Nine former U.S. ambassadors on Tuesday warned that Afghanistan could collapse in a “total civil war” if President Donald Trump withdraws all U.S. forces before the Kabul government and the Taliban conclude a peace settlement.

“A major troop withdrawal must be contingent on a final peace,” the nine wrote on the website of the Atlantic Council, a think tank. “The initial U.S. drawdown should not go so far or so fast that the Taliban believe they can achieve military victory.”

The nine, including five former ambassadors to Kabul, a former special envoy to Afghanistan and a former deputy secretary of State, issued their warning a day after U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad announced a draft accord with the Taliban for an initial drawdown of nearly 5,000 U.S. troops.

Khalilzad, speaking on Monday to Tolo News television in Kabul, declined to say how long the rest of the roughly 14,000 U.S. troops would stay. But U.S. officials repeatedly have said the pullout would be “conditions based.”

In exchange, the Taliban would commit to preventing their decades-long ally, al Qaeda, or other extremists from using the country as a springboard for new attacks.

Trump has made clear his impatience to withdraw all U.S. forces and end America’s longest war, which began with a U.S. invasion triggered by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that al Qaeda launched from then Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Khalilzad said Trump must approve the draft before it can be signed.

Khalilzad excluded Kabul from the nine rounds of U.S.-Taliban talks in Qatar. But he has said it would be part of negotiations on a political settlement with the Taliban, which has so far refused to meet directly with Afghan officials.

Maintaining a major U.S. troop presence would have “a critical influence on the chances for successful peace negotiations,” the former diplomats wrote.

“It is not clear whether peace is possible. The Taliban have made no clear statements about the conditions they would accept for a peaceful settlement with their fellow Afghans, nor do they have a track record of working with other political forces,” they said.

“There is an outcome far worse than the status quo, namely a return to the total civil war that consumed Afghanistan as badly as the war with the Russians and something that could follow a breakdown in negotiations if we remove too much support from the Afghan state, they wrote.

A new civil war “could prove catastrophic for U.S. national security” as it likely would see the Taliban maintain their alliance with al Qaeda and allow Islamic State’s growing local affiliate” to further expand, they said.

…

East Timor is marking the 20th anniversary of a referendum that ended 24 years of Indonesian occupation and delivered independence, but that also sparked a bloody rampage by pro-Jakarta militias who killed 1,500 people and pushed another half-a-million out of their homes.

The capital has been sprucing up with freshly painted structures, newly paved streets and manicured gardens for the arrival of foreign dignitaries for celebrations that will last until the end of the month.

But beneath the cheery facade is a lingering anger.

Joao Borras, now 37, was forced to flee as militias rampaged through the capital, Dili, shot dead his two best friends, and razed his home.

He said the killings were not just in the open but also behind closed doors by a government apparatus backed by militias that watched every move.

“It’s a horrible life actually,” Borras said. “There’s a lot of people killed, but you didn’t see because they took you in the night time. They said ‘let’s go for interviews’ – and you will not come back the next morning.”

The struggle since independence

United Nations peacekeepers landed three weeks after the August 30, 1999 referendum and restored order. Independence followed on May 20, 2002, with the election of resistance leader Xanana Gusmao as president.

But East Timor has struggled to develop its democracy and rebuild an economy shattered by conflict and ongoing internal fighting, which hampered its ability to attract much needed investment dollars.

In 2006, the United Nations sent in security forces to restore order after 155,000 people fled their homes to escape factional fighting. Then, in early 2008, President Jose Ramos-Horta was critically wounded in an assassination attempt.

The presence of peacekeeping forces helped buoy the economy but since that ended in 2012, East Timor’s Gross Domestic Product has crashed by half to less than $3 billion. Other financial figures are sketchy. An official unemployment rate of 3.5% is scoffed at even by the country’s leaders.

“Unemployment is a constant concern,” President Francisco Guterres said during a speech to commemorate the independence vote. “Our economy has been in recession since 2017, which has had an impact on the job market.”

