Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.
U.S. border
A month after the start of a program forcing migrants to remain in Mexico while awaiting U.S. immigration hearings, the policy is stranding thousands, most of whom are from Central America. Hundreds are now being bused to Mexico’s southern Chiapas state, in what one Mexican immigration official described to VOA as a policy of “deportation in disguise.”
FILE – A handcuffed woman stares though the chain link fencing at Koch Foods Inc. in Morton, Miss., Aug. 7, 2019.
Raids’ long-term effects
After Wednesday’s raids in the six Mississippi towns where the poultry plants were located, community members said the effects of the roundups would be felt long term.
Migrant children attend school in a bus at the Mexican border city of Tijuana, just kilometers from the U.S. border. They sit in two neat lines and open their notebooks at desks that once served as passenger seats.
FILE – An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official gives direction to a person outside the building that houses ICE and the Atlanta Immigration Court, June 12, 2019.
Immigration court
The Trump administration launched a pilot program in 10 cities, from Baltimore to Los Angeles, aimed at fast-tracking court hearings and discouraging migrants from making the journey to seek refuge in the United States. Immigration lawyers, however, said the new timetable does not give their clients enough time to testify and get documents from abroad to bolster their claims.
July migration statistics
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan announced U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s enforcement actions for July, indicating more than a 20 percent decrease in U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions at the southwest border for the second month in a row.
U.S. President Donald Trump is renewing focus on mental illness as a major cause of gun violence, following two mass shootings in two days in the U.S. that killed 31 people. VOA’s Brian Padden reports that while Trump has called for more treatment and involuntary detention of mentally disturbed individuals, his administration has rolled back federal regulations to restrict the mentally ill from buying guns and has tried to abolish a health care law that expanded access to mental health services.
Climate change is about to hit the world in the stomach, according to the United Nations. A new scientific report from the world body that examines land degradation concludes that climate change will imperil crops and worsen hunger. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story.
Russia appears to be using one of its most powerful weapons — tourism — against Georgia, its smaller neighbor to the south. Moscow has banned direct flights between Russia and Georgia, after the latest wave of protests in Georgia against Russia’s occupation of two of its regions. Moscow has also called for its citizens to return home. That is meant to damage the Georgian economy, which is highly dependent on tourism. Ricardo Marquina reports from Tbilisi in this report narrated by Jim Randle.
Raging floods across Myanmar have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes in recent weeks, officials said Thursday, as monsoon rains pummel the nation.
Aerial images from Shwegyin township in Bago region showed how the area had become a vast lake of water.
Only the rooftops could be seen of many homes lining the Sittaung river.
Emergency services have been helping bring people to dry ground, many seeking shelter in local monasteries.
Others waded through waist-deep floodwaters or rowed on wooden boats with pets and any belongings they could take with them.
Than Aye, 42, who has diabetes and is partially-sighted, struggled to escape the deluge.
“I could not do anything when the flooding started but then the fire service came to rescue me by boat,” he told AFP from the safety of the monastery that has been his home for the last five days.
The most severe flooding is currently in eastern Bago region and Mon and Karen states, according to the social welfare ministry.
“There are currently over 30,000 people (across the country) displaced by floods,” said director general of disaster management Ko Ko Naing.
UN’s Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates around 89,000 people have been displaced in recent weeks, although many have since been able to return home.
Damascus on Thursday accused Turkey of “expansionist ambitions,” saying Ankara’s agreement with Washington to set up a so-called safe zone in northeastern Syria only helps such plans and is a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.
The statement by Syria’s Foreign Ministry comes a day after the U.S. and Turkey announced they’d agreed to form a coordination center to set up the safe zone. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the move, which is designed to address Ankara’s security concerns, was important.
The announcement of the deal may have averted for now a Turkish incursion into that part of Syria. Ankara seeks to push out U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters from the region as it considers them terrorists, allied with a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.
The Syrian Kurdish fighters were the main fighting force on the ground against Islamic State militants in the area, and Washington has been hard pressed to protect its partners.
Damascus said the Syrian Kurdish groups “bear historic responsibility” for the U.S-Turkey deal and urged them to drop “this aggressive U.S.-Turkish project” and align with the Syrian government instead.
Damascus has had no presence along the Turkish border since 2012, when Syrian rebels and Syrian Kurdish groups took control of different parts of the region.
After three days of talks in Ankara and repeated Turkish threats of a military incursion in northeast Syria, Turkish and U.S. officials agreed that the coordination center would be based in Turkey and would be set up “as soon as possible,” according to the Turkish defense ministry.
The ministry did not provide further details but said the sides had agreed that the safe zone would become a “corridor of peace” and that all additional measures would be taken to ensure the return of refugees to Syria.
Turkey has been pressing to control _ in coordination with the U.S. a 19-25 mile-deep zone within Syria, east of the Euphrates River, and wants no Syrian Kurdish forces there.
In its previous military incursions, Turkey entered northwestern Syria, expelling Islamic State militants and Syrian Kurdish fighters from the area and setting up Turkish military posts there, with allied Syrian opposition fighters in control. Turkish troops also man observation points that ring the last opposition stronghold in the northwest _ posts that are meant to uphold a now fraying cease-fire.
President Trump and his wife Melania were greeted by dozens of protesters when they traveled to Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas, Wednesday to visit the victims of last weekend’s mass shootings. Richard Green has the full story from Washington.
