More than 150 world leaders are preparing to attend the U.N. Sustainable Development Summit in New York beginning Sept. 25, with the aim of agreeing on a new agenda to tackle global poverty. But a new report warns that African children are being left further and further behind and will make up more than half of the world’s poor by 2030. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the report authors are critical of both African governments and the international community for failing to adequately tackle the problem.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

The American Dream is many things to many people. For the Savchuk family who came to the U.S. from Ukraine more than 15 years ago, achieving their dream meant opening a small business and making a decent living. VOA’s Iryna Matviichuk met with the family and saw their dream come true.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

Spain’s acting prime minister asked voters Wednesday for an even bigger victory for his Socialist party after his failure to form a government triggered a new election in November.

Pedro Sánchez told opposition parties in parliament that “when we will be forced back to the polls, I hope that the Spanish people give the Socialist Party an even bigger majority so that you … cannot block the formation of a government that Spain needs.”

He spoke a day after King Felipe VI announced that there was no viable candidate who could win parliament’s endorsement before a Sept. 23 deadline.

The Nov. 10 election will be Spain’s fourth in four years.

Spain to Hold Snap Election on Nov. 10 After Party Talks Fail

Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez acted after King Felipe VI said there were no viable candidates to lead a new government

Sánchez’s Socialists won the April 28 election, but fell short of a majority and he was unable to win the support of any major rival parties. The far-left United We Can party both refused to enter into a coalition government or to endorse his formation of a single-party government. The center-right Citizens party also wouldn’t negotiate until a last-minute effort that flopped.

Sánchez’s rivals criticized his unwillingness to win them over.

Popular Party leader Pablo Casado, the conservative opposition leader, said that Sánchez “wanted new elections from the start, but you have spent five months playing with the Spanish people.”

Early polls show the Socialists again winning the most votes, but still coming nowhere near the outright majority of 176 seats. Now they have 123 deputies in the 350-member lower chamber.

That means it is very likely the parties will have to change tact and find a way to strike a deal to get a government in place after the new vote.

Spain’s caretaker government has limited powers and can’t propose laws to the parliament.

The upcoming political campaign will likely coincide with a highly-anticipated verdict from the Supreme Court for a rebellion case against 12 of the leaders of Catalonia’s 2017 secession attempt. A guilty verdict would likely spark protests from separatists in northeastern Catalonia.

Spain is also facing a slowing economy and, like the rest of Europe, the likelihood of further economic troubles caused by the planned exit of Britain from the European Union scheduled for Oct. 31.

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From: MeNeedIt

Iran has been suspended from international judo competitions because it boycotts bouts with Israeli athletes.

Less than a month after world champion Saeid Mollaei walked off the Iranian team in protest at the boycott policy, the International Judo Federation said Wednesday that Iran is suspended ahead of a full hearing.

Iran’s judo federation is accused of discriminating against Israeli athletes and breaking rules over manipulating competition results.

“The IJF Executive Committee considered that such a conduct is intolerable,” the federation said.

Mollaei has said he was repeatedly ordered by Iranian officials to lose matches or withdraw from competitions, including last month’s world championships, so as not to face Israelis. He is currently in hiding in Germany.

Iran does not recognize Israel as a country, and Iranian sports teams have for several decades had a policy of not competing against Israelis.

It’s not yet clear if the IJF will seek to stop Iran competing in the 2020 Olympic judo events. Meanwhile, the IJF is exploring ways to allow Mollaei to compete on the International Olympic Committee’s team of refugees.

The IOC has signaled a harder line on boycotts in recent years.

In June, IOC president Thomas Bach criticized governments who “clearly abuse sport for their political purposes,” noting a case in May of a Tunisian court blocking four Israelis from competing at the taekwondo junior world championships. 

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From: MeNeedIt

It’s a common sight in Los Angeles. Thousands of people living in tents on sidewalks, sometimes with trash piled outside their makeshift shelters, conditions that breed typhus and other diseases. 

