Advertising and marketing. Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers
Sudan’s Transitional Military Council and opposition coalition finalized a power-sharing agreement Sunday that aims to stabilize the country for the first time since the military ousted Omar al-Bashir in April after months of mass demonstrations.
The final agreement came after weeks of tense talks and repeated attacks on pro-democracy protesters by TMC security forces.
Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Khartoum on Sunday to celebrate the signing of the deal.
Israa Mohamed applauded the agreement, saying it will be a base for a civilian country. However, he added, the only thing that guarantees the agreement’s success is to keep an eye on the revolution demands.
Sudanese celebrate following a signing ceremony in the capital Khartoum, Sudan, Aug. 4, 2019.
Protester Abdallah Ali has been demanding political change since December. He said the agreement is a step forward, but not the end of the journey.
“Signing the constitutional draft was an important step to resolve the political turmoil, but it was not our ultimate goal,” he said.
The military and opposition agreed the transitional decision-making body, known as the sovereign council, will contain an equal number of military figures and civilians. The head will be a civilian with a military background.
The sovereign council will be established Aug. 20, with the TMC being dissolved on the same day.
Analyst Mohamed Abdurrahman believes the agreement is a crucial step to resolve Sudan’s political crisis, but is concerned about the division between forces in the transitional period.
In addition, he’s worried the peace process might be hurt by armed movements resisting the agreements, including rebel groups in Sudan’s Darfur, Blue Nile and Nuba Mountain regions, which battled for years against the Bashir regime.
There is also uncertainty regarding the pro-Bashir group called the Revolutionary Front and its reaction to a new, unelected government in Khartoum.
The Greek Orthodox Church says it has filed a new lawsuit against a Jewish settler group in a bid to overturn an Israeli Supreme Court decision upholding the sale of three properties in predominantly Palestinian parts of Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Patriarchate claimed in a statement Monday that it had “clear proof” of corruption in the long-disputed 2004 sale of Old City properties, including two Palestinian-run hotels.
In June, the court ruled in favor of the Israeli organization, which seeks to increase the Jewish presence in Palestinian areas of the contested holy city.
Most Orthodox Christians in Jerusalem are Palestinian, and the sale of the properties to Israelis sparked outrage.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians seek it as capital of a future state.
The United States might seem more divided than ever, but that could be because Americans have a distorted impression of people with opposing political views.
“Democrats and Republicans overestimate the proportion of people on the other side of the political aisle who hold extreme views by a factor of about two,” says Daniel Yudkin, associate director of research at More in Common.
“So, another way of saying that is that there are about half as many people with extreme views on the other side than Democrats and Republicans think.”
For example, 87% of Republicans say “properly controlled immigration can be good for America.” But Democrats believe only about half of Republicans would agree with that statement.
And while Republicans think almost half of Democrats believe “most police are bad people,” the reality is that far fewer Democrats, 15%, agree with that supposition.
A recent More in Common report finds that this perception gap is created by extremists in both parties who tend to have the loudest voices, in part because they are extremely active on social and traditional media.
“So, when people are learning and hearing the voices of the people they think are on the other side, they’re actually hearing the voices of the most extreme contingent of those groups,” says Yudkin, a co-author of the report.
“And so, they come to believe that those voices are representative of the people on both sides, when in fact, there’s quite a lot of complexity and nuance that gets missed.”
These false assumptions are detrimental to Americans because the greater the misperceptions, the more people begin to view people on the other side as hateful, brainwashed or ignorant. That negativity makes it difficult for Americans with opposing political views to cooperate on the issues where they do see eye to eye.
“There are a lot of issues that Americans actually agree about,” Yudkin says.
“We agree that we should have a properly controlled immigration system that’s compassionate but also efficient. We agree that racism remains an issue in America right now. Most of Americans believe there’s rampant inequality and that there should be higher taxes on the wealthy, for example. But these shared issues are undermined in the political process when sides come to see the other as the enemy.”
People tend to consume news that reinforces and confirms their biases about people in opposing constituencies, according to the report, which also finds that when conservatives and liberals consume news that runs counter to their own views, they make fewer false or exaggerated assumptions about the other side.
The bottom line is that Americans are less divided than they believe, according to Yudkin, and reducing the perception gap starts with understanding the reality of just how big — or small — that gap actually is.
China’s decision last week to stop issuing permits for independent tourists to Taiwan applies new economic pressure to their already strained relations, and analysts see three underlying reasons behind Beijing’s move.
