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Colombian police said Wednesday that they had arrested 70 people following fresh anti-government protests that mobilized thousands countrywide the previous day and left dozens injured.

As Colombians returned to the streets after a weekslong hiatus, clashes with riot police occurred in the cities of Bogota, Medellin and Cali, according to the authorities.

The government has described the protests as largely peaceful.

Police said in a statement that they had “captured 70 people, 69 of them caught in the act, for crimes committed in several cities on July 20, and one more on a warrant for homicide.”

Charges included blocking public roads, damage to property, throwing dangerous objects or substances, and firearm possession.

The government contended that armed groups had infiltrated the protests.

Colombia’s human rights ombudsman reported 50 people were injured in Tuesday’s demonstrations — 24 civilians and 26 agents.

Weeks of protests broke out late April in opposition to a proposed tax hike, and the protests morphed into a mass movement against the right-wing administration of President Ivan Duque.

Police repression, poverty decried

The demonstrators demanded an end to police repression and more supportive public policies to alleviate the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 40% of the country’s 50 million inhabitants now living in poverty.

The international community has condemned a security response that left more than 60 people dead.

A major group representing protesters — the National Strike Committee — said on June 16 that it would suspend the demonstrations, even though smaller groups continued and roadblocks remained.

The committee called fresh protests for Tuesday, Colombia’s independence day, as the government put a new tax proposal to parliament.

On Wednesday, the government presented to lawmakers a bill to reform the police, who are accused of abuses against civilian protesters. It proposes better training for officers and sanctions for those who do not identify themselves when carrying out arrests, or who refuse to be filmed while carrying out their duties.

But it does not suggest removing the police from the control of the defense ministry, as demanded by protesters.

“The national police must be part of the ministry of defense because of the conditions of threat and violence that still exist in Colombia,” police chief Diego Molano told AFP. The institution “has functions in the fight against drug trafficking, in citizen security … in the fight against smuggling that require coordination with the military forces.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has criticized Colombia’s “disproportionate” and “lethal” response to the protests and has also recommended a police separation from the military.
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President Joe Biden aimed to rev up support for his economic agenda with a visit to Cincinnati on Wednesday, where he visited a union training center ahead of a CNN town hall.

The trip comes as the fate of his infrastructure proposal remains unclear after Senate Republicans rejected a $1 trillion blueprint in a key test vote Wednesday. A bipartisan group of 22 senators said in a joint statement after the vote that they were close to coming to terms on a deal and requested a delay until Monday.

Biden expressed confidence in the outcome, telling reporters when asked if he would land a deal on infrastructure, “Yes, we will.”

While lawmakers wrangle over the details of that proposal on Capitol Hill, Biden was expected to use the town hall, in part, to talk about the broad strokes of his economic vision, making the case that his nearly $4 trillion package is needed to rebuild the middle class and sustain the economic growth the country has seen during the first six months of his presidency.

First, Biden toured the IBEW/NECA Electrical Training Center on the west side of Cincinnati. He got a chance to get an up-close look at trainees working their way through five-year apprenticeships to learn the ins-and-outs of the sort of skilled, well-paid union jobs that he says will be in higher demand if his plan comes to fruition.

“There’s a reason why union workers are the best trained,” said Biden, as he met with apprentices.

It’s his third trip to the state — one he lost by about 8 points in 2020, but one that remains pivotal to the Democratic Party’s political future and a key test of whether Biden’s economic proposals have the broad appeal the White House hopes.

The state faces a heated Senate election next year with the retirement of Republican Rob Portman, who helped negotiate the infrastructure plan that now faces an uncertain future in the evenly split Senate.

The president’s visit took him near the dangerously outdated Brent Spence Bridge — a chokepoint for trucks and emergency vehicles between Ohio and Kentucky that the past two presidents promised without success to replace. But Republicans are more focused on the increase in shootings and crime in Cincinnati, which they blame on Democrats, although there are a host of factors, including the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden is likely to take questions on many of those issues during his Wednesday night town hall on CNN, at Mount St. Joseph University, a private Catholic college in Delhi Township, a western suburb of Cincinnati. 
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Brisbane was picked Wednesday to host the 2032 Olympics, the inevitable winner of a one-city race steered by the IOC to avoid rival bids.

The Games will go back to Australia 32 years after the popular 2000 Sydney Olympics. Melbourne hosted in 1956.

“We know what it takes to deliver a successful Games in Australia,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told International Olympic Committee voters in an 11-minute live video link from his office.

