Guatemala’s President-elect Alejandro Giammattei says he wants to change an immigration agreement between his country and the United States because Guatemala does not have the resources to care for asylum-seekers from other countries. The deal made in July between the outgoing administration of President Jimmy Morales and U.S. President Donald Trump would require migrants from other countries who cross into Guatemala to apply for asylum from there. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
Month: August 2019
Immigration raids in the U.S. led to the apprehension of more than 1,500 undocumented immigrants at job sites last year. They are among about 250,000 immigrants deported in 2018 by the Trump administration. On average about 15 employers per year face criminal charges for hiring undocumented workers. As VOA’s Brian Padden reports, advocates and opponents of tighter immigration restrictions argue that raids do little to deter illegal immigration as long as employers are not held accountable.
Uganda’s Communication Commission announced, Aug. 8, 2019, that all commercial online publishers must register with the government. The commission says the publishers have to be watched to ensure they are posting appropriate content. Ugandan social media influencers and news organizations see the requirement as a step toward limiting freedom of speech and the press. Halima Athumani reports from Kampala.
About 650 million girls worldwide were married before age 18. That is about 17% of the world’s female population, according to UNICEF. These marriages often keep girls from completing their education and can lead to devastating psychological and physical consequences. In a yearlong project, Voice of America met with child brides from Albania to Pakistan to Tanzania.Jesusemen Oni has more.
A court in Sweden has found American rapper A$AP Rocky guilty of assault but he will not serve any more jail time.
The court on Wednesday gave the rapper a suspended sentence.
A$AP Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, was arrested with three members of his team after a fight that took place in Stockholm June 30.
Prosecutors alleged that Mayers and two members of his entourage repeatedly punched and kicked the victim during an attack that lasted several minutes. Prosecutors also accuse the rapper of hitting the victim with a glass bottle.
The rapper, who said he was acting in self defense, spent nearly five weeks in detention but was released earlier this month, pending the verdict in his trial.
President Donald Trump attempted to intervene in the case and had urged the release of A$AP Rocky.
“We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem! #FreeRocky,” Trump said in a series of tweets about the matter.
India issued a fresh flood alert Wednesday for parts of the southern state of Kerala, as the nationwide death toll from the annual monsoon deluge rose to at least 244.
Authorities warned Kerala locals of heavy rainfall over the next 24-48 hours in some of the worst affected regions of the state popular with tourists.
Heavy rain in parts of four Indian states — Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat – has forced more than 1.2 million people to leave their homes, mostly for government-run relief camps.
Kerala was hit by its worst floods in almost a century last year, when 450 people died, and the state is still recovering from the damage to public infrastructure including highways, railways and roads.
The state’s death toll this monsoon season increased to 95 overnight, with at least 59 people missing, Kerala police told AFP on Wednesday.
At least 58 people have also lost their lives in neighbouring Karnataka state, where authorities have rescued around 677,000 people from flooded regions.
The situation is now improving in Karnataka, however, as waters start to recede, a government official told AFP.
In the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra the death toll reached 91, with hundreds of thousands rescued from inundated regions.
“Our teams have recovered 49 bodies so far from different regions including Sangli, Kolhapur, Satara and Pune, and most deaths were caused due to drowning and wall collapses,” Deepak Mhaisekar, divisional commissioner of Pune told AFP.
“The situation is under control now,” he added, though the casualty count may increase slightly.
India has deployed the army, navy and air force to work with the local emergency personnel for search, rescue and relief operations.
The monsoon rains are crucial to replenishing water supplies in drought-stricken India, but they kill hundreds of people across the country every year.
The U.N. refugee agency warns that time is running out for more than 500 migrants stranded in the Mediterranean Sea as storm clouds gather and their rescue vessels are denied a safe port of entry in Europe.
Italy and Malta continue to refuse docking rights to two rescue vessels. This despite the deteriorating conditions for 356 refugees and migrants rescued August 9 by the Ocean Viking, a vessel run by the charity Doctors Without Borders, and another 151 people who have been on board the Spanish NGO Open Arms for nearly two weeks.
