The Democrat-led House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday on a resolution “condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress,” in response to a series of tweets Trump issued attacking four lawmakers of color.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced the vote and said he hoped Republicans would “put country before party” and vote in favor of the measure alongside Democrats.

The text of the resolution “strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color by saying that our fellow Americans who are immigrants, and those who may look to the President like immigrants, should ‘go back’ to other countries, by referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as ‘invaders,’ and by saying that Members of Congress who are immigrants (or those of our colleagues who are wrongly assumed to be immigrants) do not belong in Congress or in the United States of America.”

The targets of Trump’s attacks — Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ayana Pressley and Rep. Rashida Tlaib — appeared before reporters Monday in a collective and blistering show of force to rebut Trump’s social media and verbal volleys against them.

“He’s launching a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected members of the United States House of Representatives, all of whom are women of color,” said Omar, a Somalia-born Democrat from the state of Minnesota and a naturalized U.S. citizen. “This is the agenda of white nationalists.”   

Trump set off a firestorm of controversy on Sunday by tweeting that the lawmakers should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” even though three of the four were born in the United States. The first tweets came shortly after a segment about the minority congresswomen on the Fox News Channel. 

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez is a native New Yorker, Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Tlaib is a native of Detroit, Michigan.

Two of them, Omar and Tlaib, who are the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, explicitly called for Trump’s impeachment. 

“I urge House leadership, many of my colleagues, to take action to impeach this lawless president today,” said Tlaib. 

“He does not know how to defend his policies,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters. “So, what he does is attack us personally. And that is what this is all about.”

Earlier in the day, Trump amplified his remarks deemed as racist attacks on the lawmakers, rejecting widespread criticism that his comments run counter to American values.

“It doesn’t concern me,” he told reporters Monday at the White House, “because many people agree with me.”

The president said of the lawmakers: “If they’re not happy here, they can leave,” adding, “these are people that hate our country.”

Asked whether his comments were racist, Trump said, “Not at all.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among those characterizing the president’s comments as “disgusting attacks.”

“The House cannot allow the President’s characterization of immigrants to our country to stand. Our Republican colleagues must join us in condemning the President’s xenophobic tweets,” Pelosi said in calling for support for a House resolution to condemn Trump’s tweets. 

Most lawmakers of Trump’s party have stayed silent on the controversy. But four Republican senators — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mitt Romney of Utah — are criticizing Trump’s remarks. 

“The president has a unique and noble calling to unite the American people,” Romney, a former Republican presidential nominee, told reporters. “In that regard, he failed badly this weekend and continued to do so today.” 

“There is no excuse for the president’s spiteful comments — they were absolutely unacceptable and this needs to stop,” Murkowski tweeted.

There is no excuse for the president’s spiteful comments –they were absolutely unacceptable and this needs to stop.

— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) July 15, 2019

“President Trump was wrong to suggest that four left-wing congresswomen should go back to where they came from,” said Toomey in a statement. “The citizenship of all four is as valid as mine.”

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who golfed with Trump over the weekend, said the president should “aim higher” with his criticism of the four, even as the lawmaker disparaged their views.

On Fox News, Graham said Monday Ocasio-Cortez “and this crowd are a bunch of communists” who “hate Israel. They hate our own country. They’re calling the guards along our border — the border control agents — concentration camp guards. They accuse people who support Israel of doing it for the Benjamins (money). They’re anti-Semitic. They’re anti-America.”

The four female lawmakers, from what is called the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, are known collectively as “the squad.” 

“Our squad includes any person committed to building a more equitable and just world,” Pressley told reporters. “And that is the work that we want to get back to. And given the size of this squad and this great nation, we cannot, we will not, be silenced.” 

Trump tweeted on Monday morning: “When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said. So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions!”

When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said. So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2019

A prominent U.S.-based anti-hate Jewish group is condemning the president’s attempt to use Jews as a shield.

“As Jews, we are all too familiar with this kind of divisive prejudice,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League. “While ADL has publicly disagreed with these congresswomen on some issues, the president is echoing the racist talking points of white nationalists and cynically using the Jewish people and the state of Israel as a shield to double down on his remarks.”

Omar, in particular, has been a frequent topic of critical coverage on Fox News, in part due to her frequent criticism of Israel and comments perceived as anti-Semitic.

…

An undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 struck south of Indonesia’s Bali on Tuesday, the European earthquake monitoring agency EMSC said, causing minor damage and prompting residents and visitors on the tourist island to briefly flee buildings.

There were no reports of casualties and no tsunami warning issued by the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center or the Indonesian quake monitoring agency.

The epicenter was 102 km (62 miles) southwest of the island capital Denpasar and was 100 km (60 miles) deep, the EMSC said.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded the quake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7.

