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 Landslides triggered by torrential rain swept through two villages in Nepal on Sunday, killing at least 12 people, a government official said.Ten people were killed and 21 are missing after a massive landslide swept away homes and people in Barahbise, 100 km (62 miles) east of Kathmandu near the border with the Tibet region of China, Nepali government official Murari Wasti said.Two others died in a landslide in Baglung in the northwest.Both landslides struck the villages before dawn and people could not escape to safety, rescuers said.”Rescuers are looking for those who are missing,” Wasti told Reuters.The latest fatalities took the death toll from landslides and flash floods in the June-September monsoon season to 314. At least 111 people remain missing and 160 have been injured, Wasti said.
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Dust clouds pass through a residential neighborhood in Turkey’s capital city, Ankara, Saturday, September 12.  The storm darkened the sky during daytime hours. Six people suffered minor injuries from debris flying during the storm, according to the city’s mayor. The storm was probably caused by a lack of rain in recent days, according to the Turkish State Meteorological Service. (Reuters) 
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Israelis are delighted the government has reached another peace deal with an Arab country, this time Bahrain, following last month’s agreement with the United Arab Emirates.  Analysts say the Gulf states see the deals as a way to discourage potential attacks from Iran.  But Palestinians are furious at the deal, calling Bahrain’s move “another knife in the back.” President Donald Trump announced the latest Arab-Israeli peace deal was in Washington on the anniversary of the September 11th 2001, terrorist attack.   “There’s no more powerful response to the hatred that spawned 9/11 than the agreement that we’re about to tell you,” he said. “You will hear something today. It’s very very important not only for the Middle East but for the world. In the spirt of peace and cooperation both leaders also agree that Bahrain will fully normalize its diplomatic relations with Israel.”   He said the deal will include an exchange of ambassadors, and a series of agreements in fields including high tech and tourism. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was clearly pleased, especially as he faces growing anger among the public for what many say is his mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis. The rate of new infections in Israel per day is among the highest in the world.FILE – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces full diplomatic ties will be established with the United Arab Emirates, during a news conference on Aug. 13, 2020 in Jerusalem.“It took us a full 26 years from Israel’s second peace agreement with an Arab state to the third peace agreement, and now it’s taken us only 29 days from the third peace agreement to the fourth.  What a change,” he said. “I want to express my appreciation for His Majesty the King of Bahrain for joining the Circle of Peace, and my appreciation for crown prince Mohammed Bin Zayed for working with Israel and the United States to expand the circle of peace.” Netanyahu will be in Washington on Tuesday, alongside President Trump and the foreign ministers of the UAE and Bahrain, to sign the peace deals.  There is no mention of military alliance in the deals, but many analysts see the Gulf states acting in order to give themselves extra protection from any Iranian attack.   Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat is one who holds that point of view.  FILE – Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat speaks during an interview with Reuters in Ramallah, Aug. 11, 2013.”The Bahrain-Israeli agreement to normalize relations is now part of a bigger package in the region. It’s not about peace, it’s not about relations between countries,” he said. “We are witnessing an alliance, a military alliance being created in the region, maybe they want to call it an Arab-Israel NATO. As far as we, as far as Palestinians are concerned, big Israel can bring 193 ambassadors to Tel Aviv, but then what? I am what needs to be solved, I am the problem. They are my problem. I am what needs to be solved and the only way to have peace in this region is to solve the Palestinian question.”  Israeli analysts said that Bahrain is close to Saudi Arabia, and the deal could only have been reached with tacit Saudi approval. Some Israelis now believe it is only a matter of time before the Saudi kingdom itself makes peace with Israel.  Meanwhile, the first business deals between Israel and the UAE are being signed, and direct flights between the two countries are set to start next month.  
