Sri Lanka’s government announced Tuesday it will reduce ground handling charges for airlines and slash aviation fuel prices and embarkation fees to help the country’s vital tourism industry recover after Easter suicide bombings killed more than 250 people.

Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said the decision will lead to an increase in flights to Sri Lanka and a reduction in ticket prices, which will attract more tourists to the Indian Ocean island nation, famed for its pristine beaches.

Seven suicide bombers from a local Muslim group, National Thowheed Jammath, attacked three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, killing 258 people, including 45 foreigners mainly from China, India, the U.S. and Britain.
 
Tourist arrivals declined 57% in June from a year earlier, dealing a severe blow to the tourism industry, the country’s third-largest foreign currency earner after remittances from overseas workers and textile and garment exports.

The cuts in charges and fees will be in place for six months, said Johanne Jayaratne, head of the government’s tourism development agency.

About 2.3 million tourists visited Sri Lanka in 2018, when 29 airlines offered 300 flights per week. After the April 21 attacks, 41 fights per week were canceled, amounting to a loss of 8,000 passenger seats. Several airlines have reinstated their normal schedules since then, but others have not.

Dimuthu Tennakoon, chairman of the Board of Airline Representatives, said the government decision will encourage airlines to increase their capacity and offer attractive fares.
 
“That will definitely happen with this reduction because fuel and ground handling contribute a significant percentage of the total cost element of any airline,” he said.

Tourism accounts for 4.9% of Sri Lanka’s GDP. Around half a million Sri Lankans depend directly on tourism and 2 million indirectly.
 
The government currently predicts $3.7 billion in revenue from tourism this year, down from an initial forecast of $5 billion.

…

Greece’s new Cabinet was sworn in Tuesday, two days after conservative party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis won early elections on pledges to make the country more business-friendly, cut taxes and negotiate an easing of draconian budget conditions agreed as part of the country’s rescue program.

 The new Cabinet relies heavily on experienced politicians who have served in previous governments, but also includes non-politician technocrats considered experts in their fields.
 

Mitsotakis appointed Christos Staikouras to the crucial post of finance minister. Staikouras is an economist and engineer who had served as deputy minister in a previous government.
 
The new foreign minister is Nikos Dendias, who held previous Cabinet positions in the ministries of development, defense and public order.
 
A former public order minister under a previous socialist government, Michalis Chrisohoidis, takes the reins of the ministry once again as one of Mitsotakis’ non-parliamentary appointees.
 
The new appointees headed to their ministries for official handovers after the swearing-in ceremony at the presidential mansion in central Athens.
 
Mitsotakis had barely announced his Cabinet selection Monday evening when Greece’s creditors bluntly rejected his calls to ease bailout conditions. Finance ministers from the 19 European Union countries that use the euro currency, who met in Brussels, insisted key targets must be adhered to.
 
“Commitments are commitments, and if we break them, credibility is the first thing to fall apart. That brings about a lack of confidence and investment,” Eurogroup president Mario Centeno said after the meeting.
 
Greece was dependent for years on successive international bailouts that provided rescue loans from other European Union countries and the International Monetary Fund in return for deep reforms to the country’s economy that included steep tax hikes and major spending cuts.
 
Unemployment and poverty levels soared in the country. Greece’s third and final international bailout ended last year, but the country’s economy is still under strict supervision by its creditors.

…

An Ohio soldier reported missing in action in the Korean War and later identified through DNA is returning home.
 
Eighteen-year-old Roger Woods was reported missing in action after fighting in the vicinity of Kochang, Republic of Korea, on July 29, 1950. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said the U.S. Army later issued a “presumptive finding of death” for Pfc. Woods.

Remains found in a grave in South Korea and sent to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii in 1955 were identified last year as Woods.
 
Woods’ coffin arrives Tuesday morning at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and will travel by procession to Evans Funeral Home in Goshen in Clermont County. Visitation will be held Wednesday.
 
The funeral is set for Thursday, followed by burial at Goshen Cemetery.

…

First lady Melania Trump is visiting West Virginia to learn how a city at the center of the nation’s opioid epidemic is grappling with the crisis.

Trump on Monday participated in a roundtable discussion on opioids with federal, state and local officials in Huntington, West Virginia. Federal statistics show West Virginia has the highest opioid overdose rate in the U.S.

During the roughly hour-long meeting, Trump heard about how police, schools and health care centers in the area are fighting the opioid scourge. Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said it’s a grim task, and added that his city would still have to deal with the epidemic for at least the next 40 years even if all heroin sales were to abruptly stop.

…

Religious publishers say President Donald Trump’s most recent proposed tariffs on Chinese imports could result in a Bible shortage.

That’s because millions of Bibles are printed in China each year. Stan Jantz, president and CEO of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, says more than half of worldwide Bible production takes place in China. 
 
Critics of a proposed tariff say it would make the Bible more expensive for consumers. It would also hurt the efforts of Christian organizations that give away Bibles as part of their ministry.

The proposed 25% tariff would apply to all books, but critics say it would disproportionately affect Bibles and children’s books. Both tend to have specialized printing requirements that Chinese printers are set up to meet, while many domestic printers are not. 

…

Elizabeth Warren raised $19.1 million in the second quarter, her campaign said Monday, cementing her status in the top tier of Democratic presidential contenders and a leading voice of the party’s liberal base.