One resident said people in Denpasar ran out of their boarding house in pajamas after feeling the quake.

A Twitter user with the handle Indounik in the city of Ubud on Bali said the quake was “strong enough to make me adopt the drop, cover & hold approach recommended to survive a quake.”

Another Twitter user, Marc van Voorst, described the quake as feeling like “a heavy truck or train passing by at close range.” He said there was no panic, even though his hotel in the Uluwatu area shook quite a bit.

Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency distributed a photograph of damage at the Lokanatha temple in Denpasar, showing smashed masonry lying on the ground. Bali is a predominantly Hindu enclave in overwhelmingly Muslim Indonesia.

Lius Winarto, a sales administrator at the Mercure Hotel Nusa Dua, said by telephone a small part of the building’s roof had been damaged.

“We felt the quake quite strongly…but thankfully no one was hurt and there was only minor damage,” he said. “Everything has gone back to normal now.”

There was also minor damage at a school, a house and a temple in different areas on the southern side of Bali, according to online portal Balipost.com.

The quake could also be felt in other cities on the neighboring islands of Lombok and Java, Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency said in a statement.

A roof of a mosque in the city of Banyuwangi in East Java also partially collapsed, another photo from the disaster mitigation agency showed.

The transport ministry said Bali airport was operating normally.

Indonesia suffers frequent earthquakes, sometimes causing tsunamis, because it lies on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire.

Its Moluccas islands were hit by a powerful 7.2 quake on Sunday that killed at least two people and prompted hundreds to flee their homes.

The most devastating tremor in recent Indonesian history was on Dec. 26, 2004, when a magnitude 9.5 quake triggered a tsunami that killed around 226,000 people along the shorelines of the Indian Ocean, including more than 126,000 in Indonesia.

A tsunami also hit the city of Palu in Sulawesi last year, killing thousands.

…

European Union foreign ministers on Monday turned up the pressure on Turkey after approving an initial batch of sanctions against the country over its drilling for gas in waters where EU member Cyprus has exclusive economic rights. 

The ministers said in a statement that in light of Turkey’s “continued and new illegal drilling activities,” they were suspending talks on an air transport agreement and would call on the European Investment Bank to “review” it’s lending to the country.

They also backed a proposal by the EU’s executive branch to reduce financial assistance to Turkey for next year. The ministers warned that additional “targeted measures” were being worked on to penalize Turkey, which started negotiations to join the EU in 2005.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu issued his own warning last week that his country would step up drilling activities off Cyprus if the EU moved ahead with sanctions. 

Two Turkish vessels escorted by warships are drilling for gas on either end of ethnically divided Cyprus.

The EU ministers repeated the “serious immediate negative impact” that Turkey’s illegal actions are having on EU-Turkey relations and called on Ankara to respect Cyprus’ sovereign rights in line with international law.

They also welcomed the Cypriot government’s invitation to Turkey to negotiate the borders of their respective exclusive economic zones and continental shelf.

Turkey doesn’t recognize Cyprus as a state and claims 44% of Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone as its own, according to Cyprus government officials. Turkish Cypriots in the east Mediterranean island nation’s breakaway north claim another 25%.

Cyprus was split along ethnic lines in 1974 when Turkey invaded in the wake of a coup by supporters of union with Greece. A Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence is recognized only by Turkey, which keeps more than 35,000 troops in the breakaway north. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, but only the internationally recognized south enjoys full membership benefits. 

Turkey contends that it’s protecting its rights and those of Turkish Cypriots to the area’s hydrocarbon deposits. Cypriot officials, however, accuse Turkey of using the minority Turkish Cypriots in order to pursue its goal of exerting control over the eastern Mediterranean region.

The Cypriot government says it will take legal action against any oil and gas companies supporting Turkish vessels in any repeat attempt to drill for gas. Cyprus has already issued around 20 international arrest warrants against three international companies assisting one of the two Turkish vessels now drilling 42 miles (68 kilometers) off the island’s west coast.

The Cyprus government has licensed energy companies including ExxonMobil, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni to carry out gas drilling in blocks, or areas, off the island’s southern coastline. At least three significant gas deposits have so far been discovered there.  

Meanwhile, Cyprus’ Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades will chair a meeting of political leaders Tuesday to discuss a renewed proposal by Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa AKinci to establish a joint committee with Greek Cypriots on managing offshore gas drilling activities.

Akinci has repeatedly called for the creation of such a committee that he says would give his community a say in how newly found gas deposits off Cyprus’ southern coast are managed and future proceeds are divvied up. A similar proposal was made by Akinci’s predecessor Dervis Eroglu in 2011. 