When the award was later confirmed, winning the vote 72-5, Morrison raised both arms in the air and gave two thumbs up.

The victory led to a fireworks display in Brisbane that was broadcast to IOC members in their five-star hotel in Tokyo.

Brisbane follows 2028 host Los Angeles in getting 11 years to prepare for hosting the Games. Paris will host in 2024.

The 2032 deal looked done months before the formal decision at the IOC meeting, which was held ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games.

The IOC gave Brisbane exclusive negotiating rights in February. That decision left Olympic officials in Qatar, Hungary and Germany looking blindsided with their own stalled bidding plans.

Though the result was expected, a high-level Australian delegation went to Tokyo amid the COVID-19 pandemic to present speeches, films and promises on stage.

The city of Brisbane sent Mayor Adrian Schrinner, the state of Queensland sent Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Australia’s federal government sent sports minister Richard Colbeck to woo Olympic voters.

They were joined by long-time Australian Olympic official John Coates, now an IOC vice president who shaped the fast-track selection process two years ago.

The first-time format, designed to cut campaign costs, gives the IOC more control and removes the risk of vote-buying.

The project will see events staged across Queensland, including in Gold Coast, which hosted the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Brisbane’s renowned cricket stadium, known as the Gabba, will be upgraded and may host the sport at the Games. Cricket was played once at the Olympics, at the 1900 Paris Games.

The next three Summer Games hosts — starting with Paris in 2024 — are now secured in wealthy and traditional Olympic host nations without any of the trio facing a contested vote.

The IOC and its hands-on president, Thomas Bach, have torn up the template of traditional bidding campaigns and hosting votes to lock down preferred cities with the minimum risk.

The future hosts offer stability for the IOC, which was stung by the two previous Summer Games contests being tainted by allegations of vote-buying when multiple cities were on the ballot.

The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics are still under investigation by French prosecutors. They have implicated officials who then lost their place in the IOC family as active or honorary members.

A low-risk future beckons for the IOC following the often-troubled Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games in February, which will throw scrutiny on China’s human rights record. 

Key partners have also been secured through 2032. The IOC’s signature broadcasting deal with NBC and top-tier sponsors Coca-Cola, Visa and Omega are tied down for the decade ahead.
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A study suggests Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine may be less effective against the emerging variants of the coronavirus.

Researchers at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine reached the conclusion after conducting laboratory testing of blood samples from volunteers.

Nathaniel Landau, the lead researcher, said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine does not provide the same protection against the variants as either the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, which were developed differently, using the messenger RNA method.

The study, posted online Tuesday, has not been peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific journal, and does not reflect the real-world effects of the vaccine. But the findings are similar to other studies that show single-dose vaccines such as Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca do not produce enough antibodies to fight the delta and lambda coronavirus variants.

The delta variant, which was first detected in India, reportedly spreads more easily than other iterations of the virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said delta now accounts for 83% of new cases in the nation.

Johnson & Johnson recently published a study that shows a single dose of its vaccine is effective against the delta variant for up to eight months.

But Landau says the results of the NYU study bolster the growing theory that a follow-up shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is necessary.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been plagued with problems since it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine has been linked to a rare but serious blood-clotting disorder, plus a rare neurological condition. Millions of doses were ruined earlier this year when a Baltimore-based manufacturing plant mixed the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with ingredients from the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported that there are 191.4 million total confirmed COVID-19 infections in the world, including 4.1 million global fatalities as of Wednesday.

South Korean health officials reported a new single-day record of 1,784 new COVID-19 infections Wednesday as the country struggles to contain a wave of infections linked to the delta variant, with more than 1,000 new cases recorded each day for the past two weeks.

The surge has been centered mainly in the capital, Seoul, which has been put under a variety of restrictions and more cases have been reported outside the city.

South Korea has recorded 182,265 total coronavirus cases, including 2,060 deaths.  Only 32% of the country’s 52 million people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 6.6 million fully vaccinated.

Health officials are also dealing with an outbreak on a naval warship that has been patrolling the waters off the coast of Africa that has sickened at least 270 crewmen.

(Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.)
 
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Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya pushed Tuesday for the United States to apply pressure to the government of President Alexander Lukashenko, including through the use of sanctions. 

“Sanctions is not silver bullet, but they can help to stop violence in Belarus and to make representatives of the regime to start dialogue with civil society,” Tsikhanouskaya told VOA. 

She spoke outside the White House after talks with U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, one of a series of meetings this week with officials from the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress. 

