Zimbabwe authorities are hailing a sustainable farming technique called “Pfumvudza” as a breakthrough to help end the country’s long-standing food insecurity.  But as Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, some critics point to its limits.Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe       Producer:  Marcus Harton  
 
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War monitors say an airstrike on a rebel training camp in northwestern Syria on Monday killed more than 50 Turkish-backed fighters and wounded at least 90. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, put the number killed at 78, while a Syrian opposition spokesman had the number of fatalities closer to 50.  The observatory, along with Syrian opposition groups, say the airstrike was carried out by Russia, a Syrian government ally. The strike targeted a military training camp for one of Syria’s largest opposition groups, Failaq al-Sham, in Jabal al-Dweila in northwestern Idlib province — the last rebel enclave in Syria. The observatory said rescue missions to find survivors were still under way. Youssef Hammoud, a spokesman for Failaq al-Sham, said leaders of the camp were among those killed in the airstrike. The camp is near the border with Turkey. Naji al-Mustafa, a spokesman for Turkish-backed Syrian rebel group National Front for Liberation, told The Associated Press they will respond to the attack. He called the airstrike a “crime” by Russia and threatened to target government and Russian posts. Turkey and Russia brokered a truce in Idlib earlier this year to halt a government offensive that displaced hundreds of thousands of people. But the truce remained shaky. Turkey has long supported Syrian rebel forces in Syria. Russia has negotiated with Ankara to deploy observation teams in the rebel enclave to monitor the truce. Last week, Turkish troops evacuated one of their largest military bases in the area, which was surrounded by Syrian government troops for months. Syrian opposition fighters said it was part of Turkey’s redeployment of forces in the shrinking enclave.  
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Actress Keely Cat-Wells has an impressive Hollywood resume. She also has a disability that might have discouraged someone less determined from pursuing a career in acting and advocacy. VOA’s Genia Dulot has the story
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This week on Healthy Living, plastic surgery and why there has been an increase of it in South Africa during the Coronavirus pandemic. We also hear from Dr. Taiwo Omosebi, a Consultant Plastic Surgeon in Lagos, on the difference between plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery. And, an Acid attack survivor shares her journey going through multiple surgeries to repair her skin injury. These topics and more on this week’s show. S1, Ep66
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Ціна на газ для виробників тепла зросла на 24%, повідомив «Нафтогаз України». У жовтні вона становитиме 5 374,1 гривні за тисячу кубометрів без урахування ПДВ та витрат на транспортування газу магістральними і розподільними трубопроводами.

«За період, який використовується для розрахунків, котирування на природний газ у Європі зросли у порівнянні з вересневими цінами на 26% через підвищення попиту. Проте завдяки значним запасам у підземних сховищах газу в Україні ціна газу для виробників тепла у жовтні зросла порівняно з минулим місяцем на 24%», – розповіли в «Нафтогазі».