The Cypriot government says energy discussions with Turkish Cypriots should be part of overarching reunification talks, adding that Turkish Cypriot rights to the island’s energy reserves are assured. The government says future gas proceeds that will flow into an established hydrocarbons fund will be shared equitably after a peace deal is signed.

…

Federal judges will decide how to proceed with bond hearings in two separate federal indictments against R. Kelly.

The 52-year-old singer was arrested Thursday night while walking his dog on a 13-count indictment that includes sex crimes and obstruction of justice. A federal indictment was also unsealed in New York Friday that charges him with racketeering and sex-related crimes.

Kelly remained in federal custody over the weekend following his arrest. His attorney denied the allegations Friday.

A status hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. Monday in Chicago will determine if a federal judge will rule Tuesday on Kelly’s bail in both federal criminal cases.

Federal prosecutors have requested Kelly stay in custody, saying he is a flight risk and dangerous.

 

…

A nonprofit foundation set up by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden that relies on health care world partnerships to speed a cure for cancer has suspended its operations.

The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded two years ago by Biden and his wife, Jill, as a tribute to his son Beau, who died of cancer in 2015. The nonprofit promoted nearly 60 partnerships with drug companies, health care firms, charities and other organizations that pledged more than $400 million to improve cancer treatment.

Biden and his wife left the group’s board in April as an ethics precaution before joining the presidential race. The nonprofit had trouble maintaining momentum without their involvement. And the roles played by Biden allies and corporate interests continued to raise questions about their interests if Biden wins the presidency.

 

…

Codebreaker and computing pioneer Alan Turing has been chosen as the face of Britain’s new 50 pound note, the Bank of England announced Monday.

Governor Mark Carney said Turing, who did ground-breaking work on computers and artificial intelligence, was “a giant on whose shoulders so many now stand.”

During World War II Turing worked at the secret Bletchley Park code-breaking center, where he helped crack Nazi Germany’s secret codes by creating the Turing bombe,'' a forerunner of modern computers. He also developed theTuring Test” to measure artificial intelligence.

After the war he was prosecuted for homosexuality, which was then illegal, and forcibly treated with female hormones. He died at age 41 in 1954 after eating an apple laced with cyanide.

Turing received a posthumous apology from the British government in 2009, and a royal pardon in 2013.

The U.K’s highest-denomination note is the last to be redesigned and switched from paper to more secure and durable polymer. The redesigned 10 pound and 20 pound notes feature author Jane Austen and artist J.M.W. Turner.

The Turing banknote will enter circulation in 2021. It includes a photo of the scientist, mathematical formulae and technical drawings, and a quote from Turing: “This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be.”

Former lawmaker John Leech, who led the campaign for a pardon, said he was “absolutely delighted” by the choice.

“I hope it will go some way to acknowledging his unprecedented contribution to society and science,” he said.

 “But more importantly I hope it will serve as a stark and rightfully painful reminder of what we lost in Turing, and what we risk when we allow that kind of hateful ideology to win.”

 

…

In a series of Sunday morning tweets quickly deemed racist and xenophobic by critics, U.S. President Donald Trump has provoked fresh controversy with taunts at several new members of Congress.

Trump on Twitter, targeted Progressive Democratic Congresswomen, telling them to “go back” and help fix the “crime infested” countries from which they came.

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

Of the four apparently targeted, only one — Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a native of Somalia — is foreign born. The other three are native Americans: Ayana Pressley (who is a representative from Massachusetts) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a native New Yorker (and represents the eastern part of the Bronx and a portion of north-central Queens), and Rashid Tlaib, of Michigan, was born in Detroit.

The White House has not responded to a request from VOA on whether the president was aware prior to sending the tweets that three of the four are citizens by birth.

The progressives have been squabbling with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over immigration policy and other issues.

The dispute has attracted Trump’s attention in recent days, even prompting him to utter rare public support for Pelosi – at least when it comes to her attempt to rein in the newly elected foursome.

Trump’s tweets about the minority novice female members of Congress, known as ‘the squad,’ came about 20 minutes after a segment about them on the Fox News Channel. The president frequently reacts quickly on social media to what he sees on Fox.

Omar, in particular, has been a frequent topic of critical coverage on the cable television channel, in part due to her frequent criticism of Israel and comments perceived as anti-Semitic.

Omar and Tlaib are the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress.

In a Twitter response to Trump on Sunday, Omar reminded him that the United States is the only country to which members of Congress swear an oath.

“Which is why we are fighting to protect it from the worst, most corrupt and inept president we have ever seen,” added the Minnesotan.

Mr. President,

As Members of Congress, the only country we swear an oath to is the United States.

