Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, embroiled in a bitter dispute with the U.S., a NATO ally, contended Sunday the plunging value of his country’s lira currency amounted to a “political plot” against Turkey.

Erdogan, speaking to political supporters in the Black Sea resort of Trabzon, said, “The aim of the operation is to make Turkey surrender in all areas, from finance to politics. We are once again facing a political, underhand plot. With God’s permission we will overcome this.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has feuded with Erdogan over several issues, including the detention of an American pastor in Turkey, whom Turkey has held since 2016 and accused of espionage. Turkey last month released the evangelical preacher from a prison, but is still detaining him under house arrest pending his trial, despite the demands of the U.S.

With the dispute intensifying, Trump on Friday doubled steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, sending the beleaguered lira plunging 16 percent, part of a 40 percent plummet for the currency this year. In early Asian trading Monday, the lira fell to a record low of 7.06 against the dollar.

“What is the reason for all this storm in a tea cup?” Erdogan said. “There is no economic reason for this … This is called carrying out an operation against Turkey.”

Erdogan renewed his call for Turks to sell dollars and buy lira to boost the currency, while telling business owners to not stockpile the American currency.

“I am specifically addressing our manufacturers: Do not rush to the banks to buy dollars,” he said. “Do not take a stance saying, ‘We are bankrupt, we are done, we should guarantee ourselves.’ If you do that, that would be wrong. You should know that to keep this nation standing is … also the manufacturers’ duty.”

Erdogan signaled he was not looking to offer concessions to the United States, or financial markets.

“We will give our answer, by shifting to new markets, new partnerships and new alliances,” said Erdogan, who in recent years has built closer ties with countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. “Some close the doors and some others open new ones.”

He indicated Turkey’s relationship with Washington was imperiled.

“We can only say ‘good-bye’ to anyone who sacrifices its strategic partnership and a half century alliance with a country of 81 million for the sake of relations with terror groups,” he said. “You dare to sacrifice 81-million Turkey for a priest who is linked to terror groups?”

American pastor Andrew Brunson, if convicted, faces a jail term of 35 years. Trump has described his detention as a “total disgrace” and urged Erdogan to free him immediately.
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From: MeNeedIt

The U.N. refugee agency reports it is stepping up efforts to reduce the risk of the spread of the deadly Ebola virus as refugees flee DR Congo. Latest estimates put the number of confirmed and probable cases of Ebola in eastern DRC at 49, including 38 deaths.

The U.N. refugee agency is working closely with DRC authorities and other agencies on actions to contain Ebola on the national and regional level. But, its main focus is to monitor possible Ebola infections among refugees fleeing across the border, mainly to Uganda, from conflict ridden North Kivu and Ituri.

UNHCR spokesman, William Spindler says the number of newly arriving refugees into Uganda from these two Ebola affected provinces increased during July from 170 a day to 250 a day. He says the majority currently is crossing at the Kisoro border point.

“So UNHCR is working with WHO, UNICEF and other partners and with the Ministry of Health of Uganda to intensify screening for Ebola at all border entry points. And, additional health workers have been deployed in the border districts to improve response capacity,” he said.

Spindler notes the World Health Organization is not recommending any restriction on the movement of people. Therefore, he says UNHCR is urging countries neighboring DRC to allow refugees in need of protection to enter their territory and to include them into preparedness and response plans and activities.

The UNHCR says refugees are at the same risk of contracting and transmitting the Ebola virus disease as local farmers, merchants, business people and others moving through the area. Therefore, it urges governments and local communities not to adopt measures that single out refugees. Those measures may not be scientifically sound and will only serve to stigmatize and restrict refugees’ freedom of movement.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

A meteor shower lit up the skies above eastern Bosnia Saturday night, giving star gazers a rare opportunity to see a display of shooting stars with the naked eye.

“I think that everybody should see this,” said Miralem Mehic, a Bosnian from an international group of star gazers who watched the light show at the Sand Pyramids, an area of naturally occurring sand columns, near the town of Foca.

The so-called Perseids meteor shower returns to the skies every August and are best viewed in the northern hemisphere in isolated areas where there is little light pollution.

They arise when the Earth passes through the debris of Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1862.

Meteors are parts of rock and dust that hit the Earth’s atmosphere, heat up and glow. Most vaporize as they descend, but some explode.

“This year the moon is young and will not obstruct the vision, so we will be able to see 100 ‘shooting stars’ an hour,” Muhamed Muminovic, a member of the Sarajevo Orion astrological society, told Reuters.
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From: MeNeedIt

A NASA spacecraft rocketed toward the sun Sunday on an unprecedented quest to get closer to our star than anything ever sent before.

