The late U.S. congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis returned to Washington on Monday, taking a final journey past several civil rights landmarks before his casket was taken to the Capitol, where it will lie in state for officials and the public to pay their last respects. Lewis died last week at the age of 80 after a yearlong battle with advanced-stage pancreatic cancer.His casket is being brought to the building where he served the people of his Georgia district for 33 years.  After flying into Joint Base Andrews in Maryland outside Washington, Lewis’ casket was loaded into a hearse and taken into the city via motorcade led by motorcycle police.  The motorcade took a circuitous route through the city, with a slow pass by the Lincoln Memorial where, in 1963, Lewis had been the youngest speaker during the Martin Luther King-led March on Washington. The motorcade then drove by the memorial honoring King, on the tidal basin just off the National Mall. A hearse with the flag-draped casket of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., pauses in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on way to the Capitol, July 27, 2020.Next, the motorcade wound across the Mall, past the White House and onto the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza, where the civil rights icon made his last public appearance in early June. Lewis, who was diagnosed in late December with pancreatic cancer, died July 17. From there, the motorcade worked its way back to the Mall for a pass by the African American Museum, where Lewis is remembered among other civil rights activists.  From there, the motorcade eventually arrived at the Capitol where Lewis’ casket was greeted by a host of high-profile political leaders for an arrival ceremony in the Capitol’s Rotunda. Inside the capitol, public officials, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, are expected to pay their respects.  The general public has been prohibited from entering the Capitol complex since mid-March, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so Lewis’ casket will be positioned at the top of the center steps of the Capitol, just outside the Rotunda. The flag-draped casket of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a key figure in the civil rights movement and a 17-term congressman, lies in state at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., July 27, 2020.Later Monday, people would be able to walk up to the bottom of those steps to pay tribute to Lewis, with social distancing and mask-wearing requirements in place.  Lewis will be the second Black lawmaker to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. Congressman Elijah Cummings, who died last year, was the first.The public will be able to pay their respects to Lewis all day Tuesday, before his body is flown to Atlanta to lie in state Wednesday in the Georgia Capitol. A funeral will be held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the historically black church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached. He will be laid to rest in Atlanta’s South View Cemetery.Prior to returning to Washington, Lewis lay in state Sunday in Montgomery, Alabama, to give the people of his home state a final chance to pay their last respects.Lewis’ body arrived at the Alabama Capitol shortly after a horse-drawn caisson brought his flag-draped casket across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the same bridge where police beat him and other civil rights marchers when they tried to cross it during a walk to Montgomery in 1965. That day became known as “Bloody Sunday.”That day was known as “Bloody Sunday.” No one at the bridge 55 years ago would imagine that one day, a Black man would cross that same bridge in honor, with flags across the state flown at half-staff as a sign of respect for him and all he fought to achieve.FILE – An image of the late Georgia Congressman and civil rights pioneer U.S. Rep. John Lewis is projected on to the pedestal of the statue of confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., July 22, 2020.Sunday was the second day of nearly a week of memorials and remembrances for Lewis.Lewis rose to fame as a leader of the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1960s. At 23, he worked closely with King and was the last surviving speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.The civil rights movement led Lewis into a career in politics. He was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981 and to Congress in 1986, calling the latter victory “the honor of a lifetime.” He served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district.
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Ціна золота 27 липня оновила історичний максимум, установлений у 2011 році. Станом на 16:30 за київським часом ціна серпневого ф’ючерсу на золото на нью-йоркській біржі Comex сягнула понад 1934 долари за унцію, але впродовж дня ціна піднімалася ще вище – понад 1944 долари за унцію.

Як пише AFP, попередній абсолютний рекорд був установлений у вересні 2011 року, коли унція золота коштувала близько 1921 долара.

