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Sometime next year, genetically modified mosquitoes will be released in the Florida Keys in an effort to combat persistent insect-borne diseases such as Dengue fever and the Zika virus.The plan approved this week by the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District calls for a pilot project in 2021 involving the striped-legged Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is not native to Florida. But it does transmit several diseases to humans, particularly in the Keys island chain where nearly 50 cases of Dengue fever have been reported so far this year.The plan by the Oxitec biotechnology company is to release millions of male, genetically altered mosquitoes to mate with the females that bite humans because they need the blood. The male mosquitoes, which don’t bite, would contain a genetic change in a protein that would render any female offspring unable to survive — thus reducing the population of the insects that transmit disease, in theory.Kevin Gorman, an Oxitec scientist, said Thursday in a phone interview from the United Kingdom that the company has successfully done such projects in the Cayman Islands and Brazil.”It’s gone extremely well,” Gorman said. “We have released over a billion of our mosquitoes over the years. There is no potential for risk to the environment or humans.”Oxitec points to numerous studies by government agencies, ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that underscore the safety of the project. Several Florida government agencies have approved it as well.Yet, there are people who worry about using genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, that they believe could alter the planet’s natural balance. At a meeting Tuesday of the Florida Keys mosquito control board, several people questioned the wisdom of the project.”You have no idea what that will do,” Barry Wray, director of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, told the board.Whether the modified mosquitoes can efficiently crash the population of these mosquitoes in Florida remains an open question, some experts say.”The mosquitoes created in a lab have not gone through a natural selection process, in which only the fittest survive and mate. Once they are released in the natural environment, will they be as fit as the naturally occurring males and able to outcompete them for mates?” said Max Moreno, an expert in mosquito-borne diseases at Indiana University who is not involved in the company or the pilot project.Another question is whether the mosquitoes may have other unintended effects on the environment. If a spider, frog or bird eats the mosquito, will the modified protein have any effect on the predator?”An ecosystem is so complicated and involves so many species, it would be almost impossible to test them all in advance in a lab,” said Moreno.Still, Keys mosquito board members voted 4-1 in favor of the project. One of the supporters, Jill Cranny-Gage, said at the meeting that insecticides and other chemical means have become less effective against the Aedes aegypti mosquito.”The science is there. This is something Monroe County needs,” Cranny-Gage said. “We’re trying everything in our power, and we’re running out of options.”
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Asian markets sank into negative territory Thursday, dragged down by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s sobering outlook on a post-pandemic recovery the day before.Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index finished a full 1% lower. The S&P/ASX index was down 0.7%. South Korea’s KOSPI index plunged 3.6%, and the TSEC index in Taiwan dropped 3.2%.Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was trading 1.8% lower in late afternoon trading, while Shanghai’s Composite index was down 1.3% and Mumbai’s Sensex was down just over 1%.In minutes of last month’s meeting of the U.S. central bank, released Wednesday, several members of the Reserve said the COVID-19 pandemic “would continue to weigh heavily on economic activity, employment, and inflation in the near term and was posing considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term.”The Fed’s remarks caused a shockwave on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq downward.In commodities trading Thursday, gold was selling at $1,951.70, down 0.9.% U.S. crude oil was selling at $42.57 per barrel, down 0.8%, and Brent crude oil was selling at $45.02 per barrel, down 0.8%.All three U.S. indices were trending negatively in futures trading.  
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Sectarian violence in Nigeria’s Kaduna State has lingered for decades, claiming thousands of lives and forcing thousands more from their homes.  In late July, gunmen killed at least 43 people — making it 178 people killed so far in the southern part of Kaduna since the start of the year.  The Nigerian government has deployed more security forces but local community leaders and right groups accuse authorities of willful neglect. Timothy Obiezu reports from a village in Kaduna that was recently attacked.Camera: : Emeka Gibson    
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 The U.S. Justice Department has charged three people in connection with what prosecutors say was a campaign to move U.S. currency from the United States to Iran on behalf of Iran’s supreme leader.  Muzzamil Zaidi, a U.S. citizen living in Qom, Iran; Asim Naqvi, a U.S. citizen living in Houston; and Pakistani national Ali Chawla, living in Qom, are charged with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.  Justice Department officials said Wednesday the defendants “have considerable operational links” to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.  “The lifeblood of these terrorist operation is cash – and the defendants played a key role in facilitating that critical component,” said Michael R. Sherwin, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.  The Justice Department alleges Zaidi, Chawla and other members of an organization called Islamic Pulse received permission from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to collect a religious tax on Khamenei’s behalf and send half the money to Yemen.  Prosecutors say after the United States imposed sanctions on Khamenei in 2019, the group continued to collect U.S. dollars in the United States and send it to Iran, “structured in a such a way as to avoid reporting requirements.”  The Justice Department said Zaidi was also charged with acting in the United States as an agent of the government of Iran without first notifying the attorney general.  Prosecutors say that after arriving in the United States in June 2020, Zaidi “has exhibited behavior that is consistent with having received training from a foreign government or foreign intelligence service.   
