Hong Kong is experiencing another round of anti-government weekend protests.

The demonstrations were first staged to protest against an extradition law that would send criminal suspects to mainland China for trials.

That bill has been suspended, but the protests persist, transforming into demonstrations for democratic reforms and an end to Beijing’s tightening grip on the territory.

The demonstrations are the worst social turmoil to rock the former British colony since it was returned to Chinese rule 22 years ago.

In addition to this weekend’s protests, Hong Kong is bracing for a citywide strike Monday in support of the democratic reforms.  

Civil servants gathered in a public park Friday evening to show their support for the protesters.

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July saw the highest number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in a single month since 2017, the U.N. mission said Saturday.
 
Its preliminary findings indicate more than 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded, mainly due to a spike in casualties from insurgent attacks. It did not provide a breakdown of deaths and injuries, but said the overall number was the highest for a single month since May 2017.
 
It said more than 50% of casualties were caused by bombings. A roadside bomb tore through a bus in western Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least 32 people. A complex attack on the office of the Afghan president’s running mate last weekend killed at least 20 people. The target of the attack, former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, escaped unharmed. No one has claimed either attack.
 

Two Americans Killed in Apparent Insider Attack in Afghanistan

Deaths come as the US prepares to draw down troops despite concerns Afghan forces are still ill-equipped to maintain a potential peace deal

The Taliban, who effectively control half the country, carry out daily attacks on security forces and government targets that often kill and wound civilians. An Islamic State affiliate also operates in Afghanistan, targeting security forces as well as minority Shiites.
 
The Taliban have kept up a steady tempo of attacks despite holding several rounds of peace talks with the United States in recent months. The two sides appear to be closing in on an agreement in which U.S. forces would withdraw in exchange for guarantees that Afghanistan would not become a haven for terrorist groups.
 
“As peace efforts have intensified in recent weeks so too has the conflict on the ground,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. envoy to Afghanistan. “I call on all parties not to ramp up military operations thinking that doing so will give them a stronger position in talks about peace.”
 

Kabul Seeks Clarification on Trump Talk of Wiping Out Afghanistan

US president said he could win Afghan war in just 10 days by wiping out Afghanistan but did not want to kill 10 million people, remarks followed a meeting with Pakistan PM Imran Khan at the White House on Monday

On Tuesday, the U.N. released a report saying most civilian deaths in the first half of the year were caused by Afghan forces and their international allies. The report apparently referred to civilians killed during Afghan and U.S. military operations against insurgents. The Afghan government disputed the results and methodology of Tuesday’s report, saying it makes every effort to prevent civilian casualties.

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says his pick for national intelligence director has decided to withdraw from the running, citing unfair media coverage. 
 
In a tweet Friday, Trump said Republican Representative John Ratcliffe of Texas had decided to stay in Congress. Questions about Ratcliffe’s experience had dogged him since Trump announced his candidacy Sunday. 
 
Trump didn’t cite any specific media reports but tweeted that “rather than going through months of slander and libel,” Ratcliffe would be returning to Capitol Hill.  
  
Trump accepted the resignation of former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats last week.  
  
Ratcliffe is a frequent Trump defender who fiercely questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week. Intelligence experts had criticized his lack of experience in the field of intelligence.  
  
In a statement, Ratcliffe said, “While I am and will remain very grateful to the president for his intention to nominate me as director of national intelligence, I am withdrawing from consideration.” 
 
“I was humbled and honored that the president put his trust in me to lead our nation’s intelligence operations and remain convinced that when confirmed, I would have done so with the objectivity, fairness and integrity that our intelligence agencies need and deserve,” the statement said. 
 
“However,” he added, “I do not wish for a national security and intelligence debate surrounding my confirmation, however untrue, to become a purely political and partisan issue.” 

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San Francisco International Airport is banning the sale of single-use plastic water bottles.
 
The San Francisco Chronicle reports Friday that the unprecedented move at one of the major airports in the country will take effect Aug. 20.
 
The new rule will apply to airport restaurants, cafes and vending machines.
 
Travelers needing plain water will have to buy refillable aluminum or glass bottles if they don’t bring their own.
 
As a department of San Francisco’s municipal government, the airport is following an ordinance approved in 2014 banning the sale of plastic water bottles on city-owned property.
 
SFO spokesman Doug Yakel says the shift away from plastics is also part of a broader plan to slash net carbon emissions and energy use to zero and eliminate most landfill waste by 2021.

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Military authorities in Sudan have arrested more suspects in the shooting deaths of protesters in the cities of el-Obeid on Monday and Omdurman on Thursday.