Золото дорожчає на тлі пандемії коронавірусної інфекції. Інвестори вкладають у золото свої гроші, оскільки вважають його безпечним активом, пояснює Bloomberg.
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Chinese scholars have had scores of reports published in internationally recognized scientific journals containing a mention of their country’s ‘nine-dash line,’ the core of its claim to the hotly contested South China Sea, an American research institution said this month.China is using the journal pieces to promote its claimed demarcation line, Vietnamese scholar Nguyen Thuy Anh wrote in a Beijing claims about 90% of the waterway and has angered weaker neighbors over the past decade by landfilling tiny islets in the sea for military, economic and scientific use.China refers to the nine-dash line to back its sovereignty claim. The line, literally composed of nine thick dashes, swings south from the Chinese mainland, across waters east of Vietnam, near the north coast of Borneo, and back along the Philippine island of Palawan toward Taiwan. The thickness of lines plus the spaces between them make China’s actual claims vague, analysts have said.Propaganda and constant reminderChinese officials as well as private firms show the nine-dash line in passports, books, online games and tourist brochures, Nguyen said in her report.In cinema, the most internationally memorable example was a scene from “Abominable,” an animated movie made by China-based Pearl Studio and America’s DreamWorks Animation. The film was banned in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam last year because of the scene.Vietnamese officials in 2018 denounced the arrival of 14 Chinese tourists who flew into the Southeast Asian country wearing T-shirts showing the disputed line. Five years earlier Philippine booksellers quit selling made-in-China globes showing the Chinese demarcation line.The government in China, a major exporter of globes, last year published a notice aimed at ensuring that any map-bearing materials make the Chinese “position on territory clear to the international community,” state-controlled media outlet Global Times online said.’Target audience’China is aiming these materials at a “target audience” of Arab, African, and other “third countries” rather than Western consumers, Poling said. A student doing research in Africa, he said, would see probably the nine-dash line on a globe and not question it.Few world consumers know what the line means, said Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines.“Most of them don’t notice it, because they’re not really familiar with South China Sea issues, meaning this goes over their heads,” Batongbacal said. “That’s why China is doing this. It’s like a subtle propaganda effort, which they will use later on to say the nine-dash line is well known to everybody because it’s in all these products and articles and whatnot.”China cites historical records to support its maritime claim. In 2016 a world arbitration court ruled against the claim’s legal basis in the South China Sea. Southeast Asian countries that assert their maritime sovereignty, sometimes sparring with Chinese vessels in the contested sea, normally rely on 370-kilometer-wide exclusive economic zones extending from their coasts.FILE – Chinese vessels are pictured in disputed South China Sea, April 21, 2017.People offshore and on are supposed to pay attention to the nine-dash line merchandising, said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei. The Chinese government regularly reminds citizens of its achievements overseas to drum up support for the state and ruling Communist Party.“Its actions of this type actually have two points – one is to approach the international community and promote that the PRC has had the whole South China Sea forever, but another point of course is for what amounts to domestic patriotic education,” Huang said. 
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Muslim pilgrims have started arriving in Mecca for a drastically scaled-down hajj as Saudi authorities balance the kingdom’s oversight of one of Islam’s key pillars and the safety of visitors in the face of a global pandemic.The hajj, which begins on Wednesday, normally draws around 2.5 million people for five intense days of worship in one of the world’s largest gatherings of people from around the world.  This year, Saudi Arabia’s Hajj Ministry has said between 1,000 and 10,000 people already residing in the kingdom will be allowed to perform the pilgrimage. Two-thirds of those pilgrims will be from among foreign residents in Saudi Arabia and one-third will be Saudi citizens.The kingdom has one of the Mideast’s largest outbreaks of the coronavirus, with more than 266,000 reported infections, including 2,733 deaths.  Fatin Daud, a 25-year-old Malaysian studying Arabic in Saudi Arabia, was among the select few whose application for hajj was approved. After her selection, Saudi Health Ministry officials came to her home and tested her for the COVID-19 virus. She was then given an electronic bracelet that monitors her movement and told to quarantine for several days at home.  