He said 60% of East Timorese are of working age but only 19% of them are in the job market.

Of that, just 8% work in the private or public sectors while the rest work in the informal market, which Guterres said, “offers workers no security because it’s based on low wages, no contracts, irregular employment and poor working conditions.”

The bright side

Compounding these challenges is East Timor’s fickle foreign relations with much larger regional powers like Australia, China and Indonesia. Anticipated foreign aid, revenues from the sale of oil and gas and the construction of infrastructure projects have fallen far short of expectations.

However, East Timor is pushing for membership to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its long running feud with Australia over sea boundaries and revenue from offshore oil and gas claims appears to be over.

A settlement over its shared maritime border with Australia will entitle East Timor to a bigger share of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields, which has reserves estimated at $50 billion.

Australia will also refurbish a naval base and bolster high-speed Internet traffic, widely seen as an effort by Canberra to further its influence in the region.

“This is a new chapter for Australia and Timor-Leste that is based on our shared respect, interests and values,” Morrison said in Dili.

Filmmaker Lyndal Barry, producer of Viva Timor Lorosae, has covered this country since the early 1990s and said Dili deserves recognition for rebuilding its security sector with an effective police force and military.

“There needs to be more done maybe in tourism, there needs to be more done in the countryside and to help people to rebuild there and be able to stand on their own two feet,” Barry said.

China is also investing heavily, financing a deep water port, an electricity grid, and a four lane highway. The China Railway Construction Corporation has signed a $943 million contract with state-owned Timor Gap to help run a liquid natural gas (LNG) plant.

Michael Maley worked for the Australian Electoral Commission as part of an international team that prepared the logistics for the referendum on self-determination. He said two big changes were taking place in East Timor.

“One is the effect of independence and they’re being a self-governing country, meeting their long term aspirations. But the other thing that has happened at the same time is they’ve been hit by globalization,” he said. “The young people from the time when they were almost totally isolated from the world are now incredibly connected. Everyone has a mobile phone, everybody is using Facebook and social media to communicate.”

His sentiments were backed by Borras who said life in East Timor 20 years after the slaughter had improved dramatically, despite the poverty, particularly in the countryside.

“Right now is clearly safe and secure, economic things are up and down but our life is great, better and I feel free and I’m enjoying my life, and my family and my friends – we are working and it’s nice.”

…

Peru plans to beef up security at its border with Ecuador to prevent illegal immigration, after stricter entry requirements for Venezuelans led to a 90% drop in legal crossings, a government official said on Monday.

More than 850,000 Venezuelans have fled their homeland for Peru in recent years, part of a mass exodus from the Caribbean nation as it faces a crippling economic crisis.

But in June, Peru started requiring Venezuelans who arrive to already have visas, part of stricter policies for Venezuelans in some South American nations.

“The entry of Venezuelan migrants to our country has dropped dramatically and today it’s 90% less than what we saw in June,” Foreign Minister Nestor Popolizio told journalists.

Popolizio said his ministry was working with the interior ministry and police to make sure Venezuelan migrants were not evading the new requirements by crossing illegally.

“We’re engaged in a very direct coordination … to ensure more protection all along our border and to avoid illegal entries,” Popolizio said.

Popolizio said Peru was one of 11 countries in the region trying to coordinate their policies on handling immigration from Venezuela.

After Peru started requiring visas of Venezuelans, Chile and Ecuador implemented similar measures. All three countries also now require Venezuelans to have passports, a document that is hard to obtain for the growing ranks of poor Venezuelans.

…

Saudi Arabia is struggling to hold together a military coalition fighting Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen after local allies turned on each other in a power struggle that has strained Riyadh’s alliance with its main regional partner, the United Arab Emirates.

The UAE, the second power in the coalition, has openly intervened on behalf of southern separatists battling the Saudi-backed government for control of the south, launching air strikes on government forces trying to regain their interim seat of power in Aden port.