The Massachusetts senator’s second-quarter contributions leave her behind only Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Ind., mayor who reported nearly $25 million in donations, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who tallied $21.5 million since his candidacy began in late April.

Perhaps most notably, Warren’s donations exceeded those reported by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her closest rival, who is also vying for liberal voters and is the only other candidate who has joined her in swearing off high-dollar fundraisers.

Warren’s success underscores the threat she poses to both Sanders and California Sen. Kamala Harris, whose $12 million second-quarter fundraising got a major boost in the final days of last month from her performance in the first Democratic debate. While Sanders appeals to progressives seeking an ambitious Democratic agenda, Warren has staked a claim to his base with her now-trademark policy plans. And as Harris seeks a foothold with black voters as the primary’s lone black female candidate, Warren is making headway of her own with black women.

“To sum it up: We raised more money than any other 100% grassroots-funded campaign,” said Roger Lau, Warren’s campaign manager. “That’s big.”

Warren more than tripled the $6 million she raised in the first three months of 2019 , when she silenced some skeptics of her long-term fundraising viability following her decision to rely on grassroots rather than high-dollar donations. The campaign’s $19.1 million came from more than 384,000 contributors giving more than 683,000 donations.

That’s less than the nearly 1 million individual donations Sanders’ campaign reported, but comparable with the 725,000 online donations that President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign reported during the second quarter.

Warren’s extensive organizing apparatus, particularly in early voting primary states, remains both a formidable asset — and a significant cost — as the campaign prepares to report $19.7 million in cash on hand. Her operation currently counts more than 300 paid staff members, 60% of whom are in the four early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, according to the campaign.

While a staffing footprint of that size is likely to spark questions about Warren’s high spending rate among some of her presidential rivals, her team has already underlined its confidence that the campaign will have enough resources for the long term.

“Overall, the Warren operation has a six-figure number of people who own a piece of the campaign and an eight-figure amount of money to go execute the plan. So, game on,” Warren adviser Joe Rospars tweeted after her first-quarter fundraising tally emerged.

Warren has an energetic output of policy proposals on everything from education to climate change, a signature of her 2020 efforts that has helped her push past a rocky start in the primary. That fast pace isn’t likely to change as the Democratic campaign nears an expected winnowing from about two dozen candidates.

This week alone, Warren is scheduled to hold a town hall in Milwaukee after joining a half-dozen other Democratic presidential hopefuls at a gathering hosted by the League of United Latin American Citizens. She’ll then head to Philadelphia for Netroots Nation, an annual conference for progressive activists.

“In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll keep growing our movement across the country and Elizabeth will keep rolling out new plans to level the playing field for working people,” Lau wrote in an email to supporters.

Warren was already a guaranteed presence in this fall’s Democratic primary debates, which require at least 130,000 donors as well as minimum polling performance according to rules set by the Democratic National Committee. She’ll likely be joined on that stage in the fall by a rival whose showing she praised after last month’s first debate: former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, who reported on Monday that he had met the higher donor threshold needed to qualify.

…

“We don’t need to eat,” said a young man held in a Libyan detention center five days after the compound was bombed killing more than 50 people and injuring at least 130.  “We didn’t touch the food. We need to be out of Libya.”  
 
The hunger strike in the detention center was on its third day Sunday, according to the protester communicating with VOA via phone and social media. He sent pictures of detainees holding signs like “We are in the grave” and “Save us from the next bomb. We are survivors, but still we are targeted.”

News and additional photographs of the protest came from other detainees communicating with hidden mobile phones.
 
The airstrikes hit the detention center late Tuesday, after international organizations warned both sides of Libya’s ongoing war that civilians were held at that location, which has been targeted before. Amnesty International says there is evidence the detention center is located near weapons’ storage, but Tripoli authorities say there is no legitimate military target in the area.

Officials say about 600 people were inside the detention center when the airstrikes hit a nearby garage, and then the center itself. Some survivors reported breaking open the doors of the detention center to escape, others escaped the bombing after guards let them out. Still others reported shots fired in the chaos.  
 
Five days later, migrants were still sleeping outside in the yard on Sunday, according to detainees, with part of the center destroyed and other parts appearing to be about to collapse.

The United Nations announced it would start evacuations over the weekend, but some protesters said moving to another detention center would only prolong the danger.

“If they are taking us to another detention center, we won’t go,” the protester told VOA on the phone. “We want to get out of this country or stay here.”

Escalating war
 
To wind up in a Libyan detention center, migrants travel from across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia in hopes of crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.  
 
Many people die on the trip to Libya alone and nearly 700 people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in 2019 trying to cross to Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration.
 
Thousands of survivors remain detained in Libya, hoping to try to cross to Europe and unwilling to return to the wars, violence and dire poverty they fled.  But as the war for Tripoli intensifies, some say Libya is as dangerous as the countries they fled.
 
“Sudan, Libya… they are the same,” said one woman outside the detention center only hours after last week’s bombing.  She had fled war and genocide in Sudan, only to find herself detained, impoverished and terrified in Libya, she said.

Libyan forces have been battling for the capital since early April, when Khalifa Haftar, the de-facto leader of eastern Libya declared he would reunite the divided country by force and marched on Tripoli in the west. Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord, which runs western Libya, have been defending the city since. Neither side appears to be backing down.
 
