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A Rwandan court is charging the man who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda” with terrorism, complicity in murder and forming an armed rebel group. Prosecutors accuse Paul Rusesabagina of orchestrating crimes against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians in 2018.  Rusesabagina refused to plead to all 13 charges on Monday, including being linked to murders, claiming some of the charges are baseless. Rusesabagina, who has been detained since late last month, is asking to be released because of poor health. The court will hear his request for bail on Thursday. The film “Hotel Rwanda” portrayed Rusesabagina, a former hotel manager, as a hero, who protected Tutsis fleeing the 1994 genocide.  Rusesabagina is credited with saving more than 1,000 lives. 
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Iran’s Saturday execution of a wrestler who said he was tortured into a murder confession happened without advance warning to relatives, lawyers and even the wrestler himself, according to a knowledgeable source.  The source who is close to the family of wrestler Navid Afkari Sangari told VOA Persian in a Sunday interview that Afkari’s family and lawyers were given no notice that the execution would happen early Saturday, nor were they given one last opportunity to meet with him in the preceding days.  Iranian law requires the government to notify lawyers of a scheduled execution of their client 48 hours in advance and to grant families the right to visit their condemned relative for the last time. The source said Afkari’s lawyers had planned a Saturday meeting in the south-central city of Shiraz, where he was jailed, with relatives of the man whom Afkari was alleged to have killed. The purpose of the meeting would have been to try to convince the relatives to forgive Afkari, an act that would have canceled his death sentence under Iran’s law of qisas or retribution in kind.  But the source said the lawyers instead received a Saturday phone call from a family member of Afkari saying the wrestler had been executed earlier in the day.  بر اساس آیین نامه اجرای احکام قصاص..محکوم علیه حق دارد قبل از اجرای حکم با خانواده خود دیدار داشته باشد..برای اجرای حکم انقدر عجله داشتید که نوید را از آخرین دیدار هم محروم کردید؟ https://t.co/VRBREWxCmJ— hassan younesi (@hassan_younesi) September 12, 2020“Were you in such a hurry to carry out the death sentence that you deprived Navid of his last (family) meeting?” his lawyer Hassan Younesi asked in a Saturday tweet apparently directed toward Iranian authorities.    Iranian state media had quoted Kazem Mousavi, chief justice of Fars province whose capital is Shiraz, as saying the execution was carried out Saturday morning local time at the city’s Adel Abad prison. The method of Afkari’s execution was not disclosed.  Afkari’s last brief contact with family members came in a phone call he was allowed to make from the prison on Friday, the source said.  In the phone call, a recording of which was posted to social media on Monday, Afkari told an unidentified family member that it appeared the prison was planning to transfer him and his two brothers who had been jailed as his alleged accomplices to Tehran on Saturday morning. He did not specify what led him to believe he was about to be transferred to another city, but he ended the call by saying he hoped everything would be alright.  Afkari’s calm tone of voice also gave no indication that he expected to be executed the next morning rather than transferred.  Iranian journalist and rights activist Mehdi Mahmoudian, one of the Iranian social media users who had posted the recording of Afkari’s Friday phone call to Twitter, later deleted it. He informed his followers in a Monday tweet that the Afkari family had asked for the audio to be taken down.فایل صوتی منتشره به درخواست خانواده محترم مرحوم #نوید_افکاری حذف شد.— mehdi mahmoudian (@MahmoudianMe) September 14, 2020VOA’s source said Afkari’s father and other relatives attended a funeral for the wrestler late Saturday in the Fars provincial town of Sangar in the presence of security agents in plainclothes.  A video of the funeral shared on social media showed candles lit at Afkari’s grave site, with music playing in the background.  The 27-year-old Iranian Greco-Roman wrestler had been a local hero in his hometown of Shiraz for winning medals in domestic and international competitions. But his international profile rose earlier this month when news emerged that Iran upheld his death sentence, prompting an outpouring of support for him from social media users including U.S. President Donald Trump and the international wrestling and sporting communities.  A Fars criminal court had handed Afkari the death penalty for murder in the Aug. 2, 2018 killing of Hassan Torkaman, a security guard of a government water facility in Shiraz. The incident happened on the sidelines of peaceful anti-government protests that Afkari had joined in Shiraz and that were taking place in other cities in response to Iran’s worsening economic conditions. Authorities in Shiraz arrested the wrestler and his brother Vahid in connection with the killing on Sept. 17, 2018 and detained a third brother Habib later that year. Since then, Vahid and Habib have been sentenced to decades in prison for their alleged roles in the incident.  But in separate audio messages sent from prison and posted to social media in late August, Navid and Vahid said they had been tortured into confessing involvement in the 2018 killing.  Navid made another phone call to his relatives on September 6, saying he and his brothers had been beaten in prison in recent days, according to an additional source who spoke earlier to VOA Persian and who is close to the family. In his final September 11 phone call, Navid said several doctors had examined and photographed their wounds from those apparent beatings.  “Now people are looking for justice for Navid,” said the source whom VOA interviewed on Sunday. “They will continue to do so even if the family is unable to follow up on the case.”  U.N. human rights experts condemned Afkari’s execution in a statement released Monday, saying it appeared Iran was using the death penalty against an athlete as a warning to its population about the consequences of increasing social unrest.  “The hastened secret execution, forced confession under torture as the sole evidence, closed trial and the lack of respect for the domestic requirements for reconciliation and the denial of a last family visit suggest that there was an attempt by the authorities to expedite his execution,” the experts said.  They called on Iran to immediately halt all executions of other protesters sentenced to death, saying its persistent execution of individuals for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly contravened universally accepted human rights principles and norms.  This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Click here for the original Persian version of the story. 