After that, Daud was moved to a hotel in Mecca, where she remains in self-isolation, still wearing the electronic wristband. A large box of food is delivered to her hotel room three times a day as she prepares to begin the hajj.”It was unbelievable. It felt surreal because I was not expecting to get it,” she said of her excitement when she found out she was selected. Daud said she’s praying for the end of COVID-19 and for unity among Muslims around the world.  “I am confident that safety measures are being taken and that the only thing that we need to do as pilgrims is follow instructions, and try our best to support each other,” she said.  While self-isolating has been emotionally challenging, Daud said she is part of a group of about 10 Malaysian and Singaporean pilgrims connecting online and sharing tips and religious exercises to keep busy.  The Saudi government is covering the expenses of all pilgrims this year, providing them with meals, hotel accommodation, transportation and health care. Normally, the hajj can cost thousands of dollars for pilgrims who save a lifetime for the journey. It also generates billions of dollars in revenue each year for Saudi Arabia.  Saudi kings have for generations assumed titles as custodians of Islam’s holiest sites, and their oversight of the hajj is a source of prestige and influence among Muslims globally. Saudi Arabia has never canceled the hajj in the nearly 90 years since the country was founded.For the first time in Saudi history, no pilgrims from abroad were permitted to take part in the hajj due to concerns about the coronavirus and overcrowding. It’s a stark departure from previous years, when some 2 million pilgrims from more than 160 countries flocked to Mecca for the spiritual rituals, mostly from across Asia and Africa.  Although the hajj often draws all age groups, pilgrims this year were required to be between the ages of 20 and 50, and in good health.  The physically demanding rituals of the hajj offer a profound experience for Muslims, with the faithful often weeping, their palms stretched toward the sky, in prayer and repentance. The hajj is required of all able-bodied Muslims once in a lifetime.This year, pilgrims must wear face masks and will only be able to drink holy water from the Zamzam well in Mecca that has been prepackaged in plastic bottles. Pebbles for casting away evil that are usually picked up by pilgrims along hajj routes will be sterilized and bagged before being distributed to the pilgrims.  Pilgrims are also bringing their own prayer rugs and will be required to pray at a distance from one another, rather than packed shoulder-to-shoulder. 
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Pakistan has hit a low with its daily death toll from the coronavirus.  The government said Monday there were 20 deaths in the past 24 hours.  “We have the lowest number of deaths in Pakistan due to COVID-19 in last 3 months,” Zafar Mirza, a special assistant to the prime minister, posted on Twitter Monday.  “We had a peak of 153 deaths on 20 June and in last 24 hours we had 20. This is 87% reduction in COVID-19 related deaths.” Mirza warned, however, that the new low is “yet no place for any complacency!” Pakistan has more than 274,000 COVID-19 cases and nearly 6,000 deaths in total from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. 
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Vietnam is evacuating tourists from the Danang area after several people tested positive for COVID-19, as governments in many parts of the world try to stop the spread of the virus that has killed nearly 650,000 people. A Vietnamese government statement said the evacuations of 80,000 people, mostly local tourists, will take at least four days. The country remains closed to foreign tourists. Vietnam on Saturday reported its first locally transmitted cases since April, putting the government on high alert. In Australia, authorities in the southeastern state of Victoria reported a record 532 new cases Monday and warned a lockdown there could be extended beyond its original six-week timeline. “As it stands right now, we are seeing too many people for whatever reason attending work with symptoms,” said Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews. “That just cannot continue. Otherwise, these restrictions will be in place for longer than they should be and I’m sorry to say, we will see more people die, particularly in aged care.” The rest of Australia is virtually free from new confirmed coronavirus cases, with Victoria and neighboring New South Wales accounting for nearly all new infections. The United States leads the world in the number of confirmed cases with more than 4.2 million, and on Sunday added 55,000 new cases and more than 500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. The southeastern state of Florida, which has been among the leaders in a surge in cases during the past month, added 9,300 cases on its own Sunday to move into second place among U.S. states. Only California, with a much higher population, has more.  