Analysts say the problem is complex, has been decades in the making and that a response requires coordination at many levels of government. President Donald Trump and his White House Council of Economic Advisers have recently weighed in, and Trump, on a flight to California for political fundraisers on Tuesday, said California’s largest cities are destroying themselves through an inadequate response to the problem. On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom and local officials asked Trump for help in providing emergency rent vouchers.

Homelessness has risen 12% in Los Angeles since 2018, despite a healthy economy that some critics say has left too many behind. Nearly 60,000 people were living without shelter in the most recent count of the country’s homeless residents in January.

“What’s unusual now is that you had a massive surge of jobs and wealth back into the cities after this long trend of suburbanization,” said Kevin Klowden, executive director of the Milken Institute’s Center for Regional Economics and California Center. He says sprawling commuter cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco viewed their downtown regions as business hubs, not residential ones. That pushed housing prices up and drove workers ever further from their jobs, while cities failed to create incentives for building new housing.

The result in Los Angeles, Klowden says, are emergent shantytowns in the form of tent cities.

For many residents, sudden unemployment or major health problems, sometimes compounded by drug and alcohol addiction, can leave people with few options.

“As soon as something catastrophic happens, then they’re liable to be pushed over the edge,” said John Maceri, CEO of The People Concern, a nonprofit social service agency. 

That happened to Robert Venegas, 58, who fell on hard times after the death of his wife and spent two years on the streets.

“I was living in a tent, wherever I could lay my head,” he recalled.

He is now staying in a 45-bed shelter called El Puente, one of a series of shelters being established throughout the city. This one near L.A.’s historic center overlooks a busy freeway that carries commuters to and from the suburbs.

Last year, Los Angeles moved more than 21,000 people from the streets and into permanent housing financed by two measures approved by city and county voters.

“The fact that they can put their head down at night and be able to sleep and feel that they’re safe and secure where they are, versus having to be up all night worrying about whether they’re going to be attacked on the streets,” that makes a big difference, said Daniel Xavier, who manages the El Puente housing facility where Venegas was staying. 

Housing backlog

Many homeless people like Venegas are awaiting permanent housing.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a public agency set up by the city and county, is tasked with tackling the problem. The organization has a backlog of tens of thousands of people “ready to be housed,” lacking only housing units, said executive director Peter Lynn.

Lynn said Los Angeles is not the most expensive city in the United States, but it has the biggest gap between incomes and cost of living, and is “the least affordable housing market in the United States.” The root cause? “We have under built housing for decades,” said Lynn.

One reason is the aversion of Californians to high-density housing. But most agree that such attitudes will have to change, since there is limited space for sprawling, single-level homes close to the city center.

New York, a city of high-rise apartments, has done better with its homeless than Los Angeles or San Francisco, said Klowden, who noted that a harsher winter climate is part of the reason.

“When you know that people are going to die on the streets because they’re going to freeze, you’re incentivized to act,” he said. In Los Angeles, “people have been able to push the problem down the road for a long time.”

Homelessness in Los Angeles is reaching crisis proportions, however, and “we need to really look at all the tools in the toolbox and find ways to streamline housing production,” Maceri said. 

Experts agree that getting people off the streets requires changes in policy at every level of government, and creative thinking.

The Trump administration is weighing in. The White House Council of Economic Advisers has prepared a report that blames the housing crisis in California — where nearly half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless live — on overregulation of the housing market, including zoning regulations, rent controls, historical preservation or environmental mandates. 

In a Sept. 10 letter to Trump, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti cited other causes of homelessness: “An ever-higher cost of living, a national economy that has hollowed out our middle-class and federal government cuts to vital housing funds and social services.”   

“We hope,” Garcetti added, “the federal government can be part of the solution.”

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From: MeNeedIt

South Korea has followed through with a pledge to remove Japan from a preferred list of nations that enjoy fast track trade status, the latest chapter in an escalating diplomatic dispute tied to Japan’s 20th century occupation of the Korean peninsula.

Tokyo’s removal from a so-called “white list” of nations enjoying minimal trade restrictions means South Korean companies would have to wait as many as 15 days to win approval to export sensitive materials to Japan, compared to five days under the fast track status.  

