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Over the past seven years, France’s Barkhane counterinsurgency operation in the Sahel has weathered terrorist attacks, flagging political support from its African allies, and growing popular protests against the ongoing presence of Paris, the region’s former colonial power. Now, it faces the coup in Mali.  August’s power grab by a group of army colonels — Mali’s fourth coup since independence — is again posing questions about whether and for how long French boots should remain in an increasingly shifting and dangerous terrain.  That debate ratcheted up a notch this week, following the deaths of two French soldiers in northern Mali, bringing to 45 the number of French fatalities in the region over the past seven years. FILE – French Defense Minister Florence Parly pays tribute to two French soldiers with the anti-jihadist Barkhane force in Mali killed when their armored vehicle hit an improvised explosive device, during a tribute ceremony in Tarbes, Sept. 9, 2020.“After the coup in Mali, doubts on the Barkhane operation,” France’s Le Figaro newspaper headlined this week, while some leftist lawmakers have called for a parliamentary debate about the future of France’s 5,000-plus strong regional force.  Yet along with the questions about France’s future in the region, some analysts see potential opportunities from the coup which ousted a government long accused of corruption and mismanagement — even as others fear deepening unrest.  For its part, France’s official answer remains the same.  “There is no question of letting down the guard,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French radio hours after news of the soldiers’ deaths. “We are making progress in Mali, where we are fighting to ensure our security and that of other countries.”  Talks on next steps The debate comes as Mali’s new military rulers hold local and international talks about the country’s next steps. The 15-nation Economic Commission of West African States, or ECOWAS, has set a 12-month limit for new elections and a September 15th deadline for the appointment of an interim president and prime minister.  FILE – Col. Assimi Goita, center, self-declared leader of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, and other officials from the group meet with a delegation from the West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS, in Bamako, Mali, Aug. 22, 2020.There are also reportedly rocky talks between the self-styled National Committee for the Salvation of the People, or CNSP junta, and the civilian coalition whose massive protests helped topple the government of former President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita.  Within this changing political landscape, France and other Western countries involved in regional counterinsurgency operations have offered mixed responses.   Even as the European Union and Washington announced the suspension of some military missions in Mali following the coup, French President Emmanuel Macron announced in late August the Barkhane peacekeeping force “would continue.”  FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron meets soldiers of Operation Barkhane, France’s largest overseas military operation, in Gao, northern Mali, May 19, 2017.“They’re still pushing for a quick [political] transition,” said Andrew Lebovich, Sahel expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations policy institute, of Paris’ response to the junta.Still, he said, France’s tone toward the coup’s leaders has softened after it became clear Keita would not be returning to power. Respecting engagements Helping to ease relations, Mali’s coup leaders have said they would respect the country’s previous military engagements, which include partnering with other so-called G-5 Sahel member states and France in fighting the long-running Islamist insurgency in northern Mali and neighboring countries. When they met with France’s ambassador to Mali in August, analyst Lebovich noted, Barkhane’s commander was also present.  “There was a clear message being sent,” he added, “that from their perspective, nothing changed with Barkhane.”  And for now, the military appears to have the support of at least a slice of the Malian population, which staged weeks of anti-government protests leading up to the coup.  FILE – A man holds a sign reading “A transition led by the army” as supporters of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People take part in a rally on Independence Square in Bamako, Sept. 8, 2020.“The soldiers, the soldiers,” some chanted at a Bamako rally on Monday.  “In theory it’s an opportunity,” Lebovich said of the junta, who he noted moved swiftly to show “they wanted to play a role in pushing anti-corruption measures and good governance” — reforms long demanded by French and other Western powers. Whether Mali’s new rulers carry them out remains unclear. Also unclear, for some, is France’s future relationship with them.  Coup leader Colonel Assimi Goita, 37, received training in the United States and Germany — but not in France, France’s Les Echos newspaper noted. Indeed, only one of the coup’s senior officers spent time in the country, it said, adding French military officials initially didn’t seem to know who they were.  “We knew the situation remained unstable, but the five officers who led the coup took us by surprise,” it reported a French defense official as saying.  Barkhane essential?  Either way, Barkhane’s supporters argue the force remains key in fighting the Sahel insurgency. Mali’s own 13,000-strong army is underpaid and underequipped, while some G-5 alliance forces have been accused of human rights abuses.  For its part, Paris has described a recent string of tactical successes, including the June killing of a senior al-Qaida leader, Adbemalek Droukdel. FILE – A member of a French military medical unit provides medical action for the benefit of the population during Operation Barkhane in Ndaki, Mali, July 29, 2019.“I think today, Barkhane is vital for Mali,” Nicolas Normand, a former French ambassador to Mali, told France’s Marianne magazine in a recent interview. “If it’s withdrawn, there will be chaos and towns will fall.”  But, he added, while “Barkhane is an insurance of Mali’s survival, it cannot stay forever.”  French opposition parties have expressed their own doubts about the status quo. A number of analysts are also skeptical about Barkhane’s effectiveness. Some point to a tangle of sometimes conflicting French and other European military missions in the region, and to protests in Mali and elsewhere against foreign involvement.  “The French say they’re making headway,” analyst Lebovich said. “Most outside specialists look at this and say, ‘Yes, there’s some improvement, but in general the overall security situation is not that much better.’ ”  
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U.S. weather officials announced Thursday that a La Nina climate pattern has developed in the Pacific Ocean, possibly exacerbating an already busy hurricane season and setting up a colder, wetter winter for North America.U.S. Climate Prediction Center Deputy Director Mike Halpert said in a press release that La Nina can contribute to an increase in Atlantic hurricane activity by weakening winds over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Basin. He said that can enable storms to develop and intensify.Halpert said the potential for La Nina development was considered when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) updated its Atlantic hurricane season outlook last month.In a statement on its website, NOAA describes La Nina — translated from Spanish as “little girl” — as a natural ocean-atmospheric phenomenon marked by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator.In the winter, La Nina typically brings above-average precipitation and colder-than-average temperatures along the northern tier of the U.S., along with below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures across the South. NOAA says that raises concern for the U.S. Southwest, which saw a weak summer rainy season and is already experiencing a severe drought.The opposite effect, El Nino — “little boy” in Spanish — is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. That can often result in increased rainfall across the southern tier of the U.S., which, in the worst case, can cause destructive flooding, and drought in the western Pacific.NOAA says the most recent La Nina appeared during the winter of 2017-18, and El Nino followed in 2018-19. When neither climate pattern is present, as was the case last winter, the El Nino Southern Oscillation is neutral and does not influence global climate patterns.
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The third phase of human trials for a vaccine against the coronavirus is underway in Peru.On Wednesday, Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm began testing about two dozen people, with the long-term goal of vaccinating a total of 6,000 people between the ages of 18 and 75.The participants will receive one of three injections, consisting of a virus strain from Wuhan, China; a Beijing strain; or a saline water placebo.The Associated Press reports the Peruvian government is in talks with six laboratories to determine the best course to buy the vaccine.Peru is one of the hardest-hit countries by the coronavirus in Latin America, with more than 696,000 COVID-19 infections and more than 30,000 deaths.So far, Sinopharm has given 30,000 doses to volunteers and another 10,000 participants have received double doses in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Additional testing is planned for Morocco and Argentina.
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Asian markets finished mostly higher Thursday as investors reacted favorably to Wall Street’s recovery from a three-day selloff.The Nikkei index in Tokyo closed 0.8% higher. Sydney’s S&P/ASX index was up 0.5%. The KOSPI index in Seoul finished 0.8% higher, while the TSEC in Taipei was up 0.6%.Shanghai’s Composite index fell 0.6%.In late afternoon trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 0.3%, while Mumbai’s Sensex was up 1.2%.Meanwhile, all three major European indices were trading lower at the start of their trading day.In commodities trading, gold was selling at $1,952.60 an ounce, down 0.1%. U.S. crude oil was selling at $37.61 per barrel, down 1.1%, and Brent crude oil was selling at $40.46 per barrel, down 0.8%.All three major U.S. indices were slumping in futures trading.
