At least five people were killed and 21 others were injured Saturday in a mass shooting in western Texas, officials said. 
 
Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke called it a “horrific day” after the shooting deaths in Odessa and nearby Midland, Texas. 
 
Police said the incident started when a suspect hijacked a U.S. Postal Service vehicle, then drove around and randomly fired at people. 
 
The shooter, described as a white male in his 30s, was shot and killed after being trapped by police in the parking lot of a movie theater, authorities said. They did not provide a motive for the attack, in which three police officers were also injured. 
 
Gerke declined to name the gunman. 
 
Police did not release the conditions or ages of the victims.   

President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday night, “Just briefed by Attorney General Barr about the shootings in Texas. FBI and Law Enforcement is fully engaged. More to follow.” 
 
Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a statement Saturday, saying: “The First Lady and I are heartbroken over this senseless and cowardly attack, and we offer our unwavering support to the victims, their families, and all the people of Midland and Odessa. The state of Texas and the Department of Public Safety are working closely with local law enforcement to provide resources as needed and deliver justice for this heinous attack.” 
 
Saturday’s shooting came after a mass shooting in early August at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart, where many of the 22 victims were Hispanic. 
 
The El Paso shooting happened just hours before a gunman in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people. The two mass shootings within hours of each other led to calls for gun control in the United States. 
 
Former U.S. Represesntative Beto O’Rourke, who lives in El Paso, reacted shortly after news broke of the shooting in Odessa, which is 455 kilometers (282 miles) east of El Paso. 
 
“We need to end this epidemic,” O’Rourke tweeted on Saturday.  
 
O’Rourke, who is also a Democratic presidential candidate, expressed sympathy for “everyone in West Texas who has to endure this again.” 

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In Russia, countrywide celebrations have been held to mark the 350th anniversary of the national flag. Yet, only 50 percent of respondents polled in a recent survey could correctly name the sequence of the colors on the flag. Russia recently saw a surge of patriotic celebrations orchestrated by local and federal authorities. Yulia Savchenko has more from Moscow on the state-promoted events.
 

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Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg took her Friday school strikes to the gates of the United Nations, surrounded by hundreds of other young activists, calling on adults to take action on climate change. Thunberg will speak at a climate change summit of world leaders next month at the U.N. General Assembly. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington.
 

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While millions of people continue to live under a prolonged security lockdown in Indian-controlled Kashmir, villagers near the border on the Pakistani side of the disputed territory complain intensified military skirmishes between the two countries are also impacting their routine life. Ayaz Gul reports from the border town of Chakothi.
 

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Sirhan Sirhan, imprisoned for more than 50 years for the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was hospitalized Friday after being stabbed by a fellow inmate at a San Diego prison.

A statement from the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the stabbing occurred Friday afternoon at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego.

“Officers responded quickly, and found an inmate with stab wound injuries. He was transported to an outside hospital for medical care, and is currently in stable condition,” the statement said.

The statement did not name Sirhan, but a government source with direct knowledge confirmed to The Associated Press that he was the victim. The source spoke under condition of anonymity, citing prison privacy regulations.

The stabbing was first reported by TMZ.

Corrections officials reported that the alleged attacker has been identified and has been segregated from the rest of the prison population pending an investigation.

Kennedy assassination

Sirhan, 75, was convicted of shooting Kennedy shortly after midnight June 5, 1968, immediately after the New York senator had declared victory in the previous day’s California Democratic presidential primary.

Kennedy had just finished delivering his victory speech to cheering supporters at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel when he decided to walk through the hotel kitchen. He had stopped to shake hands with a busboy who had delivered food to his room the day before when he was shot in the head. He died the next day.

Sirhan was originally sentenced to death. But when California briefly outlawed capital punishment, his sentence was reduced to life in prison. He has been denied parole several times.

Five bystanders were wounded during the shooting. In the chaos, Los Angeles Rams football great Rosey Grier, Olympic champion Rafer Johnson and others wrestled the murder weapon away.

High-profile prisoner

Over the years, Sirhan has claimed to have no recollection of the shooting or his initial confession.

As a high-profile prisoner, Sirhan had once been kept in a protective housing unit at Corcoran State Prison in Northern California. After he told authorities several years ago that he would prefer being housed with the general prison population, he was moved to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.