Beijing’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism cited the “current mainland China-Taiwan relations” as cause to stop permitting indie travelers after about a decade. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory rather than a state, but Taiwan prefers at least today’s level autonomy over the Chinese goal of unification. That schism has caused the two sides to chafe for 70 years.
Here are three reasons China cut off travel permits:
Taiwan’s president opposes China despite earlier pressure to get along
Suspending the travel permits lets China remind Taiwan of its economic clout, some analysts say.
The permit shutdown ends a process that generated on average more than 82,000 arrivals per month last year, which boosted the island’s service economy.
Since 2016, China has flown military aircraft near Taiwan and persuaded five Taiwanese diplomatic allies to switch their allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. The Communist leadership hopes to pressure Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s government to bargain with China as her predecessor did — on the condition that acknowledges both sides are considered part of the same country.
Despite the military and diplomatic pressure, the government in Taipei openly opposes rule by China. Tsai in January condemned the “one country, two systems” idea that Chinese President Xi Jinping had proposed then as a way to rule Taiwan.
China is “more than furious” that Tsai openly backs anti-Beijing protesters who have taken to the streets in Hong Kong since June, said Sean King, vice president of the Park Strategies political consultancy in New York.
China upped its warnings by calling off Taiwan-bound independent travel, said Liang Kuo-yuan, president of the Taipei research organization Polaris Research Institute.
“The headline news will create some psychological effects,” Liang said. “I believe their motivation should be that mainland China wants to say ‘as well as using military threats we can also hold you back economically.’”
Taiwan’s president faces a tough reelection bid in 2020
China hopes the tourism suspension will remind Taiwanese that “there are riches to be had” if they reject Tsai’s reelection bid in January, King said.
Tsai is running against Han Kuo-yu, a mayor who supports opening talks with China to bolster economic and investment ties. His party, when in power from 2008 to 2016, accepted Beijing’s condition that each side see itself as part of China for negotiation purposes. The two governments inked 23 deals.
Tsai rejects the one-China condition, and China cut off talks after she took office.
China hopes the cut in travel permits will addle the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.
Hotels near tourist hotspots will take the biggest hit from the loss of self-guided tourists, though many had expected business to taper due to the decline in political relations, said Peter Lin, chief executive officer of the Topology Travel Agency in Taipei. Losses from the travel suspension are estimated at about $1 billion per year.
“The Chinese do want to show that DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] is not doing good things and want to punish the DPP,” Sun said. “They want to squeeze the election, and tourism is a very convenient channel. The tourism industry in Taiwan will be hit pretty hard.”
Chinese tourists would get close to Taiwan’s political heat
China’s official television network said on its Weibo social media website Wednesday that independent travel permits had been suspended because of increasing “risks” for travelers before the election.
Beijing frets about its tourists being drawn to Taiwan’s democratic institutions including its unfettered mass media, King said. Relations with China are shaping up as a core presidential campaign issue with daily media coverage.
“There’s the incidental bonus for Beijing of having fewer of its citizens exposed to the island’s vigorously open political culture,” King said. “This fact cannot be overlooked, especially given the protests in Hong Kong, uncensored coverage of which mainland visitors get to see on their Taiwan hotel television screens.”
France and Germany on Sunday condemned a Russian police crackdown on a banned opposition rally that saw hundreds detained, with Paris criticizing an “excessive use of force” after a second weekend of protests over the exclusion of opposition candidates from local Moscow polls next month.
Berlin said the police action on Saturday “violated” Russia’s international obligations and undermines the right to fair elections in the country.
The arrests on Saturday were “out of all proportion to the peaceful nature of the protests against the exclusion of independent candidates” from city elections in Moscow, the German government said.
Crowds had walked along the capital’s central boulevard in a protest “stroll” over the refusal by officials to let opposition candidates run in September polls for city parliament seats — a local issue that has turned into a political crisis.
Police say 1,500 people took part in the demonstration.
AFP observed dozens of arrests along the route, as police formed human chains and grabbed people indiscriminately.
Sobol detained again
An ally of detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Lyubov Sobol, who is currently three weeks into a hunger strike after being barred from taking part in the election, was dragged from a taxi and detained as she set off for the rally.
FILE – Russian opposition candidate and lawyer at the Foundation for Fighting Corruption Lyubov Sobol, center, and others stand in front of a police line during a protest in Moscow, Russia, July 14, 2019.
Hours later she was taken to court where she was fined 300,000 rubles ($4,600) for a gathering on July 15, and held for further questioning over the protest last weekend, her team said.