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European Council President Charles Michel has called for faster consideration of sanctions against officials in Belarus after the detention of multiple opposition leaders.“Political persecution in Belarus including detentions on political grounds and forced exile must stop,” Michel tweeted Wednesday. “Belarusian authorities must free political prisoners and let citizens exercise their right to freedom of speech and assembly.”Unidentified Belarusian authorities on Wednesday detained one of the two remaining free leaders of an opposition council amid continuing protests against longtime President Alexander Lukashenko following a disputed election.Attorney Maxim Znak was taken out of the Coordination Council’s office by unknown people wearing ski masks, according to his associate, Gleb German.Znak’s detention came as Lukashenko tried to end protests against him. German said Znak managed to text “masks” before his phone was seized.Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, is now the only council executive to remain free in Belarus, even after unidentified people tried to enter her apartment on Wednesday.Several European Union diplomats and journalists arrived at her apartment in Minsk to prevent her detention. Alexievich told reporters she does not plan to leave Belarus.”What is happening is terror against the people,” Alexievich said. “We have to unite and not give up our intentions. There is a danger we will lose the country.”Thousands of people have taken part in five weeks of protests following the August 9 election in which Lukashenko was declared the winner. Opposition parties, the United States and the European Union allege the election was rigged.Lukashenko denies the voting was fraudulent and blamed the unrest on meddling by Western countries. Russian news agencies quoted him this week saying he has nothing to discuss with the opposition, and that he would be open to constitutional reforms and a potential new presidential election.Lukashenko’s election opponent, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has left the country.More than 7,000 protesters have been arrested, and widespread evidence of abuse and torture has been reported. At least four people are reported to have died during the demonstrations.During a meeting in Estonia on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the Nordic Baltic nations called on Belarusian authorities to end the crackdown and the prosecution of activists.Alexievich was questioned last month by Belarusian investigators, who have launched a criminal investigation into the Coordination Council members who investigators say are undermining national security by demanding a transfer of power.Several council members have been arrested, and others were forcibly expelled from the country.On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States is deeply concerned about the Belarusian government’s attempts to forcibly expel opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova. Pompeo said the United States and other countries are considering bringing sanctions in response to recent events in Belarus.“We commend the courage of Ms. Kolesnikova and of the Belarusian people in peacefully asserting their right to pick their leaders in free and fair elections in the face of unjustified violence and repression by the Belarusian authorities, which included brazen beatings of peaceful marchers in broad daylight and hundreds of detentions (on) September 6, as well as increasing reports of abductions,” Pompeo said in a statement.Pompeo said the potential sanctions would be aimed at promoting “accountability for those involved in human rights abuses and repression in Belarus.”Kolesnikova was detained Monday, along with opposition movement members Anton Rodnenkov and Ivan Kravtsov. They were driven to the border between Belarus and Ukraine on Tuesday where Kolesnikova tore up her passport and was held on the Belarusian side.Rodnenkov and Kravtsov did cross into Ukraine.“She was shouting that she won’t go anywhere,” Rodnenkov said at a news conference in Kyiv. “Sitting in the car, she saw her passport on a front seat and tore it into many small fragments, crumpled them and threw them out of the window. After that, she opened the back door and walked back to the Belarusian border.”A spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement expressing his concern about “the repeated use of force against peaceful protesters, as well as reported pressures on opposition civil society activists.”
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Ronald “Khalis” Bell, a co-founder of the legendary group Kool and the Gang, died Wednesday at his home in the U.S Virgin Islands. He was 68 years old.Bell’s publicist did not disclose his cause of death.Bell sang and composed songs for the Grammy-winning group, which blended jazz, funk, R&B and pop.Kool and the Gang’s heyday during the ‘70s led a loyal following behind the group’s biggest hits written by Bell, including “Celebration,” “Jungle Boogie” and “Summer Madness.”Bell is credited with orchestrating the group’s decades-old popularity that was punctuated with a star for Kool and the Gang being placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 