Greek search crews have found the body of a British scientist who went missing while on holiday on the Aegean island of Ikaria in a ravine near where she had been staying, authorities said Wednesday.
Police said the body of Cyprus-based astrophysicist Natalie Christopher, 34, was found in a 20-meter (65-foot) deep ravine. Christopher had been reported missing on Monday by her Cypriot partner with whom she was vacationing after she went for a morning run.
The cause of death was not immediately clear and authorities planned an autopsy.
Police, firefighters, volunteers and the coast guard had been scouring the area where Christopher had been staying during her vacation, which has paths along ravines and steep seaside cliffs. A specialized police unit with geolocation equipment was sent to the island to help in the search.
Cypriot authorities said they were in close contact with Greek search crews and the woman’s family.
“I express the sincere condolences of the Cypriot state and of myself to the family and friends of Natalie Christopher,” Cypriot Justice and Public Order Minister George Savvides said after being informed that the body had been identified.
They are seen as the shock troops of a burgeoning direct-action environmental movement. Earlier this year, members of Extinction Rebellion brought the center of London and some other major British towns to a standstill by barricading bridges, standing on top of trains, and blocking major thoroughfares and crossroads.
Extinction Rebellion (XR), a campaign of civil disobedience born in Britain and aiming to address a worldwide climate crisis, has been endorsed by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, the teenage poster child of environmentalism. XR has pledged to cause more disruption, arguing that governments are not doing enough to stop the “climate emergency.”
The group, which is spawning similar campaigns in the United States and Australia, says climate activists have no choice but to take matters into their own hands. It demands that governments prevent further biodiversity loss and commit to producing net-zero greenhouse gases by 2025. Otherwise, XR says, there will be a mass extinction of life forms on the planet within the lifetimes of the demonstrators themselves.
The group’s next target is next month’s star-studded London Fashion Week. Activists have promised to shut down the five-day runway event in a bid to raise awareness of the environmental damage caused by the fashion industry.
FILE – Extinction Rebellion climate activists raise a mast on their boat during a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Britain, July 15, 2019.
“We need to change our culture around consumption,” said climate activist Bel Jacobs. “People have no idea how environmentally destructive fashion is.”
Greenhouse gas emissions from making textiles was estimated at 1.2 billion tons of CO2-equivalent in 2015, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a British environmental charity.
‘Cultish nature’
XR’s actions have been applauded by many environmentalists, who say the only way to make governments, people and corporations sit up and take climate action is to shock them into it. But the radical philosophy underpinning the group, which includes wanting to set up citizens’ assemblies that could overrule parliament, is drawing increasing criticism from foes, who compare the group to a millenarian sect.
“The cultish nature of XR’s activities is a little spooky,” said Austin Williams, director of the Future Cities Project, a group that focuses on urban planning and futurist technological solutions.
Sympathizers acknowledge that XR hasn’t helped itself with some of the remarks made by its leaders. Co-founder Gail Bradbrook said her realization that humanity was on the brink of extinction came from taking huge doses of psychedelic drugs, which “rewired” her brain and gave her the “codes of social change.”
Roger Hallam, another co-founder, has said, “We are going to force the governments to act. And if they don’t, we will bring them down and create a democracy fit for purpose. And yes, some may die in the process.”
FILE – Police remove a climate change demonstrator during a march supported by Extinction Rebellion in London, Britain. May 24, 2019.
Hallam is not a scientist but has a track record as a political activist, and holds a Ph.D. on “digitally enhanced political resistance and empowerment strategies.”
BirthStrikers
Several leading XR adherents have announced they’ve decided not to procreate in response to the coming “climate breakdown and civilization collapse,” arguing the world is too horrible a place to bring children into it.
The BirthStrikers, as they are nicknamed, received some endorsement earlier this year from U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said the climate emergency “does lead young people to have a legitimate question — ‘Is it OK still to have children?'”
XR critics have compared the BirthStrikers to the Cathars, a medieval religious sect that encouraged celibacy and discouraged marriage on the grounds that every person born was just another poor soul trapped by the devil in a body.
Defections
XR has also seen defections. Sherrie Yeomans, coordinator of XR blockades in the English city of Bristol, left the group, saying, “I can no longer surround myself with the toxic, manipulative Extinction Rebellion cult.”
Johan Norberg, a Swedish author, historian and XR critic, worries that the group is fueling anxiety while not being practical about the possible solutions to global warming.
“I guess it depends on your definition of cult,” he said. “But I think it is a growing, but very radical, sentiment that I fear plays a part in giving people anxiety about their life choices, and also leads us to thinking about these things in the wrong way,” he told VOA.
On the BirthStrikers he said: “The bizarre thing is that they just think of another human being as a burden, a mouth to feed. But they also come along with a brain to think, and hands to work. I don’t know what scientific insight and which technology will save us from not just global warming but also the many other problems that will affect us — the next pandemic, natural disaster and so on — but I know that the chance that we’ll find it is greater if we have more people alive, who live longer lives than ever, get a longer education than ever, and are more free to make use of the accumulated knowledge and technology of mankind to take on those problems.”
FILE – Protesters from the group Extinction Rebellion walk to Hyde Park in London, April 25, 2019.
Norberg points to a future of “electric cars and, soon, planes,” and biofuels made from algae and extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere. He worries about the economic consequences if the abrupt zero-growth goals of XR were adopted.
“It would result in a reversal of the amazing economic development that has resulted in the fastest reduction of poverty in history. A lack of growth and international trade would result in human tragedies on a massive scale,” he said.