Nearly 1,000 people have been killed and 5,000 wounded, according to the World Health Organization, and more than 100,000 have fled their homes.
 
Protesters outside the detention center on Sunday secretly sent out pictures and videos, calling on the international community to rescue them and allow them to apply for asylum in safer countries.
 
“Doctors Without Borders came with medicine, but we don’t want medicine,” said the protester communicating with VOA via phone and social media. “The UNHCR evacuated some people but we don’t want to evacuate to another detention center.  
 
“We want to go to a safe country, or we will stay here.”

…

Two remote California desert communities assessed damage after two major earthquakes hit the area at the end of last week, followed by thousands of smaller aftershocks.

Ridgecrest and neighboring Trona were hit hard by the magnitude 7.1 quake that rocked the Mojave Desert towns Friday. A day earlier, a magnitude 6.4 temblor hit the same patch of the desert.

The area, about 240 kilometers northeast of Los Angeles, is in recovery mode after the quakes crumbled buildings, ignited fires and cut power to thousands of homes and businesses.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Sunday there was just a 1% chance of another magnitude 7 or higher earthquake in the next week, and a rising possibility of no magnitude 6 quakes.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for the area and warned local governments to strengthen alert systems and building codes. “It is a wake-up call for the rest of the state and other parts of the nation,” Newsom told reporters.

The damage wasn’t worse largely because of how remote the area is, but Newsom cautioned after touring Ridgecrest that “it’s deceiving, earthquake damage. You don’t notice it at first.”
 
The Democratic governor estimated the damage at more than $100 million and said U.S. President Donald Trump called him to offer federal support for rebuilding.

…

Concerted efforts continue to rebuild the Syrian city of Raqqa, nearly two years after it was recaptured from the Islamic State (IS) terror group. And while these efforts mostly focus on essential services in the city, several activist groups are trying to take on something different by restoring parks, playgrounds and public squares.
 
U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces liberated Raqqa from IS in October 2017.
 
During the 3-month-long battle, however, the city’s infrastructure was mostly destroyed, including dozens of public squares and parks that once were used by the terror group for the public execution of dissidents.
 
Activists who have taken on the mission to reconstruct these facilities say they are particularly focused on projects that could change the face of the city after years of horror under IS rule.

Ahed al-Hendi, head of the Syrian Foundation for Sustainable Development, a local organization that has been involved in several reconstruction projects in Raqqa, says that the idea behind supporting these efforts is to turn the former de facto capital of IS’ self-styled caliphate into a bright and colorful city.  
 
“Under IS rule, only one color was prevalent and allowed and that was black,” he told VOA. “The colors we use now while repairing these parks represent diversity and tolerance.”

 
Celebrating life after IS
 
During its reign, IS imposed strict social codes on the local population in Raqqa and elsewhere in Syria and Iraq.
 
Women in particular were required to wear black dresses covering their entire bodies and faces. Those who disobeyed such rules were given harsh punishments, including imprisonment and flogging.  
 
IS turned also the once bustling al-Naeem Square in downtown Raqqa into a major spot to carry out public executions that terrorized communities who lived under the group’s brutal rule in Syria and Iraq.
 
“What we are trying to do is to turn all these zones that once symbolized death into places that celebrate life to the fullest,” al-Hendi said.
 
Aslan Mamo, the lead artist who undertook the revamping of Raqqa parks, says that such projects bring hope and joy for the local population in Raqqa.

“We can’t just rebuild for the sake of rebuilding. We have to put an aesthetic touch on everything we build from now on, because IS destroyed people from inside and tried to kill their taste for beauty,” he said.
 
He told VOA that they have also done similar works at sport fields, elementary schools and other facilities in the city.
 
While many displaced people have already returned to their homes in Raqqa after its liberation from IS, experts charge that rebuilding modern facilities would entice more people to consider coming back into the city in the future.
 
“Restoring public services such as parks and recreational centers is a key factor of stabilizing the city,” said Khaled al-‘Abo, a local civil engineer who has been helping rebuild several parks in Raqqa.
 
He said in a phone interview with VOA that his team’s objective is to rebuild every park in the city that has been destroyed or used by IS for “evil purposes.”

 US contribution
 
According to activists, the initiative has been entirely funded the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a U.S federal government entity that is responsible for providing assistance to communities in need around the world.
 
The United States has been a major contributor to the reconstruction of Raqqa and other cities devastated by the war against IS.
 
In March of this year, the U.S. announced more than $397 million in additional assistance for Syria, including areas recently liberated from IS.
 
With this amount, the U.S. humanitarian assistance, in response to the Syrian crisis, reached more than $9.5 billion since the beginning of the country’s civil war in 2011.
 
In Raqqa, residents hope that such initiatives would encourage other international donors to invest more in rebuilding their city.
 
“With no prospects of self-funding at the moment, only international assistance can help bring back some sense of normalcy to this city,” said Hamoud al-Salih, a 39-year-old resident of Raqqa.

…

Sofia Lysenko’s parents moved to the United States from the Ukraine when she was 3 years old. Today, at 17, some of the biggest American pharmaceutical companies want to team up with this teenage science prodigy because she has created an artificial macromolecule robot that can deliver drugs directly to the brain cells of patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Iryna Matviichuk met with Sofia to learn more. Anna Rice narrates her report.