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Deadly windblown wildfires raging across the Pacific Northwest destroyed hundreds of homes in Oregon, the governor said Wednesday, warning it could be the greatest loss of life and property from wildfire in state history.The blazes from the top of the state to the California border caused highway closures and smoky skies and had firefighters struggling to contain and douse flames fanned by 80-kph wind gusts. Officials in some western Oregon communities gave residents “go now” orders to evacuate, meaning they had minutes to flee their homes.Fires were burning in a large swath of Washington state and Oregon that rarely experiences such intense wildfire activity because of the Pacific Northwest’s cool and wet climate.Flames trapped firefighters and civilians behind fire lines in Oregon and leveled an entire small town in eastern Washington. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown warned that the devastation could be overwhelming from the fires that exploded Monday during a late-summer windstorm.”Everyone must be on high alert,” Brown said. The blazes were thought to be extremely destructive around Medford, in southern Oregon, and near the state capital of Salem.”This could be the greatest loss of human life and property due to wildfire in our state’s history,” the governor said.At least two people were killed in Oregon fires, along with a small child in a Washington state blaze. Brown said some communities were substantially damaged, with “hundreds of homes lost.”A horse stands in a stall under smoky skies on the Oregon State Fairgrounds, Sept. 9, 2020, in Salem, Ore. Hundreds of horses have been brought to the fairgrounds in Salem by people fleeing the fires.The precise extent of damage was unclear because so many of the fire zones were too dangerous to survey, said Oregon Deputy State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple.”Quite frankly, we are not even able to get into these areas,” she said.In Washington, a 1-year-old boy died after his family was apparently overrun by flames while trying to flee a wildfire in the northeastern part of the state, Okanogan County Sheriff Tony Hawley said Wednesday.The child’s injured parents were discovered in the area of the Cold Springs Fire, which is burning in Okanogan and Douglas counties, Hawley said. They were transported to a Seattle hospital with third-degree burns.KOIN reported a boy and his grandmother died in a wildfire near Lyons, Oregon. Marion County Sheriff Joe Kast confirmed two fatalities but had no other details. He said they would likely “not be the only ones.” Lyons is in Marion County.Another wildfire hit Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast, where residents were being evacuated to a community college to the south.”The fire is in the city,” said Casey Miller, spokesman for Lincoln County Emergency Management. He said some buildings had been burned but had no details.The department imposed mandatory evacuation for the northern half of the city of roughly 10,000 residents, which stretches alongside U.S. Highway 101.The Pacific Northwest scenes of lines of vehicles clogging roads to get away from the fires were similar to California’s terrifying wildfire drama, where residents have fled fires raging unchecked throughout the state. But Northwest officials said they did not recall so many destructive fires at once in the areas where they were burning.A water-drop helicopter flies Sept. 9, 2020, near a wildfire burning in Bonney Lake, Wash., south of Seattle.Sheriff’s deputies, traveling with chain saws in their patrol cars to cut fallen trees blocking roads, went door to door in rural communities 64 kilometers south of Portland, telling people to evacuate. Since Tuesday, as many as 16,000 people have been told to abandon their homes.”These winds are so incredible and are spreading so fast, we don’t have a lot of time,” said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.”I’ve been through hell and high water but nothing like this. I’ve been shot down and shot at, but this – last night, I’m still not over it,” said Lloyd Dean Holland, a Vietnam veteran who barely escaped his home in Estacada on Tuesday night.Holland said Oregon State Police had warned him to leave earlier in the day, but the fire seemed far away and he decided to stay. Around 10 p.m., he said, his landlord came pounding on the door screaming at him to go.Fires were burning in seven Oregon counties and rural and suburban homes miles away from Portland were under preliminary orders to prepare for possible evacuations. Three prisons were evacuated late Tuesday, and Brown called the state’s blazes unprecedented.The Northwest is no stranger to wildfires, but most of the biggest ones until now have been in the eastern or southern parts of the region – where the weather is considerably hotter and drier and the vegetation more fire-prone than it is in the region’s western portion.Fires in 2017 and 2018 crested the top of the Cascade Range – the long spine that divides dry eastern Oregon from the lush western part of the state – but never before spread into the valleys below, said Doug Grafe, chief of Fire Protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry.A family arrives with their two dogs and other precious belongings at an evacuation center that has been set up at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem, Ore., on Sept. 8, 2020.”We do not have a context for this amount of fire on the landscape,” he said.Fire crews were focusing on trying to keep people out of harm’s way and preventing houses from burning on Wednesday, with officials saying that containing the fires was a secondary priority.After a 30-minute tour of the fire area south of Seattle in Sumner, Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee said the blaze is “just one example of probably the most catastrophic fires we’ve had in the history of the state.”He said that in the past couple of days, more than 194,424 hectares burned.”This is an extraordinary series of events we have suffered,” Inslee said.About 80% of the small eastern Washington farming town of Malden was leveled by flames from a fast-moving fire on Monday.In Sumner helicopters flew over a ridge, dropping water on smoldering areas. Bud Backer, fire chief for East Pierce Fire & Rescue, told Inslee that the recent winds were “like a blowtorch.”Bonney Lake Police Chief Bryan Jeter said that about 2,500 homes in the area were given evacuation orders.In Oregon, at least four major fires were burning in Clackamas County, a suburban county in Oregon that’s a bedroom community of Portland. The entire county of nearly 420,000 people was put on notice to be ready to evacuate late Tuesday amid winds gusting up to 48 kph.Another major fire in southern Oregon prompted evacuation orders in much of Medford, a city of about 80,000 residents near the California border.And several huge blazes burning in Marion County, southeast of the state’s capitol city of Salem, merged overnight – turning the sky blood red in the middle of the day. 