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Indonesia is investigating incidents that led to widespread violence in the territory of West Papua. Days of unrest and protests followed racially charged incidents in two cities involving alleged abuse of Papuan students. Nova Poerwadi narrates the story by Yuni Salim.
 

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The Russian military says Syrian government forces will begin a unilateral cease-fire in the northwestern province of Idlib in the coming hours.

The Russian military reconciliation center says the cease-fire will go into effect Saturday morning at 6 a.m. (0300 GMT).
 
 Friday’s report comes as government forces have intensified their offensive over the past weeks capturing rebel-held areas in Hama province and nearby Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in the country.

 The Russian military called on the opposition to end “provocations” and engage in peaceful settlement.

Russia is a main backer of Syrian government forces.

The announcement came as hundreds of protesters in Idlib marched toward a border crossing with Turkey demanding that Ankara either open the border or demand an end to the government attack.

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Chinese authorities have declined to renew the press credentials of a Beijing-based Wall Street Journal reporter, effectively expelling a journalist who extensively covered President Xi Jinping and Communist Party politics.

The foreign ministry said Friday in response to a faxed question about Singaporean reporter Chun Han Wong’s visa that some foreign journalists with the “evil intention to smear and attack China” are “not welcome.”

The action comes one month after Wong co-wrote a story detailing an Australian investigation into alleged links between Xi’s cousin and money laundering and suspected organized crime.

A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the WSJ’s parent company, said in a statement that authorities declined to renew Wong’s press credentials. The spokesperson said the company is looking into the matter but did not elaborate.

Wong declined to comment.

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A 9-year-old Congolese girl who tested positive for Ebola in neighboring Uganda has died, officials said Friday, as the World Health Organization said that the outbreak has neared 3,000 cases.

The young girl’s body will be repatriated with her mother back to Congo for a funeral, according to Dr. Eddy Kasenda, Ebola representative in the Congolese border town of Kasindi.

“We are finalizing the administrative formalities so that the body is repatriated and buried here in Congo, her native country,” Kasenda said. “We are collaborating with the health services of neighboring Uganda and we will strengthen the sanitary measures here in Kasindi.”

A Ugandan official at the hospital where the girl had been in isolation confirmed her death overnight. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

The girl, who was traveling with her mother, was identified at a border screening Wednesday as a possible Ebola patient and isolated.

Porous borders
 
Although cases of cross-border contamination have been rare, this case highlights the risk of Ebola spreading across the border into neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. Borders in the region are often porous, and many people traveling at night use bush paths to cross over.  

In June, a family of Congolese with some sick family members crossed into Uganda via a bush path. Two of them later died of Ebola, and the others were transferred back to Congo.

Uganda has had multiple outbreaks of Ebola and hemorrhagic fevers since 2000.

Because the 9-year-old Ebola victim passed through an official entry point this week, Ugandan health authorities believe she had no contact with any Ugandan.

Ebola has killed nearly 2,000 people in eastern Congo since August 2018. The disease is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

WHO said Friday that cases have reached 3,000 in Congo, with 1,893 confirmed deaths and some 900 survivors. An average of 80 people per week are sickened by the virus, which has infected most people in Congo’s North Kivu province. 
 
The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo hasn’t shown signs of slowing down despite new treatments and vaccines given to more than 200,000 people in the region and the use of two therapeutic treatments being used as part of a clinical trial. 

Obstacles
 
Insecurity has been one factor in a region where rebel groups have fought for control of mineral-rich lands for decades. Ebola also has spread because of mistrust by communities who have also staged attacks against health workers. Many people in eastern Congo don’t trust doctors and other medics.

“Many people are afraid to seek treatment for illnesses, worried they will be sent to an Ebola Treatment Center where they fear they could contract the disease. As an actor within the response, we must assume our own responsibility,” said Bob Kitchen, Vice President of Emergencies at the International Rescue Committee. “One year into the response, the lack of community acceptance remains the single greatest obstacle to containing the outbreak. Building trust with the community doesn’t just mean dialogue with the affected population. It means working with the community to adapt the response and address the overall needs they are facing inside and outside of the Ebola outbreak.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will travel this weekend to Congo with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and senior officials, including Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.

On Friday, he called on partners to increase their presence in the field. 
 