U.N. refugee agency spokesman Charlie Yaxley says the passengers are in urgent need of disembarkation. He tells VOA storms are coming, so time is running out for a solution to be found.
“The rough seas are expected to intensify during the course of today and into tomorrow. Really, this is a question of how much we are willing to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people who have fled war and violence,” he said.
Yaxley says many of the people aboard the rescue vessels come from Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan and other unstable countries. While many others have fled economic hardship rather than conflict, he says they too have suffered appalling abuse–many during their perilous journeys toward Europe and many more in Libya.
He says conditions for refugees and migrants are so abysmal that those rescued at sea should not be returned to Libya, which is not safe.
“People do not choose to risk their lives on these dangerous journeys unless they feel the desperation that their lives are in better hands on the water than on remaining on the land,” he said. “The intensifying fighting, the widespread reports of abuses including arbitrary detention means it cannot be considered to have a safe port. Nobody should be returned there.”
Yaxley says the UNHCR supports a system whereby European nations share the responsibility of hosting the refugees and migrants with the countries that provide a safe haven to those rescued at sea.
However, anti-immigrant governments in Italy and Malta accuse Europe of leaving them to deal with the refugee crisis on their own. To deter rescues at sea, Italy recently passed a law imposing fines of more than one million dollars on boats conducting these missions entering its waters.
China’s recent squeeze on the Taiwan economy and its international profile is expected to backfire by making Taiwanese ever angrier and endearing them to leaders who oppose Beijing.
Taiwanese will like China less for cutting off self-guided tourism and blocking its citizens from entering a Taipei-based regional film award, analysts and a government official said this week. People upset with China generally vote for anti-China leaders at home, frustrating Beijing’s goal of unifying someday with their self-ruled island.
“In the past, the impact of this sort of attitude [in China] has been very poor,” said You Ying-lung, chairman of the survey research body Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation. “The targets of its criticism would be elected president.”
Taiwan’s incumbent president, an irritant to China, is running for a second four-year term against a candidate seen as friendlier to the Communist leadership.
Accumulation of pressure
In the latest cases, China’s culture ministry starting August 1 will cut off permits for mainland Chinese people to visit Taiwan as independent travelers. About 82,000 of those travelers normally visit Taiwan every month. Their absence will erode business for inns, eateries and local taxi services.
Last week the Chinese government-controlled China Film News blog said domestic actors and films could no longer compete in the Taiwan-based Golden Horse Awards, an annual Oscars-like event for films from Chinese-speaking Asia. The awards in their 56th year have helped boost the fame of stars such as Jackie Chan.
“The authorities in mainland China must take full responsibility for causing this step backward in people-to-people exchanges,” said Chiu Chui-cheng, spokesman for the Taiwan government’s Mainland Affairs Council. “This incident will make Taiwanese citizens recognize again all the more that China is exerting political pressure on the essence of normal exchanges.”
China-Taiwan ties have weakened since 2016, when President Tsai Ing-wen took office in Taipei. Her government won’t negotiate on Beijing’s condition that both sides belong to a single China. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, to be unified by force someday if needed. Most Taiwanese prefer autonomy, a Taiwan government survey found in January.
Also during Tsai’s term, officials in Taipei say, China has sent military aircraft near Taiwan and persuaded five Taiwanese diplomatic allies to switch allegiance to Beijing.
Common Taiwanese are talking about the film awards and tourism suspension flaps, ruling party lawmaker Lee Chun-yi said. People are getting more upset with China, he added. “The more they push the Taiwanese, the further away they’ll get,” he said.
Cycle of anger
Actions in Beijing that are aimed at warning Taiwan by squeezing its economy or international reputation sometimes have an opposite effect, You said.
Beijing tested missiles in the Taiwan Strait from late 1995 until just before the 1996 Taiwan election, for example. Lee Teng-hui, who advocated keeping a political distance from China, won the election.
