

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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he has spoken with Apple Inc’s Chief Executive Tim Cook about the impact of U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports as well as competition from South Korean company Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Trump said Cook “made a good case” that tariffs could hurt Apple given that Samsung’s products would not be subject to those same tariffs. Tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, including consumer electronics, are scheduled to go into effect in two stages on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15.

“I thought he made a very compelling argument, so I’m thinking about it,” Trump said.

Trump made the comments while speaking with reporters on the Tarmac at the Morristown, New Jersey, airport.

Apple was not immediately available for comment outside normal business hours.

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Seeking to end a humanitarian crisis, Spain says a Spanish rescue boat with 107 migrants in the southern Mediterranean can sail to Spain and disembark its passengers in Algeciras.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Sunday told the Open Arms ship to leave Italian waters and go to Spain. Salvini contends that Open Arms is anchored off the southern island of Lampedusa “just to provoke me and Italy.”

The boat’s crew says conditions on the ship are “miserable” 17 days since it rescued people off Libya. Six EU countries say they’ll take the migrants in, but Salvini hasn’t let the ship dock.

The Open Arms didn’t immediately say if would go to Spain, several days’ sailing away. The group says Salvini is using the 107 migrants for “xenophobic and racist propaganda.”

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A study by the U.N. Children’s Fund finds more than half a million Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar are not learning the life skills they need to prepare them for the future or to protect them from present-day abuse and exploitation.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya children have been languishing in squalid, overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar for two years — ever since a mass exodus of 745,000 refugees fleeing persecution and violence in Myanmar began.  

The U.N. Children’s Fund reports more than a quarter million children up to age 14 are receiving a non-formal education, while more than 25,000 others are receiving none.  

Author of the UNICEF report, Simon Ingram, said adolescents are most disadvantaged.

He said 97 percent of children aged 15 to 18 years are not attending any type of educational facility, putting them at particular risk.

“When you meet teenagers in the camps, they speak readily of the dangers they face, especially at night, when drug dealers operate, and gang fights are reported to be a regular occurrence,” he said.  “Cases of trafficking are also being reported, although they are hard to quantify.  The camps can be especially hazardous for girls and women.”  

UNICEF and partners have provided learning to more than 190,000 Rohingya children in more than 2,000 centers.  These agencies are calling on the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh to allow the use of their national educational resources to provide more structured learning for Rohingya children.

Ingram told VOA that UNICEF is appealing to Myanmar authorities to provide education to the children in the refugee camps.  Until now, he said, the children have been taught in the Burmese language by volunteer teachers from the refugee population.

“And, with the best will in the world, that is not the same as having a properly trained teacher, someone who has experience of delivering the Myanmar government’s own curriculum.  So, that is really what we are looking for and those are the conversations that are now ongoing with the government in Myanmar and we hope that we will receive a positive response to that,” said Ingram.

Ingram said it is critical for refugee children to be taught in Burmese as that is the language they will need if and when they return back to Myanmar.  Unfortunately, he notes Rohingya adolescents will continue to live in limbo until it is safe for them to go home.  He acknowledged that going home does not appear to be a realistic possibility for the foreseeable future.

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Tens of thousands of people took to the streets Sunday in rain-drenched Hong Kong for another anti-government rally.

This is the eleventh weekend in a row that protesters have turned out to voice their dismay.

The demonstrations began as peaceful protests to stop an extradition bill that would allow criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China’s opaque legal system.  Since then the protests have evolved into a movement for democratic reforms.

The protests are generally peaceful, but activists have sometimes clashed with police.

“We hope that there will not  be any chaotic situations today,” organizer Bonnie Leung told the Associated Press.

The extradition bill has been suspended, but the protests continue as Hong Kong residents worry about the erosion of freedoms guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” mandate that has been in place since the territory’s return from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

China’s paramilitary troops have been training in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, causing concern that China is ready to send in the troops to suppress the protests. 

Hong Kong’s police have insisted they are able to handle the demonstrators.

Demonstrations last weekend at Hong Kong Airport spilled over into the work week, crippling one of the world’s busiest air hubs for several days and sparking clashes between demonstrators and riot police.
 