…

Emergency workers in Ridgecrest, Calif., are assessing the damage after a second major earthquake struck the desert community northeast of Los Angeles on Friday night. No deaths or major injuries have been reported from either the Thursday or Friday quake, but as Mike O’Sullivan reports, Friday’s magnitude-7.1 temblor caused additional damage and left residents shaken.

…

Hong Kong has long been seen as a good place to do business, thanks to its proximity to China and the one-country, two systems policy that provides a wide degree of economic freedom. But as Beijing expands its control, that reputation is at risk, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports.

…

President Donald Trump roused a political tempest when he decided to plant himself squarely in Independence Day observances with a speech from the Lincoln Memorial. His words from that platform, though, were strikingly measured, except for some befuddlement over American military history.

The unscripted Trump — the one the world sees day to day — was to be found on Twitter and in other venues. It was in such places that the president misrepresented his record on care for veterans, the health of the economy, the state of the auto industry and more.

Some rhetoric in review:

MARS

TRUMP: “Someday soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars.” — July 4 speech.

THE FACTS: This is not happening soon; almost certainly not while he is president even if he wins a second term.

The Trump administration has a placed a priority on the moon over Mars for human exploration (President Barack Obama favored Mars) and hopes to accelerate NASA’s plan for returning people to the lunar surface. It has asked Congress to approve enough money to make a moon mission possible by 2024, instead of 2028. But even if that happens, Mars would come years after that.

International space agencies have made aspirational statements about possibly landing humans on Mars during the 2030s.

Trump’s speech was almost entirely free of exaggerations about his agenda; this was an exception.

HISTORY

TRUMP: “The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the air (unintelligible), it rammed the ramparts. It took over the airports. It did everything it had to do. And at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory. And when dawn came, their star-spangled banner waved defiant.” — July 4 speech.

THE FACTS: Trump said the teleprompter stopped working during this passage: “I knew the speech very well so I was able to do it without a teleprompter.”

There were, of course, no airplanes during the War of Independence, and the Battle of Fort McHenry took place during the War of 1812, not the revolution. Trump segued from colonial times to modern times and back to the War of 1812 so fast that it seemed he was conflating wars and misstating aviation history. But the confusion apparently came from his need to wing it when the script went down.

ECONOMY

TRUMP: “The Economy is the BEST IT HAS EVER BEEN!” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The economy is not one of the best in the country’s history. It expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. That growth was the highest in just four years for the first quarter.

In the late 1990s, growth topped 4 percent for four straight years, a level it has not yet reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth even reached 7.2 percent in 1984.

In fact, there are many signs that growth is slowing, partly because of Trump’s trade fights with China and Europe. Factory activity has decelerated for three straight months as global growth has slowed and companies are reining in their spending on large equipment.

Most economists forecast the economy will expand at just a 2% annual rate in the April-June period.

Trump is pushing the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, to cut short-term interest rates to shore up the economy. That isn’t something a president would do amid the strongest economy in history.

Economists mostly expect the Fed will cut rates, either at its next meeting in July or in September. Lower rates make it easier for people to borrow and buy new homes and cars.

Powell said last week the economy is facing growing uncertainties and he indicated the Fed would take the necessary steps to sustain the expansion, a sign that the Fed could cut rates soon.

The economy is now in its 121st month of growth, making it the longest expansion in history. But most of that took place under Obama.

The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

NORTH KOREA

TRUMP, on North Korea’s help in returning the remains of U.S. troops from the Korean War: “The remains are coming back as they get them, as they find them. The remains of our great heroes from the war. And we really appreciate that.” — remarks Sunday to Korean business leaders in Seoul.

TRUMP: “We’re very happy about the remains having come back. And they’re bringing back — in fact, we were notified they have additional remains of our great heroes from many years ago.” — remarks June 28 in Japan.

THE FACTS: His account is at odds with developments.

No remains of U.S. service members have been returned since last summer and the U.S. suspended efforts in May to get negotiations on the remains back on track in time to have more repatriated this year. It hopes more remains may be brought home next year.

The Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency, which is the outfit responsible for recovering U.S. war remains and returning them to families, “has not received any new information from (North Korean) officials regarding the turn over or recovery of remains,” spokesman Charles Prichard said Wednesday.

He said his agency is “still working to communicate” with the North Korean army “as it is our intent to find common ground on resuming recovery missions” in 2020.

Last summer, in line with the first summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that June, the North turned over 55 boxes of what it said were the remains of an undetermined number of U.S service members killed in the North during the 1950-53 war. So far, six Americans have been identified from the 55 boxes.

U.S. officials have said the North has suggested in recent years that it holds perhaps 200 sets of American war remains. Thousands more are unrecovered from battlefields and former POW camps.

The Pentagon estimates that 5,300 Americans were lost in North Korea.

VETERANS

TRUMP, on approving private-sector health care for veterans: “I actually came up with the idea. I said, ‘Why don’t we just have the veterans go out and see a private doctor and we’ll pay the cost of the doctor and that will solve the problem?’ Some veterans were waiting for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, they couldn’t get any service at all. I said, ‘We’ll just send them out.’ And what I thought it was a genius idea, brilliant idea. I came back and met with the board and a lot of the people that handled the VA. … They said, ‘Actually sir, we’ve been trying to get that passed for 40 years, and we haven’t been able to get it.’ I’m good at getting things done. … It’s really cut down big on the waits.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.

