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SpaceX test-launched an early prototype of the company’s Mars rocket on Tuesday, rattling the nerves of people living near the Texas site and clearing another key hurdle in billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s interplanetary ambitions.
The prototype, dubbed Starhopper, slowly rose about 500 feet(152m) off its launch pad in Brownsville, Texas, and propelled itself some 650 feet (198m) eastward onto an adjacent landing platform, completing a seemingly successful low-altitude test of SpaceX’s next-generation Raptor engine.
The Raptor is designed to power Musk’s forthcoming heavy-lift Starship rocket, a reusable two-stage booster taller than the Statue of Liberty that is expected to play a central role in Musk’s interplanetary space travel objectives, including missions to Mars.
The prototype “hopper” vehicle, resembling a chrome water tower with four landing legs, was originally slated for its test liftoff on Monday. But a “rather embarrassing” wiring issue with the single Raptor engine halted the countdown less than a second before ignition, Musk, the SpaceX founder and chief executive, said on Twitter.
About a dozen people living in the adjacent village of Boca Chica, just over a mile from the test site, had been urged in advance by local authorities to vacate their homes as a precaution at the sound of police sirens that blared minutes before launch.
“It almost looked like a cartoon or something,” nearby resident Cheryl Stevens told Reuters just after Starhopper’s flight. “After all the buildup, it was kind of nice to actually see it happen.”
The notices, circulated by sheriff’s deputies three days in advance, warned of a possible “overpressure event” that could shatter windows and endanger anyone remaining inside their homes in the event of an explosive malfunction.
Maria Pointer, another resident, set up cameras and invited photographers to her home. She said excitement surrounding the launch reminded her of “feeling like you’re going on a Ferris wheel.”
Other residents bemoaned SpaceX’s presence on the Texas coast, frustrated with road closures and confusing public notices worrisome to those unaccustomed to the trials of spaceflight experimentation.
“It’s kind of like a double-edged sword,” said resident Terry Heaton, adding that access to the nearby beach was blocked off every time SpaceX attempted an engine test.
The next step for Raptor will be to carry out additional ground-based firings of the engine bolted to a stationary test stand, Musk said.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall is expanding.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper recently approved another 32 kilometers (20 miles) of barriers for the United States’ southern border with Mexico, a defense official has confirmed to VOA.
The official said Esper is using an expected surplus to build the additional barrier. To date, nearly 250 kilometers of the barrier wall have been funded by shifting military funds originally marked for other purposes.
A divided U.S. Supreme Court in July allowed the administration to start using disputed Pentagon funds to construct more than 100 miles of fencing along the border.
The justices lifted a lower court freeze that was designed to block $2.5 billion in spending while lawsuits by the Sierra Club and another advocacy group went forward. Those cases may still go trial.
The Pentagon had previously approved the reprogramming of funds into its counter-drug account, which is authorized to spend money on border barrier construction in order to block potential drug smuggling corridors.
In May, Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan confirmed the transferred Pentagon funds included money the Pentagon was saving for training Afghanistan security forces. At the time, he added he would not reprogram any more money for the border wall.
A defense official told VOA Tuesday that in addition to the Afghan training money, funds were also reprogramed to the border wall from personnel and recruiting, upgrades to the E-3 aircraft and Minuteman III, and from lower-than-negotiated contract savings for air launch cruise missiles and Predator Hellfire missiles.
Iran’s president back-pedaled Tuesday on possible talks with Donald Trump, saying the U.S. president must first lift sanctions imposed on Tehran, otherwise a meeting between the two would be a mere photo op.
Hassan Rouhani’s change of heart came a day after Trump said Monday that there’s a “really good chance” the two could meet on their nuclear impasse after a surprise intervention by French President Emmanuel Macron during the G-7 summit to try to bring Washington and Tehran together after decades of conflict.
“Without the U.S.’s withdrawal from sanctions, we will not witness any positive development,” Rouhani said in a televised speech on Tuesday, adding that Washington “holds the key” as to what happens next.