XR response
XR’s co-founders say Norberg’s formula won’t halt climate change and stop extinction. They defended themselves against critics’ cult charges, arguing recently in an article in a British newspaper, “We’ve made many mistakes, but now is the time for collective action, not recriminations.”
“Extinction Rebellion is humbly following in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King,” Hallam said. “After covering basic material needs, human beings are not made happier through consuming more stuff.”
Bradbrook told reporters in London, “We oppose a system that generates huge wealth through astonishing innovation but is fatally unable to distribute fairly and provide universal access to its spoils. … We need a ‘revolution’ in consciousness to overturn the system.”
Iran asked U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday to push back against the United States after it imposed sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, describing the move as a “dangerous precedent.”
In a letter to Guterres, Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi accused the United States of a “brazen violation of the fundamental principles of international law” and urged the international community to condemn the U.S. behavior.
“Coercing nations into complying with the United States’ illegal demands threatens multilateralism, as the foundation of international relations, and sets a dangerous precedent, paving the way for those who aspire to rather divide, not unite, nations,” he wrote.
FILE – Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi speaks to the media outside Security Council chambers at the U.N. headquarters in New York, June 24, 2019.
Ravanchi asked Guterres to “play your active role in preserving the integrity of the United Nations in line with your responsibility to counter the current dangerous trend.” However, it is not clear what Guterres could do in response to the Iranians.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric declined to comment on the letter. When asked about the U.S. sanctioning of Zarif, Guterres told reporters on Thursday: “When I ask for maximum restraint, I ask for maximum restraint at all levels.”
The U.S. sanctions imposed on Zarif last week would block any property or interests he has in the United States, but the foreign minister said he had none.
“The illegal imposition of sanctions on the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran also violates the principle of sovereign equality of States,” Ravanchi said.
Increasing tensions
Longtime U.S.-Iran strains have worsened since U.S. President Donald Trump last year quit a 2015 international agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. Zarif was a critical figure in the nuclear deal.
The United States also imposed unusually tight travel restrictions on Zarif when he visited New York last month to speak at a U.N. meeting. He was only able to travel between the United Nations, the Iranian U.N. mission, the Iranian U.N. ambassador’s residence and John F. Kennedy airport.
The sanctions on Zarif were imposed two weeks after he visited New York. Zarif posted on Twitter on Monday that he believed the United States was not interested in talks with Tehran and instead wanted Iran’s submission.
The last time Samuel Botros stepped into the Lebanese monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya was in 1978. He was 24, newly married, and the country was in the grip of an all-out war. Like many of his generation, he left. It took him 41 years to return.
The 1975-90 civil war may be over in Lebanon, but conflicts in nearby countries like Iraq and Syria have devastated entire communities where Christians once lived alongside Muslims. That has triggered an exodus among people of both faiths, especially among minority sects — like Botros’ Syriac Orthodox community whose roots are in early Christianity.
The monastery, which is nestled in a remote valley in the northern Lebanese mountains and dates from the fourth century, is a meeting place for Christians who have fled conflict.
FILE – The Monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya is nestled in the heart of the Qadisha valley, in Zgharta district, Lebanon, April 26, 2007.
“It is the war that did this to us. It is the wars that continue to leave behind destruction and force people to leave,” said Botros, visiting the monastery as part of a gathering of his community’s scout group — their first in the region since the 1950s.
The scout group’s roughly 150 members include people living in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and further afield. Lebanon was the only country where they could all meet easily and safely, Botros said.
In Iraq, years of conflict, most recently with Islamic State, erased much of the Christian heritage in ancient cities like Mosul and Sinjar in the north. In Syria’s civil war, some of the oldest churches in Aleppo, Homs and other cities were damaged.
Botros, now 65, is about to retire in Sweden where he made his home years ago. He is father and grandfather to children who know Lebanon only through photos.
“I would like them to visit so that when I pass, there is something to pull them back,” he said.
Ancient sanctuary
On Sundays and public holidays, the monastery’s small church, with the bell tower and facade, etched into the cliffs is full of people huddled in the pews or standing at the back of the vaulted interior.
FILE – A nun looks on as people visit the Monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya in the heart of the Qadisha valley, in Zgharta district, Lebanon, June 23, 2019.
Its patron is Saint Anthony, a monk who is believed to have lived in rural Egypt in the fourth or fifth century.
“This place has always been a shrine … we don’t even know when it started. Even when there was no development … people still came,” said Father Fadi Imad, the priest who gives sermons.
Qozhaya lies within a valley known as the Valley of Saints, or Qannoubine in ancient Syriac, part of a wider valley network called Qadisha that has a long history as a refuge for monks. At one time, Qadisha was home to hundreds of hermitages, churches, caves and monasteries. The monastery of Saint Anthony is the last surviving one.
It was an early home for Lebanon’s Christian Maronites, the first followers of the Roman Catholic church in the East.
The Maronites and sometimes the Druze, a Muslim sect, sought the sanctuary of the mountains away from the political and religious dynasties of the times with whom they did not always agree, Father Imad said.
“The inhabitants of this mountain … and they were not only Christians, came here because they were persecuted and weak,” he said.
“Qozhaya holds in its heart 1,600 years of history and it doesn’t belong to anyone, church or faith, … it belongs to the homeland,” he said.
‘I will never forget’
The monastery is surrounded by forests of pine and cedar and orchards that can only be reached via a narrow, winding road.