TRUMP: “We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability to give our veterans the care that they deserve and they have been trying to pass these things for 45 years.” — Montoursville, Pennsylvania, rally on May 20.

THE FACTS: Trump did not invent the idea of giving veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense. Nor is he the first president in 40 years to pass the program.

Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.

Under the expansion which took effect last month, veterans still may have to wait weeks to see a doctor. They program allows veterans to see a private doctor if their VA wait is 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes.

Indeed, the VA says it does not expect a major increase in veterans seeking care outside the VA under Trump’s expanded program, partly because wait times in the private sector are typically longer than at VA. “The care in the private sector, nine times out of 10, is probably not as good as care in VA,” VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told Congress in March.

TRUMP: “On average, 20 veterans and members take their own lives every day. … We’re working very very hard on that. In fact, the first time I heard the number was 23, and now it’s down somewhat. But it’s such an unacceptable number.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.

THE FACTS: Trump incorrectly suggests that he helped reduce veterans’ suicide, noting that his administration was working “very, very hard” on the problem and that in fact the figure had come down. But no decline has been registered during his administration. There was a drop during the Obama administration but that might be due to the way veterans’ suicides are counted.

The VA estimated in 2013 that 22 veterans were taking their lives each day on average (not 23, as Trump put it). The estimate was based on data submitted from fewer than half the states. In 2016, VA released an estimate of 20 suicides per day, based on 2014 data from all 50 states as well as the Pentagon.

The estimated average has not budged since.

Trump has pledged additional money for suicide prevention and created in March a Cabinet-level task force that will seek to develop a national roadmap for suicide prevention, part of a campaign pledge to improve health care for veterans.

Still, a report by the Government Accountability Office in December found that the VA had left millions of dollars unspent that were available for suicide prevention efforts. The report said the VA had spent just $57,000 out of $6.2 million available for paid media, such as social-media postings, due in part to leadership turmoil at the agency.

MILITARY PAY

TRUMP: “You also got very nice pay raises for the last couple of years. Congratulations. Oh, you care about that. They care about that. I didn’t think you noticed. Yeah, you were entitled. You know, it was close to 10 years before you had an increase. Ten years. And we said, ‘It’s time.’ And you got a couple of good ones, big ones, nice ones.” — remarks June 30 to service members at Osan Air Base, South Korea.

THE FACTS: He’s been spreading this falsehood for more than a year, soaking up cheers from crowds for something he didn’t do. In May 2018, for example, he declared to graduates of the United States Naval Academy: “We just got you a big pay raise. First time in 10 years.”

U.S. military members have received a pay raise every year for decades .

Trump also boasts about the size of the military pay raises under his administration, but there’s nothing extraordinary about them.

Several raises in the past decade have been larger than service members are getting under Trump — 2.6% this year, 2.4% last year, 2.1% in 2017.

Raises in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for example, were all 3.4% or more.

Pay increases shrank after that because of congressionally mandated budget caps. Trump and Congress did break a trend that began in 2011 of pay raises that hovered between 1% and 2%.

AUTOS

TRUMP: “We have many, many companies that left our country and they’re now coming back. Especially the automobile business. We have auto plants being built all over the country. We went decades and no plant was built. No plant was even expanded.” — remarks Monday in Oval Office.

THE FACTS: There’s no evidence that car companies are flooding back to the U.S. He’s also incorrect in saying that auto plants haven’t been built in decades. A number of automakers — Toyota, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen among them — opened plants in recent decades, mostly in the South.

Government statistics show that jobs in auto and parts manufacturing grew at a slower rate in the two-plus years since Trump took office than in the two prior years.

Between January of 2017, when Trump was inaugurated, and May of this year, the latest figures available, U.S. auto and parts makers added 44,000 jobs, or a 4.6 percent increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But in the two years before Trump took office, the industry added 63,600 manufacturing jobs, a 7.1 percent increase.

The only automaker announcing plans to reopen a plant in Michigan is Fiat Chrysler, which is restarting an old engine plant to build three-row SUVs. It’s been planning to do so since before Trump was elected. GM is even closing two Detroit-area factories: One builds cars and the other builds transmissions. Toyota is building a new factory in Alabama with Mazda, and Volvo opened a plant in South Carolina last year, but in each case, that was in the works before Trump took office.

Automakers have made announcements about new models being built in Michigan, but no other factories have been reopened. Ford stopped building the Focus compact car in the Detroit suburb of Wayne last year, but it’s being replaced by the manufacture of a small pickup and a new SUV. That announcement was made in December 2016, before Trump took office.

GM, meantime, is closing factories in Ohio and Maryland.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP: “Robert Mueller is being asked to testify yet again. He said he could only stick to the Report, & that is what he would and must do. After so much testimony & total transparency, this Witch Hunt must now end. No more Do Overs.” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: It’s highly questionable to say Trump was fully cooperative in the Russia investigation.

Trump declined to sit for an interview with the special counsel’s team, gave written answers that investigators described as “inadequate” and “incomplete,” said more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in writing, and — according to the report — tried to get aides to fire Mueller or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry.

In the end, the Mueller report found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice.

According to the report, Mueller’s team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn’t be indicted. The report instead factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, specifically leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter.