A French foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement that Paris “insists on freedom of expression in all its forms, including that of demonstrating peacefully and taking part in free and transparent elections.”
France “calls on Russia to immediately free the people incarcerated in recent days and to conform to its commitments as a member of the OSCE and the Council of Europe,” the statement said.
Berlin condemned “the repeated interference in the guaranteed right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression” which “violates Russia’s international obligations and strongly questions the right to free and fair elections”.
Sunday’s statements from Berlin and Paris follow an appeal last Monday calling on Moscow to release 1,400 other protesters detained after a similar demonstration on July 27.
FILE – A handout image made available on the official website of Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny (Navalny.com) July 29, 2019, shows him sitting on a hospital bed in Moscow.
Navalny criminal probe
According to the independent protest monitor OVD-Info, some 828 people were detained during the latest rally on Saturday in Moscow.
Authorities also upped the pressure on Navalny, a top Kremlin critic, by launching a criminal probe into his anti-graft group on Saturday.
Navalny was rushed from his cell to hospital last weekend in an incident his personal doctor said could be poisoning with an unknown chemical substance.
A state toxicology lab said no traces were found.
President Vladimir Putin has yet to comment on the situation in Moscow.
VOA’s Ibrahim Rahimi contributed to this report from Paktia, Afghanistan.
A mini-bus carrying the employees of a private television station in Afghanistan has been struck by a magnetic bomb pasted to the vehicle, killing two people and injuring three others, all civilians, Afghan officials said Sunday.
Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs said Sunday that a bomb was placed inside the vehicle carrying the employees of Khorshid TV, a privately-owned TV station that is headquartered in the capital, Kabul.
According to officials, two people have been killed in the attack including the driver of the vehicle and a civilian passing by. Three others were wounded, two are employees of Khorshid TV and the third person is a civilian who was near the vehicle.
No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but this is not the first time that journalists have been targeted in the country by militant groups.
Incident follows reporter’s killing
Last month, unknown armed assailants killed a reporter for a local radio station in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province.
Nader Shah Sahibzada, a reporter for Voice of Gardiz local radio, went missing in July and authorities found his body a day later near his home in the capital city, Gardiz.
Nader Shah Sahibzada, a reporter for Voice of Gardiz local radio in Paktia province, in seen in an undated social media photo.
Initial autopsy reports suggest that Sahibzada had been severely tortured and stabbed to death.
No group claimed responsibility for Sahibzada’s killing, but in June the Taliban warned Afghan media outlets that if they do not stop what the militant group called “anti-Taliban statements”, they would be targeted.
“Those who continue doing so will be recognized by the group as military targets who are helping the Western-backed government of Afghanistan,” the insurgent group said in a statement.
“Reporters and staff members will not remain safe,” the statement added.
Violence a dead-end street
Both the U.S. and Afghanistan condemned Taliban’s threats against the Afghan media outlets.
“Freedom of expression and attacks on media organizations is in contradiction to human and Islamic values,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said in a statement.
John Bass, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said in a tweet that the Taliban should stop threatening Afghan journalists.
“More violence, against journalists or civilians, will not bring security and opportunity to Afghanistan, nor will it help the Taliban reach their political objectives,” Bass said.
Sunday’s attack is not an isolated incident. According to media advocacy groups in Afghanistan, so far this year seven local journalists have been killed by militants excluding Sunday’s attack.
FILE – Afghans take part in a burial ceremony of a journalist, in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 7, 2016. Fifteen journalists were reportedly killed in the country in 2018.
Deadliest place for journalists
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which advocates for freedom of the press around the world, reported that Afghanistan was the world’s deadliest country for journalists in 2018 followed by Syria.
The group said in its annual report in late December that 15 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan and 11 others have been killed in Syria, making both countries the deadliest places for journalists around the world.
The increased fatalities among journalists in Afghanistan is due in part to bombings and shootings that targeted media workers.
In April of 2018, a double bombing in Kabul killed nine journalists, including six Radio Free Europe reporters.
The Islamic State (IS) terror group claimed responsibility for those attacks, which they said deliberately targeted journalists.
Some materials used in this report came from Reuters.
After two mass shootings in a span of 13 hours, there have now been more than 250 such events this year in which at least four people were shot or killed, besides the shooter. Officials in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, report 29 fatalities and at least 50 injured from shootings this weekend in those cities. Republican and Democrat politicians shared their reactions to the massacres. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
Turkey will carry out a military operation in a Kurdish-controlled area east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, its third offensive to dislodge Kurdish militia fighters close to its border.