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A U.S. government decision Tuesday to sanction two former Lebanese government ministers is the latest unprecedented campaign against Hezbollah, with some observers saying the move dramatically increases the risk for Lebanese politicians to engage with the U.S.-designated terror group.The Trump administration said it blacklisted former Minister of Transportation and Public Works Yusuf Finyanus and former Minister of Finance Ali Hassan Khalil because they had helped Hezbollah bypass U.S. sanctions and profit from multimillion-dollar government contracts.Firas Maksad, an adjunct professor and researcher on Lebanon at George Washington University, said that Lebanon’s economy is highly dollarized, giving Washington a “tremendous leverage” to use sanctions to deter Lebanon’s political groups from cozying up to the Iran proxy when the country is trying to form a new government.“In the past when the U.S. Treasury had moved to designate Lebanese banks, those banks would fall within 24 hours,” Maksad told VOA by phone. “These sanctions, in particular, are different and of a more significant caliber because it’s the first time that they target two former ministers.”“Lebanese political and business actors are now much more cognizant of the risks working together with Hezbollah,” he added.Khalil is a member of the Shiite Amal Movement, and Finyanus is a member of Christian political party Marada Movement. Both groups have denounced the designations, calling them a U.S. attack “targeting Lebanon and its sovereignty,” according to Reuters.While announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement accused Hezbollah of exploiting Lebanon’s political system to spread “its malign influence.”“The United States stands with the people of Lebanon in their calls for reform and will continue to use its authorities to target those who oppress and exploit them,” Mnuchin said.Power sharingSince its independence from France in 1943, Lebanon has practiced a complicated parliamentary system called “consociationalism” to divide power among the country’s three main groups, the Sunnis, Shiites and Maronite Christians.As such, the country’s president has been a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni and the parliament speaker a Shiite.Unlike many Mideast countries, Lebanon is not an oil-rich nation, and more than 80% of its GDP comes from service sectors such as banking, tourism and construction. The U.S. Treasury says Hezbollah owns companies that are deeply involved in Lebanon’s economy.‘Internal dissent’The August 4 blast, caused by nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a highly populated civilian area, has led to the resignation of government and calls for deep political reform in the former French colony.French President Emmanuel Macron, who has visited Lebanon twice since the explosion, is leading an international effort to help Lebanon achieve economic recovery and political reform.While no one expects the powerful influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah to disappear anytime soon, experts say international pressure is key to bringing about radical change in Lebanon.“Hezbollah is still holding out,” said Phillip Smyth, a scholar on Shiite political movements at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Within the Lebanese government, they have strong allies and a very strong position. However, I would say they are facing internal dissent from a number of directions.”He added, “Following the blast, Hezbollah, with its dominant position, has become the face of the very corruption which spans across the Lebanese government.”Next week, Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib is expected to form a new Cabinet. Some observers say the recent U.S. sanctions are likely to influence the direction of the new government.“If the French president’s approach to Lebanon’s ruling class was too soft, the American mode included heavy sticks,” said Sam Bazzi, the founder of Hezbollah Watch blog.“This will hopefully break the stalemate in the country and create the opportunity for Adib to form the deliverance government that Lebanon desperately needs,” Bazzi said.Mehdi Jedinia contributed to this story from Washington.
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U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is unveiling a plan Wednesday to try to protect American workers by raising taxes on companies that move jobs overseas. Biden, challenging Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 national election, is delivering details of the plan during a campaign stop in the industrial heartland city of Warren, Michigan.  Traditional working-class Democratic voters embraced Trump in his unexpected win in the Midwestern state in 2016, but Biden is hoping to win them back to help him deny Trump a second term in the White House. Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at UAW Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Mich., Sept. 9, 2020.Trump is remaining in Washington on Wednesday, but on Thursday will also visit Michigan — considered a must-win political battleground state by both campaigns — and other key electoral states late in the week. On Friday, both Biden and Trump will be in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the 2001 al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the U.S. A jetliner crashed in a field near Shanksville as passengers tried to overcome hijackers who commandeered the aircraft. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Winston-Salem, N.C., Sept. 8, 2020.After suspending his television advertising in the state during the summer, Trump resumed this week with an ad trumpeting what he called the “Great American Comeback,” saying the American economy is on the way back in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Ad trackers say Biden is outspending Trump on the airwaves in Michigan. Trump visited two other battleground states on Tuesday — Florida, where he extended an offshore drilling ban, and North Carolina, where several thousand supporters gathered in an airport hangar to hear him criticize Biden. Few of the people attending the rally adhered to health experts’ advice to wear face masks or remain 2 meters apart.  
 
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: South Africa has the fifth-highest Covid-19 infection rate in the world.Verdict: IncorrectRead the full story at: Africa Check Social Media DisinfoCirculating on social media: Video purportedly showing Russian healthcare workers celebrating a new vaccine for the novel coronavirus.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Agence France-Presse​
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Asian markets went on a downward spiral Wednesday, sparked by heavy losses the day before on Wall Street and a setback in the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.   Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index lost just over one percent, while the S&P/ASX index in Australia dropped 2.1%. The Shanghai Composite index lost 1.9%, the KOSPI in South Korea closed down just over one percent, and Taiwan’s TSEC finished 0.4% lower.   In late afternoon trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index is down 0.6%, while Mumbai’s Sensex is 0.5% lower.   Investors were shaken after Tuesday’s big selloff in all three major U.S. indices, led by the technology-heavy Nasdaq, which lost a staggering 4.1%.  Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s announcement that it was halting late-state trials of its experimental coronavirus vaccine after a participant became ill also rattled investors in the region.    But Europe’s benchmark indices are off to a strong start Wednesday — Britain’s FTSE index and the DAX index in Germany are both up one percent, while France’s CAC-40 is 0.9% higher.  In commodities trading, gold is selling at $1,935.90 an ounce, down 0.3%.  U.S. crude oil is selling at $37.30 per barrel, up 1.4%, while Brent crude, the international standard, is selling at $40.19 per barrel, up one percent.   Meanwhile, the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are all trending higher in futures trading despite Tuesday’s slump.    