The Chinese government said ahead of Taiwan’s 2000 presidential that it would use force if the island’s leaders declined to discuss unification. Chen Shui-bian, another anti-China firebrand, won that race.
By taking action aimed at Taiwan now rather than later, China may avoid influencing the island’s January presidential and parliamentary elections, said Joanna Lei, CEO of the Chunghua 21st Century Think Tank in Taiwan. The campaign is likely to crest in November and December.
“This has got to be carefully weighted,” Lei said. “So even if people are unhappy, by the time November comes, there will be other things and they’re just trying to minimize the potential negative impacts to the extent possible.”
Tsai should get 45% of the presidential election vote, leading her closest rival by nearly five percentage points, the survey research foundation discovered in a July 22 survey.
The man who was Britain’s top finance official until three weeks ago accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government on Wednesday of steering the country toward a damaging no-deal Brexit that isn’t backed by Parliament or the voters.
Philip Hammond, a Conservative legislator who stepped down as Treasury chief just before Johnson became prime minister last month, said “leaving the EU without a deal would be just as much a betrayal of the referendum result as not leaving at all.”
Hammond told the BBC that Johnson had moved from a tough negotiating stance to a “wrecking” one by insisting on changes to the withdrawal agreement between Britain and the EU that the bloc would not accept.
He said that while he believed Johnson wanted a deal, “there are other people around him whose agenda is different” _ an apparent reference to advisers such as Dominic Cummings, one of the architects of the country’s 2016 decision to leave the EU.
Johnson has vowed that Britain will leave the EU on the scheduled date of Oct. 31, with or without a divorce deal. He is demanding the EU agree to major changes to the agreement the bloc made with his predecessor, Theresa May. The EU refuses to renegotiate, so a no-deal Brexit appears increasingly likely.
Many economists say that will trigger a recession and cause economic mayhem, with shortages of fresh food and other goods likely as customs checks snarl Britain’s ports.
Johnson and other Brexit supporters argue that any short-term turbulence will be outweighed by new economic opportunities once Britain leaves the 28-nation bloc and can strike trade deals around the world _ notably with the United States. Critics note that the EU accounts for almost half of Britain’s trade and argue that any new trade deals are likely years away.
Hammond criticized the government for perpetuating “myths” that the British people voted for a no-deal Brexit and that leaving the EU without a negotiated settlement would be painless.
“There is no mandate for leaving with no deal,” Hammond said. “It is absurd to suggest that the 52% of people that voted to leave the European Union, all voted to leave with no deal when, in fact … during the referendum campaign there was virtually no mention made by the leaders of that campaign at all of the possibility of leaving with no deal.”
“A no-deal exit will cause significant harm to the U.K. economy and, potentially, irreparable damage to the union of the United Kingdom,” he added.
A parliamentary showdown over Brexit is looming when lawmakers return from their summer break in early September. Opposition legislators hope to take action to block a no-deal departure _ either by passing legislation or by bringing down the government and triggering an early election. To succeed they will need to persuade Conservatives like Hammond to vote against the government.
Johnson has refused to rule out suspending Parliament if legislators try to delay or prevent Brexit. Hammond said that would “provoke a constitutional crisis.”
House of Commons Speaker John Bercow, who controls the day-to-day business of Parliament, said he would seek to prevent the prime minister from overriding Parliament.
“If there is an attempt to circumvent, to bypass or God forbid to close down Parliament, that is anathema to me,” Bercow told an audience at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in comments reported by the Herald newspaper. “I will fight with every breath in my body to stop that happening.”
Hundreds of tourists, many of them young Westerners, sat on gray stone steps atop the world’s largest Buddhist temple, occasionally checking cellphones or whispering to each other as they waited for daylight.
Sunrise wasn’t spectacular on that recent summer day. But even an ordinary dawn at Borobudur Temple — nine stone tiers stacked like a wedding cake and adorned with hundreds of Buddha statues and relief panels — provided a memorable experience.
