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Foreigners who temporarily worked in the U.S. and mistakenly received federal stimulus checks are expected to return the money to the Internal Revenue Service, legal experts told VOA.Thousands of foreign workers are believed to have found $1,200 in their bank accounts or received a check signed by President Donald Trump in the mail. Some reportedly have spent the money while others are taking steps to ensure their visa and immigration status is not imperiled for having received it.“Now you’ve got a bunch of people out there wondering, what are they supposed to do? And what they’re supposed to do is return [the money] to the IRS,” Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told VOA.Holtzblatt explained that most foreign workers must use the 1040-NR form when they pay taxes. The NR stands for nonresident.“But it appears that some people were confused. … Maybe they were confused by which form to file, and some people — who would be considering nonresident aliens under the tax code — filed the regular 1040,” she said.The 1040 is a form used by individual U.S. taxpayers and was the basis for receiving stimulus checks.“So, the IRS did not know that they were non-resident aliens because the only way that the IRS knows is by their reporting,” she added.A significant proportion of the recipients are believed to be among the hundreds of thousands of college students who lived in the U.S. temporarily while working at seasonal low-wage jobs.$1,200 eligibilityThe CARES Act, which mandated federal payments to moderate and low-income Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, had specific rules on eligibility.US Government Sent $1.4B in Coronavirus Cash to Deceased Taxpayers, Watchdog FindsGovernment Accountability Office says more than a million dead Americans were sent stimulus payments The bottom line for foreign workers, according to Holtzblatt, is that non-resident aliens could not receive it.Though the IRS has not published guidance on how these foreign workers can return the money, the agency’s official website has a detailed page on how a taxpayer can return an “erroneous refund.”Immigration implicationsAccording to Atlanta-based immigration lawyer Robert Johnson, the broader question is, “Were they lawfully entitled to the money notwithstanding their immigration status?”If the answer is no, then Johnson said foreign workers should absolutely return the stimulus check.When it comes to consequences of keeping the money, Johnson explained that though criminal laws and immigration laws are separate, the trouble comes if the U.S. government charges foreign workers with fraud.“But how in the world is the government going to follow up with everybody? I’m not saying they couldn’t, but there has to be some kind of charge filed against them so that they are [placed] in some sort of database,” he added.A U.S government official from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said at this time “there are too many variables” to take into consideration before talking about immigration enforcement.But consequences to keep stimulus money would depend on whether the mistake was made by the U.S. government.“Also, the impact to [a foreign worker] admissibility [into the U.S.] would likely rest on whether a crime was committed, and if that person was charged and convicted,” the official said.In addition to foreign workers, some federal aid was mistakenly sent to deceased Americans.  
  
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Jean Arnault, the U.N. secretary-general’s personal envoy to Bolivia, said in a statement Friday he “welcomes the agreement” the Andean nation’s legislature reached Thursday to hold the country’s general election October 18.Arnault said the “consensus is a fundamental achievement that provides guarantees regarding the date of the elections” and “helps to overcome political divisions and the uncertainty that worried many sectors of Bolivian society.”The election had been scheduled for September 6 but was pushed back as the country dealt with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.Many Bolivians were anxious about the delayed elections, following the election last year that prompted protests around the country and the resignation of leftist President Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous leader. Right-wing lawmaker Jeanine Anez was sworn in as Bolivia’s interim president.  She will be on the October ballot.Luis Arce will be the candidate for Morales’ Movement for Socialism party.Arnault said with this week’s legislative agreement, “the path towards a reliable electoral process whose results are respected by all actors is effectively consolidated.” 
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China will dramatically expand its pilot program for digital currency to include all major large cities, the country’s Commerce Ministry said Friday.To date, the central-bank-led trial program has been under way in four cities and in places related to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. With Friday’s announcement, the pioneering initiative to launch an electronic payment system will cover 28 provinces and cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the neighboring cities of Hong Kong and Macau.The ministry said the initiative will “carry out digital RMB pilot programs in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the pilot regions in the central and western regions where conditions permit.”China, like the rest of the world, mainly relies on the U.S. dollar payment system in international deals, which makes it vulnerable to possible U.S. sanctions. The government has been researching and developing the digital currency since 2014, in part as a way of shifting away from U.S. dollars and bypassing international financial systems subject to U.S. law.The risks that the country’s banks are sanctioned by the U.S. are becoming increasingly real after the Trump administration sanctioned 11 mainland and Hong Kong officials for their role in suppressing freedom in Hong Kong. China’s economy “for the foreseeable future will be dependent on U.S. dollar transactions,” Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, a co-sponsor of legislation to sanction Chinese officials for violating Hong Kong’s independence, said in May.Chinese officials and economists have in recent months been very outspoken about the possibility that the Trump administration would go for the so-called “nuclear option” and cut China off from the dollar payment system. Fang Xinghai, a vice chairman at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said that China must prepare, “real preparations, not just psychological preparations,” Fang said at a forum organized by Chinese media outlet Caixin.Yu Yongding, a senior fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank, said that one scenario would be Washington imposing sanctions on Chinese banks, as it did in 2012 on the Bank of Kunlun, a regional Chinese lender for financing deals with Iran.Yu said that the U.S. may not have reached the point where it wants to kick China out of SWIFT, the international financial system that provides a network that enables banks worldwide to send and receive information about financial transactions.”But China must take action and prepare in advance to prevent accidents just in case,” Yu said last Wednesday at an event organized by a state media.In Friday’s statement, the Commerce Ministry said the government’s effort is aimed at “adapting to the profound and complex changes in the domestic and international environment,” and “hold fast to the bottom line and prevent and control risks.” 