Just behind Florida are New York and Texas. FILE – Amid concerns of the spread of COVID-19, Alma Odong wears a mask as she cleans a classroom at Wylie High School in Wylie, Texas, July 14, 2020.Health experts blame the leap in the number of cases on businesses and public attractions reopening too soon, and not enough people wearing masks and social distancing.   Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins delayed what would have been a Sunday departure from the city of Philadelphia as the team tries to contain an outbreak with several players already testing positive. The Marlins are traveling to Baltimore on Monday hours before the scheduled start of their game there.  Marlins manager Don Mattingly said the players who had tested positive remain under quarantine in Philadelphia. “There’s nothing we can really do,” Marlins pitcher Robert Dugger said Sunday. “It’s out of our control. We just do the best we can with the masks and social distancing and all that, and hope for the best.”   Baseball opened its 2020 season last week, three months late, and will play 60 games instead of the usual 162.  Many of the league’s 30 teams have reported multiple players testing positive for COVID-19. Spain is safe for tourists, it said Sunday, rebuking Britain for imposing a two-week quarantine on all travelers entering the country from Spain because of the coronavirus pandemic.   “Spain is safe, it is safe for Spaniards, it is safe for tourists,” Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told reporters.  She said Spain would try to persuade Britain to exclude the Balearic and Canary Islands from the quarantine measure, contending that the prevalence of the virus in the two popular travel destinations was much lower than in Britain itself.  A year ago, Britons made up about a fifth of foreign visitors to Spain, meaning the British quarantine could deal a blow to the Mediterranean country’s efforts to jump start its economy after months of lockdown because of the virus.  But the number of COVID-19 cases has risen in Spain in the last few weeks, prompting Britain to announce late Saturday it was taking Spain off its safe-travel list. Hours later, the quarantine took effect. 
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More than one million people in Phnom Penh face the risk of increased flooding and loss of livelihoods as wetlands in the Cambodian capital are destroyed to build apartments and industries, human rights groups warned on Monday. Developments – including the ING City township – will reduce the Tompoun wetlands to less than a tenth of its 1,500 hectares (5.8 sq miles), and lead to the eviction of more than 1,000 families who live on its edge, activists said in a report. It would also impoverish thousands of families who farm and fish in the wetlands in the city of 1.5 million people. “The wetlands sustain local communities and play a vital role in Phnom Penh’s waste management and flood prevention,” said the report from Equitable Cambodia, LICADHO, the Cambodian Youth Network and land rights group Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT). “Millions of Cambodians will likely be affected by the potentially devastating impacts of destroying the wetlands.” Phnom Penh, situated on the banks of the Tonle Sap, Mekong and Bassac rivers, is already highly vulnerable to floods, particularly in the rainy season from June to October. Lakes and wetlands such as floodplains, mangroves and marshes regulate water flow, minimize flooding, purify water and replenish groundwater, said Diane Archer, a senior research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute in Bangkok. “City authorities should recognize wetlands as an important resource to be protected and integrated into the urban environment,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Yet in many cities, expansion takes place without the necessary enforcement of urban planning or in-depth environmental impact assessments,” she said. Across rapidly expanding Asian cities, demand for land for housing and office blocks has put greater pressure over land. Cambodia has endorsed the international convention on wetlands protection, yet about half its wetlands have disappeared over the last 15 years, according to conservation group Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT). In Phnom Penh, 15 of 25 lakes have been infilled, with about a third of the Tompoun wetland infilled so far, STT said. Dredging the more than 100 million tons of sand needed for infilling poses added risks to communities and the environment, said Eang Vuthy, executive director of Equitable Cambodia. “Given that millions will be affected, in-depth studies and public consultations are needed,” he said. A spokesman for the government said the reclamation was necessary for the city’s development, and that an environment impact assessment had been done. “A canal is being built to divert excess water, and there is a wastewater treatment plant. Some relocations are necessary, but they have been given ample time to move,” said Phay Siphan. In Phnom Penh, nearly 4,000 families were evicted in 2007-08 from their homes around Boeung Kak – “boeung” is lake in Khmer – as it was filled in for a business district. Authorities must now prioritize public interest, said Vuthy. “A balanced model that protects the rights of people and the environment with urban development is possible, but only with meaningful consultation and research,” he said. 