The 9th century temple is in the center of Indonesia’s Java island, a densely populated region with stunning vistas. Other highlights include the towering Hindu temple complex of Prambanan, like Borobudur a UNESCO World Heritage site, and Mount Merapi, the country’s most active volcano, whose lava-covered slopes are accessible by jeep.
While the two temples draw many visitors, other foreigners head to the relaxing beaches of Bali, just east of Java and by far the most popular tourist destination in a nation of thousands of islands and almost 270 million people. More than 6 million tourists visited Bali last year, or about 40 percent of 15.8 million visitors to Indonesia overall, according to official figures.
Recently reelected President Joko Widodo wants to change this dynamic by pushing ahead with “10 new Balis,” an ambitious plan to boost tourism and diversify Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
Key to the plan is to upgrade provincial airports and improve access to outlying destinations, such as Lake Toba on Sumatra island, more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from Jakarta, the capital. Yogyakarta, the provincial city from where visitors head to Borobudur and Prambanan, is getting a second airport, expected to be fully operational later this year.
Widodo has been promoting his plan in meetings with foreign leaders and in recent interviews, including with The Associated Press, in hopes of encouraging foreign investment. The president of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation told the AP in late July that as part of his push, he would like to see more business ties with the Middle East.
“For investment and tourism, we would like to invite investors from the Middle East as much as possible because … we have many tourism locations in Indonesia, not only one or two or four, but many,” said Widodo. He did not give specifics.
Muslim tourists, including from the Middle East, might also be an easier fit for some of the more conservative areas earmarked for tourism development. Tourism officials have played down the possibility of cultural friction that might accompany the influx of more non-Muslim visitors, arguing that Indonesia’s brand of tolerant Islam can accommodate everyone.
“Maybe there are some particular locations that are very strict (religiously),” said Hiramsyah Thaib, who heads the “10 New Balis” initiative. “We believe we won’t have any problems. Sometimes we have problems in the media, but not in reality.”
Yet Islamic hard-liners have become more assertive in recent years, potentially spooking investors by undermining Indonesia’s image as a moderate nation. Thaib said he believes investor confidence rose “significantly” after Widodo defeated former special forces general Prabowo Subianto in April’s presidential election. Subianto had been backed by Muslim groups favoring Shariah law.
The tourism plan remains key to Widodo’s final five-year term, though at least one target — 20 million visitors this year — appears to have been too ambitious. The 2019 visitor tally is expected to be 18 million, based on current growth figures, said Thaib.
Still, the Indonesian tourism sector grew by 7.8 percent in 2018, or twice the global average, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.
One of the 10 sites earmarked for development is the Borobudur Temple area and nearby Yogyakarta, a city of several hundred thousand people that is embedded in a large metro area. The city is a center of Javanese culture and a seat of royal dynasties going back centuries.
In 2017, former President Barack Obama and his family visited the city, where his late mother, Ann Dunham, spent years doing anthropological research. Obama, who lived in Indonesia as a child, toured Borodbudur and Prambanan during the nostalgic trip.
But while the Obamas got around with relative ease, including private jet travel, ordinary visitors struggle with congested streets packed with motorbikes weaving in and out of slow-moving traffic.
Travelers hoping to be in place at Borobudur just before sunrise need at least 90 minutes to get there from Yogyakarta, a journey of 40 kilometers (24 miles). A 230-kilometer (140-mile) round trip to the Dieng highlands, with terraced fields, small temples and a colorful volcanic lake, requires a full day of travel, some of it on bumpy back roads.
Anton McLaughlin, a 55-year-old visitor from York, England, said he was astounded by the number of motorbikes in the streets. Speaking during a jeep tour of the slopes of Mount Merapi, he said he’s become more aware of the natural disasters Indonesians endure regularly. Indonesia straddles the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is prone to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people, and the ruins of one destroyed hamlet were part of the tour.
“People just seem to crack on with life,” McLaughlin said.
Just a day after his tour, the volcano shot out hot clouds and lava that flowed 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) down its slopes. No casualties or damage were reported.