“Our commitment to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is that we will work alongside them to stop the Ebola outbreak,” Ghebreyesus said. “Our commitment also means strengthening the health systems to give them all the other things they need. Building strong systems is what will protect people, communities and the world.”

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Hurricane Dorian is expected to strengthen into “a major hurricane later today,” the National Hurricane Center said Friday. 

“Dorian is likely to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane while it moves near the northwestern Bahamas and approaches the Florida peninsula through the weekend,” the center said. 

The Bahamian government has issued a hurricane watch for the northwestern Bahamas, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency for the entire state.

Rainfall from Dorian could produce life-threatening flash floods, the hurricane center says.  

Dorian is moving with maximum sustained winds of 165 kilometers per hour. 

Forecasters predict that Dorian could slam into southeastern Florida early Monday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of at least 209 kilometers per hour.

Category 4 storms are capable of what experts describe as catastrophic damage — destroying homes and stores, ripping up roads, and knocking down trees and power lines.

U.S. President Donald Trump has canceled a planned trip to Poland to “ensure that all resources of the federal government are focused on the arriving storm … it’s something very important for me to be here,” he said Thursday. 

Residents along Florida’s Atlantic Coast have been told to stand by for possible evacuation. They are filling their gas tanks and stocking up on food, water, and emergency supplies.

Dorian largely spared Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, causing some floods and power outages but no major damage. 

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Thousands of people in Pakistan took to the streets Friday in mass demonstrations protesting India’s recent decision to revoke the special status of Indian-controlled Kashmir. 

Traffic around the country stopped for several minutes as the anthems of Pakistan and Kashmir were played on state media at noon. 

Prime Minister Imran Khan told the assembled crowd in Islamabad, the capital: “The message that goes out of here today is that as long as Kashmiris don’t get freedom, we will stand with them.” 

The Indian action to cancel the special status for the country’s only Muslim-majority state was accompanied by a wide-ranging curfew and communications blackout, cutting off millions of Kashmiris from the rest of the world. Indian media reports say nearly 4,000 political leaders, activists and civil society representatives have been arrested. 

The Indian government defends its actions in Kashmir as important for the region’s development and said they will benefit all.

India’s Kashmir-related moves have prompted Khan to repeatedly describe the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as fascist and supremacist. Khan has also compared the Modi government with Nazi Germany and has alleged that Modi’s actions pose a threat to both Pakistan and religious minorities in India. 

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in its entirety and have fought two wars over the region, while skirmishes across the de facto Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control, have become an almost daily routine. 

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Outgoing prime minister Giuseppe Conte has accepted a fresh mandate from Italy’s head of state to form a new coalition government backed by the populist Five Star Movement and the center-left Democrats party. Markets reacted positively the end to the 3-week political crisis, which could have triggered a snap election. But many in Italy are wondering how long such an alliance will last.

Conte appears determined and convinced he will be capable of establishing a government backed by a new coalition made up of the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Left party. Although the two political groups have been past enemies, they have agreed to unite and work together.

The political crisis was caused by the League leader, Matteo Salvini, who announced three weeks ago he was no longer prepared to work with the Five Star Movement. 

The decision by the Left Democrats to work with the 5SM stems not only from the desire to enter parliament but also from wanting to avoid a snap general election, which at this time would likely be won by Salvini’s League party.

Coming out of his talks with the Italian president, Conte made clear the new government would not be one “against,” but “for the good of citizens.” 

He added that he would create a government that will represent a “novelty.”

Conte also said Italy is undergoing a very delicate phase and must emerge from this political crisis as quickly as possible.

He sais “we must get down to work immediately, to draw up a budget to avert the VAT hike that will protect savers and offer solid prospects for economic growth and social development.”

The prime minister already has began to hold meetings to reach an agreement on policies and about how to divide the ministerial positions between the two parties, which will make up the new coalition government.

Conte said he expects to go back to the Italian president with a full list in approximately a week. Once the new government is sworn in, it has 10 days to win a no-confidence vote in parliament.

The new alliance and Conte’s good intentions in the name of political stability seem to have averted snap elections, for the time being, and markets reacted positively to the news. But Italians in the streets and political observers see it as an unlikely alliance and fear it is unlikely to last.

For the time being, League leader Salvini’s plans for an early poll may have been thwarted and his move certainly backfired as he now will be relegated to the opposition. But it remains to be seen whether the move will, in fact, further increase his already soaring popularity.

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