“I asked the U.S. to be the guarantors of our independence, that they will stand for our independence if it is under the threat. Because our independence is the highest value for Belarusians,” Tsikhanouskaya told VOA. 

She said she asked that the United States provide more support for civil society groups in Belarus, and that it is up to democratic countries to “support those who are fighting now.” 

Tsikhanouskaya was the main challenger to Lukashenko in an August 2020 election that the opposition and many Western governments considered rigged. Lukashenko denies the allegation. She fled the country after the election as Lukashenko’s government cracked down on protests. 

“The United States, together with partners and allies, will continue to hold the Lukashenka regime accountable for its actions, including through the imposition of sanctions,” U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement about Tuesday’s meeting.

State Department spokesman Ned Price, speaking to reporters at a Tuesday briefing, said sanctions are “a powerful tool,” and that the United States supports the aspirations of the people of Belarus “for a democratic, free and prosperous future.” 

“We are committed to close coordination with likeminded allies and partners on next steps, just as we have been in demonstrating our response to the crackdown, to the outrageous actions in recent weeks of the Lukashenko regime,” Price said. “We support international efforts to independently look into Belarus’s flawed election, its human rights abuses surrounding the election, and the crackdown that followed.” 

VOA Russian service’s Mykhailo Komadovsky contributed to the report.  
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Ecologists in a vast region of wetlands and forest in remote Oregon have spent the past decade thinning young trees and using planned fires to try to restore the thick stands of ponderosa to a less fire-prone state. 

This week, the nation’s biggest burning wildfire provided them with an unexpected, real-world experiment. As the massive inferno half the size of Rhode Island roared into the Sycan Marsh Preserve, firefighters said the flames jumped less from treetop to treetop and instead returned to the ground, where they were easier to fight, moved more slowly and did less damage to the overall forest. 

The initial assessment suggests that the many years of forest treatments worked, said Pete Caligiuri, Oregon forest program director for The Nature Conservancy, which runs the research at the preserve. 

“Generally speaking, what firefighters were reporting on the ground is that when the fire came into those areas that had been thinned … it had significantly less impact.” 

The reports were bittersweet for researchers, who still saw nearly 51.7 square kilometers of the preserve burn, but the findings add to a growing body of research about how to make wildfires less explosive by thinning undergrowth and allowing forests to burn periodically — as they naturally would do — instead of snuffing out every flame. 

The Bootleg Fire, now 1,569 square kilometers in size, has ravaged southern Oregon and is the fourth-largest fire in the state’s modern history. It’s been expanding by up to 6 kilometers a day, pushed by gusting winds and critically dry weather that’s turned trees and undergrowth into a tinderbox. 

Fire crews have had to retreat from the flames for 10 consecutive days as fireballs jump from treetop to treetop, trees explode, embers fly ahead of the fire to start new blazes, and in some cases, the inferno’s heat creates its own weather of shifting winds and dry lightning. Monstrous clouds of smoke and ash have risen up to 9.6 kilometers into the sky and are visible for more than 185.2 kilometers. 

The fire in the Fremont-Winema National Forest merged with a smaller nearby blaze Tuesday, and it has repeatedly breached a perimeter of treeless dirt and fire retardant meant to stop its advance.  

More evacuations were ordered Monday night, and a red flag weather warning signifying dangerous fire conditions was in effect through Tuesday. The fire is 30% contained. 

“We’re in this for as long as it takes to safely confine this monster,” Incident Commander Rob Allen said Tuesday. 

At least 2,000 homes have been evacuated at some point during the fire and another 5,000 threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have gone up in flames. Thick smoke chokes the area where residents and wildlife alike have already been dealing with months of drought and extreme heat. No one has died. 

The Bootleg Fire was one of many fires burning in a dozen states, most of them in the West. Sixteen large uncontained fires burned in Oregon and Washington state alone on Monday. 

Historically, wildfires in Oregon and elsewhere in the U.S. West burned an area as big or bigger than the current blaze more frequently but much less explosively. Periodic, naturally occurring fire cleared out the undergrowth and smaller trees that cause today’s fires to burn so dangerously. 

Those fires have not been allowed to burn for the past 120 years, said James Johnston, a researcher with Oregon State University’s College of Forestry who studies historical wildfires. 

The area on the northeastern flank of the Bootleg Fire is in the ancestral homeland of the Klamath Tribes, which have used intentional, managed fire to keep the fuel load low and prevent such explosive blazes. Scientists at the Sycan Marsh research station now work with the tribe and draw on that knowledge. 