Станом на 25 жовтня в українських підземних газових сховищах залишається понад 28,37 мільярда кубометрів газу. Це найбільші запаси газу з початку опалювального сезону 2008-2009 років.
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Malaysia’s King Al-Sultan Abdullah has rejected Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s request to declare a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The royal palace announced the decision in a statement Sunday, saying the king “is of the opinion that there is no need at the moment for His Majesty to declare an emergency in the country.”  The statement also said the king is pleased with Prime Minister Muhyiddin’s handling of the pandemic, and called on all politicians to stop any campaigning that could seriously damage the government’s stability. Muhyiddin later issued a statement saying he welcomed the king’s advice and would discuss it with his cabinet.Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin speaks during a news conference in Putrajaya, March 11, 2020.Had the king approved Muhyiddin’s request, the state of emergency would have suspended Parliament before he was scheduled to present a budget in early November.  Failure to pass the budget would be the equivalent to a no-confidence vote against Muhyiddin and put pressure on him to call for a general election.   Muhyiddin has been prime minister since February, when he was chosen by King Abdullah after then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad unexpectedly resigned and his government collapsed.  Veteran opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim met with the king last month and said he gave him the names of 120 members of the 222-seat parliament who are ready to defect from the prime minister’s razor-thin ruling coalition. But the royal palace later released a statement saying Anwar only told the king the number of lawmakers who would support his takeover bid without revealing their identities. 
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A median line cited by Taiwan’s military, when it wards off Chinese fighter jets, has never become a formal agreement, giving the Chinese side license to cross it without violating any agreement, analysts in Taipei say. The line, which runs northeast from near Japan’s outlying islands to the southwest near Hong Kong along the middle of the Taiwan Strait, “has just one definition”, a Taiwan Ministry of National Defense source said Monday, referencing a mid-2019 report by the government-funded Central News Agency. A former defense minister detailed the line’s exact latitudes and longitude coordinates during a legislative hearing in 2004, the report says. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said in September the line doesn’t exist. Experts in Taiwan say the line, established during the Cold War with U.S. help, never reached the status of a formal agreement. “It’s not to say that some previous deal is being violated against Taiwan, because actually no third party was ever in the middle, nor did any two parties sign a legally binding agreement,” said Huang Chung-ting, assistant research fellow with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei. “It’s just an understanding based on politics.” Validity of the line, which is in place to head off mishaps, has become a sore point this year as Chinese warplanes regularly cross it, often to be scrambled away by Taiwanese planes. As of October 7, Chinese military aircraft had flown 49 times across the median line in 2020, the highest number in any year since 1990.Hong Kong China and Taipei TaiwanMedian line crossings add to a growing list of problems between Taiwan and China, including de facto economic sanctions imposed by Beijing and pressure on Taiwan’s few diplomatic allies to recognize Beijing instead of Taipei. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and insists that the two sides eventually unite, an issue left over from the Chinese civil war of the 1940s. Taiwan is self-ruled and President Tsai Ing-wen rejects China’s call for dialogue on the premise both sides belong to one country. A surge in U.S. support for Taiwan, including arms sales, has incensed China this year. The U.S. government says is bound by a 1979 law to consider helping Taiwan military if the island is attacked.  Median line crossings still put Chinese aircraft at least 80 kilometers from Taiwan’s shoreline. But China has never dropped the threat of force, if needed, to make the two sides unify, and its warplane activity in 2020 has fanned speculation in Taiwan about whether Beijing is preparing to attack. China honors the line that bifurcates the 160-km wide Taiwan Strait when it’s getting along with Taiwan’s leadership and believes its planes can cross the line with impunity when relations sour, scholars say. Relations reached a peak under a former Taiwanese president between 2008 and 2015, during which the Chinese flybys were a non-issue. “It’s a line for many meanings. One is for some kind of goodwill between Taiwan and mainland,” said Alexander Huang, a strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. “When there is a relatively calm situation, then both sides try not to infringe upon or cross the line.” The median line is unrelated to either side’s civilian airspace, territorial boundaries extending 14 nautical miles (22 kilometer) offshore or a farther-reaching air defense identification zone that Taiwan has established as an additional bulwark against Chinese warplanes, Huang Chung-ting said. The identification zone – also crossed by Beijing’s military planes this year – overlaps Chinese airspace.  Any Chinese military flights into Taiwan’s territorial boundary would be an indisputable act of aggression, analysts believe. “If they cross over the 12 [nautical] mile territorial boundary in the airspace, then it is definitely violating a sovereign country’s airspace and territorial water,” said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan. 
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Newly formed Tropical Storm Zeta strengthened Sunday in the western Caribbean and will probably become a hurricane before hitting Mexico’s resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula and the U.S. Gulf Coast in coming days.Zeta was the earliest named 27th Atlantic storm recorded in an already historic hurricane season.The system was centered about 275 miles (445 kilometers) southeast of Cozumel island early Sunday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.The storm was nearly stationary, though forecasters said it was likely to shear the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula or westernmost Cuba by late Monday or early Tuesday and then close in on the U.S. Gulf Coast by Wednesday, but could weaken by then.The storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), and forecasters said Zeta was expected to intensify into a hurricane Monday.Officials in Quintana Roo state, the location of Cancun and other resorts, said they were watching the storm. They reported nearly 60,000 tourists in the state as of midweek. The state government said 71 shelters were being readied for tourists or residents who might need them.The government is still handing out aid, including sheet roofing, to Yucatan residents hit by Hurricane Delta and Tropical Storm Gamma earlier this month.Zeta may dawdle in the western Caribbean for another day or so, trapped between two strong high pressure systems to the east and west. It can’t move north or south because nothing is moving there either, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.