The Parker Solar Probe will fly straight through the wispy edges of the corona, or outer solar atmosphere, that was visible during last August’s total solar eclipse. It eventually will get within 3.8 million (6 million kilometers) of the sun’s surface, staying comfortably cool despite the extreme heat and radiation, and allowing scientists to vicariously explore the sun in a way never before possible.

No wonder scientists consider it the coolest, hottest mission under the sun, and what better day to launch to the sun than Sunday as NASA noted.

“Fly baby girl, fly!!” project scientist Nicola Fox of Johns Hopkins University tweeted just before liftoff. She urged it to “go touch the sun!”

Protected by a revolutionary new carbon heat shield and other high-tech wonders, the spacecraft will zip past Venus in October. That will set up the first solar encounter in November. Altogether, the Parker probe will make 24 close approaches to the sun on the seven-year, $1.5 billion undertaking.

​Parker watches namesake go

For the second straight day, thousands of spectators jammed the launch site in the middle of the night as well as surrounding towns, including 91-year-old astrophysicist Eugene Parker for whom the spacecraft is named. He proposed the existence of solar wind, a steady, supersonic stream of particles blasting off the sun, 60 years ago.

“All I can say is, ‘Wow, here we go.’ We’re in for some learning over the next several years,”  Parker said.

It was the first time NASA named a spacecraft after someone still alive, and Parker wasn’t about to let it take off without him. Saturday morning’s launch attempt was foiled by last-minute technical trouble.

“I’m just so glad to be here with him,” said NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen. “Frankly, there’s no other name that belongs on this mission.”

The Delta IV Heavy rocket thundered into the pre-dawn darkness, thrilling onlookers for miles around. NASA needed the mighty 23-story rocket, plus a third stage, to get the diminutive Parker probe, the size of a small car and well under a ton, racing toward the sun.

From Earth, it is 93 million miles to the sun (150 million kilometers), and the Parker probe will be within 4 percent of that distance. That will be seven times closer than previous spacecraft.​

Speed record on agenda

Parker will start shattering records this fall.On its very first brush with the sun, it will come within 15.5 million miles (25 million kilometers), easily beating the current record set by NASA’s Helios 2 spacecraft in 1976. By the time Parker gets to its 22nd orbit of the sun, it will be even deeper into the corona and traveling at a record-breaking 430,000 mph (690,000 kilometers per hour).

Nothing from Planet Earth has ever hit that kind of speed.

Even Fox has difficulty comprehending the mission’s derring-do.

“To me, it’s still mind-blowing,” she said. “Even I still go, ‘Really? We’re doing that?’”

Zurbuchen considers the sun the most important star in our universe — it’s ours, after all — and so this is one of NASA’s big-time strategic missions. By better understanding the sun’s life-giving and sometimes violent nature, Earthlings can better protect satellites and astronauts in orbit, and power grids on the ground, he noted. In today’s tech-dependent society, everyone stands to benefit.

With this mission, scientists hope to unlock the many mysteries of the sun, a commonplace yellow dwarf star around 4.5 billion years old. Among the puzzlers: Why is the corona hundreds of times hotter than the surface of the sun and why is the sun’s atmosphere continually expanding and accelerating, as the University of Chicago’s Parker accurately predicted in 1958?

“The only way we can do that is to finally go up and touch the sun,” Fox said. “We’ve looked at it. We’ve studied it from missions that are close in, even as close as the planet Mercury. But we have to go there.”

The spacecraft’s heat shield will serve as an umbrella, shading the science instruments during the close, critical solar junctures. Sensors on the spacecraft will make certain the heat shield faces the sun at the right times. If there’s any tilting, the spacecraft will correct itself so nothing gets fried. With a communication lag time of 16 minutes each way, the spacecraft must fend for itself at the sun. The Johns Hopkins flight controllers in Laurel, Maryland, will be too far away to help.

​Technology catches up to the dream

A mission to get close up and personal with our star has been on NASA’s books since 1958. The trick was making the spacecraft small, compact and light enough to travel at incredible speeds, while surviving the sun’s punishing environment and the extreme change in temperature when the spacecraft is out near Venus.

“We’ve had to wait so long for our technology to catch up with our dreams,” Fox said. “It’s incredible to be standing here today.”

More than 1 million names are aboard the spacecraft, submitted last spring by space enthusiasts, as well as photos of Parker, the man, and a copy of his 1958 landmark paper on solar wind.