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Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren framed their Democratic presidential bids in personal, faith-based terms Saturday before black millennial Christians who could help determine which candidate becomes the leading progressive alternative to former Vice President Joe Biden.

Sanders, the Vermont senator whose struggles with black voters helped cost him the 2016 nomination, told the Young Leaders Conference that his family history shapes his approach to President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and the rise of white nationalism in the United States.

“I’m Jewish. My family came from Poland. My father’s whole family was wiped out by Hitler and his white nationalism,” Sanders said at the forum led by the Black Church PAC, a political action committee formed by prominent black pastors.

“We will go to war against white nationalism and racism in every aspect of our lives,” Sanders said, promising to use the “bully pulpit” to unite instead of divide. 

Warren, a Massachusetts senator and United Methodist, quoted her favorite biblical passage, which features Jesus instructing his followers to provide for others, including the “least of these my brethren.”

“That’s about two things,” Warren said. “Every single one of us has the Lord within us. …. Secondly, the Lord does not call on us to sit back. The Lord does not just call on us to have a good heart. The Lord calls on us to act.”

Sanders and Warren are looking for ways to narrow the gap with Biden, who remains atop primary polls partly because of his standing with older black voters. Polls suggest that younger black voters, however, are far more divided in their support among the many Democratic candidates.

The senators, both of whom are white, connected their biblical interpretations to their ideas about everything from economic regulation and taxation to criminal justice and health care.

“This is a righteous fight,” Warren said, who noted that she’s taught “fifth-grade Sunday School.”

Sanders, while not quoting Scripture as did Warren, declared that “the Bible, if it is about anything, is about justice.” His campaign, he said, is “not just defeating the most dangerous president in modern American history. We are about transforming this nation to make it work for all of us.”

Warren and Sanders received warm welcomes, with notable enthusiasm for their proposals to overhaul a criminal justice system both derided as institutionally racist and to eliminate student loan debt that disproportionately affects nonwhites. 

“They obviously tailored their message in a way that would resonate with this audience,” said Chanelle Reynolds, a 29-year-old marketing specialist from Washington, D.C. “But that means they spoke to issues and concerns that we care about.”

Reynolds described her generation of black voters – churchgoing or not – as more engaged than in the past, but cautious about choosing among candidates months before the voting begins. “I’m going to take my time,” she said, adding that “the last election, with Trump, shook us up, and we’re not going to let this one go by.” 

Indeed, the youngest generation of voters typically doesn’t shape presidential primary politics, for Democrats or Republicans. 

Impact of black voters

Black voters collectively have driven the outcome of the past two competitive Democratic nominating fights. But Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 built their early delegate leads largely on the strength of older black voters in Southern states with significant African American populations. 

Those states again feature prominently in the opening months of Democrats’ 2020 primary calendar, giving black millennials in metro areas such as Atlanta, along with Nashville, Tennessee, and Charlotte, North Carolina, a chance to wield their influence early in the process. 

Beyond the primaries, the eventual Democratic nominee will need younger black voters to flip critical states that helped elect Trump: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. 

“Anybody who’s not talking to every community, particularly within the African American community, you’re running a fool’s race,” said the Rev. Leah Daughtry, a pastor from Washington, D.C., and member of the Democratic National Committee, who co-moderated the Black Church PAC forum.

Three other 2020 candidates – Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, former Obama housing chief Julian Castro and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana – attended the conference on Friday. Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris are the most prominent black candidates in the 2020 race.

Mike McBride, a pastor who was Daughtry’s fellow moderator, stressed that the black church and the black community as a whole are not monolithic. Democrats, he said, must reach beyond the traditional Sunday services in places such as South Carolina, the first primary state with a sizable black population. 

“We need candidates to show up on our turf, not always asking us to show up on their turf,” McBride said in an interview. 

Daughtry said all Democratic candidates were invited, and she noted the absence of other leading candidates, including Biden, who is attending campaign fundraisers in the Northeast this weekend.

“He missed an opportunity,” Daughtry said, to “make his case” to younger voters “who don’t know him like older folks do.”