Its grounds include a cave where visitors light candles, a museum housing the Middle East’s oldest printing press in ancient Syriac and halls for resident priests.
FILE – The Monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya sits in the heart of the Qadisha valley, in Zgharta district, Lebanon, June 23, 2019.
Visitors nowadays include foreign and Arab tourists and local residents including Muslims who sometimes come to ask for a blessing.
Father Imad said the monastery was the safest it had been in its history despite being surrounded by countries at war or suffering its aftermath.
“No one is telling us that they are coming to kill us anymore … at least in Lebanon,” he said.
Before he left, Botros and his fellows stood for a final photo outside the building with the valley behind. With their flags and scarves around their necks, they smiled and cheered as the bells rang.
“What I have seen today I will never forget for as long as I live,” Botros said. “No matter how long it takes, the son always returns to the mother.”
The National Basketball Association on Tuesday said that Amazon.com’s Twitch would be its exclusive digital partner for streaming USA Basketball games globally through 2020.
Twitch — best known as a platform for video game players to interact and stream their own competitions — will also exclusively stream up to 76 boys and girls youth basketball games during the Jr. NBA Global Championship, which begins Tuesday, the league said.
USA Basketball is the governing body of American basketball and fields men’s and women’s teams for international competitions, including this year’s International Basketball Federation (FIBA) World Cup in China starting Aug. 31 and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. NBA handles media and marketing partnerships for the organization.
The deals will add to the growing library of live sporting content on Twitch, which streams the NFL’s Thursday Night Football, as does Amazon Prime.
They will also allow the NBA to keep experimenting with digital partnerships as more fans dump traditional cable subscriptions.
Some purely digital media subscription services — like Amazon Prime and London-based newcomer DAZN — have drawn viewers, as have ESPN and other networks that have started their own direct-to-consumer products.
Leagues themselves now also stream some games on their own websites, in this case on NBA.com.
Extra content
Even so, leagues still view linear television networks as valuable partners because of their high production capabilities and the huge audiences they continue to capture for big events.
The NBA’s main media rights are tied up with Walt Disney Co’s ESPN and ABC, as well as TNT, a unit of AT&T Inc’s WarnerMedia, through the 2025 season.
That has left the league carving out other rights in order to try out new kinds of content and partnerships.
As part of Tuesday’s deals, Twitch and USA Basketball will develop extra content around each event, including the USA Men’s National Team, certain 3×3 events and USA Women’s National team friendly games, training camps and the 2020 Nike Hoop Summit, the NBA said.
Twitch has already been streaming matches from the NBA’s minor league organization, the G League, as well as its NBA 2K videogame matches. Financial terms of Tuesday’s agreements were not disclosed.
China says it will take “countermeasures” if the United States deploys ground-based intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region.
Fu Cong, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s arms control division, told reporters Tuesday that Beijing “will not stand idly by” if Washington follows through on a pledge made last weekend by new Defense Secretary Mark Esper to deploy the missiles in the region “sooner rather than later,” preferably within months.
He urged China’s neighbors, specifically Japan, South Korea and Australia, to “exercise prudence” by refusing to deploy the U.S. missiles, adding that it would serve those countries national security interests.
Fu did not specify what countermeasures China would take, but said “everything is on the table.”
Secretary Esper’s stated goal to deploy ground-based missiles in the region came after the Trump administration formally pulled the U.S. out of the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty last week. The pact, reached with the former Soviet Union, bans ground-based nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles with a range between 500-5,000 kilometers. Washington said it withdrew from the INF because of continued violations by Moscow.
Fu said China had no interest in taking part in trilateral talks with the United States and Russia due to the “huge gap” in the size of China’s nuclear arsenal compared to the other two nations.
Chinese companies have stopped buying U.S. agricultural products, China’s Commerce Ministry said on Tuesday, a blow to U.S. farmers who have already seen their exports slashed by the more than year-old trade war.
China may impose additional tariffs on U.S. farm products bought shortly before the purchase ban took effect, China’s Commerce Ministry said. China also let the yuan weaken past the key 7-per-dollar level on Monday for the first time in more than a decade.
Before the trade war started, China bought $19.5 billion worth of farm goods in 2017, mainly soybeans, dairy, sorghum and pork. The trade war reduced those sales to $9.1 billion in 2018, according to the American Farm Bureau.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement it hoped the United States would keep its promises and create the “necessary conditions” for bilateral cooperation.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Beijing had not fulfilled a promise to buy large volumes of U.S. farm products and vowed to impose new tariffs on around $300 billion of Chinese goods, abruptly ending a truce in the Sino-U.S. trade war.
Earlier, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported an official from China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) as saying Trump’s accusations were “groundless.”
China is the world’s top buyer of soybeans, the most valuable U.S. export crop. The Trump administration has announced plans to spend up to $28 billion compensating U.S. farmers, a key Trump constituency, for lost income from trade disputes.
American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall called the announcement “a body blow to thousands of farmers and ranchers who are already struggling to get by.”
In this June 25, 2019, photo, farmer Matthew Keller walks through one of his pig barns near Kenyon, Minn. When the Trump administration announced a $12 billion aid package for farmers struggling under the financial strain of his trade.
The National Pork Producers Council said in an email it was important to end the trade war so pork producers could “more fully participate in a historic sales opportunity.”
Farmers can start applying for the next round of trade aid this month, but trade uncertainty makes long-term planning difficult.