Climate change is the catalyst for the worsening wildfire seasons in the West, Johnston said, but poor forest management and a policy of decades of fire suppression have made a bad situation even worse. 

“My colleagues and I have been predicting a massive fire in that area for years. It’s an area that’s exceptionally prone to catastrophic fire,” said Johnston, who is not affiliated with Sycan Marsh. “It’s dry. It’s fire-prone and always has been. But what’s changed over the past 100 years is an extraordinary amount of fuel buildup.” 

Other fires

Elsewhere, fire crews were engaged in other daunting battles. 

In Northern California, authorities expanded evacuations for the Tamarack Fire in Alpine County in the Sierra Nevada to include the mountain town of Mesa Vista late Monday. That fire, which exploded over the weekend was 158 square kilometers with no containment. 

On the western side of the Sierra, the Dixie Fire has scorched 163 square kilometers, threatening tiny communities in the Feather River Valley region. 

Meteorologist Julia Ruthford told a briefing that a surge of monsoonal moisture from the Southwest increased atmospheric instability Sunday and Monday, creating plumes topping 9.6 kilometers — so big that the fire generated a thunderstorm over itself, hurling lightning bolts and whipping up gusty winds. 

For the past two days in Oregon, the fire has danced around Sycan Marsh, where researchers raced to protect buildings with sprinklers and fire lines. The 121.7 square kilometer habitat attracts migrating and nesting birds and offers a unique location to research forest and fire ecology. 

The nonprofit operates its own fire engines and maintains federal firefighting certification. It now has three of its own engines and seven firefighters on the blaze, and more people are arriving from North Carolina and Florida to try to save the preserve. 

“It’s an amazing place,” Caligiuri said. “It’s very hard to watch it all happening, and seeing all of that work being threatened by this fire is a lot to process.” 
 
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Canadian officials announced that fully vaccinated American citizens and permanent residents can enter Canada for what is being called “discretionary travel” beginning August 9. 

Those wanting to cross the 8,891-kilometer border by land or air into Canada will have to arrive asymptomatic and provide proof of full vaccination as well as a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of arrival. 

The required documentation must be uploaded to the ArriveCAN app ahead of the trip, and travelers will need to have the paper version physically available. 

Canada’s easing of entry restrictions will extend to travelers from all other countries starting September 7, with identical requirements.   

The U.S.-Canada border has been closed to nonessential travel since March of last year. Canadians, however, have been able to fly into the United States with only a negative COVID-19 test. 

Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University in Bellingham, is not surprised by Ottawa’s decision.  

“I think that is a natural next step to allow Americans coming from the United States to Canada who are fully vaccinated for any trip purpose to be exempt,” Trautman said.

“So I’m glad to see there’s a date. I’m glad to see there’s a plan.” 

For Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, the announcement is good for commerce — and people’s outlook on both sides of the border.   

“When you think about it, what we have been through as human beings over the last 16-17 months or so is not natural, and what’s natural for people is to interact with each other,” Hyder said.

“To celebrate events, to mourn events, to, you know, meet our customers, to take vacations — all of these things are part of being a human being. And those are the things that we sacrificed for the last 16-17 months.” 

Perrin Beatty, the president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, welcomes the reopening, particularly for the tourism sector and other businesses that rely on cross-border travel with the United States.

One concern he has going forward is potential delays at the border for checking health documents.   

“And the government is going to need to look for ways of speeding that up,” Beatty said. “Otherwise, we’ll have massive traffic jams with people trying to cross the border at peak times. And that’s why it’s so important for us to have digital secure vaccination certification.”   

Beatty also said the Canadian government should eliminate the requirement to have a negative COVID-19 test.  

In making the announcements at a virtual press conference, Canadian Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair said he talked with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the changes.

Blair said the current restrictions that expire on the 21st of July are expected to continue for travelers going by land into the United States. 

“They are obviously considering additional measures and data,” Blair said. “But at the present time, they have not indicated a plan to make any changes in their current border restrictions that are in place.” 

Residents of the French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon will also be allowed into Canada for nonessential travel on Aug. 9. 

Earlier, the Canadian government shortened the ban on cruise ships docking in the country to Nov. 1, four months earlier than it originally planned. 

The Canada Border Services Agency staffs 117 legal crossing points along the Canada-U.S. border and 13 international airports.  
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An official at Mali’s presidency said Tuesday that interim leader Assimi Goita was “safe and sound” after armed men attacked him during a religious ceremony in the capital Bamako.  