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The Trump administration has suspended or terminated three bilateral agreements with Hong Kong in its latest response over the new national security law imposed on the semi-autonomous city by China.The U.S. State Department issued a statement Wednesday saying the agreements covered the extradition of fugitives and convicted persons, and tax exemptions on income from international shipping.The administration has taken a series of steps against Beijing since it imposed the new law in June, which calls for punishing anyone in Hong Kong believed to be committing acts of secession, subversion, terrorism or colluding with foreign governments. The law was in response to last year’s massive and often violent pro-democracy demonstrations in the financial hub.The U.S. and other Western nations say the measure effectively ends the “One Country, Two Systems” policy under which Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy after the handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order last month ending Hong Kong’s preferential trade and diplomatic status and has followed up with such actions as imposing sanctions on current Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam and other officials in Hong Kong and mainland China.“These steps underscore our deep concern regarding Beijing’s decision to impose the National Security Law, which has crushed the freedoms of the people of Hong Kong,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. 
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The United Arab Emirates became the third Arab state to formally recognize Israel. Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren examines the deal and its impact on the Middle East with White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, Israel’s ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer and Yasmine Farouk from the Carnagie Endowment for International Peace. Air date: August 19, 2020.
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Many observers had predicted that verdicts in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri would touch off disturbances in Lebanon, but none of that happened on Tuesday when those verdicts came. As Anchal Vohra reports from Beirut, many Lebanese are more worried about other pressing matters — like how to rebuild their lives after a recent massive explosion — and earning a living at a time when their country is suffering a debilitating economic crisis.Camera: Tilo Gummel  Produced by: Rob Raffaele
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A statute of Stephen A. Douglas, a 19th-century senator from Illinois who owned slaves and espoused the notion that each territory should decide whether slavery would be allowed, will be removed from the state Capitol lawn, officials decided Wednesday.  The board of the Office of the Architect of the Capitol voted unanimously to remove the statute of Douglas, whose career-long nemesis was Abraham Lincoln. Along with the statue of Douglas, a rendering of Pierre Menard, an early Illinois settler, politician and slave owner, could be gone by this fall, Architect of the Capitol Andrea Aggertt told the board.  Aggertt said she had spoken to contractors but did not have a cost for removal and storage in a secure location.  The action came after House Speaker Michael Madigan in July asked the board to consider removing portraits and statuary of Douglas in and around the Capitol. The Chicago Democrat said he had recently read about Douglas’ profiting from family-owned slaves. After George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis sparked a nationwide movement to remove Confederate symbols, Madigan decided that references to Douglas should be banished.  Douglas, who tangled with Lincoln in Illinois politics before he went to Washington, was elected to the Senate in 1847 and burnished his mark as statesman when with prominent Whig Sen. Henry Clay he fashioned the Compromise of 1850. It settled the matter of lands ceded in the Mexican War and put Douglas’ notion of “popular sovereignty” — that U.S. territories could decide for themselves whether to allow slavery — into the political lexicon.  The idea delayed the Civil War and helped him best Lincoln in his 1858 bid for reelection to the Senate, long remembered because of a series of debates between the two, but proved his undoing by the time the two squared off for president in 1860, on the eve of war.  The father of Douglas’ first wife bequeathed a Mississippi plantation with 100 slaves to his daughter in 1847. Douglas sidestepped a political conundrum by hiring a plantation manager while he kept 20% of the income.  Menard, who became a successful fur trader in southwestern Illinois nearly 30 years before statehood and was the state’s first lieutenant governor, owned slaves as late as 1830, records show. Other artworkMembers of the architect board, consisting of Tim Anderson, secretary of the Senate; House Clerk John Hollman; Scott Kaiser, assistant secretary of the Senate; and assistant House clerk Brad Bolin, said they have final say on the removal. But they took no action on the prominent Douglas statue inside the Capitol, or his portrait in the House chamber, voting to take an inventory of all paintings, murals, statues, and other art in the 1876 building.  The board also voted to seek a rule change that would allow Capitol lawn commemorations of people without direct ties to Illinois. It’s the reason a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. is across the street on the lawn of the Illinois State Library. The board would like to see King memorialized more prominently. Kaiser suggested that the King statue be replaced. The depiction of the Civil Rights leader marching with open collar and suit jacket slung over his shoulder has been criticized as too casual.  Douglas, whose grave in Chicago lies beneath a 96-foot granite monument, has fallen out of favor elsewhere. The Chicago Park District in July rededicated a park for Frederick Douglass, the Black scholar and abolitionist, and a member of the Springfield Park Board is seeking a similar change in the capital city. 
 