Jan Tenbrinke, 37, from Zwolle in the Netherlands, said Bali is the next stop for his family of four, but that he hoped to get a better sense of Indonesian culture in Yogyakarta.
In the city, tourists can visit workshops for Batik textiles, silver jewelry and Kopi Luwak — coffee made from partially digested coffee cherries that were eaten and defecated by wild tree cats, or civets. Billed as the “world’s most expensive coffee,” Kopi Luwak became known to a wider audience in the 2007 Jack Nicholson-Morgan Freeman movie “The Bucket List.”
Local museums, including two royal palaces and a former Dutch fort, pose a challenge for foreign visitors eager to learn more about local history and culture because they mostly lack easily accessible explanations in English.
Thaib, the tourism official, acknowledged that there is room for improvement. He said Indonesia is determined to catch up to other Asian nations, including Thailand, which he said began developing their tourism industries much sooner.
“There is still a lot of work,” he said of his nation’s efforts. “We believe we are on the right track.”
Updated: Aug. 13, 2019, 3:06 p.m.
Suzanne Sataline contributed to this report from Hong Kong
Riot police clashed with pro-democracy demonstrators at the Hong Kong’s international airport Tuesday evening, with all departing flights cancelled for a second straight day.
The protestors once again took over the facility’s main terminal, with periodic skirmishes with helmeted police wielding batons.
Scuffles broke out between police and demonstrators as medics took an injured person out of the terminal. A contingent of riot police used pepper spray to disperse protesters as they tried to block an ambulance taking the man away. Police detained at least two people.
Hong Kong’s airport authority said operations had been “seriously disrupted.”
The airport protests over the past two days are part of 10 weeks of demonstrations by Hong Kong residents against their perceived erosion of freedom and lack of autonomy under Chinese control of the territory.
China’s United Nations mission said the protesters had smashed public facilities, paralyzed the airport, blocked public transport and used lethal weapons, “showing a tendency of resorting to terrorism.”
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urged Hong Kong authorities to exercise restraint and investigate whether their forces fired tear gas at protesters in ways that are banned under international law.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who last week took a hands-off stance on the protests, told reporters the Hong Kong situation “is a very tough situation, very tough. We’ll see what happens, but I’m sure it will work out….” He expressed the hope that no one would get hurt and “for liberty.”
“I hope it works out for everybody, including China, by the way,” Trump said.
In a later remark on Twitter, Trump said, “Our Intelligence has informed us that the Chinese Government is moving troops to the Border with Hong Kong. Everyone should be calm and safe!” State-run media showed videos of security forces gathering across the border in Mainland China.
The protests present the biggest challenge to Chinese rule of the semi-autonomous territory since its 1997 handover from Britain.
The decision by the airport authority to cancel Tuesday’s out-bound flights came just minutes after it suspended all passenger check-in services when protesters blocked passengers from entering their departure gates, and advised the general public not to come to the airport.
The airport was already struggling to return to normal after reopening a day after hundreds of flights in and out of the airport were cancelled by a similar sit-in demonstration. Some angry travelers anxious to leave Hong Kong got into heated arguments with protesters as Tuesday’s demonstrations escalated, with some managing to push their way through the protest lines.
The unprecedented shutdown of one of the world’s busiest airports was an extension of the street protests that have gripped the Chinese territory for more than two months. Dozens of protesters were injured Monday after riot police fired tear gas and non-lethal ammunition after the protesters blocked roads and defied police orders to disperse.
The government counted 54 people injured Monday, including two who were hospitalized in serious condition, and 28 who were listed as stable, according to the Hospital Authority.
The protests began as a quest to stop a bill that would have allowed Hong Kong to send criminal suspects elsewhere, including mainland China. Demonstrators are now demanding the the right to directly vote for their next leader in a free and fair election, and an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s embattled leader, defended police during a press conference Tuesday, saying they had to make “on-the-spot decisions” under “extremely difficult circumstances.” Lam said she would address the protesters’ demands “after the violence has been stopped and the chaotic situation that now we are seeing could subside.”