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Chinese dissidents fleeing abroad have long used Thailand as a route for escaping repression at home. In recent years, Thailand’s government has been cooperating more with Beijing’s effort to pursue dissidents overseas, putting them at risk.   Several cases show how Chinese police are working through Thai law enforcement agencies, or even traveling to Thailand on their own, to try to find fleeing dissidents and bring them back to China. Jian Xing escaped to Thailand in 2015 after volunteering for a Chinese civil rights website and speaking out about corruption in the local government.   He told VOA that before he qualified to move to New Zealand in 2019, four police officers came to his residence in Thailand and took away his belongings without a search warrant.    “They told me that they could kill me in Thailand, and nobody would even know,” Xing said.   Yong Hua, an exiled artist, fled Thailand in 2019 after being stalked, arrested and sent to re-education camp by Chinese authorities because he said he voiced opposition to what the Chinese government has done to its people over the years. He recalled being constantly on the run to avoid Chinese agents hired by the government.    Hua told VOA that a Twitter account with no followers sent him a YouTube video on Aug. 28, saying, the “Thai Chinese Chamber of Commerce” offered a reward of $1,600 (50,000 baht) for him, accusing him of scamming money and saying they will post a “wanted notice” with his photograph on it in Bangkok and other places. “I don’t know if the so-called Chamber of Commerce is real,” Hua said. “I suspect they are the Chinese spies.” A VOA reporter called the phone number on the notice, but no one answered.  Some dissidents say the situation in Thailand has become so difficult that some of them are choosing to go back to China “voluntarily” under pressure from the Thai and Chinese governments. Xing refused.    “I told them if you deport me forcefully, then you will only get my corpse,” he said. Xing’s incident caused panic among Chinese refugees stranded in Thailand. Other refugees sent the video of police in Xing’s home to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to seek help. By then, Xing had already been sent to an immigration detention center waiting to be repatriated to China. Eventually, he received emergency humanitarian assistance and was resettled in New Zealand. Hua is making a documentary on the plight of Chinese refugees in Thailand waiting to relocate to third countries, which connected him with other refugees. He said many people who have fled China to Thailand, and even among those who qualify for refugee status, are living in very difficult situations. “I think they are suffering too much,” said Hua. “This suffering has two sides. The first one is economic, because you can’t work in Thailand. It’s illegal. Even if you get the refugee card, Thailand doesn’t recognize it. If your passport expired, you can get caught if you stay here. So, they are under a lot of financial pressure,” Hua told VOA. “Some people go to temples, to places that don’t charge them, because they have no money.” Hua said even worse is the second kind of suffering, the mental pressure.  “I think refugees all have severe or mild depression. They are not very healthy mentally,” he said. Many refugees have been in Thailand for years waiting to be resettled, and their state of mind is very worrying. Hua said because many people are Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and activists, they are afraid of being followed by people from China. So, they are very nervous and tense. Hua has been to the U.S. Embassy and the UNHCR to seek help and share his experience. He hopes to move to the United States where he thinks he will be safe.   Hua said he received a case number from the UNHCR and was told that the second interview would be held next year. But he said the U.N. officer told him there are too many cases like his. Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.    
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Hundreds of people demonstrated in Mali’s capital on Tuesday in support of the junta that has seized power in a coup, as debate rages over the timeframe for the country’s return to civilian rule. Months of protests over the simmering jihadist insurgency, bloody ethnic violence and endemic corruption in the country boiled over when rebel troops arrested the president and took control on August 18.  The protests were led by an opposition coalition called the June 5 Movement, and a new group calling itself the Popular Movement of September 4 organized the rally in Bamako on Tuesday. After the coup, the junta pledged to hold fresh elections and initially proposed a three-year, military-led transition back to civilian rule, before ratcheting it back to two.   “We want the army to stay in power for as long as it takes,” shopkeeper Hamza Sangare said at the Bamako protest over the din of the crowd. “Why not three years, by end of the mandate of former president IBK?” he suggested, referring to ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, whose second five-year term had been scheduled to end in 2023.   But the 15-nation West African regional bloc ECOWAS has demanded the transition take place in 12 months — and be led by a civilian president and prime minister. ECOWAS, which has hit Mali with sanctions including closing borders and trade bans over the coup, said Monday that the civilian transition leaders should be appointed by September 15.  While the coup has provoked international outrage, it has received support among some in Mali, fatigued by the country’s bloodshed and economic struggle. “The soldiers, the soldiers,” a group at the Bamako rally chanted, holding up Malian flags, placards saying “long live the army,” and pictures of junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita. Dozens of green minibuses that generally provide public transport were mobilized to transport the demonstrators to Bamako’s Independence Square, which was a main rallying point for protesters before the coup. The junta has organized three days of consultations with political parties and civil society groups from Thursday to plan the transition.   Ousted president Keita has been released and flew to the United Arab Emirates on Saturday for medical treatment after suffering a mini-stroke last week. 