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is blaming the surge in coronavirus cases in Arizona, Florida and Texas on two conservative-leaning newspapers – The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post. Cuomo told reporters Sunday that the infection rate in New York – the nation’s former COVID-19 epicenter – is low because of what he says was an “intelligent, phased reopening.” He said what both papers have recommended for the rest of the country has proved to be a failure. “The Wall Street Journal, New York Post — they continue to beat a horse that is dead. …‘The infection rate is low; reopen faster,’” Cuomo said. “Florida listened to the New York Post. Texas listened to the Wall Street Journal. Arizona listened to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. That was wrong. That was wrong.” Cuomo said 500 people tested positive and three died Saturday in New York while the new cases in Florida, Texas and Arizona number in the thousands.  A New York Post editorial Sunday night blamed Cuomo’s administration for an order in March that nursing homes accept patients even if they have COVID-19, a policy the newspaper called “nuts” and possibly responsible for needless deaths. “If we’re annoying him that much, it means one thing — he knows we’re right,” the paper said. Florida reported another 9,300 COVID-19 cases Sunday, moving it into second place among U.S. states with the highest number of cases. California, the most populous U.S. state, is on top; New York is third followed by Texas.  Health experts blame the leap in the number of cases on businesses and public attractions reopening too soon and not enough people wearing masks and social distancing.Health care workers take information from people in line at a walk-up COVID-19 testing site during the coronavirus pandemic, in Miami Beach, Fla., July 17, 2020.The manager of Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins postponed his team’s return to Florida by one day, meaning instead of being able to practice for the team’s opening home game against the Baltimore Orioles on Monday, the Marlins will arrive at the ballpark just hours before the game.  Several Marlins players who tested positive for COVID-19 are in quarantine in Philadelphia. “There’s nothing we can really do,” Marlins pitcher Robert Dugger said. “It’s out of our control. We just do the best we can with the masks and social distancing and all that, and hope for the best.”  Baseball opened its 2020 season last week, three months late, and will play 60 games instead of the usual 162. Fans are, for now, not allowed in the ballparks.  Spain is safe for tourists, it said Sunday, rebuking Britain for imposing a two-week quarantine on all travelers entering the country from Spain because of the coronavirus pandemic.  “Spain is safe, it is safe for Spaniards, it is safe for tourists,” Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told reporters. She said Spain would try to persuade Britain to exclude the Balearic and Canary Islands from the quarantine measure, contending that the prevalence of the virus in the two popular travel destinations was much lower than in Britain itself. A year ago, Britons made up about a fifth of foreign visitors to Spain, meaning the British quarantine could deal a blow to the Mediterranean country’s efforts to jump start its economy after months of lockdown because of the virus. But the number of COVID-19 cases has risen in Spain in the last few weeks, prompting Britain to announce late Saturday it was taking Spain off its safe-travel list. Hours later, the quarantine took effect. It immediately upset travelers, with one British tourist saying, “Everyone is panicking.” South Africa reported 12,000 new coronavirus cases Sunday. Its response to the pandemic, however, is being hampered by corruption allegations surrounding its $26 billion economic relief package. An investigation is under way.  South Africa has the fifth largest number of COVID-19 infections in the world, with more than 434,000 cases.   The U.S. has the most cases at 4.2 million, followed by Brazil with 2.3 million, India with 1.3 million, and Russia with more than 800,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. 
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Since President Donald Trump announced an America First approach on foreign policy in his inaugural address in January 2017,  critics have accused him of abandoning international norms and forsaking U.S. global leadership, while supporters say he has boldly taken on foreign policy challenges that his predecessors have failed, including defeating a global terrorists network and challenging a rising China.
 