“If someone intends to make it as just a photo op with Rouhani, that is not possible,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, Rouhani expressed readiness to negotiate a way out of the crisis following America’s pullout from the nuclear deal.
“If I knew that going to a meeting and visiting a person would help my country’s development and resolve the problems of the people, I would not miss it,” he had said. “Even if the odds of success are not 90% but are 20% or 10%, we must move ahead with it. We should not miss opportunities.”
Rouhani also shielded his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, against criticism from hard-liners over his surprise visit Sunday to France’s Biarritz, where leaders of the Group of Seven rich democracies were meeting.
Iran’s English-language Press TV issued a vague, anonymous statement later on Monday, rejecting Macron’s initiative.
Macron said he hoped Trump and Rouhani could meet within weeks in hopes of saving the 2015 nuclear deal that Tehran struck with world powers, but which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from last year. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
On Tuesday, Macron acknowledged his efforts to bring Iran and the U.S. together are “fragile” but said he still sees a “possible path” to rapprochement between the two.
Inviting Zarif to the G-7 summit as a surprise guest was a risky diplomatic maneuver but it helped create “the possible conditions of a useful meeting,” Macron said.
It’s France’s responsibility to play the “role of a balancing power,” Macron said, adding that his efforts allowed hope for a “de-escalation” of tensions.
Since the U.S. pullout from the nuclear deal, Iran has lost billions of dollars in business deals allowed by the accord as the U.S. re-imposed and escalated sanctions largely blocking Tehran from selling crude abroad, a crucial source of hard currency for the Islamic Republic.
Rouhani’s U-turn can be seen as a result of pressure from hard-liners in the Iranian establishment who oppose taking a softer tone toward the West.
But it could also reflect that the paradigm of grand photo op summits in exotic locations — such as Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — while stringent sanctions remain in place, does not necessarily appeal to Rouhani, whose signature accomplishment was the nuclear deal, which started unravelling with Trump’s pullout.
The hard-line Javan daily, which is close to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, warned Rouhani in large font on its Tuesday front page: “Mr. Rouhani, photo diplomacy will not develop the country.”
Italy’s hard-line interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has banned a German humanitarian ship carrying migrants rescued off Libya from entering Italian territorial waters.
Decrees such as the one signed Tuesday have become routine in Salvini’s bid to prevent humanitarian rescue ships from bringing migrants to Italy.
This one targets a vessel operated by the German group Lifeline that picked up about 100 people Monday in a rubber lifeboat some 50 kilometers (31 miles) off the Libyan coast. Lifeline has urged the German government to help identify a safe harbor.
While Italy and Malta are the closest European ports, Italy has constructed a policy to exclude humanitarian rescue ships. Malta generally has accepted migrants rescued in its area of responsibility. The positions have led to numerous standoffs.
The self-styled Libyan National Army says it has been advancing to retake a strategic town near Tripoli from militias allied with a U.N.-supported but weak government based in the country’s capital.
The force, led by Khalifa Hifter, says it advanced to wrest control of Gharyan late on Monday, capturing areas adjunct to the town. Gharyan is located around 100 kilometers, or 62 miles from the capital.
The Tripoli militias had pushed Hifter’s forces from Gharyan in June, cutting off their key supply route.
Hifter’s forces launched an offensive in April to take Tripoli and the months-long fighting has killed hundreds and displaced thousands of people.
The fighting threatens to plunge Libya into another bout of violence on the scale of the 2011 conflict that ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi
French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for a new global economic order, decrying an “unprecedented crisis” in the market economy.
Amid uncertainty over U.S. trade policies, Macron said the market economy has become too finance-driven, creating inequalities “that are shaking up our political order.” He called for a global “rethink,” but did not offer details.
In a sweeping diplomatic speech Tuesday, Macron said “we are living the end of Western hegemony” in the world, in part as a result of Western “errors” over past centuries.