IRAN

TRUMP: “Iran was violating the 150 Billion Dollar (plus 1.8 Billion Dollar in CASH) Nuclear Deal with the United States, and others who paid NOTHING, long before I became President – and they have now breached their stockpile limit. Not good!” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: To be clear, there was no $150 billion payout from the U.S. treasury. The money he refers to represents Iranian assets held abroad that were frozen until the international deal was reached and Tehran was allowed to access its funds.

The payout of about $1.8 billion is a separate matter. That dates to the 1970s, when Iran paid the U.S. $400 million for military equipment that was never delivered because the government was overthrown and diplomatic relations ruptured.

That left people, businesses and governments in each country indebted to partners in the other, and these complex claims took decades to sort out in tribunals and arbitration. For its part, Iran paid settlements of more than $2.5 billion to U.S. citizens and businesses.

The day after the nuclear deal was implemented, the U.S. and Iran announced they had settled the claim over the 1970s military equipment order, with the U.S. agreeing to pay the $400 million principal along with about $1.3 billion in interest. The $400 million was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s dramatic accounts of money stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night. The arrangement provided for the interest to be paid later, not crammed into containers.

…

Federal agents descended on the suburban Maryland house with the flash and bang of a stun grenade, blocked off the street and spent hours questioning the homeowner about a theft of government documents that prosecutors would later describe as “breathtaking” in its scale.

The suspect, Harold Martin, was a contractor for the National Security Agency. His arrest followed news of a devastating disclosure of government hacking tools by a mysterious internet group calling itself the Shadow Brokers . It seemed to some that the United States might have found another Edward Snowden, who also had been a contractor for the agency.

“You’re a bad man. There’s no way around that,” one law enforcement official conducting the raid told Martin, court papers say. “You’re a bad man.”

Later this month, about three years after that raid, the case against Martin is scheduled to be resolved in Baltimore’s federal court. But the identity of the Shadow Brokers, and whoever was responsible for a leak with extraordinary national security implications, will remain a public mystery even as the case concludes.

Authorities have established that Martin walked off with thousands of pages of secret documents over a two-decade career in national security, most recently with the NSA, whose headquarters is about 15 miles from his home in Glen Burnie, Maryland. He pleaded guilty to a single count of willful retention of national defense information and faces a nine-year prison sentence under a plea deal.

Investigators found in his home and car detailed description of computer infrastructure and classified technical operations in a raid that took place two weeks after the Shadow Brokers surfaced online to advertise the sale of some of the NSA’s closely guarded hacking tools. Yet authorities have never publicly linked Martin or anyone else to the Shadow Brokers and the U.S. has not announced whether it suspects government insiders, Russian intelligence or someone else entirely.

The question is important because the U.S. believes North Korea and Russia relied on the stolen tools, which provide the means to exploit software vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, in unleashing punishing global cyberattacks on businesses, hospitals and cities. The release, which occurred while the NSA was already under scrutiny because of Snowden’s 2013 disclosures, raised questions about the government’s ability to maintain secrets .

“It was extraordinarily damaging, probably more damaging than Snowden,” cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier said of the Shadow Brokers leaks. “Those tools were a lot of money to design and create.”

Yet none of that is likely to be mentioned at Martin’s July 17 sentencing. The hearing instead will turn on dramatically different depictions of the enigmatic Martin, a Navy veteran, longtime government contractor — most recently at Booz Allen Hamilton — and doctoral candidate at the time of his arrest.

Prosecutors allege Martin jeopardized national security by bringing home reams of classified information even as, they say, he once castigated colleagues as “clowns” for lax security measures. Soon after his arrest, they cast aspersions on his character and motives, citing a binge-drinking habit, his arsenal of unregistered weapons and online communication in Russian and other languages.

The agents who searched his home that August 2016 afternoon found a trove of documents in his car, home and a dusty, unlocked shed. The 50 terabytes of information from 1996 to 2016 included personal details of government employees and “Top Secret” email chains, handwritten notes describing the NSA’s classified computer infrastructure, and descriptions of classified technical operations.

Defense lawyers paint him as a compulsive hoarder whose quirky tendencies may have led him astray but who never betrayed his country.

“What began as an effort by Mr. Martin to be good at his job, to be better at his job, to be as good as he could be, to see the whole picture at his job, became something more complicated than that,” public defender James Wyda said at a 2016 detention hearing. “It became a compulsion.

“This was not Spycraft behavior,” he added. “This is not how a Russian spy or something like that would ever conduct business.”

It’s unclear how Martin came to the FBI’s attention, but a redacted court order from a judge suggests agents may have been looking for a Shadow Brokers link when they obtained search warrants for his Twitter account and property before the raid.

The December 2018 ruling from U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett notes that the FBI was investigating the online disclosure of stolen government property. It cites a Twitter message from an account allegedly belonging to Martin — @HAL_999999999 — that requested a meeting with someone whose name is blacked out and stated “shelf life, three weeks.”

In a likely reference to the Shadow Brokers disclosures, investigators said tweets from Martin’s account were sent hours before stolen government records were advertised and posted online. Investigators also alleged that Martin would have had access to the same classified information as what appeared online.

The recipient of the message is redacted, although Politico reported it went to the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, which in turn notified the U.S. Kaspersky declined to discuss the Martin case.