“We’ve been thankful for the aid payments. They have helped but we’d rather have open markets because it creates stability in our financial sectors,” said Derek Sawyer, 39, a corn, soybean, wheat and cattle farm from McPherson, Kansas. “There’s just so much volatility right now because nobody knows the rules of the game and nobody knows how to look at things going forward.”
China is buying more soybeans from Brazil. Its overall need for soybeans used to feed livestock has fallen as African Swine Fever kills millions of pigs. U.S. meat exporters had hoped to take advantage of the disease to export more pork to China but 62% retaliatory tariffs have limited exports.
Overall, China has purchased about 14.3 million tons of last season’s soybean crop, the least in 11 years, and some 3.7 million tons still need to be shipped, according to U.S. data.
China bought 32.9 million tons of U.S. soybeans in 2017, before the trade war.
China applied a 25% tariff on soybeans in July of last year in response to U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.
China is honoring agreements signed earlier to import U.S. soybeans, according to Cong Liang, secretary general of China’s NDRC, CCTV reported. The report said that 2.27 million tons of U.S. soybeans had been loaded and shipped to China in July, since Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Osaka at the G20 summit at the end of June.
FILE – A grain salesman shows locally grown soybeans in Ohio, April 5, 2018.
China bought 130,000 tons of soybeans, 120,000 tons of sorghum, 60,000 tons of wheat, 40,000 tons of pork and products, and 25,000 tons of cotton from the United States between July 19 and Aug. 2, Cong said according to the report.
Weekly U.S. data on Aug. 1 confirmed the first new U.S. soybean sale to China since June, of 68,000 tons from the crop that will be harvested this fall. Additional sales through Aug. 1 could be recorded in the next U.S. government export sales report on Thursday.
Two million tons of U.S. soybeans destined for China will be loaded in August, followed by another 300,000 tons in September, Cong said.
However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Monday less than 600,000 tons of soybeans were inspected for export to China the week ended Aug. 1, fewer than the previous week.
The escalating trade tensions between the United States and China that sent U.S. stock prices plunging Monday continued to reverberate around the globe as Asian stock prices opened sharply lower at the start of Tuesday’s trading session.
Both Japan’s benchmark Nikkei and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng indexes both opened less than two percent at the opening bell, while China’s benchmark Shanghai index dropped more than 1.5 percent at the start. Australia and South Korea also posted sharp losses in their early morning trading.
Tuesday’s sell-offs in Asia came hours after Wall Street posted its worst losses of the year, with the S&P 500 index losing three percent on Monday, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 3.5 percent and Dow Jones losing nearly three percent. The selloff was triggered by Beijing’s decision to allow its currency to fall to weaken to its lowest point in 11 years, triggering an angry response by U.S. President Donald Trump on Twitter, accusing China of manipulating its currency.
China’s move to devalue its currency gives its exporters a price edge in world markets.
Hours later, the U.S. Treasury Department officially designated China a currency manipulator.
The months-long trade war between the world’s two biggest economies worsened last week when President Trump announced plans to impose a 10 percent increase of tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. worth $300 billion. China has retaliated by ending all new purchases of agricultural products from the United States.
High school classmates of the gunman who killed nine people early Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, say he was suspended for compiling a “hit list” of those he wanted to kill and a “rape list” of girls he wanted to sexually assault.
The accounts by two former classmates emerged after police said there was nothing in the background of 24-year-old Connor Betts that would have prevented him from purchasing the .223-caliber rifle with extended ammunition magazines that he used to open fire outside a crowded bar. Police on patrol in the entertainment district fatally shot him less than a minute later.
Both former classmates told The Associated Press that Betts was suspended during their junior year at suburban Bellbrook High School after a hit list was found scrawled in a school bathroom. That followed an earlier suspension after Betts came to school with a list of female students he wanted to sexually assault, according to the two classmates, a man and a woman who are both now 24 and spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern they might face harassment.
“There was a kill list and a rape list, and my name was on the rape list,” said the female classmate.
This undated photo provided Dayton Police shows Connor Betts. In mask and body armor, the 24-year-old opened fire early Sunday, Aug. 4, 2019, in an entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, killing several people, including his sister, officials said.
A former cheerleader, the woman said she didn’t really know Betts and was surprised when a police officer called her cellphone during her freshman year to tell her that her name was included on a list of potential targets.
“The officer said he wouldn’t be at school for a while,” she said. “But after some time passed he was back, walking the halls. They didn’t give us any warning that he was returning to school.”
Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Schools officials declined to comment on those accounts, only confirming that Betts attended schools in the district.
The discovery of the hit list early in 2012 sparked a police investigation, and roughly one-third of Bellbrook students skipped school out of fear, according to an article in the Dayton Daily News.
It’s not clear what became of that investigation. Chief Michael Brown in Sugarcreek Township, which has jurisdiction over the Bellbrook school, did not return calls Sunday about whether his agency investigated the hit list.
Though Betts, who was 17 at the time, was not named publicly by authorities at the time as the author of the list, the former classmates said it was common knowledge within the school he was the one suspended over the incident.
Drew Gainey was among those who went on social media Sunday to say red flags were raised about Betts’ behavior years ago.
“There was an incident in high school with this shooter that should have prevented him from ever getting his hands on a weapon. This was a tragedy that was 100% avoidable,” he wrote on in a Twitter post on Sunday.
Gainey did not respond to messages from AP seeking further comment, but the name on his account matches that of a former Bellbrook student who was on the track team with Betts.