The escalation risks further fracturing the Saudi-UAE alliance and emboldening the Houthi movement, which the coalition was formed to fight. The United Nations is trying to restart talks to end the 4-1/2 year conflict, largely seen as a proxy war between rival powers Saudi Arabia and Iran.

What’s happening in Southern Yemen?

UAE-backed separatists, who seek self-rule in the south, seized Aden, base of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government, in early August after they accused a party allied to Hadi of complicity in a Houthi assault on their forces.

The two sides were nominal allies under the Western-backed, Sunni Muslim coalition that intervened in Yemen in March 2015 against the Houthi group, which ousted Hadi from power in the capital Sanaa in 2014. But they have rival agendas.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE called for talks to resolve the crisis. Hadi’s government insisted that separatists first cede control and that the UAE stop supporting southern fighters it has armed and trained.

The separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) said it would not withdraw until the Islamist Islah party and northerners are removed from power in the south.

STC fighters tried extending their reach in the south but were repelled by government forces. Those forces tried to retake Aden but retreated when UAE warplanes attacked them. Abu Dhabi said it targeted “terrorist organizations.”

The UAE criticized Hadi’s government as ineffective and called for a more inclusive one as separatists reinforced their positions in Aden. Hadi, who resides in Riyadh, asked Saudi Arabia to stop what he called UAE interference.

“Saudi Arabia finds itself in a quandary. Aggressive Saudi action to rein in the STC could trigger a civil war within a civil war in which Riyadh’s allies are far from sure to prevail,” the International Crisis Group said in a recent brief. “Conversely, failure to act or offering what the government considers overly generous concessions to the STC … could sow dissent within the Hadi government and Islahi ranks.”

What does this mean for the coalition?

Saudi Arabia formed the alliance to neutralize the Houthis, who it feared Shi’ite Muslim Iran would use to build influence along its border. The current crisis makes it harder for Riyadh to weaken the Houthis, who hold most major urban centers and point to the Aden standoff as proof that Hadi cannot rule.

The Houthis, meanwhile, stepped up attacks on Saudi Arabia, twice hitting energy assets in the world’s top oil exporter.

The UAE, which led the coalition’s limited gains in the war, scaled down its presence in Yemen in June as Western criticism of the coalition mounted, saddling Saudi Arabia with an unpopular war.

The Sunni Muslim allies joined forces in Yemen and beyond to contain common foe Iran and Islamist movements they see as a threat to their dynastic rule. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh said their alliance remains strong, but differences emerged as the UAE moved to protect its image and interests.

The UAE drawdown aimed to cast Abu Dhabi as the more mature partner and peacemaker, diplomats said, as Western allies pressed for an end to the war that has killed tens of thousands and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.

Abu Dhabi said its decision was a natural progression given a U.N.-sponsored truce in the contested main port of Hodeidah in the west, which the coalition twice tried to seize last year. It said this new stage required political, not military tactics.

Diplomats say it was because the UAE accepted there could be no military solution due to global criticism of coalition airstrikes that have killed civilians and the humanitarian crisis.

Heightened U.S.-Iran tensions, which risk triggering a war in the Gulf, precipitated the move.

How did it reach this point?

The UAE built a force of 90,000 Yemeni fighters, including thousands of separatists, to battle the Houthis and Islamist militants. It was those forces who expelled the Houthis from the south, where the movement has no traction.

But the war, which has been in military stalemate for years, revived old strains between north and south Yemen, separate countries that united into a single state in 1990.

This is not the first separatist uprising. They briefly seized Aden in January 2018. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi helped end that standoff as the focus of the war shifted to Hodeidah, the Houthis’ main supply line and a lifeline for millions.

As military options faded, the UAE focus switched to U.N. efforts toward a political solution. While Saudi Arabia wants to remove the Houthi threat and secure its borders, the UAE’s main concern has been stamping out Islamist militants and securing Red Sea shipping lanes, analysts say.