Wednesday’s action comes just weeks after Tokyo removed South Korea from its “white list” of trusted trade partners.  The decision restricts exports of hi-tech materials to South Korea that are used to produce semiconductors and displays in smartphones and other electronics that serve as the backbone of South Korea’s export-driven economy.

Seoul has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over a separate move by Japan to tighten export controls on those materials.

Tokyo’s decision to rescind Seoul’s fast track trade status are widely seen as retaliation for recent court rulings in South Korea ordering Japanese companies to compensate Koreans who were forced to work in Japanese plants du. The companies have not complied with the rulings, leading some victims to begin the legal process to seize or liquidate the companies’ assets in Korea.

South Koreans are still bitter over Japan’s brutal military rule of the Korean peninsula that lasted from 1910 until 1945, when Japan surrendered to Allied forces to end World War II.  Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were subjected to numerous atrocities, including the so-called “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels.

The issue of compensation for the victims has been an escalating source of friction between Japan and South Korea. Tokyo says the reparations issue was resolved with a 1965 treaty that normalized bilateral relations between the nations.  Tokyo has complained that subsequent South Korean governments have not accepted further Japanese apologies and attempts to make amends.  

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From: MeNeedIt

Two Dutch tourists who wanted to take video of Area 51 have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespass and illegal parking following their arrests at the secure U.S. government site in Nevada.

A judge on Monday sentenced Govert Sweep and Ties Granzier to three days in the Nye County jail and fined them $2,280 apiece.

They also surrendered computer and camera equipment and an aerial drone.

In a Nye County sheriff’s office video news release, Sweep and Granzier say they’ll return to the Netherlands after their expected release Thursday.

They were arrested Sept. 10 in a car inside the Nevada National Security Site near Mercury.

That’s more than 20 miles (32.2 kilometers) from Area 51, the focus of events this weekend inspired by a hoax Facebook post inviting people to “see them aliens.”

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From: MeNeedIt

The United States filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who in 2013 leaked secret documents about U.S. telephone and Internet surveillance, saying his new book violates non-disclosure agreements.

The Justice Department said Snowden published his memoir, “Permanent Record,” without submitting it to intelligence agencies for review, adding that speeches given by Snowden also violated nondisclosure agreements.

The United States is seeking all proceeds earned by Snowden for the book, the Justice Department said. The lawsuit also names the “corporate entities” behind the book’s publication as nominal defendants.

Is NSA Leaker Edward Snowden a Traitor?

US experts are split on whether NSA contractor Edward Snowden, now a political exile in Russia, is a traitor, a whistleblower or a defector

A spokesman for Snowden could not immediately be reached, and book publisher Macmillan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Snowden has lived in Russia since he revealed details of U.S. intelligence agencies’ secret surveillance programs.

Though Snowden is viewed by some as a hero, U.S. authorities want him to stand in a criminal trial over his disclosures of classified information.

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From: MeNeedIt

Corey Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and close confidant, on Tuesday stoutly defended his former boss and lashed out at Democrats during testimony to a U.S. congressional panel considering whether to impeach Trump.

“We as a nation would be better served if elected officials like you concentrated your efforts to combat the true crises facing our country as opposed to going down rabbit holes like this hearing,” Lewandowski said in his opening remarks to the Democratic-led House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

The White House on Monday told Lewandowski not to discuss conversations he had with Trump after he became president including an exchange that Democrats view as evidence that Trump committed obstruction of justice by trying to interfere in a federal investigation and may need to be impeached.

Lewandowski was the first impeachment witness to appear before the committee since former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified in July about his inquiry that detailed Russian 2016 election interference and Trump’s actions to impede the investigation.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, began the hearing by slamming the White House’s legal team for instructing Lewandowski to limit the scope of his testimony by invoking a doctrine called executive privilege.

“We should call this what it is: an absolute cover-up by the White House,” Nadler said.

“The White House is advancing a new and dangerous theory: the crony privilege,” Nadler added. “… Where are the limits?”

The hearing appeared likely to produce more political theater than factual revelations.

Lewandowski assailed the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2020 election.

“It is now clear the investigation was populated by many Trump haters who had their own agenda – to try and take down a duly elected president of the United States. As for actual “collusion” or “conspiracy,” there was none. What there has been however, is harassment of the president from the day he won the election,” Lewandowski added.