Four Sudanese paramilitary soldiers were arrested Friday in the deaths of six protesters in el-Obeid. On Thursday, the Transitional Military Council arrested seven members of the Rapid Support Forces in connection with that incident.

Another two suspects have been arrested for the killing of four demonstrators in Omdurman.

Despite the killings and the tensions, the TMC and civilian Forces for Freedom and Change Coalition resumed talks Thursday evening on forming a power-sharing government. The sides are trying to agree on a constitutional outline for a government that will lead Sudan for the next three years, until elections.

This week’s protests were sparked by demands for justice for all those killed and wounded in the protests of the past six months.

Alaa Abdulahadi, who joined a march Thursday in the Burri neighborhood east of Khartoum, said her cousin was killed during the June 3 military crackdown on protesters outside army headquarters in Khartoum.

“We have lost so many lives and the old regime destroyed our country. We have witnessed the deterioration of our economy and the abuse of human rights. … [O]ur lives doesn’t matter to them, as long as they are in charge,” Abdulahadi told South Sudan in Focus.

Talks on Sudan’s Gov’t Continue Despite Latest Protester Deaths

Sudan’s ruling Transitional Military Council acknowledged that its Rapid Support Forces were involved in the shooting deaths of six people in the city of El Obeid earlier this week

Sudanese rights activists say they want the upcoming transitional government to ensure that justice is also carried for survivors of sexual violence. A recent report issued by a military-appointed fact-finding committee into the abuse of protesters during the months-long sit-in in Khartoum concluded that no rapes were committed by security forces.

Nahid Jabrallah, head of the Seema Women Center in Khartoum, said women’s rights activists recorded dozens of rape cases between December and early June when security forces cracked down on protesters outside the military headquarters in Khartoum.

Jabrallah said her center provided rape victims with health services and counseling and she believes that many women who suffered sexual violence will speak up in the days ahead.

“As civil society, there is evidence and many victims got to the service points of different actors and we will continue doing that for both the support of survivors and victims and for the preparation of the investigation,” Jabrallah told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.

Jabrallah said cultural norms in Sudan often prevent survivors from seeking support because of the social stigma attached to rape, but some survivors bucked tradition and spoke up.

“There are eyewitnesses and there are victims who came out and spoke [with] very high courage,” she said. “So, the main lesson we learned from this experience [is] that sexual abuse as a weapon failed to break the courage and the power of the people on the streets and that all people were encouraged more by what happened to continue struggling for the real change in Sudan.”

Women’s rights activist Naimat Abubakar said the transitional government should form a justice mechanism that ensures justice for victims of Sudan’s revolution.

“The way that people have been killed, women have [been] harassed, reports about rape, so this is the main task for the transitional government. I think, bringing justice for the victims of the sit-in; this is the first thing, and then, prepare the country for the elections,” Abubaker told South Sudan in Focus.

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In a speech Friday to a regional youth leadership program in Thailand, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended new U.S. tariffs on China, saying, “We want free and fair trade, not trade that undermines competition.”

Pompeo’s statements came after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would impose a 10 percent tariff on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports starting September first.

Pompeo chided China for “decades of bad behavior” that have stalled free trade. “It’s time for that to stop,” he said.

He also mentioned the massive anti-government protests in Hong Kong. “We also believe in human rights and freedom,” he said. “The current unrest in Hong Kong clearly shows that the will and the voice of the governed will always be heard.”

Pompeo, who has assured his Southeast Asian partners this week that they do not have to choose between the U.S. and China, used his speech Friday to contrast U.S. and Chinese investment.

He described Chinese investment as exploitative, and U.S. investment as mutually beneficial.

He said, “Ask yourself this: Who really encourages self-sufficiency and not dependence, investors who are working to meet your consumers’ needs, or those who entrap you in debt?”

Pompeo stayed on message about the main priorities of his visit.

New tariffs

Separately, Pompeo’s Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, told reporters in Bangkok that the new U.S. tariffs are not a correct or constructive way to resolve the trade dispute between the two countries.

But Pompeo told the young leaders the Trump administration “is invested in the sovereignty, in the resilience and the prosperity of each southeast Asian nation.”

Asked about the failure of North Korea’s foreign minister to come to Bangkok to meet with Pompeo or others, a senior U.S. administration official said, “There is ongoing communication with the North Koreans on a regular basis. While we would like to be further along in restarting working-level negotiations, we are in regular contact with the North Koreans.”

As Pompeo met with top ASEAN diplomats Friday, at least four people were injured in six bomb blasts across Bangkok. Reporters traveling with the secretary said they did not hear the explosions from their location.