Macron spoke the day after hosting an intense G-7 summit clouded by concerns about U.S. trade policies and tensions with China and an economic slowdown. The G-7 ended with a call for “fair” and “open” trade but no mention of currencies or fiscal stimulus.
Iran has jailed a British dual national convicted of spying for Israel and upheld the sentence of a British Council staffer for “cultural infiltration”, the judiciary said on Tuesday.
Anousheh Ashouri, a woman with British and Iranian citizenship, got 10 years in prison for feeding information to Israel’s Mossad spy agency, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said.
The latest Iranian national with a Western passport to be detained in the Islamic republic, she was also handed a two-year prison term for receiving 33,000 euros ($36,600) in illicit funds from Israel and ordered to pay the same amount in fines.
Her sentence came as Iran’s judiciary confirmed a 10-year jail sentence against British Council staffer Aras Amiri for “cultural infiltration”.
Amiri was “sentenced to 10 years in jail… and she is already serving her term. This verdict has been upheld by the court,” said Esmaili.
“This person… was identified by us because of her cultural infiltration in society through arts and her widespread activities,” the judiciary spokesman added.
The judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported Amiri’s original sentence on May 13, saying she had “made a straightforward confession”.
At the time, Esmaili said she had been tasked with drawing up and managing cultural “infiltration” projects.
Amiri, a Iranian national who had been living in London, was reportedly arrested in 2018 during a trip to visit relatives in Iran.
Iranian authorities shut down the British Council’s office in Tehran more than a decade ago for what Esmaili described as “illegal activities”.
The council describes itself as the United Kingdom’s organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
– High seas tensions –
The verdicts come amid tensions between Iran and US ally Britain over the seizure of oil tankers in recent weeks.
An Iranian supertanker was seized off the British overseas territory of Gibraltar on July 4 on suspicion of shipping oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions.
That vessel has been released, but Iran continues to hold a British-flagged tanker it seized in the Gulf on July 19 for breaking “international maritime rules”.
Tensions had already heightened over the fate of British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was arrested by Iranian authorities in 2016 as she was leaving Tehran.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was put on trial and is now serving a five-year jail sentence for allegedly trying to topple the Iranian government.
Other Iranian dual nationals jailed in Iran include Iranian-American Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer, who are serving 10-year sentences for espionage in a case that has outraged Washington.
And last month Iran confirmed the arrest of French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah, 60, without giving any details on the case.
In another ruling announced on Tuesday, a second person was jailed after being found guilty of spying for Israel.
Iranian national Ali Johari was sentenced to 10 years for various espionage offences, including “widespread connections with Mossad… and meeting with various elements linked to the Zionists,” Esmaili said.
Johari had been in contact with operatives in India, Laos and Sri Lanka, among other countries, and also travelled to “occupied lands”, the judiciary added.
He had been in the process of “getting citizenship from this country”, said Esmaili, in apparent reference to Israel.
Johari also received two years for accepting illicit funds and was ordered to pay that unspecified amount in fines, said Esmaili.
It was music to the ears of Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The British will be able to strike a “fantastic deal” with the United States once Britain has thrown off the “anchor” of the European Union, U.S. President Donald Trump told Johnson during a convivial bilateral meeting at the G-7 summit in the French resort of Biarritz, where they breakfasted Sunday on scrambled eggs and veal sausages.
“We’re going to do a very big trade deal, bigger than we’ve ever had with the U.K., and now at some point they won’t have the obstacle, they won’t have the anchor around their ankle, because that’s what they have,” Trump said.
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets U.S. President Donald Trump for bilateral talks during the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France Aug. 25, 2019.
Later, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said the special relationship had “never been stronger.”
“Enjoyed accompanying Donald Trump at his working breakfast with Boris Johnson where we collaborated on ways to further deepen our security and economic relationship with the UK,” Bolton tweeted.