The official added that Goita had arrived at the military camp of Kati, outside Bamako, “where security has been reinforced”. 

Two armed men, including one who wielded a knife, attacked Goita in the great mosque in the capital Bamako, an AFP journalist saw.   

The attack took place during prayers for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha.  

Religious Affairs Minister Mamadou Kone told AFP that a man had “tried to kill the president with a knife” but was apprehended.  

Latus Toure, the director of the Great Mosque, said an attacker had lunged for the president but wounded someone else.  

AFP was not immediately able to confirm the accounts. 

Mali has been struggling to contain a jihadist insurgency that first emerged in the north of the country in 2012, and has since spread to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.  

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.  

The conflict has also been mirrored by political instability in the capital.  

Colonel Goita led a coup last August, ousting elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after weeks of mass protests over corruption and the long-running jihadist conflict. 

In May, he ousted a transitional government that had been entrusted with the task of leading the country back to civilian rule in February 2022. 

He was then named transitional president, but has pledged to keep to the goal for returning to civilian government. 
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Bushra Shah, a 35-year-old Pakistani, says she is realizing a childhood dream by making the great pilgrimage to Mecca, and under new rules she’s doing it without a male guardian.

The hajj ministry has officially allowed women of all ages to make the pilgrimage without a male relative, known as a “mehrem,” on the condition that they go in a group.

The decision is part of social reforms rolled out by de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is trying to shake off the kingdom’s austere image and open its oi reliant economy.

Since his rise to power, women have been allowed to drive and to travel abroad without a male guardian, even against a backdrop of a relentless crackdown against critics of his rule, including women’s rights activists.

“It’s like a dream come true. My childhood dream was to make the hajj,” Shah told AFP, before setting off from her home in Jeddah, the major port city in western Saudi Arabia.

The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is a must for able-bodied Muslims with the means to do so at least once in their lifetime.

For the young mother, making the pilgrimage with her husband and child would have been a distraction that would have prevented her from “concentrating completely on the rites.”

Shah is one of 60,000 pilgrims chosen to take part in this year’s hajj, which has been dramatically scaled down for the second year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Only citizens and residents of Saudi Arabia, chosen in a lottery, are taking part. Officials have said that 40% of this year’s pilgrims are women.

“Many women will also come with me. I am very proud that we are now independent and do not need a guardian,” Shah said.

Her husband, Ali Murtada, said he “strongly encouraged” his wife to make the trip alone, after the government’s decision to ban children from participating in the hajj this year.
He will stay in Jeddah to look after their child.

“We decided that one of us should go. Maybe she will be pregnant next year or maybe the children will still not be allowed to participate,” the 38-year-old said.

It was unclear when the hajj ministry lifted the restriction, and some women have reported that travel agencies are still reluctant to accept women travelling without a male companion for the hajj.

Some even posted advertisements ruling out groups of unaccompanied women, in a sign of how the dizzying social changes are meeting some resistance in the deeply conservative kingdom.

Authorities previously required the presence of a male guardian for any woman pilgrim younger than 45, preventing many Muslim women around the world from making the hajj.

That was the case for Marwa Shaker, an Egyptian woman living in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

“Hajj without a guardian is a miracle,” the 42-year-old, who works for a civil society organization, told AFP.

Now travelling to Mecca with three of her friends, the mother of three had tried several times to make the pilgrimage before the pandemic. But she was unable to because her husband had already been and was not permitted to go again so soon.

“I feel enormously joyful. God has called me despite all the obstacles,” she said.

For Sadaf Ghafoor, a British-Pakistani doctor, travelling without a male guardian was the “only option.”

“We couldn’t leave the children alone,” the 40-year-old said of her three youngsters.  

Her husband decided to stay behind, and Ghafoor headed to Mecca with a neighbor.

“It was not easy to take the decision to go alone … but we took this opportunity as a blessing,” she said.
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Russia has asked the U.N. Security Council to vote Thursday on its proposal to abolish the post of international high representative for Bosnia and the office that goes with it by July 2022, diplomats told Agence France-Presse.    

The vote was requested for Thursday afternoon, said one of the diplomats on condition of anonymity.  

It is now up to France, which holds the presidency of the Security Council this month, to confirm the vote. 

The subject has been controversial for years and has come back on the radar in recent weeks. It pits Russia against the West, and in particular against Germany, which is due to have a former minister take up the post on August 1. 