Former Bellbrook Principal Chris Baker said he “would not dispute that information” when the Daily News asked him Sunday about the hit list suspension. He declined to comment further to the newspaper and the AP was unable to reach him.
Betts had no apparent criminal record as an adult, though if he had been charged as a juvenile that would typically be sealed under state law.
“There’s nothing in this individual’s record that would have precluded him from getting these weapons,” Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl said Sunday.
Not everyone who went to school with Betts had bad things to say. Brad Howard told reporters in Bellbrook on Sunday that he was friends with Betts from preschool through their high school graduation.
“Connor Betts that I knew was a nice kid. The Connor Betts that I talked to, I always got along with well,” Howard said.
Mike Kern, a customer at the gas station where Betts used to work in Bellbrook, said he hasn’t seen Betts in about a year.
“He was the nicest kid you could imagine,” always friendly, Kern said. “I never heard him talk about violence, say a racist word, or anything like that.”
He said they sometimes played trivia at a bar near the gas station, and Betts often knew the answers on questions about current events and pop culture.
“He was real smart,” Kern said. “He knew all the answers.”
China allowed its yuan to fall below the politically sensitive level of seven to the U.S. dollar on Monday for the first time in 11 years, prompting concern Beijing might use devaluation as a weapon in a tariff war with Washington.
The central bank blamed the exchange rate’s decline on “trade protectionism.” That followed President Donald Trump’s threat last week of more tariff hikes on Chinese goods in a bruising fight over Beijing’s trade surplus and technology policies.
The currency weakened to 7.0391 to the dollar by late afternoon, making one yuan worth 14.2 cents, its lowest level since February 2008.
“The thought of a currency war is crossing more than a few traders’ minds,” Stephen Innes of VM Markets said in a report.
The weakness of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, or “people’s money,” is among U.S. grievances against Beijing. American officials complain it makes Chinese export prices unfairly low, hurting foreign competitors and swelling Beijing’s trade surplus.
China’s central bank sets the exchange rate each morning and allows the yuan to fluctuate by 2% against the dollar during the day. The central bank can buy or sell currency or order commercial banks to do so to dampen price movements.
It appears “the currency is now also considered part of the arsenal to be drawn upon,” Robert Carnell of ING said in a report. He said Monday’s move might be part of “a concerted series of steps aimed at pushing back at the latest U.S. tariffs.”
The level of seven yuan to the dollar has no economic significance, but could revive U.S. attention to the exchange rate.
Until now, economists said the potential jolt to financial markets of falling beyond that level was big enough that the People’s Bank of China would step in to put a floor under the currency.
A central bank statement Monday blamed “unilateralism and trade protectionism measures,” a reference to Trump’s tariff hikes. But it tried to play down the significance of “breaking seven.”
“It is normal to rise and fall,” the statement said. It promised to “maintain stable operation of the foreign exchange market.”
Chinese leaders have promised to avoid “competitive devaluation” to boost exports by making them less expensive abroad _ a pledge the central bank governor, Yi Gang, affirmed in March. But regulators are trying to make the state-controlled exchange rate more responsive to market forces, which are pushing the yuan lower.
Trump’s tariff hikes have put downward pressure on the yuan by fueling fears economic growth might weaken.
The U.S. Treasury Department declined in May to label China a currency manipulator but said it was closely watching Beijing.
The yuan has lost 5% since hitting a high in February of 6.6862 to the dollar.
That helps exporters cope with tariffs of up to 25% imposed by Trump on billions of dollars of Chinese goods. But it raises the risk of inflaming American complaints.
Trump rattled financial markets Thursday by announcing plans for 10% tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods, effective Sept. 1. That would extend penalty duties to almost all U.S. imports from China.
The Treasury report in May urged Beijing to take steps “to avoid a persistently weak currency.”
A weaker yuan also might disrupt Chinese efforts to shore up cooling economic growth. It would raise borrowing costs by encouraging an outflow of capital from the world’s second-largest economy.
Globally, a weaker yuan might lead to more volatility in currency markets and pressure for the dollar to strengthen, Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics said in a report. That would be “unwelcome in Washington,” where Trump has threatened to weaken the dollar to boost exports.
A weaker dollar “would be bad news” for Europe and Japan, hurting demand for their exports at a time of cooling economic growth, Kuijs said.
The Chinese central bank tried to discourage speculation last August by imposing a requirement that traders post deposits for contracts to buy or sell yuan. That allows trading to continue but raises the cost.
Beijing imposed similar controls in October 2015 after a change in the exchange rate mechanism prompted markets to bet the yuan would fall. The currency temporarily steadied but fell the following year.
South Korea’s president on Monday described the country’s escalating trade war with Japan as a wake-up call to revamp its economy and issued a nationalistic call for economic cooperation with North Korea, which he said would allow the Koreas to erase Japan’s economic superiority in “one burst.”
President Moon Jae-in’s comments were made during a meeting with senior aides to discuss Japan’s imposing of trade curbs on South Korea. They came as a surprise as North Korea has raised tensions in recent weeks with tests of new short-range weapons that experts say pose a serious threat to the South Korea’s security.
“The advantage Japan’s economy has over us is the size of its [overall] economy and domestic market. If the South and North could create a peace economy through economic cooperation, we can catch up with Japan’s superiority in one burst,” Moon said during the meeting at Seoul’s presidential Blue House.