The U.S. embrace was welcome news for Johnson, who has invested politically in a close relationship with Trump and presented a fast-tracked Anglo-American trade deal as a major ingredient in the “global Britain” future he and other Brexiters have advertised.
Johnson has been buoyed by Trump’s praise of him since he succeeded Theresa May as prime minister. The U.S. leader has described him as “Britain Trump” and talked enthusiastically about the trans-Atlantic partnership the pair will forge.
Widening rifts
For a Britain struggling to work out its place in the world after it relinquishes its membership in the European Union, set for Oct. 31, the future challenge will be to balance relations between the U.S. and Europe, analysts say.
Johnson can’t afford to fall out with Britain’s European neighbors, especially if he wants to find a way out of the Brexit impasse and leave on good terms with the EU and a future trade deal.
Maintaining the balance won’t be easy amid widening rifts between Washington and Brussels on a host of key issues, including climate change, relations with Russia, rising nationalism, the role of multilateralism, and raging economic warfare between the U.S. and China.
Analysts say it will be made trickier by having to deal with a U.S. president who sees diplomacy as a zero-sum game, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who appears eager to define dividing lines between Europe and the U.S.
On Sunday, Macron surprised fellow G-7 leaders by announcing that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif would fly to Biarritz for unexpected talks on the summit’s sidelines — a bid to revive the 2015 nuclear accord from which the U.S. withdrew last year.
An Iranian government plane is seen on the tarmac at Biarritz airport in Anglet during the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, Aug. 25, 2019.
Britain has long had to navigate between the U.S. and Europe, and since World War II has positioned itself as the diplomatic interface between Washington and the Europeans. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair used to talk about Britain being a trans-Atlantic bridge.
That go-between role will likely be more difficult to pull off in the coming years, especially if Britain crashes out of the EU acrimoniously and without an exit deal, which analysts say could poison Britain’s relations with Europe.
‘Agonizing choices’ ahead
Brexit has coincided with an apparent inflection point in trans-Atlantic relations, with the U.S. and western Europe drifting further apart with unpredictable policy shifts.
“Agonizing choices face the United Kingdom this year, some of them immediate and obvious,” according to former Conservative lawmaker and columnist Matthew Parris. “But the biggest is less apparent, yet will shape our nation’s future in a way that no wrangles about EU deals ever can. Does Britain’s destiny lie with the States? As two global blocs, Europe and America, diverge, we shall be making that decision whether we know it or not.”
French President Emmanuel Macron attends a joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump (not seen) at the end of the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, Aug. 26, 2019.
Britain is as divided on that — whether its future lies with Europe or America — as it is on the immediate issue of Brexit itself. Do its economic fortunes lie to the West or East? Is it more culturally and philosophically tied with the U.S. or Europe? The dilemma is further complicated by the likelihood that even after Brexit, Europe will remain its single largest trading partner. But Britain will need to compensate for the likely loss of post-Brexit trade with Europe and is eager for a trade deal with the U.S.
At his first G-7 summit as prime minister, Johnson trod a careful line — announcing Britain may be leaving the EU but maintaining that it isn’t leaving Europe. He maintained unity with the Europeans on Iran, climate change, international trade and Russia, pushing back, along with other EU leaders, on Trump’s idea for Russia to be readmitted to the G-7, from which it was ejected after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.
Despite that, Johnson appeared not to disrupt his relationship with Trump. Even British detractors of the new prime minister acknowledged Monday he managed to maintain poise on the geopolitical high wire he has to tread.
Johnson may have been aided inadvertently by Macron’s decision as summit host not to issue a final communique, avoiding the kind of highly public dust-ups that derailed last year’s event in Canada.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday “there’s a really good chance” he would meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the coming weeks to try to negotiate a new deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear weapons program to replace the 2015 international deal that Trump withdrew from last year.
Trump, speaking at the end of the G-7 summit of top world leaders in France, said, “I think Iran is going to want to meet.”