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Five years ago, a Belarusian teenager studying film in Poland set up a YouTube channel to show videos that he made and poke fun at his country’s longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko.   After tangling with YouTube copyright laws, the student, Stsyapan Putsila, shifted his Nexta channel and his tactics in 2018 to Telegram, the messaging app. Its encryption technologies have made it wildly popular in Russia, Iran and other countries whose governments have suppressed independent media and communications.   Fast forward two years, and Putsila’s Nexta – taken from the Belarusian word for “someone” and pronounced “nekhta” — has grown in popularity, first and foremost among Belarusians seeking uncensored information in a country whose state-run media usually serve only as a mouthpiece for the government. A mix of user-submitted photos and videos, forwarded news items, biting opinion, and instructions for street protesters, the channel’s Telegram subscribers now total more than 2 million, making it one of the biggest information sources for Belarusians.   And with protests against Lukashenko showing no sign of relenting a month after a deeply disputed election in which he claimed to have won a sixth term, Nexta is at the vanguard – both in documenting the demonstrations and in encouraging them.   ‘A bit like revolutionaries’ “Even before the start of the Belarusian revolution, we were a nontraditional media [outlet],” Putsila, 22, said in a telephone interview with RFE/RL’s Russian Service Thursday. “We did not have a centralized website on the internet — we are a modern information channel, mainly for young people.” Since the protests began, “we have changed a little and become a bit like revolutionaries, because people want that from us,” he said. “We are asked to publish plans describing what to do, because there are simply no clear leaders in Belarus, especially ones with such an audience,” Putsila said. “If there had been, it is clear that they would have been immediately detained. Now we not only inform, but to some extent also coordinate people.”   With a team of six working out of a community center Warsaw, Putsila, who also uses the pseudonym Stepan Svetlov, pushes out dozens of items on the Telegram channel. On Monday, one day after tens of thousands of Belarusians surged into Minsk’s streets for the 29th day of protests, Nexta published — in Russian, which is spoken by nearly everyone in Belarus — a statement of support from European Union leaders and news items about the disappearance of one of the country’s leading opposition figures. Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya spoke via videolink to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Tuesday.Belusus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya takes part in an U.N. General Assembly online debate from Vilnius, Lithuania, Sept. 4, 2020.Mixed in were videos of the Sunday protest in Minsk, whose numbers Belarusian authorities said totaled just 30,000 — an estimate that Nexta and Belarusian opposition groups said was laughably low — as well as an aerial photo with a diagram showing which streets protesters could use to get around riot police blocking a key boulevard.   “We do not force anyone to protest,” Putsila said. “We tell people that they can go out, defend their rights. Belarusians come out on their own.”   A native of Minsk, Putsila went to the Polish city of Katowice to study film, and then moved to Warsaw, the Polish capital, after graduating. He has not been in his homeland since 2018, when Belarusian authorities opened a criminal investigation accusing him of “insulting the president” on YouTube. YouTube eventually pulled down Putsila’s channel after Belarusian authorities complained of copyright violations, prompting the move to Telegram. “We’ve received dozens of threats against us; we’ve even received threats that our office would be blown up,” he said. His parents and his younger brother have fled to Poland, fearing for their safety.   News reports say Polish police now guard the building where he has his offices; Putsila would not comment. In 2019, Nexta began publishing classified and confidential documents that purported to come from within Belarus; the channel gained new popularity after revealing that a traffic police officer whom authorities said had committed suicide was in fact the victim of a killing. “People have always been unhappy, especially in recent years, when they really became tired of him,” Putsila said of Lukashenko, who came to power in 1994 and has extended his rule though elections and other votes that international observers have called undemocratic.   ‘Great example’After the August 9 election, which opponents say was falsified to give Lukashenko more than 80% of the vote, “people managed to unite, and now they feel they are the masters of their own land,” Putsila said. “Nevertheless, there are also the ‘enforcers’ — this is how we call police and security officials, who are the foundation of Lukashenko’s regime. However, he no longer has support among many officials; they don’t support him, but only themselves,” he said.   Putsila said that Belarusians had genuine hopes in Lukashenko, but that his actions over 26 years in office have worn on them. And that the official election result and the harsh police crackdown — the violent arrest of hundreds of people and evidence that some have been tortured — was the last straw.   “Belarusians have set a great example for the rest of the world. During the protests, people even were taking off their shoes when they climbed onto benches, they brought each other water, food, flowers. This shows a high level of self-organization,” he said. “Lukashenko tells Belarusians that the state has raised them and made people out of them, and they are ungrateful,” he said. “However, it is the people themselves who are teaching children in schools, who are creating jobs, and the state, as represented by Lukashenko, does not respect these people.”   Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Mike Eckel based on reporting by Daria Yurieva, a contributor to RFE/RL’s Russian Service. 