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Authorities were searching Sunday for a gunman who shot and wounded two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who were sitting in their squad car — an apparent ambush that drew an angry response from the president and sparked an anti-police protest outside the hospital where the deputies were being treated. The 31-year-old female deputy and 24-year-old male deputy underwent surgery Saturday evening, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said in a late-night news conference. Both graduated from the academy 14 months ago, he said.  The deputies were shot while sitting in their patrol car at a Metro rail station and were able to radio for help, the sheriff said. Villanueva, whose department has come under fire during recent protests over racial unrest, expressed frustration over anti-police sentiment as he urged people to pray for the deputies. “It pisses me off. It dismays me at the same time,” he said. The department tweeted video of the shooting that shows a person open fire through the passenger-side window of the patrol car. “The gunman walked up on the deputies and opened fire without warning or provocation,” the department stated. The video sparked thousands of reactions, including from President Donald Trump, who responded, “Animals that must be hit hard!” Protesters gathered outside the the hospital where the injured deputies were being treated. “To the protesters blocking the entrance & exit of the HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM yelling “We hope they die” referring to 2 LA Sheriff’s ambushed today in #Compton: DO NOT BLOCK EMERGENCY ENTRIES & EXITS TO THE HOSPITAL,” the sheriff’s department tweeted. “People’s lives are at stake when ambulances can’t get through.” A radio reporter who was near the protest scene was taken into custody, KABC-TV reported. The sheriff’s department later tweeted that the reporter interfered with the arrest of a male protester. “The female adult, who was later identified as a member of the press, did not identify herself as press and later admitted she did not have proper press credentials on her person,” the department stated. After being released, Josie Huang, a reporter for radio station KPCC, tweeted that she had seen the statements from sheriff’s officials and had “thoughts and videos to share soon after a little rest.” The executive editor of the station, Megan Garvey, expressed outrage over the arrest and said her reporter appeared to be wearing her credentials and had shouted her KPCC affiliation. Meanwhile, the search for the gunman continued. Capt. Kent Wegener said officers were blanketing the area in search of the suspect seen on the video opening fire with a pistol.  “We have a very, very generic description,” he said. The incident happened around 7 p.m. a short distance from the Compton sheriff’s station.  
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There are almost 29 million COVID-19 infections worldwide.   The United States remains the country with the most infections, with more than 6.4 million cases.   India has eclipsed Brazil to take over the second spot with 4.7 million cases.  Infections in India’s largest state, Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, topped 1 million Saturday, stifling the country’s attempts to reinvigorate its economy. Brazil has 4.3 million cases. Students wear protective masks as they arrive for classes at the Immaculate Conception School while observing COVID-19 prevention protocols, Sept. 9, 2020, in The Bronx borough of New York.An article in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that universal face mask wearing “might help reduce the severity of disease and ensure that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic.” If that premise is correct, the article suggested, face mask wearing could become a form of inoculation “that would generate immunity and thereby slow the spread of the virus” during the global wait for the development of a vaccine.   The daily number of new coronavirus cases reached an all-time high of 1,007 Saturday in the United Arab Emirates, surpassing levels during a May peak. Authorities warned residents last week to comply with preventive measures when daily infections jumped fivefold over a month ago. Refugees and migrants from the destroyed Moria camp sleep on the side of a road, on the island of Lesbos, Greece, Sept. 13, 2020.On the Greek Islands of Lesbos Saturday, asylum seekers peacefully protested the construction of a replacement camp after successive fires this week destroyed the overcrowded Maria camp, forcing them sleep in the open for a fourth consecutive night.  The protesters were demanding to leave the island after the camp, built to accommodate 2,750 people, became so overcrowded that the fires left more than 12,000 in need of emergency shelter. Officials said the fires were deliberately set by some camp residents angered about the imposition of new lockdown measures after 35 people tested positive for COVID-19. The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has resumed trials of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine after getting permission from safety monitors, the company announced Saturday. A test tube labeled with the Vaccine is seen in front of AstraZeneca logo in this illustration, Sept. 9, 2020.“Clinical trials for the AstraZeneca Oxford coronavirus vaccine, AZD1222, have resumed in the UK following confirmation by the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority that it was safe to do so,” the company said in a statement. The pharmaceutical company paused the trials Tuesday because a volunteer participant became ill after receiving the experimental drug. The company issued a statement that day saying the pause in testing was a “routine action, which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.” AstraZeneca’s drug is one of nine vaccine candidates in late stage Phase 3 human trials around the world. The company began enrolling 30,000 volunteers August 31, and the vaccine was being tested in smaller groups in Brazil and in other South American countries before the trials were temporarily suspended.   