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The European Union said Wednesday it does not recognize the results of Belarus’s August 9 election that detractors of President Alexander Lukashenko say was rigged to extend his 26 years in office. The EU also said it would move forward with sanctions on Belarus.
 
“The EU will impose shortly sanctions on a substantial number of individuals responsible for violence, repression and electoral fraud,” European Council President Charles Michel said after an EU emergency summit to discuss the crisis in Belarus.
 
Unrest in Belarus further escalated Wednesday when Lukashenko ordered his police to suppress protests in the capital, Minsk, days after a severe crackdown on peaceful protesters that resulted in the deaths of at least two people, the injuring of hundreds of others and the detention of nearly 7,000 people.
 
“There should no longer be any disorder in Minsk of any kind,” the official Belta news agency reported Lukashenko as saying.Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko chairs a Security Council meeting in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 18, 2020.Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has offered military assistance to Lukashenko, warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday not to interfere in Belarusian affairs. Putin’s warning came as he spoke by phone with Merkel, Macron and Michel.
 
A political opponent of Lukashenko urged EU leaders before the emergency summit not to recognize the presidential election, declaring it was rigged in Lukashenko’s favor. Lukashenko denies the accusation.  
 
Political opponent Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya issued the appeal from exile in neighboring Lithuania. “I call on you not to recognize these fraudulent elections,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “Mr.  Lukashenko has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of our nation and the world.”
 
Tsikhanouskaya says she is the winner of the vote and has called for new elections under international supervision.Belarusian Opposition Leader Flees to Lithuania Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya tells supporters she feared for her children’s safety on 3rd straight night of violent anti-government protestsWorkers in Belarus began striking in recent days as part of a campaign to oust the authoritarian president.
 
Unrest began to escalate after Lukashenko dismissed demands to resign following a severe police clampdown on peaceful protesters.
 
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde has offered to visit Belarus as the incoming head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which frequently mediates disputes on the continent. Western nations and former states of the Soviet Union are members of the OSCE. 
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China has launched an anti-dumping investigation into Australian wine imports, as trade tensions between Beijing and Canberra continue to fester. Australia owes much of its recent prosperity to China, its biggest trading partner. Last year, two-way commerce was worth $170 billion, but cracks are appearing in this valuable relationship.   Australian wine growers are the latest to be caught up in escalating geo-political tensions. Exporters are accused of cutting their prices and taking market share from local companies in China. An anti-dumping inquiry has been requested by the Chinese Alcoholic Drinks Association. It will examine whether Australian firms are being supported by government subsidies. Canberra has insisted wine sales to China have been fairly priced, and officials have said they would cooperate fully with the investigation. Trade minister Simon Birmingham says Australian wine makers have done nothing wrong. “We find these suggestions deeply troubling and quite perplexing. Australian wine is by no means subsidized, it is by no means sold at or below anything other than market rates in the world market.  Indeed, Australian wine during the first half of this year proved itself to be the second highest priced wine sold in the Chinese market,” Birmingham said. The investigation comes against a backdrop of increasing friction between Beijing and Canberra after the Australian government called for an international investigation into the origins of COVID-19, which first emerged in Wuhan, China late last year.    China recently imposed tariffs on Australian barley, suspended some beef imports and told Chinese students and tourists it was not safe to travel to Australia because of allegations of racism.  China is also suspected of orchestrating cyber-attacks on Australian institutions, allegations that Beijing strongly denied. But Matt Canavan, a federal government lawmaker in Canberra, accuses China of economic coercion. “It is a pattern of behavior we are seeing from China and I do not think they can be a trustworthy business partner anymore the way they are acting, and I think every Australian business must be very careful about how much they get exposed to a jurisdiction whose behavior is increasingly threatening and bullying” Canavan said.China has insisted its anti-dumping investigation into Australian wine would be undertaken in a “fair and just way, according to the law.” A foreign ministry spokesman denied suggestions it was politically motivated. As bilateral tensions grow, analysts fear that Australia’s lucrative iron ore and coal exports could be next to suffer. 
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Asian markets are mostly higher Wednesday. The Nikkei index in Tokyo finished 0.2% higher.  Sydney’s S&P/ASX index was up 0.2% at its close.  The KOSPI index in Seoul gained 0.5%, while the TSEC index in Taipei dropped 0.7%. In late afternoon trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index is down 0.8%, the Shanghai Composite is 1.1% lower, and the Sensex in Mumbai is up 0.4%. In commodities trading, gold is trading at $1,994.50 an ounce, down 0.9%.  U.S. crude oil is selling at $42.58 per barrel, down 0.7%, and Brent crude is selling at $45.09 per barrel, down 0.8%. All three major U.S. indices are flat in futures trading. 
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