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Police in Portland, Oregon, arrested at least 13 people Saturday, established concrete barriers, closed streets and bridges, and seized a multitude of weapons in an attempt to preempt violence between right-wing groups and anti-fascist counter-protesters.

Metal poles, bear spray, shields and other weapons were taken from protesters by the authorities Saturday as hundreds of far-right protesters and counter-demonstrators crowded the downtown area, but there were no major incidents between the two factions. 

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said at an evening news conference, however, that the event was connected with “a rising white nationalist movement” and a growing sense of fear in the U.S.  

The mayor said Joe Biggs, the organizer of the far-right demonstration, was not welcome in Portland. “We do not want him here in my city. Period.” 

Biggs said Saturday was a success. “Go look at President Trump’s Twitter,” he told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “He talked about Portland, said he’s watching antifa. That’s all we wanted.” 

U.S. President Donald Trump indicated Saturday morning that he could take action on Antifa. The president said in a tweet, “Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an “ORGANIZATION OF TERROR.” Portland is being watched very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job!”  However, there is no federal criminal offense of ‘domestic terrorism.’

Portland police used officers on bikes and in riot gear to keep black clad, helmet and mask-wearing anti-fascist protesters — known as Antifa — from following the right-wing groups. Hundreds of people remained on downtown streets.

Flag-waving members of the Proud Boys and Three Percenters militia group had gathered late in the morning, some also wearing body armor and helmets. Police said they had seized the weapons as the protesters assembled along the Willamette River that runs through the city.

Biggs, the organizer of the rally, is a member of the Proud Boys, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Joining them were the American Guard, Three Percenters, Oathkeepers and Daily Stormers.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Guard is a “white nationalist group,” Three Percenters and Oathkeepers are “extremist,” anti-government militias, and the Daily Stormers are “neo-Nazis.”

Countering the right-wingers was Portland’s Rose City Antifa, a local anti-fascist group that called on its members to take to the streets in an opposing rally. 

More than two dozen local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, were in the city for the right-wing rally that reportedly drew people from across the country. Portland Police said all of the city’s 1,000 officers were on duty for the gathering that was publicized on social media and elsewhere for weeks. 

Antifa has grown more visible recently and experts say the groups are not centrally organized, and their members may espouse a number of different causes, from politics to race relations to gay rights. But the principle that binds them — along with an unofficial uniform of black clothing and face masks — is the willingness to use violence to fight white supremacists, which has opened them to criticism from both left and right.

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The U.N. human rights office is condemning a crackdown Friday in Zimbabwe by riot police on peaceful protesters in the capital, Harare.  The agency is calling for an investigation into excessive use of force by security forces.

U.N. Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville says there are better ways to deal with the population’s legitimate grievances on the economic situation in the country than by cracking down on peaceful protestors.

“We are deeply concerned by the socio-economic crisis that continues to unfold in Zimbabwe.  While acknowledging efforts made by the government, the international community and the U.N. in Zimbabwe to mitigate the effects of the crisis and reform process, the dire economic situation is now impacting negatively on the realization of economic and social rights of millions of Zimbabweans,” Colville said.

Zimbabwe’s citizens are struggling with hyperinflation, which has sent prices soaring for essential commodities such as fuel, food, transportation and health care.  Compounding the problems is the ongoing impact of cyclone Idai that hit Zimbabwe in March and a severe drought.

The United Nations says one third of Zimbabwe’s population of 16 million people is in need of humanitarian aid.  

The fallout in terms of casualties and possible arrests from Friday’s protests is not yet clear.  But Colville tells VOA his office has received disturbing reports of human rights violations over the past few months.

“There are, as I said, reports coming through right now of very recent abductions, beatings and so on of activists or human rights defenders.  We have not had a chance to verify those and look in detail apart from the two that occurred a few days ago,” Colville said. “So, it is clearly a very tense situation.”

Colville says state authorities have a duty to ensure people’s rights to freedom of expression and to protect the right to peaceful assembly.  

The U.N. human rights office is urging the government to engage in a national dialogue to ensure that civil society in all its guises can carry out its activities without fear of intimidation or reprisals for its work.

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