Submitted to the Security Council last week, the Russian draft resolution, co-sponsored by China, “welcomes and agrees” to the designation of German politician Christian Schmidt as successor to current high representative Valentin Inzko of Austria.    

But the draft, obtained by AFP, goes on to say that it “supports the appointment of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (…) until 31 July 2022 with closure of the Office of the High Representative.” 

According to Western diplomats, Moscow and Beijing may not garner the minimum nine out of 15 votes necessary to approve the resolution, without one of the five permanent members of the council resorting to their veto power to block it.    

The five permanent members are Russia, China, the United States, France and Britain. 

At the end of June, Russia said it “categorically refused” the appointment of Schmidt, a former German minister of agriculture.  

The United States replied that the appointment was a “closed matter” and that the U.N. had nothing to do with the appointment of the high representative, which is decided by the Peace Implementation Council of the 1995 Dayton agreement, which is made up of 55 countries.  

After 12 years as high representative, Inzko, who was rejected by Russia over what it saw as bias against the Bosnian Serbs, resigned from his post.  

The job has no term limits attached to it. According to a Western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity, Russia’s draft resolution has no other objective than to “undermine the institution” represented by the Office of the High Representative.  

“It is absolutely crystal clear that this does not need any kind of endorsement by the Security Council,” the diplomat said. 
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Ben & Jerry’s said Monday it was going to stop selling its ice cream in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and contested east Jerusalem, saying the sales in the territories sought by the Palestinians are “inconsistent with our values.”

The announcement was one of the strongest and highest-profile rebukes by a well-known company of Israel’s policy of settling its citizens on war-won lands. The settlements are widely seen by the international community as illegal and obstacles to peace.

The move by the Vermont-based ice cream company drew swift reproach from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former leader of the West Bank settlement movement who called it “an immoral decision, and I believe that it will turn out to be a business mistake, too.”

The company informed its longstanding licensee — responsible for manufacturing and distributing the ice cream in Israel — that it will not renew the license agreement when it expires at the end of next year, according to a statement posted on the Vermont-based company’s website.

The Ben & Jerry’s statement cited “the concerns shared with us by our fans and trusted partners.”

The company did not explicitly identify those concerns, but last month, a group called Vermonters for Justice in Palestine called on Ben & Jerry’s to “end complicity in Israel’s occupation and abuses of Palestinian human rights.”

“How much longer will Ben & Jerry’s permit its Israeli-manufactured ice cream to be sold in Jewish-only settlements while Palestinian land is being confiscated, Palestinian homes are being destroyed, and Palestinian families in neighborhoods like Sheik Jarrah are facing eviction to make way for Jewish settlers?” the group’s Ian Stokes said in a June 10 news release.

In a Monday statement, the group said Ben & Jerry’s actions did not go far enough.

“By maintaining a presence in Israel, Ben & Jerry’s continues to be complicit in the killing, imprisonment and dispossession of Palestinian people and the flaunting of international law,” said the Vermont group’s Kathy Shapiro.

The Israeli foreign ministry called Ben & Jerry’s decision “a surrender to ongoing and aggressive pressure from extreme anti-Israel groups” and said the company was cooperating with “economic terrorism.”

“The decision is immoral and discriminatory, as it singles out Israel, harms both Israelis and Palestinians and encourages extremist groups who use bullying tactics,” the ministry said in a statement. It called on Ben & Jerry’s to withdraw its decision.

While Ben & Jerry’s products will not be sold in the settlements, the company said it will stay in Israel through a different arrangement. But doing so will be difficult. Major Israeli supermarket chains, the primary distribution channel for the ice cream maker, all operate in the settlements.

Founded in Vermont in 1978 but currently owned by consumer goods conglomerate Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s has not shied away from social causes. While many businesses tread lightly in politics for fear of alienating customers, the ice cream maker has taken the opposite approach, often espousing progressive causes.

Ben & Jerry’s took a stand against what it called the Trump administration’s regressive policies by rebranding one of its flavors Pecan Resist in 2018, ahead of midterm elections.

The company said Pecan Resist celebrated activists who were resisting oppression, harmful environmental practices and injustice. As part of the campaign, Ben & Jerry’s said it was giving $25,000 each to four activist entities.

Aida Touma-Sliman, an Israeli lawmaker with the Joint List of Arab parties, wrote on Twitter that Ben & Jerry’s decision Monday was “appropriate and moral.” She added that the “occupied territories are not part of Israel” and that the move is an important step to help pressure the Israeli government to end the occupation.