“Japan absolutely cannot prevent our economy from taking a leap. Rather, [Japan] will serve as a stimulant that strengthens our determination to become an economic power,” he said.
Some analysts say Moon is getting desperate to find any leverage against Japan, which for decades has maintained a huge trade surplus with South Korea, and they question whether there could be any possible way for Seoul to use inter-Korean relations to boost its position against Tokyo.
Even if inter-Korean economic cooperation is fully resumed after quick progress in nuclear diplomacy — a possibility that looks increasingly unlikely — rebuilding the North’s dismal economy following decades of isolation and policy blunders could be a long and excruciating process.
Moon has described Japan’s moves to downgrade South Korea’s trade status and tighten controls on exports to South Korean manufacturers as a deliberate attempt to damage his country’s export-dependent economy. He has accused Tokyo of weaponizing trade to retaliate over political disputes surrounding the countries’ bitter wartime history.
Tokyo says its measures are based on national security concerns and, without providing specific evidence, has questioned the credibility of South Korea’s export controls on sensitive products. Japanese officials have also claimed that South Korea could not be trusted to faithfully implement sanctions against North Korea and suggested that the South may have allowed sensitive materials to reach the North.
North Korea and Japan didn’t immediately respond to Moon’s comments. The North has been demanding that Seoul turn away from Washington and restart inter-Korean economic projects held back by U.S.-led sanctions against the North. The U.S. has said the sanctions should stay in place until the North takes concrete steps to relinquish its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
The North has significantly reduced its diplomatic activity with the South amid a stalemate in the larger nuclear negotiations with the U.S. It has been ramping up its weapons tests, including two test firings of what it described as a new rocket artillery system last week, while expressing frustration over the slow pace of diplomacy and the continuance of U.S.-South Korea military drills that it sees as an invasion rehearsal.
Choi Kang, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said Moon’s comments Monday could create friction with Washington and also send a wrong message to North Korea, which may think that its brinkmanship is working and push further to increase pressure on Seoul.
He said Moon’s comments are “a confession that Seoul doesn’t have many cards in its hands.”
He said it was unclear whether Moon’s suggestion that he could create a breakthrough in the trade row with Japan through inter-Korean relations was be realistic.
Choi also said Moon’s words would strengthen views that the trade dispute between South Korea and Japan may signal a larger geopolitical divergence between the U.S. allies over North Korea and other security issues. He said that may complicate Washington’s efforts to maintain cooperation to deal with the North’s nuclear threat and counter the regional influence of China.
Moon met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times last year and the leaders agreed to resume economic cooperation when possible, voicing optimism that international sanctions could end to allow such activity. But the inter-Korean peace process has halted since the collapse of a nuclear summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in February over disagreements in exchanging sanctions relief and disarmament.
Earlier on Monday, South Korea said it plans to spend 7.8 trillion won ($6.5 billion) over the next seven years to develop technologies for industrial materials and parts as it moves to reduce its dependence on imports. The government will also financially support South Korean companies in mergers and acquisitions of foreign companies and expand tax benefits to lure more international investment, while easing labor and environmental regulations so that local companies could boost their production, the country’s trade ministry said.
South Korea’s plans are aimed at stabilizing the supply of 100 key materials and parts in semiconductors, display screens, automobiles and other major export sectors, where its companies have heavily relied on Japanese imports to produce finished products.
On Friday, Japan’s Cabinet approved the removal of South Korea from a list of countries with preferential trade status, which would require Japanese companies to apply for case-by-case approvals for exports to South Korea of hundreds of items deemed sensitive.
The decision followed a July measure to strengthen controls on certain technology exports to South Korean companies that rely on Japanese materials to produce computer chips and displays used in smartphones and TVs, which are key South Korean export products.
South Korean officials have vowed retaliation, including taking Japan off its own “whitelist” of nations receiving preferential treatment in trade. Moon’s office said it will also consider ending its military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan as part of its countermeasures, saying it could be difficult to share sensitive information considering the deterioration of trust between the countries.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has slammed China’s “destabilizing” actions in the Indo-Pacific region during his first trip to the region.
Speaking to reporters in Sydney with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and their Australian counterparts, Esper said the United States is “firmly against a disturbing pattern of aggressive behavior, destabilizing behavior from China.”
Esper and Pompeo pointed to Beijing’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea and accused it of promoting the state-sponsored theft of other nation’s intellectual property, and “predatory economics.”
The last was an apparent reference to so-called “debt traps” like a 2017 arrangement that gave China control of a port in Sri Lanka. After failing to keep up with its debt payments to China, Sri Lanka handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land to the Chinese government for 99 years.
China has arguably undertaken the largest transfer of intellectual property in human history, according to Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Bowman told VOA that intellectual property stolen by Beijing has been used to modernize Chinese weapons which, in the event of a future military conflict, would be used to kill Americans and their allies.
“The United States will not stand by idly while any one nation attempts to reshape the region to its favor at the expense of others,” Esper said.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, listens as Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne makes a point during a press conference following annual bilateral talks in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 4, 2019.
Pompeo said Sunday the United States was not asking nations to “choose” between the U.S. and China.
However, allies in the region have grown increasingly worried amid increasing economic and military tensions between China and the United States.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne praised the strong “mateship” between the United States and Australia, but added that China is also a vitally important partner for her country.
“It’s in no one’s interest for the Indo-Pacific to become more competitive or adversarial in character,” she said.