Turkey had in the past warned of carrying out military operations east of the river, but put them on hold after agreeing with the United States to create a safe zone inside Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey that would be cleared of the Kurdish YPG militia.
But Ankara has accused Washington of stalling progress on setting up the safe zone and has demanded it sever its relations
with the YPG. The group was Washington’s main ally on the ground in Syria during the battle against Islamic State, but Turkey sees it as a terrorist organization.
Erdogan said both Russia and the United States have been told of the planned operation, but did not say when it would
begin. It would mark the third Turkish incursion into Syria in as many years.
“We entered Afrin, Jarablus, and Al-Bab. Now we will enter the east of the Euphrates,” Erdogan said on Sunday during a highway-opening ceremony.
Asked about Erdogan’s comments, a U.S. official told Reuters: “Bilateral discussions with Turkey continue on the possibility of a safe zone with U.S. and Turkish forces that addresses Turkey’s legitimate security concerns in northern Syria.”
Overnight, three Turkish-backed Syrian rebel fighters were killed during clashes with the YPG, state-owned Anadolu Agency reported on Sunday. It said the YPG tried to infiltrate the front lines in Syria’s al-Bab area, where Turkey carved out a de facto buffer zone in its 2016 “Euphrates Shield” offensive.
Clashes such as these are frequent in the area, but casualties tend to be rare.
On Thursday, the Kurdish-led administration running north and east Syria issued a statement objecting to Turkish threats to attack the area.
“These threats pose a danger on the area and on a peaceful solution in Syria, and any Turkish aggression on the area will open the way for the return of Daesh (Islamic State), and that aggression will also contribute to the widening of the circle of Turkish occupation in Syria,” the statement said.
It called on the international community to take a stance that stops Turkey from carrying out its threats.
A daredevil French inventor succeeded Sunday in his second attempt to cross the English Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard, taking off from the northern French coast amid a crowd of onlookers.
Franky Zapata, 40, has to swap out his backpack full of kerosene by landing on a boat about halfway through the expected 20-minute trip toward St. Margaret’s Bay in Dover, on England’s southern coast.
Zapata failed to pull off the tricky refueling maneuver during the first attempt on his Flyboard July 25, hitting the platform and tumbling into the waters of the busy shipping lane.
He hopes to make the 35-kilometer (22-mile) crossing at an average speed of 140 kilometers an hour (87 mph) and at a height of 15-20 meters (50-65 feet) above the water.
This time the refueling boat will be bigger and have a larger landing area, and French navy vessels in the area will again be keeping an eye out in case of trouble.
For one intense week, 40 boys and 20 girls from 29 African countries were chosen for a highly selective program to train with current and former players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).
The NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program has been scouting and training girls and boys across the continent for 17 years. Teenage girls who took part say working with women from the continent who played for WNBA teams has motivated them to stay in the game.
Iris was scouted by the program from her local team in Gabon. (E. Sarai/VOA)
“This experience has been so enriching for us,” Iris, a 16-year-old from Gabon, told VOA. “It’s helped me a lot, I’ve learned new things and it’s renewed my enthusiasm, my desire to keep going and to become someone in the world of basketball.”
Iris says she was scouted for the program by organizers who watched her local team play in Gabon. Iris was then asked to produce a video of her playing and was later informed that she’d been accepted to the program.
The coaches and mentors are helping these young players through drills and matches, but also serve as role models of what the youngsters can become. One such role model is Astou Ndiaye, originally from Senegal. She played for the Detroit Shock, which won the 2003 WNBA championship.
“We have walked the path that they want to walk,” Ndiaye told VOA. “So just being here being able to talk to them, answer their questions and really give them hopefully, the confidence they need to know that if we can do it, they can because there’s a path for them.”
Ndiaye has been coaching young women in the Basketball Without Borders program for years, but is particularly encouraged this year because it is only the second time that Senegal has hosted the program in its 17-year history.
Ndiaye’s presence and enthusiasm for the program have been particularly inspirational for many young women who hope to follow in her footsteps.
Vanessa, a 16-year-old basketball player from Cameroon, says she is looking forward to returning home and sharing what she has learned at Basketball Without Borders. (E. Sarai/VOA)
“It’s because of them — they’ve inspired us to play basketball, really,” Vanessa, a 16-old player from Cameroon, told VOA. “And it’s because of them that we really apply ourselves here and say that maybe one day we can replace them, or play with them.”