Abu Dhabi now supports a reshuffling of Hadi’s government to include the STC and weaken the hold of Islah, which it sees as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Riyadh tolerates the party because it props up Hadi, who has no personal power base.

But the STC may not have broad support. Its move risks igniting infighting in the main area under coalition control and emboldening Islamists militants like al-Qaida and Islamic State, among Yemen’s many destabilizing forces.

…

Veteran film director Brian De Palma, maker of “Carrie” and “Scarface,” has no intention of retiring yet, though he is 78, and is now working on a horror movie inspired by the scandal engulfing Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Some 70 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct dating back decades. Once among Hollywood’s most powerful producers, Weinstein has denied the accusations and said any sexual encounters were consensual. He has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges against him.

In an interview with Reuters during the Venice Film Festival, where De Palma revisited his career in a masterclass, the director spoke about sexual misconduct in Hollywood, dealing with bad reviews and adapting to changes.

Below are edited excerpts of the interview.

Q:  There is talk you are looking to revisit the horror genre maybe with a take inspired by the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Why that subject matter?

De Palma:  “Because my years of working in and out of Hollywood you were very aware of the kind of abuse to women that was going on. And being a director who directs women all the time you are very sensitive in how they are treated in the movie that you are making. So I was aware of some of the things that were happening during the Harvey Weinstein era and it is an interesting story to tell, plus, I like the sort of suspense drama and I created a script that is sort of based on some of the real cases reported in the New York Times. But it is basically a suspense film using that as the historical backdrop.

Q:  Did the #MeToo movement need happen to bring change?

De Palma:  “It annoyed directors like myself and others of my contemporaries because as directors you deal with actors all the time. And you must engender their trust. And if you… take them out to dinner or abuse them, it goes against what you are trying to do to gain their trust in order for them to be as free when they perform in their movies. It is basically crazy and people who do it, I always have felt are misusing their power.”

Q:  You have had a feisty relationship with some of the film press. Do you think some of that was unjustified in the past?

De Palma:  “You are always judged against the fashion of the day so you can’t take it too seriously. A lot of my films did not do well when they came out and were not particularly reviewed well and people are still talking about (them) today. At the time it can be quite hurtful but if you outlive it you will be surprised what remains important in cinema over the years.”

Q:  A number of your films in the 1980s had the feistiness of Hollywood then. It seems those films are now out of vogue.

De Palma: “It is a skill. Not only that, whatever happened to beauty in cinema? When was the last beautiful picture you saw where people were lit beautifully? That means you have to sit or be in a particular light and say your lines so that you are hit a certain way like they did in the 1930s and the 1940s. You don’t see that any more.”

Q:  What challenges have you faced as the industry changed?

De Palma:  “You try to do the best you can but in the immortal words of (director) William Wyler ‘Once your legs go it is time to hang up your riding crop’ basically. It gets more difficult to make movies if you physically have limitations so if I get to make a couple more pictures, great, but as you are heading into 80, it becomes quite a challenge.”

…

A senior U.S. naval officer has underlined Washington’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific as the United States launched its first joint naval exercise with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
…

The U.S. and Poland signed an agreement on Monday to cooperate on new 5G technology amid growing concerns about Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.

Vice President Mike Pence and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki signed the deal in Warsaw, where Pence is filling in for President Donald Trump, who scrapped his trip at the last minute because of Hurricane Dorian.
 
The signing comes amid a global battle between the U.S. and Huawei, the world’s biggest maker of network infrastructure equipment, over network security.
 
The agreement endorses the principles developed by cybersecurity officials from dozens of countries at a summit in Prague earlier this year to counter threats and ensure the safety of next generation mobile networks.
 
 “Protecting these next generation communications networks from disruption or manipulation and ensuring the privacy and individual liberties of the citizens of the United States, Poland, and other countries is of vital importance,” the agreement says.
 
Pence said the agreement would “set a vital example for the rest of Europe.”
 
The U.S. has been lobbying allies to ban Huawei from 5G networks over concerns China’s government could force the company to give it access to data for cyberespionage. Huawei has denied the allegation.
 