“We’re aware of reports of several small explosions in Thailand,” the State Department told VOA. “We refer you to local authorities for additional information. There was no impact on Secretary Pompeo’s visit.”

Thailand’s prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, has ordered an investigation into the blasts, viewed as damaging to the country’s reputation during the high-profile event.

The bombings come just two weeks after the prime minister’s former military junta transformed into a civilian government.

On Saturday, Pompeo will travel from Thailand to Australia. Along with Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, he will lead the U.S. delegation to the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN). The secretary will also meet with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

On Monday, Pompeo will depart for the last planned leg of this trip, the Federated States of Micronesia, to reaffirm the U.S. partnership with the Pacific Island country — the first-ever visit to Micronesia by a U.S. secretary of state.

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U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed a new round of North Korean missile tests early Friday, five months after his last denuclearization talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and with pressure building to iron out a deal.

“These missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement,” he wrote on Twitter, later acknowledging that the missile tests could have violated United Nations resolutions. The two men met in Singapore in June of last year.

Kim Jong Un and North Korea tested 3 short range missiles over the last number of days. These missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement, nor was there discussion of short range missiles when we shook hands. There may be a United Nations violation, but..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019

U.S. officials said earlier that Kim personally promised Trump not to conduct longer-range missile or nuclear tests.

“Chairman Kim does not want to disappoint me with a violation of trust,” the president wrote. “There is far too much for North Korea to gain … [and] there is far too much to lose.”

The North launched two projectiles around 3 a.m. local time from South Hamgyong province, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The projectiles traveled an estimated 220 kilometers, reaching an altitude of 25 kilometers, it later added. It was the third such launch in just over a week.

With Latest Launches, North Korea Perfecting ‘Scary Impressive’ Missile

Pyongyang has launched seven ballistic missiles in three months

U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials assess the projectile as likely a “short-range ballistic missile” that shares flight characteristics with other recent North Korean launches, South Korea’s presidential Blue House said in a statement to reporters.

The Friday launch was first reported by U.S. officials, who said the move did not appear to threaten North America.

North Korea has test-fired at least six short-range weapons in just over a week, in an apparent attempt to increase leverage over the United States ahead of possible nuclear talks.

Last week’s launch involved North Korea’s version of a Russian Iskander ballistic missile, which appears specially designed to evade U.S. and South Korean missile defenses.

On Wednesday, North Korea tested what it called a “newly developed large-caliber, multiple launch, guided rocket system.” U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials say they see the test as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from any ballistic missile activity.

“We are concerned by the launches of ballistic missiles by North Korea in the past few days,” said Karen Pierce, Britain’s permanent representative to the United Nations, following a closed-door Security Council meeting to discuss the matter Thursday.

“We reiterate our condemnation of such launches, which are violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” said Pierce, who spoke on behalf of Britain, France and Germany.

That statement is a strong contrast to Trump’s acknowledgement that “there may be a United Nations violation,” which lacked a strong denunciation.

After a missile launch Wednesday, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric described the launches as “just another reminder of the importance of restarting talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Trump’s approach may be aimed at deescalating tensions and encouraging communication between the U.S. and North Korea. Talks have been stalled since a February Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi ended without a deal.

Kim in 2018 declared a self-imposed moratorium on intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear tests, but that promise hasn’t been included in any public documents that have come out of Trump and Kim’s three meetings.

At the end of June, Trump and Kim met at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. White House officials described the meeting as a breakthrough, saying North Korea had agreed to resume working-level talks.

Since then, North Korea has gradually ramped up its threats and provocations, saying it may not engage in talks if the U.S. and South Korea go ahead with planned joint military exercises.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in Thailand for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said he remains willing to talk with North Korean officials but that a meeting in Bangkok is unlikely.

“We stand ready to continue our diplomatic conversation with the North Koreans,” Pompeo said Thursday. “I regret that it looks like I’m not going to have an opportunity to do that while I’m here … but we’re ready to go.”

As the Trump administration reassures North Korea of its intention to negotiate, U.S. lawmakers are expressing more skepticism about Trump’s approach to the country.

“The Trump administration should recognize that every new missile launch by North Korea is yet another play from the same old Kim family playbook,” Senator Edward Markey, ranking member of the East Asia Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

“Not only has President Trump failed to codify in writing a nuclear and missile testing freeze, but when he says he has ‘no problem’ with shorter range missile launches, he gives North Korea a green light to violate U.N. Security Council resolutions and threaten our allies,” Markey said.

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President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday removed several members of a commission investigating disappearances and murders during Brazil’s dictatorship, acting days after they confronted him on the role played by the state in the killing of a leftist activist.