Cameroon has threatened all journalists who it says are refusing to be patriotic, after TV reporter Samuel Wazizi was arrested for allegedly supporting separatist fighters in Cameroon’s English-speaking north, west, and southwest regions. The journalists say it is becoming impossible for them to practice their profession, as they face pressure from both separatist fighters and the government.
Paul Atanga Nji, territorial administration minister, says Cameroon’s journalists are becoming highly unpatriotic.
“They have one main objective, just to sabotage government action, to promote secessionist tendencies,” said Nji. “I urge them to be responsible. Those who do not want to respect the laws will be booked as being recalcitrant and will be treated as such.”
Atanga Nji also says most journalists support the opposition and believe that President Paul Biya was not the true winner of the October 2018 presidential election.
Macmillan Ambe, president of the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists, CAMASEJ, says the threat from the government is one of many that journalists have faced since the separatist crisis began in 2016.
He says journalists should be given the freedom they need to do their work.
“When you get the minister of territorial administration giving lessons to journalists on how to report, it just adds to some of the difficulties we are already facing,” said Ambe. “We are subjected to torture, be it physical or psychological. We have also had cases of several journalists who are being called up for questioning, so it becomes very difficult for us to operate.”
Ambe was abducted by separatist fighters in the city of Bamenda last February after he criticized their call for families not to send their children to school.
More recent threats came after Samuel Waziz, an announcer at Chillen Music Television who has hosted shows critical of the government, was arrested by the military. His lawyers said he was accused of hosting separatist fighters in his farm, an allegation he dismissed.
Journalist Promise Akanteh of Royal FM, a radio station in Yaounde who also hosts critical programs, says she has been threatened several times within the past two weeks.
“I have had several phone calls threatening me. Do you know that your daughter still needs you? I said, ‘yes, sir.'” So be careful with what you say on air. I do not know who was calling,” said Akanteh. “The person threatens me and says be careful with what you say on air. I am telling you this, another person will not be this nice to you.”
The separatists launched their fight in 2017, after English-speakers protested political and economic discrimination in the majority French-speaking country. The government reacted with a crackdown in November 2017 and since then, 2,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.
Uganda is ramping up efforts to curtail online content deemed immoral or hateful, a move critics say will silence dissent.
Since March 2018, the Uganda Communications Commission, a state regulator, has required certain online publishers to register and pay a fee of $20 per year.
Now, the government is expanding its enforcement of the regulation, levying the fee on news organizations and social media influencers with large followings, including some journalists, celebrities, musicians and athletes.
The UCC calls these people “data communicators” and will be looking at media sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to determine which users will be affected.
Catherine Anite, executive director of the Freedom of Expression Media Hub, told VOA’s Nightline Africa that the registration requirement curbs free speech.
“It’s a very restrictive regulation,” she said. “The freedom of expression is an essential right, and it is the cornerstone of any democratic society, which I believe Uganda is, because we have ascribed to these national, regional and international freedom of expression laws.”
Anite pointed to Article 29 of Uganda’s constitution, which protects freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of belief. She said this should give Ugandans wide latitude to express themselves in any media.
“Uganda is a free society. Uganda is [a] democratic society,” she said. “So, if the constitution gives the right to enjoy freedom of expression, there shouldn’t be the clawback clauses that come in the form of policies and other restrictive laws.”
The expansion of the law comes one week after political activist Stella Nyanzi was sentenced to 18 months in prison for writing a crude poem about Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s deceased mother.
The group Unwanted Witness, which monitors digital rights, reported that 33 Ugandans have been interrogated by police or charged with making impermissible online communications between 2016 and 2018, according to Reuters.
Last year, the government introduced a tax on social media usage, charging 200 shillings — about $0.05 cents per user per day, Reuters reported.
UCC head of public relations Ibrahim Bbossa said the regulatory body hopes to make publishers and individuals with large online followings mindful of the need to uphold public morality and peace.
He said registering users is the first step to responding in the event of a problem.