The U.S. has called for an outright ban on Huawei, but European allies have balked.
 
A senior Trump administration official told reporters during a briefing ahead of the trip that the agreement would help ensure secure supply chains and networks and protect against unauthorized access or interference by telecommunications suppliers, some of which are controlled by “adversarial governments.”

…

Atop a string of green mountains in Saudi Arabia, a monthlong festival drew a medley of yoga enthusiasts, extreme adventure seekers, tourists and traditional Saudi families — many wearing colorful flower crowns native to the region as the kingdom looks for ways to revamp its image and build up tourism.

The al-Soudah festival, which ran throughout the month of August, gave visitors a chance to experience a unique region in Saudi Arabia and take part in outdoor sports like hiking, mountain biking, paragliding, horseback riding, zip lining and bungee jumping. Thousands also attended concerts by Middle Eastern superstars.

Scenes of women zip lining and young Saudis at concerts, while nevertheless in a remote village, are a stark departure from the ultraconservative policies that for decades barred concerts and gender mixing, as well as shunned women’s sports in the kingdom.

The reforms are being pushed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the king’s powerful 34-year-old son. He is looking to revamp the country’s economy to become more resilient in the face of lower oil prices. Boosting domestic spending and opening the country to foreign tourists are seen as ways to create more jobs for the millions of young Saudis who will be entering the workforce and looking for jobs in the coming years.

The al-Soudah festival attracted between 12,000 and 15,000 visitors per day, said Husameddin al-Madani, who oversaw the event. Most visitors to the festival were Saudi citizens, but it also drew foreign tourists.

Unlike Saudi Arabia’s major cities — which have limited outdoor spaces for sports, especially for women who must wear long flowing robes known as abayas in public — Saudi women in al-Soudah wore fitted jeans and sneakers under their rolled up abayas to hike up the mountain. Other Saudi women were seen zip lining between cliffs. In keeping with local custom, many kept their faces and hair covered.

The weather in August in the village of al-Soudah, located in the southwest Asir province, is a comfortable 22 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit) in August, unlike the capital, Riyadh, or the coastal city of Jiddah, where temperatures exceed 43 degrees Celsius (105 Fahrenheit) throughout the summer. In the winter, parts of the mountain range see snow.

Al-Soudah sits on part of the Sarawat Mountain range in the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, some 3,000 meters (9,840 feet) above sea level. Its highlands are covered in the green of juniper trees. The area is also home to baboons, who were kept away from the festival with help from Human Wildlife Solutions based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Jiddah city resident Noura al-Moammar said she was surprised by the region’s climate.

“I never thought, honestly, that my country is that rich with nature,” she said. “It’s amazing for us to discover and see the different cultures and landscapes and weather in our beautiful Saudi.”

In the nearby village of Rijal Almaa, the men wore flower crowns, or garlands, made from local flowers and herbs. Visitors here were treated to garlands of their own, local tribal dances, coffee, tea and evening lightshows displayed on the village’s 500-year-old distinct natural clay, stone and wood structures.

The festival also drew extreme sports enthusiasts, including wingsuit base jumpers. Saudi media reported that British adventurer and astronautical engineer Angelo Grubisic died during a jump off the side of a cliff at the festival when he experienced difficulties reaching the landing site at speeds of around 160 kilometers (100 miles) per hour.

The festival took place less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the airport in Abha, the capital city of the region of Asir, which has been targeted by Iranian-allied Yemeni rebels. Saudi Arabia has been waging war in Yemen against the rebels, also known as Houthis.

Still, visitors at the festival said they felt extremely secure.

“I couldn’t feel safer, honestly,” said Paris Verra, a 24-year-old American visitor. “The city is vibrant, and I was walking down the streets at like 1 and 2 a.m. and having tea with locals.”

“Coming from America, there’s obviously a lot of misconceptions … but I’m here to show and prove it’s nothing but incredible … I hope everybody gets a chance to visit this place one day,” she added.