 
 
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Local volunteers laid out booms made from human hair as well as husks from sugar cane factories, Thursday, August 13, in an effort to soak up as much of the oil spill off Mauritius as possible. Satellite images show the 1,000 metric tons of spilled oil spreading northward along the coastline from the spill site in the turquoise waters of Blue Bay Marine Park. The damage, scientists say, could impact Mauritius and its tourism-dependent economy for decades. The spill came from the Japanese-owned MV Wakashio, which rammed into a reef in the marine park on July 25 and now lies with a broken back partially submerged, its bow pointing upward. It is still unclear why the ship was sailing so close to the coast. About a week later, oil began gushing from the damaged vessel. (Reuters)  
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As Belarus cracked down on protesters contesting the reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko, dozens of journalists were detained, beaten, and deported, and internet service was blocked as authorities tried to stifle opposition to the Aug. 9 vote.Mass demonstrations took place in the capital, Minsk, and other cities this week with protesters alleging the election was rigged and that opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — and not Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years — won the vote. Belarus freed about 1,000 people overnight on Aug. 13 after public outcry at the harsh tactics.Tikhanovskaya fled to Lithuania after the election and has called on her supporters to not oppose the police. She ran for president after authorities detained her husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, a popular video blogger who was registered as a presidential candidate.  Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanouskaya speaks in a video message in an unknown location, in this still image taken from a video released, Aug. 11, 2020.About 80 violations against the media have been documented since the election, according to the People detained during recent rallies of opposition supporters, who accuse Alexander Lukashenko of falsifying the polls in the presidential election, show their marks from beatings as they leave the Okrestina prison, in Minsk, Aug. 14, 2020.In another incident, riot police beat Maksim Solopov, a Russian correspondent for Meduza, and arrested him while threatening his colleagues. Solopov’s whereabouts was unknown for two days. He was later handed to the Russian embassy, ​​along with the reporters from Dozhd TV.Security forces also detained and beat journalists from state-owned outlets including the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, Sputnik radio station, and RT TV, as well as the pro-Kremlin newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, demanded the release of the country’s journalists. At least 10 of those detained were deported, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists. In the Dozhd TV case, the journalists were barred from returning to Belarus for 10 years. News crews from the BBC and Associated Press were also attacked or detained. Riot police beat a BBC cameraman and damaged his equipment. AP photographer Mstislav Chernov, was briefly detained and beaten on Aug. 10. While foreign media were released, many Belarusian journalists were detained on accusations of petty hooliganism, violating laws on mass media, or violations of the law on organizing mass rallies or events.  Some are still in custody, and it was not always clear where they were being held.Rights expert Bihr said the disappearance of journalists was disturbing.“This has happened to several Russian journalists in recent days, and they have all been released now. However, we have so far failed to discover the whereabouts of certain Belarusian journalists. And this is a distinctive feature of the recent detentions,” he said.People light flares and wave Belarusian flags to support Belarusian opposition in front of Belarusian Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Aug. 14, 2020.International rights groups have criticized the government’s crackdown. “The problem was the complete lack of communication: the mobile internet was completely down, it was impossible to use any instant messengers or get any information from the phone at all while you were in the street,” Tanya Lokshina, director of the Russia program at Human Rights Watch, told VOA. “You could only figure out what was happening and where basically only by the noise. It was also impossible to find Wi-Fi there, because cafes where such a connection could theoretically be available were forcibly closed. I literally had to run in the direction of the noise,” said Lokshina, who was in Minsk. Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the internet block and attacks were an attempt by authorities to prevent independent information from being shared. “We believe that the basic goal of the Belarusian authorities before, during and after the elections is to control the flow of information, to prevent the dissemination of any opinions about the elections or the political situation in Belarus that differ from the narrative approved by Lukashenko,” she told VOA, adding that the brutality of the crackdown on protesters exceeds that of previous elections.“The international community was aware of the nature of Lukashenko’s regime, probably since the time Lukashenko came to power. And he has remained in power for so long, because the pressure on him to guarantee certain civil and human rights throughout Belarus from the international community was decidedly insufficient,” she said.Bihr said instructions appeared to be coming from the top.“Over the past few days and weeks, President Lukashenko has repeatedly warned and threatened independent media. He scolded the Belarusian Foreign Ministry for accrediting Radio Liberty,” Bihr said. “He threatened the journalists of (website) Tut.by and (television channel) Belsat, accusing them of instigating a revolution. In this way, he very openly and clearly empowered the state apparatus to crack down on independent journalists and arrange an information blackout in the country.”This article originated in VOA’s Russia service.