The roughly 20 officers who stormed Martin’s home did so with dramatic force, arriving with a battering ram and a “flash bang” device meant to cause temporary disorientation. State troopers shut down the road as agents interrogated Martin for four hours.

Martin was never charged with disclosing information and was accused only of unlawfully retaining defense information. The Shadow Brokers, which two weeks before Martin’s arrest surfaced on Twitter with the warning that it would auction off NSA hacking tools online, continued trickling out disclosures after Martin was in custody, a seeming indication that someone else may have been responsible.

Even so, his case refocused public attention on repeated government failures to safeguard some of the nation’s most highly classified information, with Martin one of several contractors accused of mishandling or spilling government secrets. Most notable is Snowden, a fellow Booz Allen contractor facing U.S. charges and living in Russia.

The NSA has since done more to protect its network and security and increased the monitoring of its employees, said security and counterintelligence director Marlisa Smith.

“I won’t tell you we’ve erased the risk of insider threat, it will never be down to zero, but we’ve worked very hard to mitigate and minimize the risk,” Smith said.

Booz Allen scrambled to respond to Martin’s arrest, hiring ex-FBI director Robert Mueller to investigate. Since Martin’s arrest, the company said it has added policies to improve its review process of employees at hiring and to ensure managers are more in touch with their subordinates.

As for the mystery of who or what is behind the Shadow Brokers, there’s little certainty that the government will ever publicly resolve that lingering question, especially given the classified nature of the theft and the embarrassment it caused the U.S.

“I don’t know if anybody knows other than the Russians,” said former NSA computer scientist Dave Aitel. “And we don’t even know if it’s the Russians. We don’t know at this point; anything could be true.”

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The International Organization for Migration warns massive displacement from renewed inter-ethnic fighting in DR Congo’s Ebola-affected Ituri province poses a serious health hazard.  

At least 160 people were killed during renewed clashes early last month between Lendu farmers and Hema herders in Ituri province.  U.N. agencies report the violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and sent more than 7,500 refugees fleeing for their lives into neighboring Uganda.

The International Organization for Migration reports people who have fled the frontline of the conflict are living in abysmal conditions that create a fertile ground for the spread of disease, most worryingly Ebola.  

The latest World Health Organization figures put the number of Ebola cases at 2,382, including 1,606 deaths.  The bulk of these cases and deaths are in conflict-ridden North Kivu province   About 10 percent are in Ituri.

DRC Violence Threatens Lifesaving Ebola Operation

It is important to break the vicious cycle of violence to contain the spread of the deadly virus in conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces

The inter-communal fighting has displaced an estimated 400,000 people.  IOM spokesman, Joel Millman, says his agency manages 12 displacement sites in Ituri’s Djugu Territory.  Thousands of people unable to cram into these overcrowded camps, he says, are sheltering in spontaneous sites.

“Poor hygiene conditions in displacement sites severely increase the risk that Ebola, as well as cholera, measles and acute respiratory diseases, will spread,” Millman said. “Many of these people are seeking assistance in Ebola-affected Bunia, where the displacement site officially called “General Hospital Site” has received more than 5,000 new Internally Displaced Persons, increasing the site’s population to 10,000 or twice its capacity.”

Millman says plans are underway to relocate many of the IDPs to a new improved settlement on land owned by Bunia’s Catholic Diocese.  

He says IOM also is reinforcing its Ebola surveillance and disease prevention activities at Ituri’s Points of Entry at International borders.  Measures include hand washing, hygiene promotion, and screening travelers for possible Ebola infections.

On June 11, the first case of Ebola spread across the border from DRC to Uganda.  A five-year old boy and his grandmother subsequently died from the deadly virus.

Millman says IOM is working to reduce disease transmission to new areas and across borders by expanding its preparedness measures to include Uganda, South Sudan and Burundi.

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VOA Connect Episode 77 – Stories about people who are on a path they didn’t foresee, the career of a successful musician and the benefits of vinyl records

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The average monthly student loan payment is about $400 a month in the United States.  Eddy Encinales, who used student loans to pay for college, talks to us about the effects of the debt and toll it takes trying to make her monthly payments and plan for her future.  

Reporter/Camera: Deepak Dobhal.  

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Find out why records are staging a comeback! Insert record scratching sound effect.  

VOA Ukrainian; Reporter: Alina Golinata; Camera: Konstantin Golubchik; Adapted by: Zdenko Novacki.

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Australia’s government warned a student on Friday not to return to North Korea a day after he was released from detention by Pyongyang under mysterious circumstances.

Alek Sigley, who flew to Tokyo on Thursday to join his Japanese wife, had been studying in the North Korean capital and had been missing since June 25.

“My advice would be pretty clear, I would stay in Japan. I would go back to South Korea … I would come back to Australia,” Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told the Nine network.

“All of those would have to be better options before he returns to North Korea,” Dutton said. “I don’t think he will put himself back in that situation … it could have ended up very differently.”

Sigley left North Korea on Thursday and flew to Beijing, where he was met by Australian officials for the flight to Tokyo. He declined to comment to a throng of reporters at Haneda Airport, only making a peace sign before being taken away.

It is still not clear why he was detained by the secretive North. The details of his release were also not known.

Swedish authorities helped secure Sigley’s release because Australia has no diplomatic presence in North Korea and relies on other countries to act on its behalf.