So serene was the vibe at the festival that Alwaleed al-Keaid, who runs a Saudi hiking company, led morning mediations atop the mountain.

“We start our mornings with a mediation session in this gorgeous environment where we thank God for this blessing and meditate,” he said. “When we’re done, we try the local bread with honey… and help people enjoy nature, forget about the rest of the world and live in the moment.”

The festival also had its share of glitz and glamour with concerts by Middle Eastern mega stars, including Emirati singer Ahlam and Iraqi singer Kazem al-Saher. Their performances drew thousands of fans and al-Saher’s concert alone generated 1.5 million Saudi riyals ($400,000) in ticket sales, festival organizers said.

The al-Soudah festival is one of 11 taking place in different parts of the country this year. The initiative, dubbed Saudi Seasons, is aimed at developing tourism and providing Saudis with temporary and permanent jobs.

Al-Madani, the CEO of the al-Soudah festival, said at least 515 young men and women were hired from the local community to assist in the monthlong event. Local businesses also got a boost by contributing to food trucks and other services.

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Appeals judges have ordered the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to reconsider again her refusal to open a formal investigation into the 2010 storming by Israeli forces of an aid flotilla heading to the Gaza strip.

Presiding Judge Solomy Bossa on Monday ordered Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to decide whether or not to open a formal probe by Dec. 2. The ruling is the latest step in a long legal battle to bring the case before the court.
 
Bensouda earlier declined a request by the Indian Ocean island nation of Comoros to investigate the May 31, 2010, storming of a vessel in the flotilla, which was sailing under a Comoros flag.

Israel is not a member state of the court but its nationals could face charges if Bensouda opens an investigation.

…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said the United States will continue to support Ukraine in the country’s conflict with Russia and its right to full territorial integrity.

Washington “stands with the people of Ukraine and most especially since 2014, we have stood strongly for the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Pence said after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Warsaw on Sunday.

“And I can assure you that we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine on your security, on territorial integrity, including Ukraine’s rightful claim to Crimea,” Pence said.

The United States is an important ally for Kyiv, having imposed sanctions on Russia for annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backing pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine’s east.

Pence and Zelenskiy were in Warsaw for commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II.

U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton said on a recent visit to Kyiv that President Donald Trump could meet Zelenskiy in Warsaw this weekend.

However, Trump cancelled his plans to attend the event in Poland, citing Hurricane Dorian, which is set to make landfall in Florida this weekend.

…

Hurricane Dorian, a dangerous Category 5 storm, made landfall in the northwestern Bahamas Sunday, slamming the island with 295 kilometer an hour winds.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Dorian is the strongest hurricane in modern history to hit the area and warned “catastrophic conditions” are occurring in the Abaco Islands.

The hurricane agency had said the storm’s advance is expected to slow over the next day or two, followed by a gradual turn to the northwest as it edges closer to southeastern U.S. state of Florida

Hurricane Dorian Lashes Northern Bahamas

US forecasters call storm’s 260-kilometer-an-hour winds ‘catastrophic’

“It’s going to stall out…and it hasn’t even touched Florida or the southeast (U.S.) coast,” Peter Gaynor, acting chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told Fox News Sunday. “You’ve got to take this storm seriously.”

He said emergency officials have been briefing President Donald Trump or his aides on an hourly basis on the storm’s advance. “He has his finger on the pulse,” Gaynor said.

Trump visited FEMA headquarters Sunday, where he urged everyone in “Hurricane Dorian’s path to heed all warnings and evacuation orders from local authorities.”

Dorian is expected to move near or over Grand Bahama Island on Sunday night and into Monday and “should move closer to the Florida east coast late Monday through Tuesday night.” The hurricane agency said the storm could dump as much as 76 centimeters of rain on the northwestern Bahamas, with life-threatening storm surges pushing tides as much as seven meters above normal.

The storm’s path toward the northwestern islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco puts 73,000 people and 21,000 homes at risk.