Southeast Asian nations grappled with the prospect of choosing sides in June during the annual Shangri-la Dialogue defense forum in Singapore. The question loomed so large that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned of smaller countries being “forced” to take sides.
In 13 hours of carnage in the United States, two shooters in separate incidents killed 29 people and injured dozens, leaving authorities searching for motives behind the mayhem.
A gunman wearing body armor and carrying extra magazines of ammunition was shot to death by police less than a minute after he opened fire early Sunday in a popular nightlife area in the Midwest city of Dayton, Ohio. The man killed nine people including his own sister and injured at least 27, four of them seriously.
Law enforcement officers work the scene of a shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas, Aug. 3, 2019.
Police said they believe there was only one shooter in the incident, but have yet to suggest a motive. News accounts identified the shooter as 24-year-old Connor Betts, who identifies himself on social media as a psychology student at a community college in the Dayton area.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said the quick response by police “saved literally hundreds of lives” in the crowded Oregon district of the city filled with bars, restaurants and theaters.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley speaks during a news conference regarding a mass shooting earlier in the morning, Aug. 4, 2019, in Dayton, Ohio.
She said the gunman was carrying a .223-caliber semi-automatic weapon, the same-sized weapon a gunman employed in the one of the most horrific mass shootings in the U.S. in recent years, the assault in which 20 school children and six adults were killed in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.
The Ohio bloodshed occurred about 13 hours after police in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, Texas, say a gunman opened fired at a Walmart store, killing at least 20 people and wounding 26 — an attack authorities say they are investigating as a possible hate crime targeting Hispanics.
The El Paso and Dayton incidents are the nation’s 21st and 22nd mass killing incidents this year, according to a database compiled by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. The archive defines a mass killing as four or more people shot dead, excluding the gunman, at one location. A separate database counts more than 250 incidents this year in which four or more people have been killed or wounded.
The latest incidents occurred a week after a gunman killed three at a food festival in California and followed the killing of 58 at a country music festival in 2017 in California, 49 at an Orlando, Fla., night club in 2016 and 25 at a Texas church in 2017.
Bodies are removed from at the scene of a mass shooting, Aug. 4, 2019, in Dayton, Ohio.
U.S. authorities occasionally try to figure out ways to stop the slaughter of innocents in a country where gun ownership is enshrined as a constitutional right. Some lawmakers have attempted to curb gun ownership or stiffen the regulations surrounding gun sales, but have generally been rebuffed by other lawmakers opposed to new restrictions.
After the Dayton attack, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said he was angered that state and national lawmakers won’t approve more gun controls, saying politicians’ “thoughts and prayers are not enough” of a response to mass killings.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday on Twitter, “The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio. Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton. Much has already be learned in El Paso. Law enforcement was very rapid in both instances. Updates will be given throughout the day!”
The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio. Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton. Much has already be learned in El Paso. Law enforcement was very rapid in both instances. Updates will be given throughout the day!
Several Democratic presidential candidates — Sens. Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke — blamed Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric for fostering a climate of hate leading to the El Paso shooting.
“Donald Trump is responsible for this,” Booker told CNN. “He is responsible because he is stoking fears and hatred and bigotry.”
But acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney rejected any attempt to blame Trump.
“I blame the people who are sick,” Mulvaney told NBC’s Meet the Press interview show. “People are going to hear what they want to hear,” but added: “This was a political motive by a crazy person.”
In El Paso, police chief Greg Allen said police are seeking to confirm that the 21-year-old white male suspect now in custody was the author of an online posting predicting a shooting spree intended to target Hispanics.
Sgt. Robert Gomez of the El Paso, Texas, police briefs reporters on a shooting that occurred at a Walmart near Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Aug. 3, 2019.
The suspect was identified by police as Patrick Crusius, who lived in the Dallas area, hundreds of kilometers away from El Paso.
The post appeared online about an hour before the shooting and included language that complained about the “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. The author of the manifesto wrote that he expected to be killed during the attack.
The writer of the manifesto denied that he was a white supremacist, but decried “race mixing” in the United States, calling instead for territorial enclaves separated by race. The first sentence of the document expressed support for the man accused of killing 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, after he had posted his own conspiracy theory that non-white migrants were replacing whites.
Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said in a statement that in El Paso, “This vile act of terrorism against Hispanic Americans was inspired by divisive racial and ethnic rhetoric and enabled by weapons of war. The language in the shooter’s manifesto is consistent with President Donald Trump’s description of Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.'”
Cielo Vista Mall. El Paso, Texas
Castro, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said, “Today’s shooting is a stark reminder of the dangers of such rhetoric.”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were killed in the shooting and six Mexicans were wounded.
Trump said Saturday that he and first lady Melania Trump “send our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the great people of Texas.”
He also tweeted: “Today’s shooting in El Paso, Texas was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice. I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people.”
Police began receiving calls about 10:39 a.m. local time with multiple reports of a shooting at Walmart and the nearby Cielo Vista Mall complex on the east side of the city.
Shoppers exit with their hands up after a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Aug. 3, 2019.
Sgt. Robert Gomez, a spokesman with the El Paso Police Department, said most of the shootings occurred at the Walmart, where there were more than 1,000 shoppers and 100 employees. Many families were taking advantage of a sales-tax holiday to shop for back-to-school supplies, officials said.
“This is unprecedented in El Paso,” Gomez said of the mass shooting.
Gomez said an assault-style rifle was used in the shooting.
El Paso, a city of about 680,000 people in western Texas, shares the border with Juarez, Mexico.
