With the presidential campaign entering its final two-month stretch, both President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden are ramping up travel to battleground states this week. But the candidates have very different approaches to getting their messages out to supporters. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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A U.S. government decision Tuesday to sanction two former Lebanese government ministers is the latest unprecedented campaign against Hezbollah, with some observers saying the move dramatically increases the risk for Lebanese politicians to engage with the U.S.-designated terror group.The Trump administration said it blacklisted former Minister of Transportation and Public Works Yusuf Finyanus and former Minister of Finance Ali Hassan Khalil because they had helped Hezbollah bypass U.S. sanctions and profit from multimillion-dollar government contracts.Firas Maksad, an adjunct professor and researcher on Lebanon at George Washington University, said that Lebanon’s economy is highly dollarized, giving Washington a “tremendous leverage” to use sanctions to deter Lebanon’s political groups from cozying up to the Iran proxy when the country is trying to form a new government.“In the past when the U.S. Treasury had moved to designate Lebanese banks, those banks would fall within 24 hours,” Maksad told VOA by phone. “These sanctions, in particular, are different and of a more significant caliber because it’s the first time that they target two former ministers.”“Lebanese political and business actors are now much more cognizant of the risks working together with Hezbollah,” he added.Khalil is a member of the Shiite Amal Movement, and Finyanus is a member of Christian political party Marada Movement. Both groups have denounced the designations, calling them a U.S. attack “targeting Lebanon and its sovereignty,” according to Reuters.While announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement accused Hezbollah of exploiting Lebanon’s political system to spread “its malign influence.”“The United States stands with the people of Lebanon in their calls for reform and will continue to use its authorities to target those who oppress and exploit them,” Mnuchin said.Power sharingSince its independence from France in 1943, Lebanon has practiced a complicated parliamentary system called “consociationalism” to divide power among the country’s three main groups, the Sunnis, Shiites and Maronite Christians.As such, the country’s president has been a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni and the parliament speaker a Shiite.Unlike many Mideast countries, Lebanon is not an oil-rich nation, and more than 80% of its GDP comes from service sectors such as banking, tourism and construction. The U.S. Treasury says Hezbollah owns companies that are deeply involved in Lebanon’s economy.‘Internal dissent’The August 4 blast, caused by nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a highly populated civilian area, has led to the resignation of government and calls for deep political reform in the former French colony.French President Emmanuel Macron, who has visited Lebanon twice since the explosion, is leading an international effort to help Lebanon achieve economic recovery and political reform.While no one expects the powerful influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah to disappear anytime soon, experts say international pressure is key to bringing about radical change in Lebanon.“Hezbollah is still holding out,” said Phillip Smyth, a scholar on Shiite political movements at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Within the Lebanese government, they have strong allies and a very strong position. However, I would say they are facing internal dissent from a number of directions.”He added, “Following the blast, Hezbollah, with its dominant position, has become the face of the very corruption which spans across the Lebanese government.”Next week, Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib is expected to form a new Cabinet. Some observers say the recent U.S. sanctions are likely to influence the direction of the new government.“If the French president’s approach to Lebanon’s ruling class was too soft, the American mode included heavy sticks,” said Sam Bazzi, the founder of Hezbollah Watch blog.“This will hopefully break the stalemate in the country and create the opportunity for Adib to form the deliverance government that Lebanon desperately needs,” Bazzi said.Mehdi Jedinia contributed to this story from Washington.