Which is why we are fighting to protect it from the worst, most corrupt and inept president we have ever seen. https://t.co/FBygHa2QTt

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 14, 2019

Many on social media are condemning Trump’s tweet — which even by his provocative norms are viewed as crossing a new line.

Among the most prominent is Pelosi, who terms Trump’s remark xenophobic, “meant to divide our nation” and “reaffirm his plan to “Make America Great Again” has always been about making American white again.”
 

When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to “Make America Great Again” has always been about making America white again.

Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power. https://t.co/ODqqHneyES

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 14, 2019

Trump made the series of tweets prior to emerging from the North Portico of the White House clad in dark pants, a white short-sleeved shirt and a red “Make America Great Again” ball cap.

As his motorcade traveled to one of his private golf courses in northern Virginia, Trump took to Twitter again to refute what reporters described who had accompanied Vice President Mike Pence during a visit to two detention centers for migrants in Texas.

“Great Reviews!” declared Trump of the tour by politicians and media to the facility for children. He characterized the pen holding adult men as “clean but crowded.”

Friday’s tour showed vividly, to politicians and the media, how well run and clean the children’s detention centers are. Great reviews! Failing @nytimes story was FAKE! The adult single men areas were clean but crowded – also loaded up with a big percentage of criminals……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, who filed the collective print report from the scene, described a guarded area where nearly 400 men were crammed behind caged fences with not enough room for all of them to lie down on the concrete floor.

“A stench from body odor hung stale in the air,” wrote Dawsey, who said some of the men screamed they had been held for more than 40 days.

At the location, Pence had commented “this is tough stuff” as a group of detainees shouted, “no showers.”

Trump has repeatedly warned that if he is unseated by a Democrat in next year’s presidential campaign that the opposition party would turn the United States into a socialist country and open its borders to dangerous immigrants.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey of voters released on Sunday shows Trump trailing the top four Democratic Party contenders in a hypothetical matchup.

Trump defied the polls in 2016 to defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the presidency.

 

…

Flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rainfall have killed at least 50 people in Nepal in the past few days, with more deaths reported across the border in India and Bangladesh, officials said Sunday.

At least 30 other people were missing in Nepal, either swept away by swollen rivers or buried by mudslides since monsoon rains began pounding the region on Friday, Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Center said.
 
The center said nine key highways remained blocked by floods and mudslides, and attempts were underway to open them up for traffic. Among them is the East-West Highway, which connects Nepal’s southern districts.
 
Other roads were being cleared by thousands of police and soldiers. Continuing bad weather has grounded helicopter rescue flights. Workers were also repairing fallen communication towers to restore phone lines.
 
Thirty people have been treated for injuries and more than 1,100 others rescued from flooded areas. More than 10,000 are estimated to have been displaced.
 
Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology warned of more troubles ahead for the southern region near the main rivers, urging people to keep watch on rising water levels and move to higher ground when needed.
 
Rain-triggered floods, mudslides and lightning have left a trail of destruction in other parts of South Asia.
 
In Bangladesh, at least a dozen people, mostly farmers in rural areas, have been killed by lightning since Saturday as monsoon rains continue to batter parts of the low-lying country, according to officials and news reports.
 
Water Development Board official Rabiul Islam said about 40,000 people have been affected, mostly due to their homes being submerged underwater.
 
Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 160 million people with more than 130 rivers, is prone to monsoon floods because of overflowing rivers and the heavy onrush of water from upstream India.
 
Officials in northeastern India said at least 14 people were killed and over a million affected by flooding, state official Kumar Sanjay Krishna said. Six deaths were reported in neighboring Arunachal state.
 
Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, home to the endangered one-horn rhinoceros, has been flooded.
 
Floods and mudslides have also hit some other northeast Indian states, including Meghalaya, Sikkim and Mizoram. In Mizoram, floods have submerged about 400 homes in the small town of Tlabung, police said.
 

 

…

Militants targeted a gas pipeline in government-controlled central Syria, putting it out of order Sunday, according to state media.

The SANA news agency didn’t name the attackers. The area in the central Homs province is close to where remnants of the Islamic State group are still holed up after losing all the territory they once held in the country.

SANA said technical teams are working to fix the pipeline, which links the Shaer fields to the Ebla processing plant. It did not elaborate on the extent of the damage or the nature of the attack.

The agency said the pipeline carries about 2.5 million cubic meters of gas to the processing plant and onward to power stations.

Islamic State militants briefly seized the Shaer fields in 2014 and 2016 before pro-government forces recaptured them in heavy fighting. Today much of Syria’s oil fields and infrastructure are held by U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led forces in the east.