The West Bank and east Jerusalem were captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Some 700,000 Israeli settlers now live in the two territories — roughly 500,000 in the occupied West Bank and 200,000 in east Jerusalem.

Israel treats the two areas separately, considering east Jerusalem as part of its capital.

Meanwhile, Israel considers the West Bank as disputed territory whose fate should be resolved in negotiations. However, the international community considers both areas to be occupied territory. The Palestinians seek the West Bank as part of a future independent state, with east Jerusalem as their capital.

Israel in recent years has become a partisan issue in Washington, with many Democrats — particularly of the party’s progressive wing — growing increasingly critical about a number of Israeli policies, including settlement construction, and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s close ties with former President Trump. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has been an outspoken critic of Israel.

The BDS movement — shorthand for a grassroots, Palestinian-led movement that advocates boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli institutions and businesses — applauded Ben & Jerry’s decision as “a decisive step towards ending the company’s complicity in Israel’s occupation and violations of Palestinian rights” but called upon the company to do more.

“We hope that Ben & Jerry’s has understood that, in harmony with its social justice commitments, there can be no business as usual with apartheid Israel,” a statement read.

The Israeli government says the BDS movement masks a deeper aim of delegitimizing or even destroying the entire country.

The Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing the roughly 500,000 Israelis living in West Bank settlements, said “there’s no need to buy products from companies that boycott hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens because of the place they choose to live.” It said Ben & Jerry’s decision “brought a bad spirit to such a sweet industry” and called on Israelis to buy locally produced ice cream this summer.

Ben & Jerry’s move on Monday may not be the final chapter in the saga. Airbnb announced in 2018 that it would stop advertising properties in Israeli settlements.

Several months later, after coming under harsh criticism from Israel and a federal lawsuit by Israeli Americans who owned property in the settlements, the company reversed its decision.
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STAMFORD, Conn. — Michael Phelps will be part of NBC’s Olympics coverage as a correspondent and swimming commentator, the network announced Monday. 

Phelps — who has won the most medals (28) and gold medals (23) in Olympic history — will call selected swimming events with Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines and contribute features as a correspondent during primetime coverage. Phelps, who swam in five Games from 2000-16, did some work for NBC during its coverage of last month’s U.S. swimming trials. 

“I know he’s going to offer some incredible insight on especially those races that he has won so many gold medals in,” Gaines said during a teleconference. 

A three-part retrospective on Phelps’ career is streaming on NBC’s Peacock platform. 
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More than half of the Kenyan capital’s nearly five million people live in slums, where many young people are lured by drugs and crime. In one neighborhood, a group is using the game of chess to help transform the lives of young people.  

We are in Mukuru Kwa Njenga an informal settlement that is about thirteen kilometers from Kenya’s capital Nairobi. Among the youth here practicing chess, who number about twenty, is Sarah Momanyi.  At 15, she’s a teen sensation in the sport, but her start wasn’t easy.  

“When I first started playing chess, it was hard because I was like the only girl, and my grandmother, she never supported me, because of playing with boys. It was really hard,” she said. 

It’s been five years since a sports outreach ministry introduced chess to this informal settlement to help keep young people away from drugs and crime.  

Every Saturday, the students here practice the game for five hours. The sport has provided a safe avenue for Momanyi and other young residents to hone and perfect their skills.  

The chess initiative has drawn about 800 students from various schools within Mukuru Kwa Njenga, which has a population of about half a million people.  

Josephat Owila is a national chess instructor and head coach with the Sports Outreach Ministry.  
 
“Socially they are good because they can be able to coexist with others in the society also in their schools, their respective schools. They are performing well, which means that they are critical thinkers and are creative also,” he said.     

John Mukabi, the head of Chess Kenya, the national body that manages the sport, told VOA the sport faces challenges in the country.  

“For these informal settlement areas, like here in Mukuru Kwa Njenga, they don’t have internet connection, they need laptops and things like that and also chessboards,” he said.  

Still, the young residents play the game despite obstacles. As for Momanyi, she continues to practice every day and hopes to one day become a grand master.  

 
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As the annual Hajj reached its peak, some 60,000 masked and socially distant Muslims gathered Monday at Saudi Arabia’s Mount Arafat to pray and call for a quick end to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the second year, the pilgrimage was limited to Saudi citizens and residents age 18-65 who have been fully vaccinated or have recovered from the virus. Normally, the Hajj draws more than 2 million people.