A decree co-signed by Bolsonaro’s human rights minister and published in official records announced the replacement of four of the commission’s seven members, including its president, Eugenia Augusta Gonzaga.

Bolsonaro has faced intense criticism, including from allies, this week after he questioned the circumstances in which Fernando Santa Cruz, a leftist activist during the 1964-1985 military regime and father of the current president of the Brazilian Bar Association, was slain.

On July 24, the commission published an official obituary for Santa Cruz. It stipulates that his death in 1974 was “violent, caused by the Brazilian State, in the context of the systematic and generalized persecution” of political activists during the dictatorship.

A few days later, without providing evidence, Bolsonaro said while getting a haircut that Santa Cruz had been killed by a “terrorist group,” Acao Popular. Bolsonaro told journalists that if the president of the Brazilian Bar Association wanted to know how his father died: “I’ll tell him.”

Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain, has often praised the military regime and minimized abuses committed by that regime.

In 2016, when voting to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, who was a victim of torture by the military regime, Bolsonaro dedicated his vote to a colonel who led a torture unit. “In memory of Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the terror of Dilma Rousseff, I vote yes,” said the then-lawmaker.

After being elected president last Oct. 28, Bolsonaro named several ex-generals to his Cabinet. He also called for the commemoration of the anniversary of Brazil’s 1964 military coup, leading federal prosecutors to condemn an “apology for the practice of atrocities.”

In 2014, Brazil’s national truth commission concluded that at least 434 people were killed or disappeared during the dictatorship. It is estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 people were illegally arrested and tortured. Bolsonaro called the report “unfounded.”

Changing times

To justify the changes made Thursday at the commission, Bolsonaro said times are changing in Brazil.

“The motive [is that the] president has changed, now it is Jair Bolsonaro, of the right,” he told reporters. “When they put terrorists there, nobody said anything.”

Bolsonaro and human rights minister Damares Alves appointed Marco Vinicius de Carvalho, one of Alves’ top advisers, as the commission’s new leader. The decree gave seats on the body to a member of the Ministry of Defense, which already had a seat on the commission, and a former army colonel.

At a news conference in Sao Paulo following her dismissal as the body’s president, Gonzaga described Bolsonaro’s mocking of official documents around the death of Santa Cruz “cruel.”

She said members of the commission had been expecting to be replaced since the election for their “prominent role in defending” victims of the dictatorship.

“For us, this destitution was a response to our manifestations, defending the rights of the Santa Cruz family and others,” Gonzaga said.

‘Nonpartisan’ commission

She also insisted that the commission, which began in 1995, is not a government body, like ministries, which change with each new government.

“The commission has always been nonpartisan, always including people who have some connections with this theme, and they are not paid,” she told a crowd of journalists and families of victims of the dictatorship.

Felipe Santa Cruz, son of Fernando Santa Cruz, filed a complaint Wednesday to Brazil’s top court about the president’s comment on the case. Santa Cruz, who was 2 when his father went missing, wrote that Bolsonaro’s comments showed “cruelty and a lack of empathy.”

According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, supreme court Justice Luis Roberto Barroso gave Bolsonaro 15 days to clarify his statements about Santa Cruz. The supreme court was not immediately available to confirm.

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Islamic State (IS) militants killed four security officials late Wednesday near the northern city of Kirkuk, local officials said.

The attack, which was carried out on a checkpoint manned by local Kurdish security forces, also left at least eight people wounded, local sources said.

“At least 15 IS militants, including a couple snipers, were involved in the overnight raid,” a senior Iraqi security official told VOA.

The Iraqi official, who refused to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, added that the militants used mortars in the Wednesday attack.

In the nearby province of Saladin, at least five Iraqi soldiers and government-backed militia members were killed in an IS attack on their positions, Iraqi police reported Thursday.

IS has not yet claimed responsibility for either attack.

In response to Wednesday’s attacks, Iraqi warplanes carried out an airstrike on an IS position, killing at least three militants, an Iraqi security official said.

Increased attacks

IS has increased its attacks in recent weeks against Iraqi and Kurdish forces in parts of northern Iraq that were held by the terror group before they were freed with the help of the U.S.-led coalition.

A VOA reporter in Iraq said one of the targeted areas has largely been safe until recently, with IS increasingly carrying out surprise attacks against civilians and security forces in places like Kirkuk, Diyala and Mosul.

Mosul was considered the de facto capital of IS in Iraq. Supported by U.S. airpower, Iraqi troops liberated the country’s second-largest city from IS in July 2017. The terror group was officially declared defeated in Iraq in December 2017.