In recent weeks, IS militants have increased their attacks against government troops, putting up checkpoints and ambushing convoys. While the government now controls over 60 percent of Syria, there is still a rebel stronghold in the northwest, where the government is waging a limited but stalled offensive. Smaller armed groups in northern, central and eastern Syria have vowed to target government and Kurdish-controlled facilities.

 

…

NEW YORK — Authorities said a widespread power shortage in Manhattan on Saturday evening left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled. 
 
Power reportedly went out at much of Rockefeller Center, and the outage reached the city’s Upper West Side. The full extent of the outage, however, wasn’t clear. 
 
A diner on Broadway at West 69th Street lost its lights, as did other surrounding businesses. 
 
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority tweeted that there were outages at various underground stations. The MTA was working with Con Edison to determine the cause.   
 
Con Edison did not immediately respond to phone messages. 

…

JERUSALEM — Israel’s education minister voiced support Saturday for so-called gay “conversion therapy,” drawing a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government’s religious-rightist tilt has worried liberals at home and backers abroad. 

Conversion therapy, an attempt to alter sexual orientation or gender identity through psychological, spiritual and, in extreme cases, physical means, has been widely discredited in the West and condemned by professional health associations such as the American Medical Association as potentially harmful. 

Rafael Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and head of the ultranationalist United Right party who assumed the education portfolio in the Netanyahu-led coalition last month, said in a television interview he believed conversion therapy can work. 

“I have a very deep familiarity with the issue of education, and I have also done this,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 TV. 

‘Let’s think’

Giving an example of a gay person he said he had tended to, Peretz said: “First of all, I embraced him. I said very warm things to him. I told him, ‘Let’s think. Let’s study. And let’s contemplate.’ The objective is first of all for him to know himself well … and then he will decide.” 

The remarks sparked furor in Israel’s center-left opposition, which ahead of a September election has sought to cast Netanyahu as enabling Orthodox indoctrination in a country whose majority Jews mostly identify as secular or of less stringent religious observance. 

Israel’s LGBT Task Force, an advocacy group, demanded Peretz be fired, saying in a statement his views were “benighted.” 

Shortly after the interview aired at the end of the Jewish Sabbath, Netanyahu said he spoke to Peretz for “clarification.” 

“The education minister’s remarks regarding the pride community are unacceptable to me and do not reflect the position of the government that I head,” the premier said in a statement. 

Earlier furor

It was the second flap Peretz had caused in less than a week. Israeli media reported that he had told fellow Cabinet members on Tuesday that the intermarriage of Jews and gentiles in the diaspora amounted to a “second Holocaust.” 

The comparison stirred up anger among U.S. Jews, who are mostly non-Orthodox, and drew a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which said such statements cheapened the Holocaust. 

Speaking to Channel 12, Peretz described himself as striving to balance respect for others, no matter their sexual orientation, with his duties as a religious leader. 

“I honor everyone as people. I admit that I, personally — I am a rabbi of Israel. Our Torah tells us other things. But that does not mean that I look about now and give them grades,” he said. 

…

Fifteen civilians, including six children and infants, were killed Saturday in airstrikes in northwest Syria, targeted for months now by deadly regime and Russian bombardment, a monitor said.

Most of the children were among civilians killed when Russian aircraft raided an informal camp of internally displaced Syrians after midnight Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The camp near the town of Khan Sheikhoun, in Idlib region, houses Syrians who had fled raids and clashes in neighboring Hama province.

Hours later a man and his heavily pregnant wife were killed in the eastern Idlib town of Kefraya in airstrikes carried out by unidentified aircraft, the Britain-based Observatory said.

White Helmets volunteers found the bodies of the dead woman and her baby lying next to her open stomach, the umbilical cord still attached, an AFP correspondent said.

In the north of Hama province, three civilians including a child were killed by artillery fire, the Observatory said.

Russia, regime strikes

Russian and Syrian regime aircraft have ramped up strikes on Idlib since the end of April, killing more than 590 civilians, while 45 others have died from rebel fire, according to the Observatory.

Regime forces have also been locked in battle with jihadists and allied rebels on the edges of the bastion, which is held by Syria’s former al-Qaida affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), including the north of Hama province.

Idlib and its surrounding areas are supposed to be protected from a massive regime offensive by a September 2018 deal between Russia and rebel backer Turkey.

A buffer zone planned under that accord was never fully implemented, and the region has seen an increase in violence.

Syria’s war has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
 

…

As Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters vow to keep up their fight, churches remain on the front lines. Christian groups hold regular public gatherings and sing hymns at demonstrations, both as a way to protest and to de-escalate clashes between police and more aggressive protesters. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, many churches in Hong Kong fear a crackdown on religion as China expands its influence.