The hurricane agency, which has tracked the intensity of the storm with an Air Force Hurricane Hunter plane penetrating into the eye of the hurricane, said some fluctuations in the strength of the storm are expected, but that it will “remain a powerful hurricane during the next few days.”

Hurricane force winds are expected to extend outward up to 75 kilometers from Dorian’s center, with tropical-storm-force winds extending outward up to 220 kilometers.

But forecasters now say Florida could avoid a direct hit from Dorian, projecting its track could skirt much of the curving, southeastern U.S. coastline, possibly coming ashore further north in the states of Georgia, South Carolina or North Carolina.  

The storm’s high winds were felt in the northern Bahamas Saturday, forcing some evacuations and closing some hotels and airports, authorities said.

“Hurricane Dorian is a devastating, dangerous storm approaching our islands,” Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said in a nationally televised news conference.

…

Marvelous Nyahuye contributed to this report from New York.

WASHINGTON –  Tererai Trent appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2009 and inspired the world with her story of overcoming enormous odds to pursue her dreams of education. This week, she finds herself immortalized alongside Winfrey with a bronze statue in New York City. She is the only African woman to have received this honor.

The Zimbabwean educator and humanitarian is one of 10 “Statues For Equality” created by sculptors Gillie and Marc Schattner. Trent’s statue depicts her with her arms aloft, surrounded by the flame lily, the country’s national flower.

“It comes without saying that, by projecting these women into larger-than-life-size sculptures, it will help change our society — a change that will elevate the lives of women all around the world. A change that can trigger gender equality in careers, industries and the home,” Gillie Schattner said at the ceremony.

“I come from a very poor place, and I grew up very poor. I had four babies before I was even 18 years of age, and to think that because of the power of believing in a dream and today I am being celebrated,” Trent said. “And to think I have a statue in New York, the most celebrated city in the world? It’s just unbelievable. Even my own grandmother and my mother never dreamt of that.”

Trent grew up in a village and was denied an education because she was a girl, like her mother and grandmother before her. She secretly learned to read by using her brother’s books but was married to an abusive husband when she was 11.

But Trent did not let her dreams die. She moved to the U.S. and pursued a graduate degree, ultimately earning a Ph.D., after 20 years of effort. She taught global health at Drexel University and currently runs the Tererai Trent International Foundation, which focuses on providing education to children in rural Zimbabwe. She is a sought-after public speaker and author.

“When one woman is silenced, there is a part within all of us women that get silenced,” Trent said. “But when women are awakened and recognized in public places, all of us, we get the true joy of knowing that we are all equal with men.”

Anesu Munengwa, the program manager of the Tererai Trent Foundation in Zimbabwe, said Trent isn’t distracted by fame. “She does whatever she does quietly … we have to remind people of the work she is doing and how it is impacting the community she comes from.”

Trent’s story has inspired people around the world. Winfrey announced she would donate $1.5 million to assist Trent in building schools. To date, they have built 12 schools in rural Zimbabwe and helped 38,000 children get an education. Some of them are now going to universities.

Beatrice Nyamweda, Trent’s friend of more than 35 years, traveled from Zimbabwe to attend the unveiling of the statue. She said Trent’s impact is felt back home in communities where there is an opportunity gap.

“There are 10 children who went to her school and started studying at the university currently. She has changed the lives of these children who are bright but lack resources. I am proud of her for that,” Nyamweda said, speaking in her native Shona.  

During the unveiling of the statue, Trent said her greatest joy is passing along opportunities she received to others. She said she made a conscious decision to end a cycle of poverty and oppression that had stifled the women in her family for generations.

“My grandmother used to say that when you think about your great grandmother when she was born she was born holding this baton. I’m calling it the baton of poverty, the baton of early marriage,” Trent said. “So as women and as individuals, we have the choice to say do I want to carry on and pass on this ugly baton or do I want to pose in my own life to reflect and say what baton do I want to pass on? I’m deciding to pass on the baton of education.”

…