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Authorities on the Greek island of Lesbos have moved more than 300 homeless migrants and refugees into temporary facilities after a rash of fires razed the notoriously overcrowded Moria camp, leaving more than 12,000 asylum seekers without shelter in the biggest humanitarian crisis to grip the country in five years.Scores of bedraggled refugees were seen Sunday lining up before the soaring fence gates of Kara Tepe to check into the temporary encampment after living in the rough for four days.Many of the migrants were seen carrying infants, flimsy tents and plastic bags stuffed with the personal belongings they managed to salvage before fleeing Moria.The cause of the fires remains under investigation, but authorities contacted by VOA have pointed to arson, suggesting they were part of an organized bid by refugees angered by quarantine orders imposed after 35 people tested positive for COVID-19.“We are seeing an active push by authorities today to get these people off the streets and into the new temporary camp,” regional governor Kostas Moutzouris told VOA. “The problem is that many of them are resisting, and large numbers of them have gone into hiding thinking this is their chance to make it to the mainland, and then potentially, to the heart of Europe.”On Saturday, thousands of the refugees took to the streets, banging plastic bottles and demanding that they be allowed to continue their journeys to the heart of Europe, rather than be moved to a different facility.Refugees and migrants from the destroyed Moria camp protest after the news about the creation of a new temporary camp, on the island of Lesbos, Greece, Sept. 12, 2020.The protest, led by young children holding cardboard signs reading “We need freedom,” was mostly peaceful, but brief scuffles broke out as militant youth moved to break police cordons, forcing authorities to fire tear gas to disperse protesting crowds.Lesbos has been overwhelmed by Europe’s migration crisis, seeing more than a million refugees stream to its rugged shores from Turkey in 2015.The Moria facility was built to house some 2,300 refugees. Since then, rising tides of illegal migration have forced authorities to squeeze in 10,000 additional people, drawing fierce criticism from international aid organizations and the United Nations for the camp’s appalling living conditions.Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the Moria fires “highlight the failure of the European Union’s approach of confinement.” It demanded that European nations begin shouldering their responsibility for asylum seekers, while Greece also makes sure it respects human rights.Migrants arrive at a temporary camp near Mytilene town, on the northeastern island of Lesbos, Greece, Sept. 12, 2020.Lesbos locals and authorities, meanwhile, insist on the migrants’ complete evacuation, resisting attempts by the government to reopen Moria or to set up any additional camps other than that in Kara Tepe.That new facility has a capacity of around 3,000, leaving the fate of at least 9,000 refugees in limbo.“There is no way we are allowing for any more room,” Moutzouris said. “If that happens, then Lesbos is doomed for good.”Locals plan to protest government designs for additional refugee accommodation on Tuesday. 
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The Afghan government and the Taliban started intra-Afghan talks Saturday in Doha, Qatar. Afghan civilians say that both sides should agree to an immediate cease-fire. VOA’s Hikmat Sorosh reports from Kabul. 
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Americans’ interest in voting by mail has surged this year as the coronavirus pandemic rages on. Allegations of double voting in the southern U.S. state of Georgia have further fueled a politically fraught debate over voter fraud ahead of the November presidential election.This week, Georgia’s top election official announced that as many as 1,000 voters may have double voted in the state’s primary elections in June, showing up at the polls to vote after mailing in their ballots.Although the attempted double voting was caught and did not change voting tallies, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said he wanted each case investigated and prosecuted if determined to be illegal.Scrutiny of double voting – a felony in Georgia as in most other states – comes amid a larger debate over voter fraud and whether efforts to combat it constitute a safeguarding of the democratic process or partisan voter suppression.President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that voting by mail is prone to widespread fraud that would benefit his opponent, Democrat Joe Biden. Indeed, Trump has urged his supporters to attempt to vote twice in the November 3 general election – once by mail and again at the polls on Election Day – to demonstrate such fraud is feasible.But voting rights advocates say there is little evidence of rampant voter fraud. During Georgia’s chaotic primary elections, they say, confusion may have led officials to incorrectly count some votes as “voting twice.”“We wholeheartedly agree that people who intentionally vote twice should be subject to the usual criminal penalties for election law violations,” Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said in a statement. “But we are concerned that voters who were simply trying to vote may get caught up in the dragnet.”While Democrats and voting rights groups say voter fraud is exceedingly rare, many Republicans contend it is more prevalent than is commonly known and dilutes the will of legitimate voters at the ballot box.Here are four things you need to know about the debate over voter fraud:What is voter fraud?Voter fraud covers many actions, from casting illegitimate ballots to vote buying to impersonating a voter.Yet there is no universally agreed-upon definition of the practice.Voting rights activists have a relatively narrow definition. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, voting fraud “occurs when individuals cast ballots despite knowing that they are ineligible to vote, in an attempt to defraud the election system.”Conservatives prefer a more expansive definition. The Government Accountability Institute, a think tank co-founded by conservative political strategist Steve Bannon, defines it as “illegal interference in the process of an election” and lists things like “fraudulent addresses” and “registration fraud” among voter fraud types.This lack of consensus means that what election integrity advocates may see as an instance of fraud, voting rights advocates might view as a clerical error or an honest mistake.Types of voter fraudVoter fraud can take many different forms. The conservative Heritage Foundation has tracked nine different types of election fraud.The most common type in the foundation’s voter fraud database is voting by people ineligible to vote, such as noncitizens and convicted felons.Another common voter fraud type: absentee ballot fraud or obtaining an absentee ballot and filling it out without the knowledge of the actual voter.Other types of election fraud in the database include voter impersonation, vote buying, ballot petition fraud, duplicate voting and false registrations.How widespread is voter fraud?This is a politically charged question.The Heritage Foundation’s database includes 1,296 “proven instances of voter fraud” out of the hundreds of millions of votes cast going back to 1992. Of those cases identified, 1,120 resulted in criminal convictions.The cases include a North Carolina Republican operative and several others who were accused of ballot tampering in connection with a 2018 congressional race. Not included in the database is the recent indictment in North Carolina of 19 noncitizens accused of illegally voting in the 2016 election.Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former member of Trump’s now-defunct election integrity commission, says the database is merely “the tip of the iceberg.”“There’s actually more fraud occurring out there than actually gets reported and prosecuted,” von Spakovsky said.Yet little hard evidence of widespread voter fraud has turned up.After the 2016 election, Trump alleged that as many as 5 million illegal votes had been cast for his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. But an election integrity commission he formed to investigate the matter did not turn up evidence of widespread fraud. Multiple independent studies by academic researchers and news outlets similarly found no proof of rampant fraud in the election.“It doesn’t happen often at all,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor Loyola Law School and a voting expert. “But when it happens it’s a one-off: One person decides to file a false ballot or something like that.”Levitt keeps track of voter impersonation and says it’s extremely rare.“I’m up to 45 since 2000, and in that time there has been more than a billion and a half votes cast,” Levitt said.Other types of voting fraud such as voting by noncitizens are equally rare, according to researchers.Last year, Texas officials announced that they’d found the names of nearly 100,000 “possible noncitizens” on their voter registrations rolls and that as many as 58,000 of them may have voted in elections over the previous 22-year period.  But the state dropped a review of the cases in the face of legal challenges.Voting by mailTrump and his Republican allies oppose voting by mail, saying ballots in the mail system can be stolen, fabricated and otherwise fraudulently used.But voting rights advocates say this doesn’t mean voting by mail is any less secure. Five states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington – have successfully adopted universal mail balloting while detecting only a small amount of double voting or voter impersonation.“Despite (a) dramatic increase in mail voting over time, fraud rates remain infinitesimally small,” the Brennan Center said in a recent report. “None of the five states that hold their elections primarily by mail has had any voter fraud scandals since making that change.”
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After one errant forehand in the first set of the U.S. Open final, Naomi Osaka looked at her coach in the mostly empty Arthur Ashe Stadium stands with palms up, as if to say, “What the heck is happening?”  Surprisingly off-kilter in the early going Saturday, Osaka kept missing shots and digging herself a deficit. But suddenly, she lifted her game, and Victoria Azarenka couldn’t sustain her start. By the end, Osaka had pulled away to a 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 comeback victory for her second U.S. Open championship and third Grand Slam title overall.”I just thought this would be very embarrassing, to lose this in less than an hour,” said Osaka, who dropped down to lie on the court after winning.A quarter-century had passed since the last time the woman who lost the first set of a U.S. Open final wound up winning: In 1994, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario did it against Steffi Graf.No fun”I actually don’t want to play you in more finals,” a smiling Osaka told Azarenka afterward. “I didn’t enjoy that.”Osaka, a 22-year-old born in Japan and now based in the United States, added to her trophies from the 2018 U.S. Open — earned with a brilliant performance in a memorably chaotic final against Serena Williams — and 2019 Australian Open.The 23,000-plus seats in the main arena at Flushing Meadows were not entirely unclaimed, just mostly so — while fans were not allowed to attend because of the coronavirus pandemic, dozens of people who worked at the tournament attended — and the cavernous place was not entirely silent, just mostly so.Victoria Azarenka, of Belarus, holds the runner-up trophy after losing to Naomi Osaka, of Japan, in the women’s singles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Sept. 12, 2020, in New York.Certainly no thunderous applause or cacophony of yells that normally would reverberate over and over and over again through the course of a Grand Slam final, accompanying the players’ introductions or preceding the first point or after the greatest of shots.Instead, a polite smattering of claps from several hands marked such moments.Osaka stepped onto the court wearing a black mask with the name of Tamir Rice, a Black 12-year-old boy killed by police in Ohio in 2014. Osaka arrived in New York with seven masks bearing the names of Black victims of violence and wore a different one for each match, honoring Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Philando Castile.  “The point is to make people start talking about it,” Osaka said during Saturday’s trophy ceremony.Focus on racial injusticeShe has been at the forefront of efforts in tennis to bring awareness to racial injustice in the United States. She joined athletes in various sports by refusing to compete last month after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin — she said she wouldn’t participate in her semifinal at the Western & Southern Open, then decided to play after the tournament took a full day off in solidarity.Osaka and her coach have said they think the off-court activism has helped her energy and mindset in matches.The win over Azarenka, a 31-year-old from Belarus also seeking a third Grand Slam title but first in 7½ years, made Osaka 11-0 since tennis resumed after its hiatus because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