…

As the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the historic mission to land humans on the surface of the moon, VOA’s Kane Farabaugh presents this reflection of the monumental achievement through the eyes of the NASA astronauts themselves. In exclusive interviews Farabaugh gathered, the men of the Apollo program reflect on the path to the moon, and what lies beyond.
 

…

Congressional Democrats are pushing for new protections for asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. They unveiled legislation this week that reflects the lawmakers’ increasing anger and concern over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. But Republicans accuse Democrats of refusing to acknowledge an immigration crisis exists and making the problem worse. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.

…

President Donald Trump unloaded via Twitter on Republican former House Speaker Paul Ryan after Ryan’s comments critical of Trump appeared in excerpts from a new book.

Ryan condemns Trump in “American Carnage,” by Tim Alberta of Politico, in excerpts running in various publications. Alberta wrote the former speaker, who retired from Congress in 2018, could not stand the idea of another two years with the Republican president and saw retirement as the “escape hatch,” according to The Washington Post. Ryan is quoted saying: “I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government. I wanted to scold him all the time.”

Trump blasted Ryan as a “lame duck failure.”

“He had the Majority & blew it away with his poor leadership and bad timing,” Trump tweeted late Thursday. “Never knew how to go after the Dems like they go after us. Couldn’t get him out of Congress fast enough!”

Ryan had no comment Friday on the president’s tweets about him, his spokesman Brendan Buck said.

Trump may have been angered by various revelations in the book, including accounts recalling widespread negative GOP reactions to his off-color videotaped comments in the “Access Hollywood” scandal in the closing weeks of the 2016 election campaign. Ryan’s reaction was particularly harsh.

The book recounted Ryan, who served in Congress for 20 years, saying Trump’s presidency was slipping as he was less willing to accept advice from Republicans to moderate his approach.

“Those of us around him really helped to stop him from making bad decisions. All the time,” Ryan said. “We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was. Now I think he’s making some of these knee-jerk reactions.”

And Ryan, who often was Trump’s wing man on some congressional issues but had a strained relationship with him, was the main focus of Trump’s Twitter rage.

“Paul Ryan, the failed V.P. candidate & former Speaker of the House, whose record of achievement was atrocious (except during my first two years as President), ultimately became a long running lame duck failure, leaving his Party in the lurch both as a fundraiser & leader,” Trump tweeted.

Trump tweeted that when presidential candidate Mitt Romney chose Ryan as a running mate “I told people that’s the end of that Presidential run.”

“He quit Congress because he didn’t know how to Win,” Trump tweeted. “They gave me standing O’s in the Great State of Wisconsin, & booed him off the stage. He promised me the Wall, & failed (happening anyway!)…”

…

Outgoing British Prime Minster Theresa May has leveled a thinly disguised swipe at Conservative Party front-runner Boris Johnson as she underscored the necessity of character in taking on the country’s top post.

May told the Daily Mail in an interview published Friday that the job of prime minister is not about power but about public service. Though she didn’t mention Johnson by name, he has made a career out of being the biggest personality in the room.

All too often, those who see it as a position of power see it as about themselves and not about the people they are serving,'' she said.There is a real difference.”

May stepped down from being Conservative Party leader after her failure to get Parliament to approve a plan for Britain’s departure from the European Union. Johnson and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt are in a runoff for that post, which will also make the winner Britain’s next prime minister. The runoff vote will be announced July 23.

May underscored she had done all she possibly could to try to get her Brexit deal approved and did nothing to conceal her frustration with the fact that some of her most strident opponents on Brexit are those now backing Johnson.

She added it’s unlikely that her successor will negotiate further Brexit concessions from the EU.

I had assumed mistakenly that the tough bit of the negotiation was with the EU, that Parliament would accept the vote of the British people and just want to get it done, that people who'd spent their lives campaigning for Brexit would vote to get us out on March 29 and May 27,'' she told the  Mail.But they didn’t.”

May, who will return to Parliament as a lawmaker, also took issue with those who chided her for becoming emotional as she announced her departure from the post.

If a male prime minister's voice had broken up, it would have been saidwhat great patriotism, they really love their country.” But if a female prime minister does it, it is `Why is she crying?”’ she said.

 

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When he resigned as defense secretary last December, Jim Mattis thought it might take two months to install a successor. That seemed terribly long at the time.

Seven months later, the U.S. still has no confirmed defense chief even with the nation facing potential armed conflict with Iran. That’s the longest such stretch in Pentagon history.

There is also no confirmed deputy defense secretary, and other significant senior civilian and military Pentagon positions are in limbo, more than at any recent time.

The causes are varied, but this leadership vacuum has nonetheless begun to make members of Congress and others uneasy, creating a sense that something is amiss in a critical arm of the government at a time of global uncertainty.