Since then, however, remnants of IS have frequently targeted vital parts of the region.

During the harvest season this year, IS also set fire to thousands of acres of wheat fields across northern and western Iraq, inflicting substantial damage on the local economy, reports said.

IS militants have also attempted attacks on oilfields in northern Iraq. Last week, Iraqi forces foiled two major attacks claimed by IS on the strategic Olas and Ajil oilfields in Saladin province, the Iraqi military said.

Cells across northern Iraq

The extremist group has active cells across areas in northern Iraq considered disputed between the central Iraqi government and Kurdistan regional government, according to Iraqi officials.

IS “was territorially defeated, but the context for their [re-emergence] in disputed territories is permissive. Terror is [a] continuous threat,” Hemin Hawrami, deputy speaker of Iraqi Kurdistan’s regional parliament, said in a tweet Thursday.

U.S. officials also have warned that IS’s ongoing activities pose a threat to Iraq’s stability.

“After the defeat of ISIS in Mosul, Iraq didn’t have an ISIS terrain-holding threat,” James Jeffrey, special envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat IS, told reporters at the State Department on Thursday, using another acronym for IS.

“But what we have seen is a persistent, resilient, rural, terrorist level of violence generated by these underground cells of ISIS, particularly in areas from south of Mosul and the Kurdish areas down to Baghdad,” he said.

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Saudi Arabia has issued new laws that grant women greater freedoms by allowing any citizen to apply for a passport and travel freely, ending a long-standing and controversial guardianship policy that had required male consent for a woman to travel or carry a passport.

The changes approved by King Salman and his Cabinet allow any person 21 and older to travel abroad without prior consent and any citizen to apply for a Saudi passport on their own.

The decrees were published early Friday in the kingdom’s official weekly gazette.

Other changes issued in the decrees allow women to register a marriage, divorce or child’s birth and to be issued official family documents.

The changes were widely celebrated by Saudis on Twitter, but also drew criticism from some conservatives.
 

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The Pentagon has decided to put on hold its decision to award a $10 billion cloud computing contract after President Donald Trump said his administration was examining Amazon.com Inc’s bid following complaints from other tech companies.

The contract, called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud, or JEDI, is part of a broad modernization of the Pentagon’s information technology systems.

Oracle Corp lobbied aggressively and expressed concerns about the award process for the contract, including asking about the role of a former Amazon employee who worked on the project at the Defense Department but then recused himself, then later left the Defense Department and returned to Amazon Web Services.

Oracle and IBM Corp have since been eliminated from the competition, leaving Amazon and Microsoft Corp as finalists.

Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith said Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who assumed his role on July 23, was reviewing accusations of unfairness.

“Keeping his promise to Members of Congress and the American public, Secretary Esper is looking at the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program,” Smith said in a statement Thursday. “No decision will be made on the program until he has completed his examination.”

Amazon Web Services and Oracle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The decision delays the award of the contract, which the Pentagon had hoped would occur in August. Trump has had a contentious relationship with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, which Trump has accused of unfair coverage.

Last month, four Republican lawmakers, including Mac Thornberry, his party’s senior member on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Trump urging him to move forward with the contract.  

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BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Colombia is looking into dozens of signs with threatening messages about Venezuelan migrants that were posted in the northeastern city of Bucaramanga and that bear the name of a crime gang, authorities said.

More than 1.4 million Venezuelans have migrated to Colombia in recent years, fleeing shortages of food and medicine and political upheaval.

“The time has come for a cleansing of all Bucaramanga. Homeless people and thieves, who generally are Venezuelans, will hit the floor, as will those who take them in,” said the signs, many of which are attached to trees.

“Those who have Venezuelan employees have 48 hours to replace them,” the posters, signed by the Aguilas Negras crime gang, added.

The Aguilas Negras are a drug trafficking group largely composed of former right-wing paramilitary fighters. They are well-known for threatening social cleansing against marginalized groups in areas where they are active.

Some 38,000 Venezuelans live in Bucaramanga, according to figures from Colombia’s migration agency.

Colombia’s vice president, Marta Lucia Ramirez, said the country would adopt security measures to protect migrants from potential xenophobic attacks.

“Any threat to the lives of the Venezuelan or Colombian-Venezuelan population that has come to Colombia is a crime and there will be judicial and criminal consequences for those responsible for these pamphlets,” Ramirez told journalists.

In a statement late on Wednesday, Colombia’s migration agency rejected the threats and said it would meet with local authorities to review the situation.

The migrant influx has put pressure on Colombia’s already overburdened health and education systems. It is common to see desperate Venezuelan migrants begging for coins or selling items on street corners across the country.

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