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Deadly windblown wildfires raging across the Pacific Northwest destroyed hundreds of homes in Oregon, the governor said Wednesday, warning it could be the greatest loss of life and property from wildfire in state history.The blazes from the top of the state to the California border caused highway closures and smoky skies and had firefighters struggling to contain and douse flames fanned by 80-kph wind gusts. Officials in some western Oregon communities gave residents “go now” orders to evacuate, meaning they had minutes to flee their homes.Fires were burning in a large swath of Washington state and Oregon that rarely experiences such intense wildfire activity because of the Pacific Northwest’s cool and wet climate.Flames trapped firefighters and civilians behind fire lines in Oregon and leveled an entire small town in eastern Washington. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown warned that the devastation could be overwhelming from the fires that exploded Monday during a late-summer windstorm.”Everyone must be on high alert,” Brown said. The blazes were thought to be extremely destructive around Medford, in southern Oregon, and near the state capital of Salem.”This could be the greatest loss of human life and property due to wildfire in our state’s history,” the governor said.At least two people were killed in Oregon fires, along with a small child in a Washington state blaze. Brown said some communities were substantially damaged, with “hundreds of homes lost.”A horse stands in a stall under smoky skies on the Oregon State Fairgrounds, Sept. 9, 2020, in Salem, Ore. Hundreds of horses have been brought to the fairgrounds in Salem by people fleeing the fires.The precise extent of damage was unclear because so many of the fire zones were too dangerous to survey, said Oregon Deputy State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple.”Quite frankly, we are not even able to get into these areas,” she said.In Washington, a 1-year-old boy died after his family was apparently overrun by flames while trying to flee a wildfire in the northeastern part of the state, Okanogan County Sheriff Tony Hawley said Wednesday.The child’s injured parents were discovered in the area of the Cold Springs Fire, which is burning in Okanogan and Douglas counties, Hawley said. They were transported to a Seattle hospital with third-degree burns.KOIN reported a boy and his grandmother died in a wildfire near Lyons, Oregon. Marion County Sheriff Joe Kast confirmed two fatalities but had no other details. He said they would likely “not be the only ones.” Lyons is in Marion County.Another wildfire hit Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast, where residents were being evacuated to a community college to the south.”The fire is in the city,” said Casey Miller, spokesman for Lincoln County Emergency Management. He said some buildings had been burned but had no details.The department imposed mandatory evacuation for the northern half of the city of roughly 10,000 residents, which stretches alongside U.S. Highway 101.The Pacific Northwest scenes of lines of vehicles clogging roads to get away from the fires were similar to California’s terrifying wildfire drama, where residents have fled fires raging unchecked throughout the state. But Northwest officials said they did not recall so many destructive fires at once in the areas where they were burning.A water-drop helicopter flies Sept. 9, 2020, near a wildfire burning in Bonney Lake, Wash., south of Seattle.Sheriff’s deputies, traveling with chain saws in their patrol cars to cut fallen trees blocking roads, went door to door in rural communities 64 kilometers south of Portland, telling people to evacuate. Since Tuesday, as many as 16,000 people have been told to abandon their homes.”These winds are so incredible and are spreading so fast, we don’t have a lot of time,” said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.”I’ve been through hell and high water but nothing like this. I’ve been shot down and shot at, but this – last night, I’m still not over it,” said Lloyd Dean Holland, a Vietnam veteran who barely escaped his home in Estacada on Tuesday night.Holland said Oregon State Police had warned him to leave earlier in the day, but the fire seemed far away and he decided to stay. Around 10 p.m., he said, his landlord came pounding on the door screaming at him to go.Fires were burning in seven Oregon counties and rural and suburban homes miles away from Portland were under preliminary orders to prepare for possible evacuations. Three prisons were evacuated late Tuesday, and Brown called the state’s blazes unprecedented.The Northwest is no stranger to wildfires, but most of the biggest ones until now have been in the eastern or southern parts of the region – where the weather is considerably hotter and drier and the vegetation more fire-prone than it is in the region’s western portion.Fires in 2017 and 2018 crested the top of the Cascade Range – the long spine that divides dry eastern Oregon from the lush western part of the state – but never before spread into the valleys below, said Doug Grafe, chief of Fire Protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry.A family arrives with their two dogs and other precious belongings at an evacuation center that has been set up at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem, Ore., on Sept. 8, 2020.”We do not have a context for this amount of fire on the landscape,” he said.Fire crews were focusing on trying to keep people out of harm’s way and preventing houses from burning on Wednesday, with officials saying that containing the fires was a secondary priority.After a 30-minute tour of the fire area south of Seattle in Sumner, Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee said the blaze is “just one example of probably the most catastrophic fires we’ve had in the history of the state.”He said that in the past couple of days, more than 194,424 hectares burned.”This is an extraordinary series of events