William Cohen, a former Republican senator who served as defense secretary during President Bill Clinton’s second term, says U.S. allies — “and even our foes” — expect more stability than this within the U.S. defense establishment.

“It is needlessly disruptive to have a leadership vacuum for so long at the Department of Defense as the department prepares for its third acting secretary in less than a year,” Cohen told The Associated Press. He said he worries about the cumulative effect of moving from one acting secretary to another while other key positions lack permanent officials.

“There will inevitably be increasing uncertainty regarding which officials have which authority, which undermines the very principle of civilian control of the military,” Cohen said. “In addition, other countries — both allies and adversaries — will have considerable doubt about the authority granted to an acting secretary of defense both because of the uncertainty of confirmation as well as the worry that even being a confirmed official does not seem to come with the needed sense of permanence or job security in this administration.”

Key members of Congress are concerned, too.

“We need Senate-confirmed leadership at the Pentagon, and quickly,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, said Thursday. The panel’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said the vacancy problem has created “disarray” in the government’s largest bureaucracy.

It started with Mattis, who quit in December after a series of policy disputes with President Donald Trump that culminated in his protest of administration plans to pull troops out of Syria as they battled remnants of the Islamic State.

At least outwardly, the Pentagon has managed to stay on track during this churn, and senior officials caution against concluding that the military has been harmed.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, whose chosen successor as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley, had his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, told reporters that military commanders understand what their civilian leaders expect of them.

“We’ll look forward to a confirmed secretary of defense in the near future, for sure, but I don’t think (the vacancies) had a significant impact over the last six months,” Dunford said Tuesday. “I don’t believe that there’s been any ambiguity across the force about what they need to be doing and why they need to be doing it.”

The day after Dunford spoke, trouble struck on another personnel front, potentially endangering the nomination of Air Force Gen. John Hyten to take over as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the incumbent, Gen. Paul Selva, retires July 31. The vice chairman is the nation’s second-highest military officer.

A senior military officer has accused Hyten of sexual misconduct. Members of Congress this week raised questions about the allegations and about the military investigation that found insufficient evidence to charge Hyten. It’s unclear when, or if, Hyten will get a confirmation hearing.

Just last Sunday, the Navy was hit with its own leadership crisis.

Adm. William Moran, who had already been confirmed by the Senate to become the top Navy officer on Aug. 1, abruptly announced he was retiring . He said he felt compelled to quit because of an investigation into his use of personal email and questions about the wisdom of his association with a retired Navy officer who had been accused of inappropriate conduct with women in 2016.

At Milley’s Senate hearing Thursday, he was asked repeatedly about the problem of multiple and lengthy vacancies in the higher ranks of the Pentagon. His responses suggested he sees at least the potential for it to cause damage.

“It would be much better to have the nominees fully vetted and confirmed because that gives us much more effectiveness in terms of dealing with our adversaries,” members of Congress and the American public, he said.

Mark Esper, who has been the acting secretary of defense since Mattis’ first fill-in, former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan, abruptly resigned in June , is scheduled to testify at his confirmation hearing next Tuesday. But even that comes with complications. He is required to step aside pending Senate confirmation, and Navy Secretary Richard Spencer will move into the role of acting defense secretary until Esper is approved. Spencer would then return to the Navy.

This tangled web is unlike anything the Pentagon has ever seen. Only twice previously has the Pentagon had an acting secretary; in the longest and most recent instance, the fill-in served for two months in 1989 during the George H.W. Bush administration. No administration has ever had two acting defense secretaries, let alone three.

John Hamre, who served as deputy defense secretary from 1997 to 2000, says much of the work in the Pentagon is based largely on a policy framework established by previous defense secretaries, and that work is not greatly affected by the absence of a confirmed secretary.

What can be hurt is coordination with the White House, “where an acting secretary is underpowered when sitting opposite a secretary of state, for example,” Hamre said. He added that defense policy innovation might be the area that suffers the most.

“This is where we will see the greatest impact by having only acting secretaries,” he said.

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Opposition lawmakers in Italy demanded Thursday to have Interior Minister Matteo Salvini appear in Parliament about allegations that a covert Russian oil sale scheme was devised to fund his pro-Moscow League party.

Democratic Party lawmakers pressed for a parliamentary inquiry following another media report with allegations that a former Salvini associate proposed an under-the-table arrangement to pump money into the right-wing party.

The alleged proposal for the multimillion-euro plan was made last year after the League became a partner in Italy’s populist coalition government and ahead of May’s European Parliament elections.

As he did when the allegations first surfaced earlier this year, Salvini shrugged off the latest version.