“I’ll bet you 10 bucks it works,” Parker said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Talk about going green. One British soccer team has made it its goal to become the first professional sports team in the world to be certified carbon neutral. It’s an official designation recently awarded to the team by the Secretary in charge of Climate Change at the United Nations. But that’s not all. The team may also be the world’s first 100 percent vegan football club. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

Australian scientists have test driven two cars powered by a carbon-free fuel derived from ammonia.  A team from the Australian government’s research agency, the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), says the pioneering technology will allow highly flammable hydrogen to be safely transported in the form of ammonia and used as a widely available fuel.  

Researchers have found a way to use a thin membrane to turn Australian-made hydrogen into ammonia.  This could be shipped safely to markets in Asia, as well as parts of Europe.  At its destination, the liquid ammonia would then be converted back into hydrogen, and used to power cars and buses,  as well as for electricity generation and industrial processes.

David Harris, CSIRO research director says “the special thing about the technology that we have is that it allows you to produce very pure hydrogen directly with a membrane system from ammonia.”

The technology has the support of Japanese car maker Toyota and South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Company.

‘Watershed moment’

Scientists say hydrogen, a highly-flammable gas that can be volatile and hard to transport safely, creates a low emission fuel for cars.  The Australian team describes the membrane technology that separates hydrogen from other gases as a “watershed moment for energy.”

Claire Johnson, the chief executive of Hydrogen Mobility Australia, an industry association, says the pioneering research could forever change the transport sector.

“We see that as a really exciting opportunity to decarbonize the transport sector, but also position Australia as one of the lead suppliers of hydrogen around the world.  There is some competition to play that role, however.  Norway, Brunei and Saudi Arabia have all flagged that they wish to be an exporter of hydrogen around the world.”

There are only a handful of hydrogen-powered cars in Australia, but there are tens of thousands across Japan, South Korea and Singapore.  The South Korean government has recently announced plans for 16,000 more hydrogen-fueled cars and 310 special refilling stations.  

 
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From: MeNeedIt

In the documentary ALT-RIGHT: Age of Rage, filmmaker Adam Lough looks at the rise of the alternative right movement in America and its ideological components.

The “alt-right” movement, as it is often called, is a political grouping that combines racism, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and populism. The term has been embraced by white supremacists and white nationalist groups when referring to themselves and their ideology, an ideology that emphasizes the preservation and protection of the white race in the United States.

WATCH: ‘ALT-RIGHT: Age of Rage’ Documentary on the Political Polarization in America

“You can’t define the ideology of the ‘alt-right’ without mentioning white identity,” said filmmaker Adam Lough, who documents the rise of the movement and its leaders before, during and after the violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12, 2018.

The alternative right organized the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville to show its support for preserving Confederate monuments, memorials to the Confederate side of the American Civil War. The rally turned violent when white nationalists chanting racist slogans clashed with counter demonstrators. Many of the counter-demonstrators identified themselves as Antifa, an abbreviation for anti-fascists.

ALT-RIGHT: Age of Rage documents the rally and the violence culminating in the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer, who was run down by a car. The driver, a neo-Nazi supporter, has been charged with murder and other counts. His trial is scheduled for November.

What’s fueling the movement?

Lough says various factors, including the economy, immigration and even feminism, have fueled much of the anger in the “alt-right” movement. 

“The idea of white Identity and there being a crisis in the country that white people are being pushed to the back of the line, so to say, by people of color, by immigrants, by Muslims, and in a big way, by women. They would prefer that women play the role they had back in America of the ’50s, where they were in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, they feel that women were happier back then when life was better.”

Lough also points out that this extreme fringe conservative movement rejects mainstream conservatism. 

“They consider mainstream Republicans to … have sold out their party, so they reject the mainstream Republican line of the party,” the filmmaker said.

WATCH: Trump Blames Both Sides for Racial Violence at Virginia Rally

In his film, Lough shows how white nationalist social media has bolstered the “alt-right” and how the movement was emboldened by President Trump’s controversial comments regarding “alt-right” violence in Charlottesville, saying responsibility lay “on many sides.” 

“One can see that Donald Trump has been dog-whistling at the ‘alt-right’ since the very beginning, going as far back as the birther movement,” Lough said. “The birther movement is basically about Barack Obama not being a American U.S. citizen. Being a citizen of Kenya, being a Muslim. So, if you want to go back into Donald Trump’s legacy with the ‘alt-right,’ I think that’s where it starts. I think it ratcheted up during the election and kind [of] came [to] a head with Charlottesville when he at first refused to even condemn the violence that had happened on that particular side by the ‘alt-right,’ and claimed that both sides were evenly guilty.”

Lough also looks at the leadership of the “alt-right” and its role in the growth of the movement.