we have suffered,” Inslee said.About 80% of the small eastern Washington farming town of Malden was leveled by flames from a fast-moving fire on Monday.In Sumner helicopters flew over a ridge, dropping water on smoldering areas. Bud Backer, fire chief for East Pierce Fire & Rescue, told Inslee that the recent winds were “like a blowtorch.”Bonney Lake Police Chief Bryan Jeter said that about 2,500 homes in the area were given evacuation orders.In Oregon, at least four major fires were burning in Clackamas County, a suburban county in Oregon that’s a bedroom community of Portland. The entire county of nearly 420,000 people was put on notice to be ready to evacuate late Tuesday amid winds gusting up to 48 kph.Another major fire in southern Oregon prompted evacuation orders in much of Medford, a city of about 80,000 residents near the California border.And several huge blazes burning in Marion County, southeast of the state’s capitol city of Salem, merged overnight – turning the sky blood red in the middle of the day. 
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An Istanbul court on Wednesday handed multiple prison sentences to five reporters convicted of violating the law on coverage of Turkey’s spy agency but ordered their release pending appeals.Six journalists faced up to 20 years in prison on charges of exposing state secrets and violating the Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT) law.The closely watched trial concerned a news report alleging that a Turkish intelligence officer was killed in Libya in February.All six journalists were acquitted of the state secrets charge.But the court sentenced Aydin Keser, Ferhat Celik and Murat Agirel, who work for the pro-Kurdish Yeni Yasam daily, to four years and eight months in jail on the MIT law charges.It sentenced OdaTV editor-in-chief Baris Pehlivan and reporter Hulya Kilinc to three years and nine months on the same charges, while acquitting OdaTV news director Baris Terkoglu.They were all released pending appeals, one of the defense lawyers, Serkan Gunel, told AFP.Pehlivan, Kilinc and Agirel had been in jail since March.”What I have done is only journalism,” Kilinc told the judge earlier in her defense. “I have been a journalist for 20 years. I have no intention to commit a crime.”OdaTV reported in March that the intelligence officer had been quietly buried in his hometown of Manisa in western Turkey.The report also featured photos from the funeral and identified the officer by his first name and the initial of the last name.Turkey, whose government is under fire from rights groups for clamping down on press freedom, is ranked 154th out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom list.
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Amid busy construction crews racing to build an airport in Mexico, scientists are unearthing more and more mammoth skeletons in what has quickly become one of the world’s biggest concentrations of the now-extinct relative of modern elephants.More than 100 mammoth skeletons have been identified spread across nearly 200 excavation sites, along with a mix of other Ice Age mammals, in the area destined to become the Mexican capital’s new commercial airport.Lead archeologist Ruben Manzanilla explained on Tuesday that around 24,000 years ago mammoth herds reached this spot where sprawling grasslands and lakes would have enticed them to reside.”This place was like a paradise,” he told Reuters, noting that as the last glaciers melted a wide range of mammals — including ancient species of camels, horses and buffalo — lived along what would have been an extremely muddy shoreline.”Then over many years the same story repeated itself: The animals ventured too far, got trapped and couldn’t get their legs out of the muck,” said Manzanilla.Ruben Manzanilla Lopez of the National Anthropology Institute shows the skeleton of a mammoth that was discovered in the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport, Sept. 3, 2020.He speculates that most of the mammoths died this way, though he adds that there is some evidence that around 10,000 years ago early humans may have also hunted the 20-ton beasts with flint arrows and spears, or dug rudimentary shallow water pits to snare them.But the sheer amount of bones, including long, curling tusks — technically the animal’s front two teeth — have come as a shock.”We had the idea that we’d find mammoth remains, but not this many,” he said.Once the excavations are finished, Manzanilla said the site, located about 30 miles (50km) north of downtown Mexico City, could rival others in the United States and Siberia as the planet’s biggest deposit of mammoth skeletons.He noted that a museum-style mammoth exhibit is being planned for the airport’s main terminal.The series of inter-connected lakes that once covered the Valley of Mexico were deliberately drained by Spanish colonial masters beginning in the 1600s in an effort to tame annual flooding.Today, the mostly dry landscape is dominated by the working-class neighborhoods and highways that spill out from Mexico City.
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Національний банк України послабив гривню на 3 копійки щодо долара США ¬– до рівня 27,83 за одиницю американської валюти. Про це свідчить офіційний курс на 10 вересня, опублікований на сайті регулятора.