“It just has to sit and wait for a day or so,” McNoldy said. “It just needs anything to move.”When a storm gets stuck, it can unload dangerous downpours over one place, which causes flooding when a storm is over or near land. That happened in 2017 over Houston with Harvey, when more than 60 inches (150 centimeters) of rain fell and 2019 over the Bahamas with a Category 5 Dorian, which was the worst-case scenario of a stationary storm, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.While Zeta was over open ocean Sunday, Jamaica and Honduras were getting heavy rains because the system is so large and South Florida was under a flood watch, McNoldy said.But once Zeta eventually gets moving, it won’t be stalling over landfall, Klotzbach said.The Hurricane Center said Zeta could bring 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain to parts of the Caribbean and Mexico as well as Florida and the Keys before drenching parts of the central Gulf Coast by Wednesday.A 2018 study said storms, especially in the Atlantic basin, are slowing down and stalling more. Atlantic storms that made landfall moved 2.9 mph (4.7 kph) slower than 60 years ago, the study found. Study author James Kossin, a government climate scientist, said the trend has signs of human-caused climate change.Zeta is also in a dangerous place to stall. The western Caribbean is “where storms can cook” and rapidly intensify because of the deep, warm waters, like 2005’s Wilma, Klotzbach said. However, the National Hurricane Center was not forecasting rapid intensification for Zeta.The lack of steering currents also meant wide spread of possible landfalls when Zeta eventually heads north to the Gulf Coast. The hurricane center said it could make landfall anywhere from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards urged his state’s citizens to monitor the storm, and the state activated its Crisis Action Team.On Sunday, a hurricane warning was called for the Yucatan Peninsula from Tulum to Rio Lagartos, including Cancun and Cozumel, while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Pinar del Rio, Cuba.Zeta broke the record of the previous earliest 27th Atlantic named storm that formed Nov. 29, 2005, according to Klotzbach.This year’s season has so many storms that the hurricane center has turned to the Greek alphabet after running out of official names.Zeta is the furthest into the Greek alphabet the Atlantic season has gone. There was also a Tropical Storm Zeta in 2005, but that year had 28 storms because meteorologists later went back and found they missed one, which then became a “unnamed named storm,” Klotzbach said.Additionally, Hurricane Epsilon was moving quickly through the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Forecasters said it would become a post-tropical cyclone later Sunday. Large ocean swells generated by the hurricane could cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions along U.S. East Coast and Atlantic Canada during the next couple of days.
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Amid a year of contagion and turmoil, Chileans turned out Sunday to vote on whether to draft a new constitution for their nation to replace guiding principles imposed four decades ago under a military dictatorship, and early returns gave the “yes” forces a big lead.The country’s conservative government agreed with the center-left opposition to allow the plebiscite after the outbreak of vast street protests that erupted a year ago in frustration over inequality in pensions, education and health care in what has long been one of South America’s most developed nations.The Electoral Service said Sunday evening that of the first 1.3 million ballots counted, 77.5% favored a new charter and less than 22.5% were opposed. Among the 60,000 Chileans living abroad who voted in 65 nations, the vote was 86% for a new constitution and 13% against, officials said. About 15 million Chileans were eligible to vote.Recent polls indicated heavy backing for a new constitution despite opposition from conservative groups., and center-right President Sebastián Piñera said after voting that he assumed the measure would be approved.“I believe the immense majority of Chileans want to change, modify our constitution,” he said.If the measure is approved, a special convention would begin drafting a new constitution that would be submitted to voters in mid-2022.Chile’s current constitution was drafted by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and was sent to voters at a time where political parties had been banned and the country was subject to heavy censorship.It was approved by a 66%-30% margin in a 1980 plebiscite, but critics say many voters were cowed into acceptance by a regime that had arrested, tortured and killed thousands of suspected leftist opponents following the overthrow of an elected socialist government.“I think that many people went to vote out of fear,” said political scientist Claudio Fuentes, who wrote a book about that plebiscite titled, “The Fraud.”“The current constitution has a flaw of origin, which is that it was created during the military dictatorship in an undemocratic process,” said Monica Salinero, a 40-year-old sociologist who supports drafting a new charter.The free-market principles embodied in that document led to a booming economy that continued after the return to democracy in 1990, but not all Chileans shared.A minority was able to take advantage of good, privatized education, health and social security services, while others were forced to rely on sometimes meager public alternatives. Public pensions for the poorest are just over $200 a month, roughly half the minimum wage.Luisa Fuentes Rivera, a 59-year-old food vendor, said hopes that “with a new constitution we will have better work, health, pensions and a better quality of life for older people, and a better education.”But historian Felipe Navarrete warned, “It’s important to say that the constitution won’t resolve the concrete problems. It will determine which state we want to solve the problems.”Claudia Heiss, head of the political science department at the University of Chile, said it would send a signal about people’s desires for change, and for a sort of politics that would “allow greater inclusion of sectors that have been marginalized from politics.”Conservative groups fear the revamp could go too far, and endanger parts of the constitution that have helped the country prosper.“The people have demonstrated saying they want better pensions, better health, better education. and the response of the political class” is a process that won’t solve the problems and will open a period of uncertainty,” said Felipe Lyon, 28-year-old lawyer and spokesman for the group “No, Thanks” that opposes the change.The decision to allow the vote came after hundreds of thousands of Chileans repeatedly took to the streets in protests that often turned violent.The vote was initially scheduled for April, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed some 13,800 Chileans, with more than 500,000 people infected by the new coronavirus.Officials trying to ensure voters felt safe barred infected persons or those close to them from the polls, and long lines formed at voting places. Voters had to wear masks — dipping them only briefly for identification purposes — and brought their own pencils.The manner of drafting a new constitution was also on the ballot. Voters were choosing between a body of 155 citizens who would be elected just for that purpose in April, or a somewhat larger convention split equally between elected delegates and members of Congress.
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Protesters march through Minsk, Belarus, as opposition leaders threaten a national strike if longtime President Alexander Lukashenko does not resign by midnight, Sunday, October 25.  Police in Belarus used stun grenades Sunday to disperse protesters. News reports say than 100,000 protesters were in the streets of Minsk Sunday – the 11th in a row of demonstrations against Lukashenko’s contested victory in August presidential elections. Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled the country for her safety since the August election, has called for a national strike if Lukashenko does not resign by midnight. Lukashenko has indicated he will ignore the ultimatum. At least two people were injured by police in Sunday’s protests, according to RFE/RL. Sixty people were arrested, according to Belarusian rights group Vesna. Lukashenko maintains he won the poll in a landslide — garnering 80% of all ballots — despite widespread claims at home and abroad that the vote was heavily rigged to keep him in power. He has been in office for 26 years. Public anger has grown over the crackdown in the wake of the protests that have seen more than 7,500 arrests and police violence against demonstrators. https://www.voanews.com/europe/belarus-police-use-stun-grenades-disperse-protests 
 