“His America First agenda has secured the elimination of two most-wanted terrorists, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Qassem Soleimani, the destruction of the ISIS caliphate, and sustained strong political and economic pressure on adversaries like Iran, Venezuela, and Russia,” Ken Farnaso, the Trump campaign’s deputy national press secretary, told VOA.  
 
But, for a president who once promised to bring his “Art of the Deal” business savvy to settling foreign disputes, and has spent considerable diplomatic resources on them, Trump has yet to deliver in his efforts to mediate peace in conflict hot spots around the world — from the Balkans to the Nile Basin.
 Trump the mediator  
 
Trump, the one-time New York real estate businessman and reality TV star, has inserted his administration in dispute negotiations, some of which began in his first year in office. He has more than once offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, which New Delhi has rejected. India has also rebuffed Trump’s offer to mediate its border feud with China.We have informed both India and China that the United States is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute. Thank you!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020In trying to mediate between Israel and Palestine, and Kosovo and Serbia, Trump picked up on efforts by past administrations. Other efforts at intervention, including getting involved in the feud over a hydroelectric dam between Egypt and Ethiopia, are entirely of his own making.
 
So far, none of these initiatives has borne agreements accepted by the disputing parties. Israel is FILE – This frame grab from a video obtained from the Ethiopian Public Broadcaster July 24, 2020, shows an aerial view of water levels at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in Guba, Ethiopia.Meanwhile, the June 27 Washington summit between the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia — once envisioned to be a triumphant opportunity to show that the Trump administration can supplant the European Union in brokering a final peace deal between two Balkan countries who went to war in the late 1990s — was abruptly canceled days before the event after Kosovo announced its president was indicted on war crimes. The indictment against Hashim Thaci was filed by the country’s prosecutor’s office in April, and announced as Thaci was already on his way to the Washington summit.   
   
These lesser-known Trump administration mediation efforts have added to an already sizable list of negotiations currently at an impasse, including with North Korea, China and the Taliban in Afghanistan.  
 Honest broker?
 
Analysts say the president’s bid to facilitate resolution of these long-running disputes have stalled partly because he is not seen as an honest broker attempting to placate both sides in sensitive talks.  
 
This is most apparent in the administration’s Middle East peace plan led by Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, that was released in January 2020. The plan was drawn up without any Palestinian involvement and its leaders have rejected it. Critics say negotiations had a distinctive pro-Israel tilt from the start.
 
A negotiation is a conversation between two equal parties, said Halah Ahmad, a policy analyst with Al-Shabaka, a transnational Palestinian think tank, in an interview with VOA. “The Palestinians have not been brought to the table as an equal party in negotiations with the Trump administration, and the stipulations of the administration really cast aside international consensus and decades of U.S. foreign policy.”FILE – A demonstrator holds a Palestinian flag in front of Israeli forces as Palestinians protest against President Donald Trump’s Mideast initiative, in Jordan Valley in the West Bank, Feb. 25, 2020.In September 2019, after making a personal promise to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi to mediate the feud over the Nile dam, Trump appointed U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the lead person.  
 
Mnuchin has hosted a series of meetings between Ethiopian, Egyptian and Sudanese officials in Washington, including two in the Oval Office with Trump. The controversy is over the future of a giant hydroelectric power plant being built by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile tributary in the northern Ethiopia highlands. At issue is control of the flow of the Nile as Ethiopia fills up the dam’s reservoir.  
 
But Trump’s coziness with Egypt’s Sissi, who he once referred to as “my favorite dictator” and with whom he has spoken twice this month to reiterate the U.S.’s commitment to “facilitating a fair and equitable deal” on the dam, planted doubts about Washington’s neutrality. Ultimately, Ethiopia walked out of what was supposed to be the final round of talks in February, rejecting U.S.’s “characterization” in the draft agreement, signed off by Cairo, that the negotiation on filling and operating the dam is “completed.”  
 
The U.S.-drafted agreement gave Cairo unrealistic expectations that created difficulties in the ongoing negotiations, said Addisu Lashitew, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington research group. “It promised Egypt a legally binding treaty and a guaranteed water release from the [Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam], which Ethiopia fears will undermine its ability to use the Nile waters in the future,” Lashitew told VOA.FILE – President Donald Trump welcomes visiting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi to the White House, in Washington, April 9, 2019.In the Balkans, since December 2018 Trump has urged leaders of Kosovo and Serbia to strike a deal and offered to host them at the White House. While Trump’s support of Kosovo’s sovereignty follows previous administrations’ stance, Democratic lawmakers have expressed concerns that Trump wants a deal at any cost, ahead of the interests of its long-standing ally.
 
In April, Congressman Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Bob Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticizing the administration’s “heavy-handed” approach and “lack of balance between Belgrade and Pristina,” the capitals of  Serbia and Kosovo, respectively.  
 Economy first   
   
Analysts say the president employs a transactional approach in dispute resolution, which includes – for example — drumming up $50 billion in investment in the Middle East, enticing Ethiopia with World Bank projects and facilitating “economic normalization” between Serbia and Kosovo.
   
Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, told VOA that this “economy first” approach may work in the business world that Trump came from, but the difference between real estate deals and diplomacy is vast.  
   
“It’s not just one person talking to another person. It’s two or more societies attempting to get to yes,” Kupchan said. “Domestic politics, ideology, history, culture – they all enter the picture. It’s not just a clear cost-benefit economic analysis.”  FILE – Serbs holding Serbian flags take part in a ceremony marking the historic Battle of Kosovo, at a memorial in Gazimestan, on the outskirts of Pristina, Kosovo, June 28, 2020.While the president’s persona is built around the idea that he is “the master deal maker of all time,” the reality is that he goes into these disputes without any deeper understanding of the historical complexities and ethnic divisions behind them, Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, told VOA.
 