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Top Democratic and GOP leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee have called on President Donald Trump to investigate the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.In a bipartisan letter  sent to Trump on Monday, Representative Eliot Engel, the Democratic committee chairman from New York, and Republican Michael McCaul, the committee’s ranking member from Texas, urged the Trump administration to launch an investigation into the attack, saying sanctions against Moscow may be necessary.Navalny, a prominent opponent of President Vladimir Putin, fell ill on August 20 during a domestic flight in Russia. He was transferred to a hospital in Germany for treatment. The German government said on September 2 that toxicology results showed the 44-year old was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok  nerve agent.Suspicion surrounding the poisoning quickly mounted against the Russian government, which has used similar methods against critics of the state in the past. Most recently, the Kremlin was found to have used the same chemical weapon against an ex-Soviet spy in Britain in 2018. Navalny, who has been hospitalized in Berlin for several weeks, was taken out of a medically induced coma on Monday.In a statement issued Monday, Berlin’s Charité hospital said Navalny’s condition has continued to improve, but that it was too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of the severe poisoning.The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the poisoning and dismissed any accusations of a crime, saying there is no evidence to support a full-fledged criminal investigation into the case.On Tuesday, representatives of the G-7 condemned the “confirmed poisoning” of Navalny, according to a statement released by the U.S. State Department.”We, the G-7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the European Union, are united in condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the confirmed poisoning of Alexei Navalny,” said the statement. White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said last week that the U.S. will be working with the international community to determine whether monetary sanctions should be levied against Russia.Lawmakers also called for the U.S. to demand that Russia cooperate with an international investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to bring the perpetrators to justice.“Those responsible for this despicable attack must be held accountable, and Russian President Vladimir Putin must know that he and his cronies will not be allowed to violate international law with impunity,” Engel and McCaul wrote in their letter to the president. 
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Sri Lanka’s navy said Tuesday that an oil slick had been spotted a kilometer from a loaded supertanker off the country’s east coast, as efforts to extinguish a fire on board continued. Sri Lankan officials are working to assess any damage to the environment and marine life from the incident, which began last Thursday, when a fire initially broke out in the engine room of the New Diamond supertanker. The first fire aboard the ship, which was chartered by Indian Oil Corp to import 2 million barrels of oil from Kuwait, was put out, but a second one broke out Monday. “The ship has tilted slightly towards where the fire broke out due to the large amount of water sprayed to douse the fire,” Sri Lanka navy spokesman Indika de Silva told Reuters, adding: “Oil in the engine room appears to have leaked out to the sea”. The New Diamond was being held about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Sri Lanka, while firefighting boats sprayed it with water, de Silva said. An Indian air force plane stationed at the international airport in Hambantota dropped a specialized chemical mixture on the slick to control it, the Sri Lankan navy said in a statement. The latest fire was on the right side of the vessel near the funnel and was not near the tanks holding the crude oil, Silva said earlier, adding it was still burning. A salvage team was working at the site and “additional assets, salvage personnel and fire fighting equipment” were on the way, he said. Sri Lanka has deployed scientists and experts from its Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA), with one team examining the area around the ship and another coastal areas for signs of pollution, Jagath Gunesekara, deputy General Manager of MEPA, said. 
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The World Health Organization (WHO) Tuesday opened the initial meeting of an international review panel established to evaluate the performance of its International Health Regulations (IHR) during the COVID-19 pandemic.The IHR were last revised in 2005 and grew out of the response to deadly epidemics that once overran Europe. They provide a framework by which nations can respond to an international health emergency, like the COVID-19 pandemic, and they define countries’ rights and obligations in handling emergencies that have the potential to cross borders.Former WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland told reporters in June that WHO should change the IHR guidelines that led it to oppose travel restrictions early in the outbreak, a step criticized later by the United States.Last month, current WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for the formation of the review panel that is made up of independent health experts from around the world.In his opening remarks to the panel, which is meeting virtually Tuesday and Wednesday, Tedros said he was sure they were aware of “the weight of this moment in history, and of the enormous expectations of your work.”He added that the panel was uniquely equipped to meet the moment.This is the fourth time such a review committee has been established to examine the response to an international health crisis. Such a panel met in 2010 to evaluate responses to the H1N1 Influenza outbreak, in 2014 to review deadlines for implementing international regulations, and in 2016 for the West Africa Ebola outbreak.The panel may present interim findings, if they choose, at the World Health Assembly in November and will present their final report at the May 2021 World Health Assembly. 
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