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Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of “attacking Islam” by defending the publication of “blasphemous” caricatures.
 
The comment Sunday comes four days after Macron said France would not “give up cartoons” depicting the Prophet Muhammad, pledging that Islamists “will never have” his country’s future.
 
“Sadly, President Macron has chosen to deliberately provoke Muslims, including his own citizens, through encouraging the display of blasphemous cartoons targeting Islam & our Prophet PBUH (peace be upon him),” Khan said in a series of tweets.
 
“It is unfortunate that he has chosen to encourage Islamophobia by attacking Islam rather than the terrorists who carry out violence, be it Muslims, White Supremacists or Nazi ideologists,” Khan wrote.
 FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron.Macron’s controversial remarks came in response to the beheading of a French teacher, Samuel Paty, outside Paty’s school near Paris after he had shown cartoons depicting the Prophet during a class on free speech. The French president described the slain teacher as a hero, saying Islamists were a threat to the country.
 
“This is a time when Pres Macron could have put healing touch & denied space to extremists rather than creating further polarisation & marginalisation that inevitably leads to radicalisation,” Khan said.
 
Caricatures of the Prophet are forbidden by Islam. Insulting the religion or the Prophet carries the death penalty under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
 
“By attacking Islam, clearly without having any understanding of it, President Macron has attacked & hurt the sentiments of millions of Muslims in Europe & across the world,” Khan said.
 
Earlier this month, Macron sparked controversy when he said, “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world,” prompting several Muslim countries to call for a boycott of French goods.
 
In recent years, France has experienced a series of violent attacks blamed on suspected Islamists, including a bloody 2015 assault on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for publishing anti-Islam images.
 Khan writes to Facebook
 
Separately, the Pakistani leader wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Facebook, urging him to ban anti-Islam content on the social media platform.
 
“Given the rampant abuse and vilification of Muslims on social media platforms, I would ask you to place a similar ban on Islamophobia and hate against Islam for Facebook that you have put in place for the Holocaust,” said Khan in a letter his office released to media late Sunday.There was no immediate comment from Facebook.The social media giant recently announced it was updating its hate speech policy to ban any content that denied or distorted the Holocaust.
 
Khan noted in the letter that Islam has been associated with terrorism in France and publication of blasphemous cartoons targeting Islam have been allowed there.
 
“This will lead to further polarization and marginalization of Muslims in France. How will the French distinguish between radical extremist Muslim citizens and the mainstream Muslim citizenry of Islam?,” Khan asked.
 
Last month, the Pakistani prime minister, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, denounced Charlie Hebdo for re-publishing the cartoons and demanded that “willful provocations” be “universally outlawed.”
 
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A group of drag queens raise their three fingers in solidarity with the protests demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha in Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday, October 25.  Thousands of people protested in Bangkok on Sunday in the first demonstration since Thailand’s Prime Minister ignored their Saturday night deadline to resign. The protests that began in mid-July have put the greatest pressure in years on the establishment, particularly with taboo-breaking calls to limit the powers of King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s monarchy. Protesters seek the departure of Prayuth and a new constitution. He rejects their accusation that he engineered last year’s election to keep the power he first took in a 2014 coup. They have also demanded curbs on the monarchy, saying it has enabled decades of military domination. On Monday, the Thai parliament will open a special session called after protests swelling since August moved Thailand’s prime minister to declare a weeklong state of emergency in the Bangkok area. Police say they are prepared to handle flare-ups during the session from protesters demanding Prayuth’s resignation and reform of the monarchy.  Unlike past anti-government protests in Thailand that saw two political interests battling each other to assume power, the current movement is led by school and college students pushing for systemic changes. Their movement has evolved with a group of loosely aligned leaders who organize online. https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/thai-protest-leader-our-demands-are-supremely-clear 
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