Lewandowski is considering a run for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in New Hampshire. Mueller’s report described Lewandowski as a Trump “devotee” with a “close” relationship with the president.

Trump in August sought to boost Lewandowski’s potential Senate bid, calling his former aide “a fantastic guy” who would make a “great senator” and that “I like everything about him.”

“This isn’t a campaign rally. This is the first hearing where you can tell the American people how you participated in the president’s effort to obstruct justice,” Democratic Representative David Cicilline wrote on Twitter.

Democrats, who hope to decide whether to recommend Trump’s impeachment to the full House by year’s end, had intended to grill Lewandowski about the president’s effort to persuade then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to redirect the Mueller probe away from the 2016 Trump election campaign.

The episode is among a number of incidents contained in Mueller’s 448-page investigative report made public in April that Democrats view as evidence that Trump obstructed justice.

Mueller made no determination about whether Trump obstructed justice but did not exonerate him of wrongdoing.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House has the power to vote to impeach a president while the Senate then would hold a trial on whether to remove him from office. The House is controlled by Democrats and the Senate by Trump’s fellow Republicans.

White House assertion

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told the committee in a letter on Monday that Lewandowski could not testify about conversations with Trump after he became president or with his senior advisers.

The White House also directed two other witnesses, former Trump White House aides Rob Porter and Rick Dearborn, not to testify. Cipollone’s letter said they were “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters related to their service as senior advisers to the President.”

In June 2017, Trump met Lewandowski, then a private citizen, at the White House and dictated a message he was to deliver to Sessions. The message said Sessions should shift the Russia probe’s focus to future elections despite his recusal from the investigation.

At a second meeting a month later, Trump asked about the status of the message and said Lewandowski should “tell Sessions he was fired” if he would not meet with Lewandowski, according to the Mueller report.

Trump fired Lewandowski as his campaign manager in June 2016 but the two remained close. During the campaign, Lewandowski had often generated controversy including when he was charged with misdemeanor battery after being accused of forcefully grabbing a female reporter in Florida. The charge was later dropped.

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From: MeNeedIt

Older Americans aren’t moving as much as they used to. 

The migration rate of people over 55 has dropped steadily over the past two decades from a high of 6% in 1996, to 4.3% between 2017 and 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Moving rates for Baby Boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — have rebounded a bit since the Great Recession of 2007-2009, but they remain slightly below pre-recession rates.

“The idea is if the economy’s not so good, they may just want to stay working for a little bit more before they retire,” says demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.

“Their decision is when can they retire, when is it affordable to retire? And more importantly, from the migration standpoint, does it make sense to to pick up stakes and move somewhere else? If the housing crunch is there, they’re not going to have too many bidders for their homes, so the idea of selling your house to move somewhere else is not going to be as easy.”

When they do retire, Baby Boomers are still heading to traditional sunny retirement haunts like Phoenix, Tampa, Riverside [California], Las Vegas and Jacksonville [Florida].

The lure of the big city isn’t calling to these older folks. The cities that experienced the biggest net loss of seniors include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and San Francisco.

For all ages, short-distance moves far outnumber long-distance moves, especially for seniors. Those who move a short distance might be interested in being close to their adult children and grandchildren.

Typically, those who move far away are attracted by the weather, lower costs and services geared toward older people. However, there may be movement to back to their kids when they get beyond the early senior years.

“I’ve got to call them the yuppie elderly, in good health and still have some disposable income, they’ll move to places where they have some amenities for older people,” Frey says. “But when things are not going so well, they may then move back to areas where they have more friends and family that can help take care of them.”

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From: MeNeedIt

A U.S. service member was killed in action in Afghanistan on Monday, NATO said, without providing further details.

Last week, President Donald Trump abruptly called off talks with the Taliban to end American’s longest war, citing the killing of a U.S. service member in a Taliban attack days earlier.

Monday’s death was the 17th U.S. combat death in Afghanistan this year, according to the Pentagon’s count. There also have been three non-combat deaths this year. More than 2,400 Americans have died in the nearly 18-year war.