Although only half as many girls as boys are accepted to the program, organizers say that promoting young female players on the continent is just as important to them as working with the boys.
“Our primary mission and goal at NBA Africa, when we launched, was to really increase participation in our sport. So you cannot do that by ignoring more than half the population,” Amadou Gallo Fall, NBA Africa’s managing director, told VOA. “So I think over the years, we’ve seen tremendous progress in the women’s game.”
The NBA sponsors the Basketball Without Borders program each year to scout and train up and coming basketball players on the continent. (E. Sarai/VOA)
Ndiaye agrees that in recent years, the women she coaches will have better opportunities than her generation did.
“It’s getting better. If we remember, we were pioneers then,” Ndiaye said.
“And the salaries, all the benefits and advantages that the kids are getting now — it’s unbelievable — so it can only get better.”
White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed to this report.
Police officials in El Paso, Texas, say they are investigating as a possible hate crime the mass shooting Saturday at a Walmart that ended with at least 20 people killed and 26 wounded.
Police chief Greg Allen said the police have an online posting reportedly written by the 21-year-old white male suspect now in custody, that indicates the shooting spree was intended to target Hispanics.
The post appeared online about an hour before the shooting and included language that complained about the “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. The author of the manifesto wrote that he expected to be killed during the attack.
Shoppers exit with their hands up after a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, Aug. 3, 2019.
“This vile act of terrorism against Hispanic Americans was inspired by divisive racial and ethnic rhetoric and enabled by weapons of war,” Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said in a statement.
“The language in the shooter’s manifesto is consistent with President Donald Trump’s description of Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders,’” said Castro, who is also the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “Today’s shooting is a stark reminder of the dangers of such rhetoric.”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado said three Mexicans were killed in the shooting and six Mexicans were wounded.
Trump posted Saturday on Twitter: “Melania and I send our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the great people of Texas.”
Today’s shooting in El Paso, Texas, was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice. I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people….
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who traveled to El Paso, told reporters, “We as a state unite in support of these victims and their family members. … We pray that God can be with those who have been harmed in any way and bind up their wounds.”
Sgt. Robert Gomez of the El Paso, Texas, police briefs reporters on a shooting that occurred at a Walmart near Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Aug. 3, 2019.
First calls come in
Police began receiving calls at 10:39 a.m. local time with multiple reports of a shooting at Walmart and the nearby Cielo Vista Mall complex on the east side of the city.
Sgt. Robert Gomez, a spokesman with the El Paso Police Department, said most of the shootings occurred at the Walmart, where there were more than 1,000 shoppers and 100 employees. Many families were taking advantage of a sales-tax holiday to shop for back-to-school supplies, officials said.
Cielo Vista Mall
“This is unprecedented in El Paso,” Gomez said of the mass shooting.
El Paso Mayor Dee Margo told CNN, “This is just a tragedy that I’m having a hard time getting my arms around.”
Originally, Margo, as well as several witnesses, said there were several shooters involved. But police said they believe there was just one shooter.
“I can confirm that it is a white male in his 20s,” El Paso police spokesman Gomez said. “We believe he’s the sole shooter.”
Gomez said an assault-style rifle was used in the shooting.
Mourners in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, take part in a vigil near the border fence between Mexico and the U.S after a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, Aug. 3, 2019.
249th mass shooting so far this year
The El Paso shooting is the nation’s 249th mass shooting incident this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot or killed, excluding the gunman, at one location.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who formerly represented the El Paso district in the U.S. House, was at an event in Las Vegas when he heard of the shooting.
“I just ask for everyone’s strength for El Paso right now. Everyone’s resolve to make sure that this does not continue to happen in this country,” he said, adding he was immediately returning home to El Paso, where his family lives.
Saturday’s shooting comes less than a week after a mass shooting at a festival in Gilroy, California, where three people, including two children, were killed and 13 others were injured. It was also the second fatal shooting in less than a week at a Walmart store. A gunman shot and killed two people and injured two others Tuesday in Mississippi, before he was shot and arrested by police.
El Paso, a city of about 680,000 people in western Texas, shares the border with Juarez, Mexico.
There are an estimated 12,000 homeless people living in Seattle, in the Northwest U.S. state of Washington, according to the U.S. government. Among those homeless, a significant but difficult to quantify number don’t speak English. But one nonprofit is working to serve English learners and end homelessness all at the same time. VOA’s Valdya Baraputri reports.