“So, the likelihood of having success where others who did have that sophistication were unable to do so, is very, very low,” Ornstein added.  
 Thorny disputes
   
For sure, these are long-running and thorny disputes. A Middle East peace deal has eluded all U.S. presidents since Jimmy Carter mediated the Camp David Accords in 1978. Bill Clinton’s administration invested vast amounts of resources to help Israel and the Palestinians implement the Oslo Accords signed at the White House in 1993. Yet by the time Clinton left office, the peace process had collapsed and a new round of Israeli-Palestinian violence had begun.
 
Despite a bold speech to the Muslim world in Cairo in 2009 and a Nobel peace prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy” in the same year, Barack Obama was unable to advance the goal of a two-state solution.
 
Meanwhile the European Union has tried to resolve the Kosovo-Serbia feud for the past decade, with negotiations going into a stalemate shortly after the Brussels Agreement in 2013. Divisions also run deep on the Nile Dam feud and decade-long negotiations have yielded little more than the heated rhetoric of “hydro-hegemony” and threats of a “water war.”  FILE – President Donald Trump speaks during a working lunch with leaders of NATO members countries that have met their financial commitments to the the organization, in Watford, England, Dec. 4, 2019.Despite the president not yet delivering on these peace deals, his allies highlight other foreign policy victories: Securing a trade deal with Canada and Mexico, pressuring NATO allies to spend more for defense, and persuading the British government to ban Huawei equipment from their 5G network, effectively cutting the Chinese tech giant out of its 5G future.  
 
Moreover, his supporters argue that because of Trump’s policies abroad, Americans are better off than they were four years ago.  
 
“The administration has stood up to Russia with tough sanctions and rallying of our partners in Europe, while its maximum pressure strategy has put the mullahs in Iran off-balance. China has been challenged–and there is broad, bipartisan support for that,” said James Carafano, Vice President for national security and foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation to VOA.
 Alen Mlatisumaa and Margaret Besheer contributed to this story.
 
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More than 60 people were reported killed and nearly 60 others wounded Saturday during an armed attack in a village in Sudan’s restive Darfur region, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said late Sunday.The attack in Masteri village in the West Darfur state “was one of the latest of a series of security incidents reported over the last week that left several villages and houses burned, markets and shops looted, and infrastructure damaged,” the U.N. body added in a statement. It did not cite the source of its information.There was no official word from the government on the incident, and Reuters was not able to reach officials for comment.On Sunday, Sudan said it would deploy joint forces from various state security services in Darfur after renewed violence there recently, SUNA, the state news agency, reported.The forces will be deployed to the region’s five states “to protect people and secure the agriculture season,” Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said during a meeting in Khartoum with a delegation of women from Darfur. No further details were given.The country’s Security and Defense Council stressed the importance of “using the force necessary to save lives and property, confront all forms of lawlessness and support equal citizenship rights,” it said after a meeting Sunday.In a separate incident, at least 20 people died and 22 others were injured after gunmen from an unidentified militia attacked a village in the state of South Darfur, witnesses and a local community leader said on Saturday.On Sunday, three people, including a woman, were killed during a renewed dispute between farmers and shepherds in the Al-Jarf area in North Darfur state, SUNA reported, adding that security forces intervened and separated the two sides.Recent violence by militias in North Darfur prompted authorities to declare a state of emergency July 13.”The escalation of violence in different parts of Darfur region is leading to increased displacement, compromising the agricultural season, causing loss of lives and livelihoods and driving growing humanitarian needs,” the United Nations said.The conflict started in Darfur, in the west of Sudan, in 2003 after mostly non-Arab rebels rose up against the Khartoum government. Government forces and mainly Arab militia, which moved to suppress the revolt, were accused of widespread atrocities. Some 300,000 people were killed in the conflict, according to U.N. estimates.Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s ousted leader, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur.Sudan’s transitional government is negotiating with some main rebel groups in Darfur aiming to reach a peace deal.
 
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