Mount Arafat is believed to be where the Prophet Muhammad delivered his last sermon.

“It is an indescribable feeling that I got selected among millions of people to attend the Hajj,” Um Ahmed, a Palestinian pilgrim who lives in Riyadh, said in an interview with Reuters. “I pray for God to put an end to these hard times the whole world has gone through under the coronavirus.”

Pilgrims typically climb the 70-meter hill after noon prayers. There, they seek to atone for their sins and recite from the Koran.

After sunset, they move on to Muzdalifah to spend the night under the stars. The next day, they gather stones to throw at columns symbolizing the devil.

Arafat and Muzdalifah are a few kilometers east of Mecca.

“The first prayer is to ask God to lift this pandemic, this curse and this grief for all humanity and for Muslims so in the next years, they are able to attend Hajj and for millions to refill these holy sites,” Maher Baroody, a Syrian pilgrim, told Reuters.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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The corruption trial of former South African President Jacob Zuma resumes with a hearing Monday, following several days of deadly riots linked to his imprisonment in a separate case.  

Zuma is expected to appear virtually when the proceedings begin at Pietermaritzburg High Court in the former president’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal.  He is charged with multiple counts of corruption, fraud and racketeering in connection with a massive 1999 arms deal involving French defense giant Thales when he served as deputy president.  The company has also been charged with corruption and money laundering. 

The 79-year-old Zuma surrendered to authorities in his home province nearly two weeks ago to begin serving a 15-month prison sentence handed down by the Constitutional Court in late June.  The sentence was for failing to appear before an inquiry into corruption during his nine-year presidency which ended in 2018.   

His surrender triggered angry protests in KwaZulu-Natal which soon evolved into rioting, looting and arson that spread into Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and economic hub.  More than 200 people were killed in the violence before security forces were deployed to restore order.  Over one thousand people have been arrested for theft and vandalism.   

Zuma’s lawyers will argue that chief prosecutor Billy Downer should recuse himself from the case during Monday’s hearing, arguing that Downer is biased against their client. 
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Ethiopia has nearly completed the filling of a huge dam on the Blue Nile River for a second year, state media reported on Monday, a move that has already angered Egypt.

Addis Ababa says the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a $4 billion hydropower project, is crucial to its economic development and to provide power.

But is has caused concern over water shortages and safety in Egypt and Sudan, which also depend on the Nile’s waters.

“The second filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be completed in few minutes,” the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) reported on Monday.

Egypt said last month it had received official notice from Ethiopia that it had begun filling the reservoir for a second time and said it rejected the move.

Egypt views it as a grave threat to its Nile water supplies, on which it is almost entirely dependent. Sudan has also expressed concern about the dam’s safety and the impact on its own dams and water stations.

Long-running diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute between the three countries have yielded little success.

The United States has also said Ethiopia’s filling of the dam had the potential to raise tensions and has urged all parties to refrain from any unilateral actions.
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Several prominent Egyptian activists and journalists were released from custody on Sunday following months of detention on charges including joining or aiding a terrorist group and spreading false news, lawyers representing them said.

Egyptian authorities have in recent months released detainees ahead of major Muslim holidays. Sunday’s releases come two days ahead of Eid al-Adha, one of the two most important festivals of the Islamic calendar.

Esraa Abdelfattah, an activist and journalist who was among the organizers of Egypt’s January 2011 revolution that ended the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak, was released from custody in Cairo early Sunday, more than 21 months after her arrest, her lawyer Ahmed Ragheb told Reuters.

“I spoke to her, she is doing very well. Her spirits are high, and she is surely very happy with this decision, in order to resume her life,” Ragheb said adding that the case remains open and investigations are ongoing despite her release.

Activist and lawyer Mahienour el-Masry, journalist Moataz Wednan, leftist columnist Gamal al-Gamal, leftist politician Abdel Nasser Ismail and journalist Mostafa al-Asar were also freed, a lawyer representing them and a judicial source said. The charges against them are still pending, the lawyer added.

Egyptian authorities did not comment on the release of the activists and journalists. Egypt’s state information service confirmed their release but said no government statements on the matter were immediately available.

Abdelfattah was a co-founder of the April 6 Youth Movement, which has been banned by the Egyptian government for years, and was arrested shortly after small, scattered demonstrations in Egypt in September 2019.

Wednan was arrested in 2018 after interviewing former anti-graft chief Hisham Genena who was working to elect a former military chief-of-staff in an apparent challenge to President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in elections that year. 
 
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