The U.S. leader said the economic sanctions he reimposed on Iran a year ago “are absolutely hurting them” as Trump has sought to sharply limit Iran’s international oil exports.
But Trump predicated any meeting with Rouhani on the condition that Iran not create more overseas tensions with military advances and attacks. He said a new deal would have to ban Iranian nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing and cover a longer period than the 10-year time frame dictated by the 2015 accord.
Trump added, “I have good feelings about Iran…incredible people.” But he said it was too soon to meet over the weekend with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was a surprise visitor at the G-7 summit in the Atlantic coastal town of Biarritz, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.
The French leader has been trying to broker U.S.-Iran peace talks. Macron told a joint news conference with Trump that he has had conversations with Rouhani and that the Iranian leader is willing to meet with Trump.
Macron said he had reached the “very cautious” conclusion that Washington and Tehran could reach an agreement if Trump and Rouhani meet.
Macron said France “will play a role” in the U.S.-Iran talks if they occur, along with the other signatories to the 2015 accord Trump pulled out of — Britain, Germany, the European Union, China and Russia.
Trump said Zarif’s visit to Biarritz was not a surprise to him.
Trump said he was in contact with Macron and that, “I knew everything he was doing and approved whatever he was doing.”
Macron had met with Zarif on Friday in Paris before the G-7 summit opened, but Macron invited him back to the site of the summit after tense exchanges among the world leaders about Iran at their Saturday night dinner.
Iran and the United States have been in a state of heightened strained relations since Trump withdrew last year from the international agreement that restrained Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump then added more sanctions, particularly targeting Iran’s key oil sector, that have hobbled the country’s economy.
Trump said Monday he is not seeking “regime change” in Iran, but wants the country to “stop terrorism.”
“I think they’re going to change. I really do. I believe they have a chance to be a very special nation,” Trump said.
Macron had lunch with Trump Saturday, and, according to French sources, outlined his plan to ease the West’s tensions with Iran. The French leader is calling for allowing Iran to export its oil for a short time, fully implement the 2015 agreement, reduce conflict in the Gulf region and open new talks.
Macron on Monday said Iran would need new funding to help stabilize its economy. Trump said that would not include outright cash grants but rather letters of credit that “would be paid back very quickly.”
The Justice Department is moving forward to expand the number of marijuana growers for federally-authorized cannabis research.
Uttam Dhillon, the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, says Monday’s move would give researchers a wider variety of cannabis to study. He says the DEA supports additional marijuana research.
The DEA says the number of people registered to conduct research with marijuana and extracts has jumped more than 40 percent in the last two years. The agency is also planning to propose new regulations to govern the marijuana growers’ program.
Researchers at federally-funded entities have faced legal barriers in recent years because marijuana remains illegal under federal law, even as a growing number of states have legalized medical and so-called recreational marijuana.
U.S. President Donald Trump and French counterpart Emmanuel Macron said there was unity on major issues at the G-7 summit in France, despite differences on display during the gathering that was dominated by trade issues, Iran’s nuclear program and the fires scorching the Amazon.
At a joint news conference Monday, Trump spoke of “tremendous unity,” while Macron said all parties “have managed to find real points of convergence.”
Iran meeting
On Iran, Macron said he hoped for a meeting in the “coming weeks” between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Trump, however, did not commit to a time frame.
“If the circumstances were correct, I would certainly agree to that,” Trump said while stressing that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles.
Macron reiterated his commitment to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement that Trump pulled out of last year. Trump again called it a bad deal.
US-China trade
During the summit, G-7 leaders expressed concern about the escalation of the U.S.-China trade fight.
Trump said the United States has received positive signs from Beijing on the issue. “I think they want to make a deal very badly,” he said.
Macron said an agreement would help dispel uncertainly in global markets over the issue.
Russia
On the topic of Russia, Trump has been at odds with most of the other G7 leaders about his desire to see Moscow readmitted into the group.