Among them is Richard Spencer who coined the phrase “alt-right” in 2008. Another white nationalist, Jared Taylor, wrote the book “Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century” and advocates for the creation of an ethno-racial state. 

“Jared Taylor is very much the godfather of the ‘Alt-Right’ and of modern white nationalism. He has an incredible influence amongst that group of people. He has “The American Renaissance.” It used to be a magazine, now it’s a website that is viewed on a daily basis by all those in the white nationalist, white pride community.”

The documentary also looks at the antifa, a combustible mix of activists who have become the nemesis of the “alt-right.”

“Antifa is on the polar opposite of the spectrum from the ‘alt-right.’ They are far left, hard left. Antifa runs the gamut from your garden variety socialist, to a more extreme communist to almost a militarily guerrilla warfare style communist, who are advocating violence against the ‘alt-right,’” Lough said.

Lough says long simmering socio-economic forces have given rise to extreme ideological differences, spelling the end for the moderate middle. Sooner or later he says, proponents of the “alt-right” on one hand, and the antifa on the other are set on a collision course. 
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From: MeNeedIt

In his documentary, ALT-RIGHT: Age of Rage, filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough looks at the rise of the Alternative Right movement in America and it’s ideological components. The “Alt-Right” movement combines racism, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and populism. It is embraced by white supremacists and white nationalist groups when referring to themselves and their ideology of the preservation and protection of the white race. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke to the filmmaker about the movement.
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From: MeNeedIt

Consumer prices in the U.S. rose a modest 2.9 percent in July from a year ago, as inflation rose gradually but slowly.

Friday’s Labor Department report showed the Consumer Price Index, a broad measure of Americans’ living expenses, increased two-tenths of a percentage point from the previous month. Core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy prices, rose at the same pace.

The main driver of inflation in July was higher housing costs. Food expenses increased slightly, while energy, medical care and clothing prices fell modestly.

The data showed that prices were rising a little faster than wages, leaving the buying power of paychecks one-tenth of a percentage point lower today than a year ago, despite an otherwise healthy economy.

Inflation increases and wage declines in the past 12 months can be blamed on higher oil, gasoline and transportation costs, which had remained at relatively low levels for the previous six years.

Keeping inflation in check is the job of the Federal Reserve, the central bank system of the U.S. It tries to do that by raising interest rates, which makes it more expensive to borrow money and tends to cool economic activity. Lower levels of commerce tend to reduce the pressure to raise prices and wages that fuel inflation.

The Fed already has raised interest rates twice this year, and many economists expect two more interest rate hikes this year. Higher borrowing costs, however, would make it more difficult for the economy to sustain the 3 percent growth rate President Donald Trump promised to voters.
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From: MeNeedIt

Some 400 years ago, English explorer Captain John Smith traveled around the Chesapeake Bay in the eastern United States, the country’s largest estuary. Smith mapped about 4,800 kilometers of the bay and nearby rivers. Now, 11 of those rivers can be seen in an entirely new way through a unique virtual online tour. VOA’s Deborah Block got on board a small raft in the Patuxent River loaded with camera and computer equipment to find out how it is done.
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From: MeNeedIt

Hugo Kohl has been interested in art and design since he was a child. In college, he studied finance but also took several jewelry-making classes to satisfy his curiosity about this form of art and the history behind it. Twenty-five years ago, Kohl turned his passion into a career. And over the years, as Faiza Elmasry tells us, he developed his own style of vintage jewelry using the same techniques as industrial revolution artisans at the end of the 18th century. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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From: MeNeedIt

Brazil cut its greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in 2017 to levels below its internationally agreed 2020 climate change targets, the country’s Environment Ministry said Thursday.

Brazil reduced its emission from deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by 610 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), compared to its 2020 target of 564 million tons. In the Cerrado savanna, emissions were reduced 170 million tons of carbon dioxide versus a target of 104 million tons.

The Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, and the Cerrado, South America’s biggest savanna, soak up vast amounts of carbon dioxide, and their preservation is seen as vital to the fight against climate change. 

But destruction of the forest releases large quantities of CO2, one of the main greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Large-scale Amazon deforestation has made Brazil one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters, because of fires and the spread of agriculture and cattle ranching.

The 2020 emission goals were set out in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord to combat climate change. Under the more ambitious Paris Agreement in 2015 on climate change, Brazil has set goals for further steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions for 2025 and 2030.

“The policy message is that we can and should remain in the Paris Agreement (because) it is possible to effectively implement the commitments that have been made,” said Thiago Mendes, secretary of climate change in the Environment Ministry.
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From: MeNeedIt