“Never took a ruble, a euro, a dollar or a liter of vodka of financing from Russia,” Salvini said after the BuzzFeed report was published Wednesday.

Salvini has openly admired Russian President Vladimir Putin and vigorously advocates an end to European Union economic sanctions on Russia.

The opposition lawmakers specifically want to question Salvini, the BuzzFeed journalist who reported the allegations, Italy’s ambassador to Moscow, and Russia’s ambassador to Rome.

They also want to hear from Gianluca Savoini, a League associate close to the Russians who allegedly championed the proposed deal.

Allegations

The BuzzFeed article about a Moscow meeting aimed at arranging such a deal in 2018 largely mirrored allegations that appeared months ago in Italian magazine L’Espresso.

BuzzFeed built on L’Espresso’s story, saying it had obtained an audio of the conversation about the purported deal among Italians and Russians at a Moscow hotel.

Both articles said the alleged deal would have involved a Russian energy company selling fuel to an Italian energy company. The fuel would be allegedly offered at a discount, with part of the difference purportedly going to the League’s coffers. 

Both L’Espresso and BuzzFeed stressed the reporters had no confirmation the deal was sealed or evidence that fuel was delivered or funds channeled to the League.  

Reaction from Salvini

Asked what role alleged middleman Savoini has in the League, Salvini replied brusquely, “I don’t know. Ask him. It’s ridiculous, all that I read in the papers.”

Milan daily Corriere della Sera quoted Savoini, in a text message exchange with the newspaper, as saying of the BuzzFeed account: “All conjecture! Nothing concrete because neither money nor funds ever came to the League from Russia. Never!”

The League is the junior partner in a populist coalition with the 5-Star Movement that had led the Italian government since June 2018.

Premier Giuseppe Conte told reporters he hadn’t listened to the audio linked to the BuzzFeed report but had faith in Salvini and welcomes any investigation.

The Italian news agency ANSA said that Milan-based prosecutors had started looking into possible international corruption after L’Espresso’s article in February.

Salvini contends sanctions against Russia unfairly hurt Italian exporters.

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France adopted a pioneering tax on internet giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook on Thursday, despite U.S. threats of new tariffs on French imports.

The final vote in favor of the tax in the French Senate came hours after the Trump administration announced an investigation into the tax under the provision used last year to probe China’s technology policies, which led to tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports.

”Between allies, we can, and we should, solve our differences without using threats,” Bruno Le Maire said. “France is a sovereign country. It will make its own sovereign decisions on fiscal measures.”

The tax amounts to a 3% annual levy on the French revenues of digital companies with yearly global sales worth more than 750 million euros ($844 million) and French revenue exceeding 25 million euros. The tax primarily targets those that use consumer data to sell online advertising.

”Each of us is seeing the emergence of economic giants with monopolistic attributes and who not only want to control a maximum amount of data and make money with this data, but also go further than that by, in the absence of rules, escaping taxes and putting into place instruments that could, tomorrow, become a sovereign currency,” Le Maire said.

The French Finance Ministry has estimated that the tax would raise about 500 million euros annually ($563 million) at first — but predicted fast growth.

The tech industry is warning that consumers could pay more. U.S. companies affected included Airbnb and Uber as well as those from China and Europe.

The bill aims to stop multinationals from avoiding taxes by setting up headquarters in low-tax EU countries. Currently, the companies pay nearly no tax in countries where they have large sales like France.

France failed to persuade EU partners to impose a Europe-wide tax on tech giants, but is now pushing for an international deal with the 34 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

”The internet industry is a great American export, supporting millions of jobs and businesses of all sizes. Global tax rules should be updated for the digital age — and there is a process to do so underway at the OECD — but discriminatory taxes against U.S. firms are not the right approach,” said Jordan Haas of the Internet Association, an industry trade group whose members include Facebook, Google and Uber.

Another U.S. trade group, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, also said the French proposal discriminated against American companies.

The U.S. investigation got bipartisan support from the top members of the Senate Finance Committee. In a joint statement, Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, committee chairman, and Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon said: “The digital services tax that France and other European countries are pursuing is clearly protectionist and unfairly targets American companies in a way that will cost U.S. jobs and harm American workers.”

Also on Thursday, Britain moved ahead with similar plans as the government published draft legislation for a “digital services tax.” Starting in April, search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces that “derive value from U.K. users” will be subject to a new 2% percent tax.

Small companies and unprofitable startups will also be spared in the British proposals. The levy will apply to companies with more than 500 million pounds ($626 million) in revenue, if more than 25 million pounds comes from British users.

The tax is temporary and would be replaced by a global deal, which Britain has also been pushing for through the OECD and the Group of 20 major economies.

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