“As UCC, it is upon us to put into implementation these laws so that, just in case of any problems that arise, we are able to come up with resolutions,” Bbossa told Uganda’s Daily Vision “Online publication can lead to circumstances like inciting the public, misinformation, and at times, theft.”
Octavia Spencer will be honored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network with its Inspiration Award at a gala later this year.
The group known as GLSEN announced Tuesday that the star of “Hidden Figures and The Helpwill”” receive the honor at the group’s Respect Awards, presented in October in Beverly Hills, California.
GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said in a statement that Spencer “has devoted her career to diverse storytelling, promoting social good and is a steadfast ally for the LGBTQ community.”
GLSEN was founded in 1990 to address LGBT issues in K-12 education, and has presented the Respect Awards since 2004.
The group’s past honorees have included Kerry Washington and Ellen Pompeo.
Investors piled into gold, safe-haven yen and bonds on Monday over nagging concerns about a prolonged U.S.-China trade war and global growth, while Argentina’s peso plunged 15% after voters handed its president an election mauling.
The yen rose to its highest in more than a year and a half versus the dollar on the prospect the Japanese currency could gain more in the case of a drawn-out U.S.-Sino trade conflict.
Concerns that a trade deal would not be reached before the 2020 U.S. presidential election grew after Goldman Sachs on Sunday became the latest to cut its U.S. growth outlook and warn a trade stand-off would fester past the election.
Stocks on Wall Street fell more than 1% to push a gauge of global equity performance down almost as much. Earlier in China stocks rallied more than 1% as the yuan avoided further drama after Chinese authorities allowed the yuan to slip below the seven-per-dollar level last week.
Stocks in the near term lack a catalyst either from company earnings, the Federal Reserve or a trade deal, said Rahul Shah, chief executive of Ideal Asset Management in New York.
“The promise of a trade deal coming this year, I think that’s becoming less and less likely,” Shah said. “That does set up the market possibly for a correction at this point,” he said.
Stocks could dip between 5% to 10% but prompt long-term investors to enter the market as valuations fall, he said. Half of Shah’s portfolio is corporate debt with the remainder tech stocks and shares with solid dividends, he said.
MSCI’s gauge of stock performance in 47 countries fell 0.85%, driven lower by tumbling U.S. stocks. The benchmark S&P 500 index is now almost 5% off its all-time high set just 11 sessions ago.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 391 points, or 1.49%, to 25,896.44. The S&P 500 lost 35.96 points, or 1.23%, to 2,882.69 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 95.73 points, or 1.2%, to 7,863.41.
European shares fell, with the pan-regional FTSEurofirst 300 of leading European shares closing down 0.31%, while Germany’s export-heavy DAX off 0.12%.
Germany’s Ifo survey echoed the growth concerns with its measures for current conditions and economic expectations both having worsened in the third quarter.
Gold edged up, holding above the psychological $1,500 level.
Spot gold added 1.1% to $1,512.51 an ounce.
The yen rose to its highest against the dollar since March 2018 — barring a flash crash in January — gaining 0.37% versus the greenback at 105.30 per dollar.
The euro rose 0.11% to $1.121, while the dollar index fell 0.07%.
“The longer the trade war drags on, the more likely it would weigh (on) the global outlook and crimp the world economy, a negative for market morale,” said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions.
U.S. Treasury yields dropped across the board as trade worries and political tensions around the world in places such as Hong Kong and Argentina supported safe-haven assets.
U.S. long-term yields have fallen in six of the past nine sessions, reflecting investors’ diminished risk appetite. Bond yields in Europe also were lower on the day.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose 28/32 in price to push their yield lower at 1.6386%.
The Argentine peso collapsed, falling to 55.85 to the dollar, after voters snubbed market-friendly President Mauricio Macri by giving the opposition a greater-than-expected victory in Sunday’s primary election.
The Merval stock index fell 30% and declines of between 18-20 cents in Argentina’s benchmark 10-year bonds left them trading at around 60 cents on the dollar or even lower.