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The U.S. State Department on Monday eased a travel advisory for Americans considering travel to China or Hong Kong from “Do Not Travel” to “Reconsider Travel,” citing “improved conditions.”The new “Level 3” warning reflects the “arbitrary enforcement” of local laws, said the department, which had issued its highest “Do Not Travel” Level 4 warning in June.China and the United States said in August they would each allow air carriers to double flights between the world’s two largest economies to eight per week.On Aug. 6, the U.S. State Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lifted its global advisory recommending U.S. citizens avoid all international travel because of the coronavirus pandemic, and instead issued a raft of high-level warnings for individual countries.The CDC also dropped its global advisory warning against all nonessential international travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Over the past month, the State Department has revised dozens of additional country-specific travel advisories, including easing ratings on Mongolia, El Salvador, Pakistan, Mexico, Kuwait, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia to Level 3.The United States has barred most non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in most of Europe, Brazil and China from traveling to the United States.On Monday, the U.S. government ended a requirement that travelers from China, Europe and Brazil return to the United States at 15 designated U.S. airports. It also ended enhanced CDC screenings of those passengers upon their return. 
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Iraqi military and Kurdish Peshmerga forces will increase their cooperation in the fight against Islamic State, an Iraqi military official said.Yahya Rasool, spokesman for the Iraqi military, said Sunday that joint efforts are under way to ensure the security of Iraq’s border with Syria, as IS militants continue to exploit the instability in both countries to launch attacks on Iraqi territory.“The Peshmerga forces are part of the Iraqi national defense system, and now there is joint coordination between the federal forces and the Peshmerga to protect those areas that lie between their lines of presence,” Rasool said in a statement to the Iraqi News Agency.“It is very important during the next phase to coordinate with the Peshmerga forces in order to carry out joint operations within these areas, as well as sharing intelligence,” he added.The Iraqi official noted that there is a new understanding between the two sides to establish coordination centers for their anti-IS campaign.FILE – Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi speaks to residents of Tarmiyah, Iraq, where a commander of an Iraqi army brigade was killed in an attack blamed on the Islamic State, July 20, 2020.Rasool’s statement comes days after Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited Iraq’s autonomous region of Kurdistan, where he and Kurdish leaders discussed among other issues the continued fight against IS, also known as ISIS.Iraqi and Kurdish officials emphasized “continuing security cooperation and coordination between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi military in countering ISIS terrorists to bring stability and help the return of displaced people,” the Kurdistan Region’s presidency said in a statement Friday.IS remains active  Despite its territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria, IS continues to carry out attacks in both countries, particularly in border areas.In August, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) said more than 10,000 IS fighters are estimated to remain active in Iraq and Syria, noting that their attacks have significantly increased this year.IraqVladimir Voronkov, head of the UNOCT, told the U.N. Security Council that IS militants move freely “in small cells between the two countries,” adding that the terror group has regrouped, and its activity has increased.Major objectiveExperts say securing Iraq’s border with Syria has become a major objective for the current Iraqi government in its counterterrorism efforts.“There are internal procedures about how to merge the role of the Peshmerga forces with the international coalition to go after ISIS remnants, prevent the smuggling of people and resources and stop the infiltration of terrorists from the Syrian border into the Iraqi territory,” said Hussein Ali Allawi, professor of national security at Nahrain University in Baghdad.Allawi told VOA that Iraqi authorities are also seeking to coordinate with anti-IS forces that are in control of the Syrian side of the border, while the U.S.-led global coalition against IS could provide logistical support.U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces control a significant part of Syria’s border with Iraq. Syrian regime forces and Iranian-backed militias also control parts of the border between the two countries.FILE – Gen. Frank McKenzie, center front, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, visits a military outpost in Syria, Jan. 25, 2020.US troop drawdownOn Wednesday, Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, announced during a visit to Iraq that U.S. troops in the country would be cut from 5,200 to 3,000.McKenzie said in a statement that the remaining U.S. forces would continue advising and assisting Iraqi forces in “rooting out the final remnants” of IS and “ensuring its enduring defeat.”“This decision is due to our confidence in the Iraqi security forces’ increased ability to operate independently,” the U.S. official said.