Торги на міжбанківському валютному ринку завершилися на рівні 27 гривень 83–85 копійок за долар, показують дані Finance.ua. Це на 7 копійок вище від рівня закриття торгів 8 вересня.

«Поступове невелике, але все ж таки зростання курсу – провокує продавців не поспішати з основними продажами, а виходити на торги тільки в момент найбільш високих котирувань або в разі гострого браку гривні для поточних виробничих операцій. Тому частина клієнтів відверто не поспішає з продажами, вичікуючи пікових значень курсу або навіть граючи разом зі спекулянтами «на підвищення» за рахунок створення формальної нестачі пропозиції на міжбанку», – вказували експерти сайту «Мінфін» на початку торгів 9 вересня.

Поступове зростання котирувань на міжбанку триває вже близько двох тижнів – від рівня 27,5 гривні за долар, зафіксованого 28 серпня.

7 вересня НБУ повідомив про те, що його міжнародні резерви перевищили 29 мільярдів доларів.

 
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A global coalition of 321 civil society groups from 60 countries is calling for China to face greater scrutiny for its alleged systemic and serious human rights violations.   The coalition plans to demand an end to China’s impunity at the U.N. Human Rights Council, during the council’s upcoming session next week. The group sent an open letter to the U.N. Secretary General and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights raising its concerns about China’s human rights record.  The signatories stress the need to address what they call rampant human rights violations across China, including in Hong Kong, Tibet, and the northwestern province of Xinjiang.FILE- (L-R) Pan-democratic legislator Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, Vice convener for Hong Kong’s Civil Human Rights Front Figo Chan, and activist Leung Kwok-hung, march at the anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China from Britain, Hong Kong, July 1, 2020.China Director at Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, says the sheer magnitude of the violations committed inside China and outside the country warrant a fundamental different response from the U.N. Human Rights Council.“It is high time the Chinese government actually has some sense that it would face consequences for doing things like continuing to arbitrarily detain a million people simply on the basis of their ethnic identity and for a slew of other serious violations,” said Richardson.One million mainly Muslim Uighurs reportedly are incarcerated in so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang.In its statement, the coalition highlights China’s efforts to distort the mandate of the U.N. Human Rights Council.  It says China persecutes activists who seek redress from repression.  It says the government in Beijing opposes initiatives to shine a light on its alleged serious rights violations and international crimes committed in countries around the world. The Chinese government rejects the U.N.’s assessment of its human rights record as “gross interference.”Geneva Director at Human Rights Watch, John Fisher, says the U.N. needs to act on the growing chorus of voices calling for China to be held accountable for its rights abuses.“I think what has been striking around this appeal has been to say that so many NGO’s from so many different countries, not just expressing concern at China’s suppression of rights within its own borders, which are serious enough and warrant scrutiny on their own terms, but also the global impact of China’s contempt for human rights,”  Fisher said.The global coalition is calling for a special session of the Human Rights Council to explore the range of violations by China’s government.  It urges the council to establish an impartial and independent U.N. mechanism to closely monitor and report on China’s human rights situation annually.  It says the U.N. must insist that the government comply with its international human rights obligations.
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Foreign ministers from 10 Southeast Asian nations, the United States and China are taking part in discussions this week on topics ranging from maritime sovereignty to post-COVID economic recovery that Asia scholars say will test the resolve of both the United States and China.   China and the United States have assigned officials to the videoconference events Wednesday through Friday, with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo representing Washington at a ministerial meeting held by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) negotiating bloc. Chinese officials are due to appear at other foreign minister-level events this week.   Ten foreign ministers from the 650 million-population Southeast Asian region, which is of growing economic and political importance to both powers, will largely welcome strong U.S. political or military support against threats from China — but at the same time look more to China for economic aid including post-pandemic recovery, analysts believe.   “I think Southeast Asia will look to get a better sense of whether they can trust Washington’s commitment to prioritizing their region and what they can actually count on the U.S. for, and not, when contending with China,” said Derek Grossman, senior analyst with the Rand Corp. research institution in the United States.   Southeast Asian ministers are waiting for more substance on Pompeo’s statements in July that the U.S. government would defend countries pressured by China over maritime sovereignty disputes, the scholars say.    Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines — all militarily weaker than China — resent Beijing for letting Chinese ships pass through areas they claim in the disputed South China Sea.    Last month, the U.S. Department of Commerce ordered sanctions against 24 Chinese companies that have helped China build islets in the sea.FILE – In this photo provided by U.S. Navy, the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76, front) and USS Nimitz (CVN 68, rear) Carrier Strike Groups sail together in formation, in the South China Sea, July 6, 2020.The U.S. Navy regularly sends ships to the sea to assert freedom of navigation in defiance of Chinese claims to almost the entire sea.   China’s island-building spree through 2017, followed by more assertive military maneuvers, has put the Southeast Asian claimants on guard in the waterway that’s prized for fisheries and energy reserves. Washington has no claim in the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea but believes the sea should be open internationally, U.S. officials have said. Pompeo was due Wednesday to “address U.S. priorities in the Indo-Pacific and share details on our efforts to support a free and open region based on principles of sovereignty and pluralism,” the Department of State told reporters by e-mail September 3. “How receptive they are to a tougher U.S. line is going to say something about how receptive they are going to be to Chinese outreach,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative under the Center for Strategic and International Studies research organization in Washington. In this image taken from video provided by VTV, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks during an online meeting with ASEAN foreign ministers on Sept. 9, 2020.China is expected to offer economic support rather than sound upbeat about the maritime dispute, analysts say. It’s unlikely to revive talks about a South China Sea code of conduct, for example, as that idea for avoiding mishaps has been off the table for half a year and Vietnam is angry over maritime incidents with China earlier in the year, Poling said. Southeast Asian leaders further wonder whether China fumbled its initial COVID-19 response, said Alan Chong, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. They’re wary of instability in Hong Kong, too, he said.  But he said they’re listening for any hint of a trade initiative or proposals for “travel bubbles” that would allow free flow of tourists between countries with low COVID-19 rates. Most Asian countries allow little inbound travel to stop the coronavirus spread. The Chinese ambassador to ASEAN said in May that a two-year, $2 billion commitment of international anti-pandemic aid would include Southeast Asia. “Chinese leadership is the only one that you can seriously expect any major initiatives from, but even then, one cannot expect completely obedient followership from the rest of the East Asia Summit because there are reservations about Chinese intentions,” Chong said. Southeast Asian states in the long term will pursue stronger ties with both superpowers, as openly taking sides would risk isolating one while favoring the other, scholars say. China and the United States are embroiled in a wide-ranging dispute over trade, internet controls, technology transfers and each side’s diplomatic activity in the other country.   “We can be sure that ASEAN will strike a tone that emphasizes cooperation while skirting the Sino-U.S. issues as much as possible,” said Collin Koh, a maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.   FILE – A worker unloads palm oil fruits from a lorry inside a palm oil factory in Salak Tinggi, outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Aug. 4, 2014.Malaysia, for example, sells its agricultural staple, palm oil, to China. Chinese capital has helped build infrastructure in Malaysia as well.   “We are not in China’s camp, but we don’t want to be seen to be provocative either,” said Shahriman Lockman, senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies research organization in Kuala Lumpur.  
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Впровадження екологічних стандартів ЄС, передбачених Угодою про асоціацію, щодо викидів промислових підприємств у повітря не може бути відтерміноване чи заборонене, повідомив Радіо Свобода перший заступник міністра захисту довкілля і природних ресурсів України Богдан Боруховський.

«Ми працюємо як Міністерство захисту довкілля і наша місія захищати довкілля і будь-які інші ініціативи, які допоможуть захистити екологічний стан України. Безумовно, вони підтримуються нами і не можуть бути відтерміновані, заборонені або ще щось», – відповів він на питання журналіста Радіо Свобода.

Раніше стало відомо, що Міністерство з питань стратегічних галузей промисловості просить відтермінувати імплементацію законодавства ЄС в українське, зокрема у частині захисту довкілля.

Після цієї інформації із критикою Міністерства захисту довкілля виступив колишній очільник Державної екологічної інспекції (2019–2020 рр.) Єгор Фірсов.

Богдан Боруховський зазначив, що не чув про таку ініціативу колег по уряду, втім запевнив у прагненні Міністерства захисту довкілля впроваджувати європейські стандарти.

«Міністерство завжди намагається підтримувати, дотримуватися (Директив ЄС – ред), бо це є частина зобов’язань України перед Європейською спільнотою. В нас вже дуже багато зроблено, імпліментовано і працює. Міністерство безумовно в цьому напрямку робить все можливе і неможливе, аби це відбувалося», – зазначив Богдан Боруховський.

 
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