In 2014, Moscow’s membership in what was then the G-8 was suspended after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Trump said Russia would be an “asset” to the G-7 and again blamed its annexation of Crimea on his predecessor, President Barack Obama. Trump said it is better to have Russia “in the tent” rather than “outside the tent.”
Brazil wildfires
The leaders of the Group of Seven advanced industrialized economies also addressed the wildfires burning in the Amazon, pledging $20 million to help combat the blazes.
Macron continued a feud with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro over Bolsonaro’s handling of the wildfires, saying the Brazilian president skipped a scheduled meeting with the French foreign minister. Bolsonaro said the French leader was treating the Amazon region like a “colony.”
Hussam Alhallak and his wife kept thinking that the war in Syria would end, or that at least conditions would improve. But it persisted, with gunfire in the streets and bombings that drove the couple and their two young children into their basement for protection.
They just wanted to move away from the violence.
The family fled as refugees to Turkey and two years later to the United States, where they are rebuilding a life for themselves far away from war-torn Syria, in the small, working-class city of Rutland, Vermont.
They learned English, and the couple attended community college classes in accounting, all while Alhallak was working early in the morning at a bakery. In February he was offered a job as a tax accountant.
“This is my dream,” said Alhallak, 36, who was an accountant in Damascus. “Thank god for everything. Yeah, yeah, I’m very happy now.”
The family has made great strides in a short time. But three years ago, when Rutland’s former Mayor Christopher Louras announced a plan to relocate up to 100 refugees there, it wasn’t clear how they would be received.
The plan initially divided the economically depressed city of about 16,400. While some Rutlanders were eager to welcome the new residents and pitched in to gather supplies for them, others raised concerns that the refugees could be security threats or economic burdens and felt the resettlement plan was developed in secret.
Then the election of President Donald Trump, who expressed hostility toward Muslim immigrants, threw the plan into question , and Louras lost his bid for reelection in 2017, attributing the loss to his support for the refugee resettlement.
Just three families, including Alhallak’s, arrived before Trump imposed a ban on travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries. Community members welcomed those families, gathering furniture and other goods for the newcomers and offering ongoing support, from helping them learn English to spending time with the children and getting the families summer swim passes for the city pool.
The refugee families in Rutland have “integrated really well” and have mostly been accepted, according to Amila Merdzanovic, director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Vermont.
The kids are in school and “have a lot of friends,” Merdzanovic said. “I would say they have done really, really well.”
Current Mayor David Allaire did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Alhallak’s wife, Hazar Mansour, who was a French teacher in Syria and studied French literature, described Rutland as “a magical place.”
“We like Rutland,” said Mansour, 37, who says the people in her community are “very nice.”
In Turkey, work was hard to find and when Alhallak did get jobs, they didn’t pay enough to support the family, he said. Some Turkish people also do not like Syrians, he said.
“I really like Vermont,” said their daughter, Layan, age 12. “In Turkey I had trouble getting along with kids because they kept being rude to me. … I really get along here.”
Once a month, the family travels to Albany, New York, or Burlington, Vermont, to stock up on food from Middle Eastern grocery stores. They speak mostly Arabic at home so their kids will retain the language, and the family planned to attend services at a mosque in Colchester, Vermont, for a recent holiday.
The other two families also are doing well, Merdzanovic said.
Alhallak’s family of five, now living in a small apartment, will soon have a new house, thanks to Habitat for Humanity of Rutland County. Volunteers are building the house with donated building supplies.
When word spread through a newspaper that more money was needed to start construction, Alhallak’s co-workers at Casella Waste Systems Inc. rallied to raise $16,000, which the company matched, in a matter of weeks.
Alhallak and Mansour both miss and worry about their relatives in Syria. They are able to text them, but phone calls are difficult because of poor service, they said. Mansour’s father, who was a professor, was shot and killed in the war as he was returning home from work in 2012.
They hope to one day bring Alhallak’s father and Mansour’s mother, who is sick, to Vermont. They may try to bring siblings, too.