The victory by Alberto Fernandez — whose running mate is former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner — “paves the way for the return to left-wing populism that many investors fear,” consultancy Capital Economics told clients.
Oil prices rose despite worries about a global economic slowdown and the ongoing U.S.-China trade war, which has reduced demand for commodities such as crude.
International benchmark Brent crude futures rose 4 cents to settle at $58.57 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures gained 43 cents to settle at $54.93 a barrel.
South Sudan activists on Monday began a campaign to pressure the country’s warring parties to meet a fast-approaching deadline to form a unity government as part of their 2018 peace agreement.
The Civil Society Forum, a coalition of more than 100 organizations, on Monday marked the beginning of a 90-day countdown to the November deadline for the ruling party and opposition to form a government.
“We have not got much time left. There are a lot of tasks that need to be accomplished and business should not remain as usual,” Geoffrey Lou Duke, a member of the coalition, told AFP.
South Sudan descended into war in 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy and fellow former rebel leader Riek Machar of plotting a coup.
The parties signed a peace deal in September for Kiir to form a government with Machar, but the sides already missed the first deadline, which was in May.
Activists say scant progress has been made since then, including on vital security measures to stabilize a country reeling from nearly six years of conflict.
The fighting has been marked by ethnic violence and brutal atrocities, and left about 380,000 dead while some four million have fled their homes.
Security funds
Before any unity government is formed, the parties are supposed to canton their fighters and redeploy them as part of the national army, police and other security forces.
Foreign donors say it is up to Kiir’s administration to fund the security reforms. Parties to the peace deal say its implementation will cost $285 million but that only around $10 million has been provided.
Machar’s party says he will not return to Juba until the security reforms are complete.
“We have to see a sense of urgency and we do not want to see another situation where we give all sorts of excuses for having failed to form the transitional government,” Jame David Kolok, another member of the Civil Society Forum, told AFP Monday. “The campaign is to make sure every second from now onwards counts.”
European researchers say a vaccine for chlamydia — the world’s most common sexually transmitted disease — shows promise in preliminary clinical trials, but more tests are needed.
A study in the medical journal Lancet says the vaccine triggered an immune response in tests on 35 healthy women.
The researchers say they must now determine if the vaccine can actually prevent chlamydia.
Doctors say a vaccine against the disease would have a huge impact on public health and the economy around the world.
“Given the impact of the chlamydia epidemic on women’s health, infant health through transmission, and increased susceptibility to other sexual diseases, a global unmet medical need exists for a vaccine,” said Peter Anderson, Imperial College of London professor and co-author of the study.
Although chlamydia is easily diagnosed and treated with antibiotics, such treatment has failed to curb the epidemic. About 130 million people around the world are infected every year.
Untreated, it can lead to pelvic inflammation in women and possible infertility. Chlamydia in pregnancy could cause miscarriage, stillbirth, or premature delivery.
Gun owners in New Zealand turned in more than 10,000 firearms in a buyback program established after the country’s worst mass shooting in modern history.
New Zealand banned most automatic and semi-automatic weapons after a gunman shot and killed 51 people and wounded scores more at two Christchurch mosques in March.
As of Sunday, 10,242 firearms had been surrendered since the program began last month. Another 1,269 have been handed in under an amnesty program that allows people to turn in their guns without any questions about how or when they obtained them, New Zealand police said Monday.
The buyback program will continue until Dec. 20.
New Zealand lawmakers vowed to toughen the country’s gun laws after the shootings.
“On March 15, the nation witnessed a terrorist attack that demonstrated the weakness of New Zealand’s gun laws,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at the time. “The guns used in this attack had the power to shoot continuously. The times for the easy availability of these weapons must end. And today, they will.”
A bill to ban semi-automatic weapons was introduced in parliament two weeks after the shooting.
Australia also introduced a nationwide gun buyback program after a shooter killed 36 people in 1996. About 650,000 weapons were collected. It also banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns.
Since then, research has shown, Australia has had no mass shootings, and homicides and suicides by gun have both reduced dramatically.