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A new U.S. public survey has found that two-thirds of supporters of President Donald Trump “strongly” or “somewhat” support his deal with the Islamist Taliban to extricate the United States from the 19-year war in Afghanistan. Nearly 60% of supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden also favor the landmark U.S. agreement with the Afghan insurgent group, according to a poll conducted by New York-based Eurasia Group Foundation. “Ending the war in Afghanistan is extremely popular, and Americans of all political persuasions want to honor the recent agreement,” the foundation noted in its findings released Monday. The deal signed in February 2020 commits all U.S. troops to leave the South Asian country within 14 months, ending what has become America’s longest war.A member of Taliban negotiation delegation keeps his face mask on during the opening session of the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 12, 2020.In return, the Taliban have agreed to disallow terrorist groups such as al-Qaida to operate in the country and begin peace talks with rival Afghan factions to end decades of hostilities in the country.  Fewer than 10% of those surveyed opposed the accord, while one-third remained neutral. “Since last year, the portion of respondents who believe the U.S. should stay in Afghanistan until all enemies are defeated has dropped by half — from 30% to 15%,” the survey noted.  The U.S.-Taliban agreement led to the start of much-awaited peace talks on Saturday between insurgent negotiators and interlocutors of the Afghan government.  The dialogue, officially known as intra-Afghan negotiations, is being hosted by Doha, the capital of the gulf state of Qatar, where U.S. and Taliban negotiators sealed their deal. Taliban delegation attends the opening session of the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 12, 2020.The dialogue was supposed to start in early March, but disputes over the exchange of thousands of prisoners between the Taliban and the Kabul government, and continued insurgent battlefield attacks, had hampered efforts to push the two sides to the negotiating table. The United States has reduced its forces in Afghanistan to around 8,600 since signing the deal with the Taliban. The Trump administration has announced the U.S. military presence in the country would be cut to 4,500 by November. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview published Sunday that the military was on track to completely withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by spring of 2021. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talks at the opening session of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 12, 2020.“So, 19 years after 9/11, we finally have the Afghans prepared to sit down and have a serious conversation about taking their country forward without all the violence,” Pompeo told Breitbart News. Former U.S. Vice President Biden supports the withdrawal plan, but he wants the Pentagon to leave a small military force in Afghanistan to counter any threat of terrorism in post-war Afghanistan. “As we enter the 20th year of the conflict in Afghanistan, the American people appear to have lost patience with an interminable war which has drifted from its original mission, and which appears all but unwinnable,” Mark Hannah, a co-author of the survey, told VOA.  “I think they wisely understand that all the military might in the world can’t easily vanquish amorphous, non-state adversaries, and that America’s continued presence in Afghanistan is neither making Americans safe nor serving some vital national interest,” said Hannah. Trump has been pushing to close what he describes as America’s “crazy endless wars” to fulfill one of his key campaign promises to bring U.S. soldiers back home.  The U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror strikes against the United States that al-Qaida plotted from sanctuaries in Afghanistan being ruled by the Taliban at the time.  The punitive military action dislodged the Taliban from power within a few months, but the group has since waged a deadly insurgency. The Taliban has reestablished control over many Afghan districts and killed tens of thousands of U.S.-backed Afghan forces.  It is estimated that the conflict has killed nearly 160,000 people as of 2019, including combatants from both sides, and Afghan civilians. More than 2,400 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives, and more than 20,000 have been wounded. The war has cost Washington nearly a trillion dollars. 