Across Afghanistan, militant attacks and more violence killed at least seven people as the country prepares for presidential elections later this month, Afghan officials said.

At least five civilians, including women and children, were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in western Farah province on Sunday, according to Mohibullah Mohib, spokesman for the provincial police.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, which occurred near the city of Farah, the provincial capital, but the Taliban are active in the province.

Earlier this month, the Taliban launched an attempt to take the city of Farah, briefly seizing an army recruitment center and setting it on fire. Airstrikes were called in and the Taliban were eventually forced out of the city.

Separately, a magnetic explosive device attached to a mini bus belonging to a university in Ghazni province exploded and killed the bus driver. Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said five Ghazni University students were also wounded in the blast.

In eastern Logar province, a schoolgirl died in the crossfire during a battle in the Mohammad Agha district between the Taliban and the security forces, the police said. A second student was wounded.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani cancelled his first electoral debate with his main electoral rival, Abdullah Abdullah, the country’s chief executive. Both men are partners in the national unity government.

Ghani’s electoral team, in a statement released just before the start of the debate, claimed Abdullah has no political program and that Ghani did not want to debate him.

Abdullah, who was present at the TV studio where the debate was to be held, said Ghani “should have come and shared his plans.”

Around 100,000 members of the country’s security forces will provide security on election day, Sept. 28. Around 72,000 security personnel will be on duty around the 4,942 polling centers across Afghanistan while nearly 30,000 additional troops will serve as reserve units.

Approximately 20,000 American and allied troops remain in Afghanistan. Between 14,000 and 13,000 U.S. troops are currently in the country.

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From: MeNeedIt

A Chinese American couple has been arrested and charged with stealing scientific trade secrets from a children’s hospital in Ohio in the latest federal prosecution aimed at clamping down on China’s alleged theft of American intellectual property.  

The couple — Yu Zhou, 49, and Li Chen, 46 — worked in separate labs at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, for 10 years, stealing proprietary research for use in personal business ventures, law enforcement officials announced Monday.

The purloined exosome-related trade secrets play a key role in the diagnosis and treatment of a range of pediatric medical conditions, including liver cancer and a condition found in premature babies, according to a 27-page federal indictment.

The indictment alleges that the couple founded a company in China in 2015 without the hospital’s knowledge or authorization, marketing products related to exosome isolation. Two years later, Zhou helped found an American biotechnology company, advertising products including a kit developed with a trade secret created at one of the hospital’s research labs. Shortly before resigning from the hospital in 2017, Zhu allegedly announced in a press release his new company’s plans to distribute “proprietary exosome isolation systems” from its Central Ohio headquarters.

“Nationwide Children’s Hospital devoted years of work and its own money to researching exosomes in order to promote honorable medical advances,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Benjamin Glassman said in a statement.  

In a statement to VOA, the hospital said, “When we discovered this incident, we alerted the FBI and have been actively collaborating with them.”

Zhou and Chen were arrested in July. The 27-count indictment was unsealed Thursday at their arraignment in federal court in Columbus. The charges carry 10 to 20 years in prison.  

Lawyers for the couple did not immediately respond to an email from VOA seeking comment. 

U.S. crackdown 

The indictment is part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on China’s alleged theft of American property and other predatory practices that are at the heart of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

In the last 10 months, the Justice Department has brought charges against Chinese nationals and entities in at least seven separate economic espionage cases, up from three during the prior 10 months. In addition, the department has obtained guilty pleas and convictions in six older espionage cases, while charging four Chinese nationals for evading sanctions against North Korea.

“The theft of trade secrets is a growing threat that severely impacts our economy and our national security,” stated FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Todd Wickerham.

Separately, the Justice Department announced the arrest of a Chinese government employee on conspiracy charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. visas for fellow government workers.

Zhongsan Liu was arrested Thursday in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and later presented before a U.S. magistrate in federal court in New York.

“We welcome foreign students and researchers, including from China, but we do not welcome visa fraud  especially on behalf of a government,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers of National Security. “We will continue to confront Chinese government attempts to subvert American law to advance its own interests in diverting U.S. research and know-how to China.”

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From: MeNeedIt