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Botswana’s National Assembly has rejected a call to rearm its game rangers that was driven by a surge in rhinoceros poaching in recent years. Guns were taken away from the rangers in 2018, but an opposition party lawmaker had moved a motion to rearm the wildlife officers.Botswana’s legislators voted against a proposal brought before the National Assembly by an opposition member of Parliament, Kgoborego Nkawana.The motion to rearm wildlife officers was defeated Friday, with all ruling party members voting against it.Nkawana had argued recent poaching incidents necessitated equipping the rangers with guns.“It is a big loss,” Nkawana said. “This would have been an opportunity to save our rhinos and other animals, particularly up in the north.  Maybe over time we can see how we can address the government over that issue.” Most of the poaching takes place in the thickets of Botswana’s vast Okavango Delta.Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Permanent Secretary Oduetse Koboto said the disarmament of the wildlife officers unit in 2018 was not behind the rise in poaching incidents.“It is not like in the past, the strategy succeeded because there was something different that was done,” Koboto said. “It is simply because the environmental conditions changed drastically [in the Delta].”Koboto said rangers’ anti-poaching efforts are focused farther from the Delta, in areas where there is less threat of armed poachers like the Kgalagadi wildlife preserve.“When it comes to anti-poaching, their [rangers] efforts are largely focused in Kgalagadi,” he said. “Those firearms, they had them in Kgalagadi and not in the Delta. This is where I am failing to find the relationship between arms and rhino poaching. Even if they could be having them [firearms] today, they could be sitting with them in Kgalagadi.”Conservationist Map Ives says the fight against poaching needs other interventions, rather than a military approach.“The war against poaching will not be sorted out by military means alone,” Ives said. “You need to have crime investigators, and intelligence networks need to stretch between countries in SADC.”Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Philda Kereng recently said the National Assembly government was reviewing legislation preventing rangers from carrying weapons.Botswana government officials say rhino poaching has slowed significantly in recent months, after a robust dehorning and translocation exercise.
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Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar has committed to ending a months-long blockade of oil facilities, the U.S. Embassy in the country said in a statement Saturday, although oil ports and fields remained shut.The statement said the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) had conveyed “the personal commitment of General Haftar to allow the full reopening of the energy sector no later than Sept. 12.”It came after the United States had led efforts to end the oil shutdown amid a wider diplomatic push to cement a cease-fire and a political agreement between rival factions based in the east and west of the country.Haftar’s LNA and its backers imposed the blockade in January, reducing Libya’s oil output from more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to less than 100,000 bpd, and further deepening Libya’s economic collapse.Although authorities in eastern Libya have allowed some stored oil products to be exported in order to ease a power generation crisis in eastern Libya, they have stopped short of lifting the blockade.
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The operator of a Japanese-owned bulk carrier that crashed into a reef in late July, causing a widespread oil spill in Mauritius, will pay at least $9.4 million over several years to fund environmental projects and support local fishing communities.The spill took place near the coastal areas of southeast Mauritius, an area of international importance because of its environmentally protected ecosystems and wetlands. Experts say about 1,000 tons of fuel leaked from the ship into the surrounding blue lagoons — a favorite location for the filming of numerous Bollywood movies because of its turquoise waters, which now are stained black.Mauritius previously asked Japan to provide at least $34 million to assist with the lasting ramifications of the spill.Mitsui O.S.K. Lines said Friday that the Mauritius Natural Environment Recovery Fund would be used to support mangrove protection, coral reef restoration, and the protection of seabirds and rare species.In addition, the company said, it will continue to support local fishing and tourism, though details of that support have not been announced.The Mauritius government has estimated the country has sustained $30 million in damage as a result of the spill.Early this week, the maritime authority of Panama, where the ship is registered, announced it was in the early stages of an investigation into the spill and suggested human error caused the accident. The ship’s captain and first officer have been arrested and charged with endangering safe navigation.Recently, tens of thousands of individuals protested in Mauritius over the government’s slow response to the spill and the discovery of dozens of dead dolphins, whose cause of death has not yet been determined.
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