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The Trump administration on Monday said it will block U.S. imports of cotton, apparel and other products from five specific entities in western China’s Xinjiang region, but has shelved proposed region-wide bans on all Xinjiang-produced cotton and tomato products.Department of Homeland Security acting Deputy Secretary Kenneth Cuccinelli said the “Withhold Release Orders” (WROs) are aimed at combating China’s use of forced labor by detained Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.He said the administration was conducting more legal analysis of the region-wide import bans.Customs and Border Protection officials told Reuters last week that they had prepared the broader bans on cotton, cotton textiles and tomatoes, among China’s biggest commodity exports, along with the orders announced Monday.Two people familiar with the Trump administration’s internal deliberations said that concerns about the broad orders and their effect on supply chains were raised by key officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.China also had agreed to purchase increased quantities of U.S. cotton under the countries’ Phase 1 trade deal, which could be put at risk by a U.S. ban on imports from China’s dominant cotton-producing region.Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said investigations into the broader import bans were still being pursued.”Because of its unique nature, being, applying to a region as opposed to a company or a facility, we are giving that more legal analysis,” Cuccinelli said. “We have not used a WRO like that in China before, and so we want to make sure that once we proceed that it will stick, so to speak.”The Withhold Release Orders allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection to detain shipments based on suspicion of forced-labor involvement under long-standing U.S. laws to combat human trafficking, child labor and other human rights abuses.DHS said Xinjiang entities whose products will be blocked from entering the United States include all products made with labor from the Lop County No. 4 Vocational Skills Education and Training Center; hair products from the Lop County Hair Product Industrial Park; apparel produced by Yili Zhouwan Garment Manufacturing and Baodung LYSZD Trade and Business Co.; cotton produced and processed by Xinjiang Junggar Cotton and Linen Co. Ltd; and computer parts made by Hefei Bitland Information Technology Co. Ltd.President Donald Trump’s administration is ratcheting up pressure on China over its treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, where the United Nations cites credible reports that about 1 million Muslims held in camps have been put to work.China denies mistreatment of the Uighurs and says the camps are vocational training centers needed to fight extremism. 
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Tropical Storm Teddy formed in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday morning and is the fourth active named storm in the Atlantic basin, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.         Forecasters said Teddy was located more than 1400 miles (2,260 kilometers) east of the Lesser Antilles. The storm has maximum sustained winds at 40 mph (65 kph). It is expected to strengthen into a hurricane in the next couple of days.         Large swells from Teddy were forecast to reach the northeastern coast of South America and the Lesser Antilles by Wednesday, which could cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.         The three other active named storms are Hurricane Paulette, Tropical Depression Rene and Tropical Storm Sally. Paulette is impacting Bermuda while Sally is nearing the Gulf Coast. Rene is not expected to bring hazards to land.   
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko traveled to the Black Sea resort of Sochi Monday for talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko was expected to seek critical support for his government from the Russian leader in what would be their first meeting since Lukashenko won re-election in disputed balloting last month.  Meanwhile, in Geneva, the United Nations’ human rights chief said Monday that allegations of torture during the protests against Lukashenko’s re-election must be investigated.  At the opening of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet said, “Given their scale and number, all allegations of torture and other forms of ill-treatment by the security forces should be documented and investigated, with a view to bringing the perpetrators to justice.” The council says it will hold an urgent debate on the violence.  Opposition supporters take part in a rally against police brutality following protests to reject the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 13, 2020. (Tut.By via Reuters)At least 100,000 Belarusians took to the streets in the capital, Minsk, on Sunday in one of the biggest protests yet against President Lukashenko after he claimed victory in the election his opponents allege was rigged.  Throngs marched toward a government district, chanting “Long live Belarus,” and “You’re a rat,” a common taunt against Lukashenko. Coming to a halt, protesters chanted “fascists” as hundreds of riot police with shields blocked a road. Police said they detained more than 400 protesters in the capital, with arrests continuing into the evening.  Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that shots were fired into the air to keep protesters away from an area where the Belarusian leadership lives. Russia has expressed support for Belarus, potentially restructuring its debt and offering to send in Russian riot police if needed. With public outrage building against Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 26 years, Russia also said it would support him by sending paratroopers to the former Soviet bloc nation for “Slavic Brotherhood” joint drills. Protesters say the August 9 presidential election was won by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is now in Lithuania. Key opposition leaders have since either been jailed or fled Belarus. Lukashenko has rejected claims the election was rigged and contends that foreign powers are behind the protests.  
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Wildfires burning across the U.S. region known as the Pacific Northwest, including northern California, Oregon, and Washington, have consumed thousands of homes, businesses and towns. More than a million hectares of land have been destroyed. The fires have killed at least 35 people across the region.  The smoke and flames of the blazes have combined to envelope the cities of San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland with some of the worst air quality in the world.  An Associated Press description of the conditions said, “The smoke filled the air with an acrid metallic smell like pennies.” The massive clouds of smoke enveloping the region have endangered the health of millions of residents.Evacuees from the Riverside Fire stay in tents at the Milwaukie-Portland Elks Lodge, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2020, in Oak Grove, Ore.Air quality across the Pacific Northwest state of Oregon was characterized by state environmental officials as “hazardous” or “very unhealthy.” Tens of thousands of people have had to flee their homes. Visibility was less than a half kilometer in some places, according to the National Weather Service, making it dangerous to drive.  U.S. President Donald Trump has largely avoided commenting on the wildfires, but he plans to visit California Monday for an update on the blazes, some of the worst in years.  In the past, he has blamed the region’s wildfires on poor forest management.  Oregon Governor Kate Brown disagrees. She said on Sunday on Face the Nation on CBS that the fires are “a wake-up call for us that we’ve got to do everything in our power to tackle climate change.” The governors of California and Washington agree with her.  
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