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We continue our special series on Guns in America, tattoos for changing skin and hearts, global ocean rescue and a drive-thru theater.
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Pakistan is celebrating its Independence Day on Friday with rallies across the country.In his Independence Day message, President Arif Alvi used the occasion to assure whom he called the “resilient people of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir” that Pakistan will “continue to support them in their just struggle for their right to self-determination as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council resolutions.”  Both India and Pakistan lay claim to the disputed region.Prime Minister Imran Khan said in his holiday statement, “The day is an occasion to pay tribute to all those sons of the soil who laid their lives while defending and protecting territorial as well as ideological frontiers of the motherland.”Various groups and organizations began their holiday celebrations Thursday. 
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One of the Iranian lawyers representing a minority Kurdish political prisoner facing execution in Iran has reportedly asked for a retrial to overturn the man’s death sentence, which supporters say was unjustly based on forced confessions.In a Tuesday interview with VOA Persian, a source with knowledge of the situation said the lawyer submitted the request for a retrial of Heydar Ghorbani to Iran’s judiciary in response to an August 6 ruling in which the Iranian Supreme Court upheld Ghorbani’s death sentence. VOA has not named the lawyer cited by the source at the source’s request. Iran has a record of harassing citizens who speak to Western-based media outlets that it deems hostile.Ghorbani was arrested in October 2016 in Iranian Kurdistan’s Kamyaran County and charged in connection with a violent incident there in the previous month involving the killings of three members of Iran’s top military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.In the following years, rights activists reported that Iranian authorities sentenced Ghorbani to death on charges of collaborating in an armed attack that killed the IRCG personnel and being a member of the outlawed Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan rebel group. During the period, Iranian state-run network Press TV aired a 2017 program titled The Death Driver, in which Ghorbani seemingly confessed to having driven the DPIK rebels involved in the killings.Amnesty International has said Ghorbani is one of several minority Kurds persecuted by Iranian authorities for “real or perceived affiliation with armed Kurdish political opposition groups.” Those Kurds were sentenced to death following what the group has called “grossly unfair trials that relied primarily or exclusively on confessions obtained without the presence of a lawyer and under torture and other ill-treatment.”The source who spoke to VOA said the Iranian Supreme Court’s August 6 action entitles authorities in Iranian Kurdistan’s provincial capital of Sanandaj to carry out Ghorbani’s execution. However, the source said the ruling also gave Ghorbani’s lawyer access to the case files for the first time, showing the lawyer that the entire verdict was based on what Ghorbani’s supporters have said were forced confessions.“Ghorbani has never admitted to being armed or being a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan,” the source said. Ghorbani’s lawyer requested the retrial citing the lack of evidence besides the apparent forced confessions, the source added.Article 477 of Iran’s Code of Criminal Procedure gives Iran’s judiciary chief the power to order the Supreme Court to overturn a verdict that he deems to be “evidently in contravention of Sharia [Islamic law]” and issue a new one.There have been no references to Ghorbani’s case or his lawyer’s reported retrial request in Iranian state media in recent days.In a video shared with VOA Persian and published Tuesday, Ghorbani’s wife Sharareh Sadeghi reiterated her belief in his innocence, saying he had been tortured into confessing.“I call on the Iranian people, relevant authorities, the people of the world and international organizations to respond to the upheld death sentence of my husband by stopping Iranian security forces from depriving my children of having a father,” Sadeghi said.She also identified one member of her husband’s legal team as Morteza Javanmardi. No recent comments from him about the case could be found online.In an August 3 message on the case of another Iranian Kurd at risk of execution, Amnesty International said statements elicited as a result of torture, ill-treatment or other forms of coercion “must be excluded as evidence in criminal proceedings, except those brought against suspected perpetrators of such abuse.”“In view of the irreversible nature of the death penalty, the proceedings in capital cases must scrupulously observe all relevant international standards protecting the right to a fair trial,” the group added.This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Click here for the original Persian version of the story. 
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