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More than two dozen countries Thursday formally called for a United Nations investigation into thousands of killings in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, activists said.

Iceland submitted the draft resolution backed by mainly European states, they said. The text urges the government to prevent extrajudicial executions and marks the first time that the Human Rights Council is being asked to address the crisis.

The Duterte government has insisted the more than 5,000 suspected drug dealers killed by police in anti-narcotics operations all put up a fight.

At least 27,000 killed

But activists say that at least 27,000 have been killed since Duterte was elected in 2016 on a platform of crushing crime and that Myka, a 3-year-old shot during a police raid last weekend, is among the latest victims.

“Here we are three years later with 27,000 killed, among the most impoverished, in a massive crackdown. That is a conservative estimate,” Ellecer “Budit” Carlos of the Manila-based group iDefend told Reuters.

“In a non-armed conflict context, this is the worst case of extrajudicial killings globally,” he said after urging the council to act.

The Geneva forum is to vote on the resolution before ending its three-week session July 12. The Philippines is among its current 47 members.

‘There are worse things’

Carlos conceded that Asian countries are unlikely to vote in favor of the text, adding: “I think it will be a close shave.”

One Asian ambassador, speaking on condition of anonymity, indicated that his country would not support it, telling Reuters: “There are worse things happening in the world.”

But activists say the Council and the office of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet must shine a light on the situation.

“For us a primary priority for this session is the situation in the Philippines,” said Laila Matar of Human Rights Watch.

“Bodies continue to pile up in Manila and other urban areas, again in the context of the war on drugs which we have seen is very much a war against the poor, impoverished and marginalized communities, which are the biggest victims,” she said.

It occurs in a wider context of “attacks on human rights defenders, media activists, journalists, anyone who really dares to speak up against the killings,” she added.

“Police accounts of drug raids are not reliable — the officers enforcing the ‘drug war’ have been shown to plant weapons and drugs to justify the killings,” Matar told the Council this week.

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Government ministers from some European Union nations sought Thursday to reassure their partners in the Western Balkans during a meeting in Poland that their aspirations to join the EU have full backing in the club, despite symptoms of a loss of momentum.

German Minister of State for Europe, Michael Roth, said Berlin stands firmly by the accession process of all Western Balkans nations “because for us the Western Balkans is not the backyard of the European Union, but the inner courtyard. We are all responsible for ensuring that the prospect of EU accession remains concrete.”

Speaking in the Polish city of Poznan, which is hosting the meeting, Roth urged much more effort in that direction and the opening of accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania. 

Foreign, interior and economy ministers from membership candidates Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania, as well as potential candidates Bosnia and Kosovo, are seeking such reassurance after some European leaders raised doubts about the EU’s openness to expanding.

French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated Monday that he thinks the EU has internal work to do that takes priority over taking in new members. He said he would “refuse any kind of enlargement before a deep reform of our institutional functioning.”

Speaking Thursday in Poland, Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic reacted to Macron’s comments by questioning the purpose of holding such meetings “especially when some of the top European leaders are saying there’s no chance of any enlargement.”

Roth said Thursday that “only a concrete perspective that is credible and that motivates the people locally, that involves civil society, will ultimately make the necessary reforms possible” and will pave the accession road.

He said the process will stimulate development in various walks of life in the region, but that above all “it is also about regional cooperation and reconciliation,” like in the case of difficult dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, whose relations are marked by bloodshed.

“There is still a great deal to be done,” Roth said.

Arguments for enlargement

Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Ekaterina Sachariewa pointed to huge improvement in the strained relations her EU member country achieved with North Macedonia thanks to the accession efforts. That should serve as an inspiration and an example for overcoming other problems among Western Balkan nations.   
 
Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said that including Western Balkans nations in the EU would increase regional stability and development and spread the EU’s values to more of Europe.  
 
He pledged 500,000 euros from Poland for a fund developing investment in the region.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki plan to join the gathering Friday.

Poland is hosting the summit in Poznan because it currently presides over the so-called Berlin Process that brings the Western Balkan nations together with EU member states. Initiated by Germany, the process is meant to promote EU membership for the Western Balkans although there is no set time frame.
 

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The United Nations says at least 55 people were killed and more than 130 injured in the Tuesday night airstrike on a detention center holding illegal migrants in Libya’s capital.  VOA’s Heather Murdock is on the scene in Tripoli and files this report.

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An Australian student was released Thursday after a week in detention in North Korea and flew to Beijing, where he described his condition to reporters as “very good.”

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced to Parliament that Alek Sigley, 29, had been released hours earlier following intervention from Swedish diplomats Wednesday.

Sigley looked relaxed when he arrived at Beijing airport. He did not respond to reporters’ questions about what had happened in Pyongyang.

“I’m OK, I’m OK, I’m good. I’m very good,” Sigley said.

His father, Gary Sigley, said his son would soon be reunited with his Japanese wife Yuka Morinaga in Tokyo.

“He’s fine. He’s in very good spirits. He’s been treated well,” the father told reporters in his hometown of Perth.

Swedish diplomats had raised Sigley with North Korean authorities in Pyongyang where Australia does not have an embassy.

“Alex is safe and well. Swedish authorities advised the Australian government that they met with senior officials from the DPRK yesterday and raised the issue of Alex’s disappearance on Australia’s behalf,” Morrison said, using the official name for North Korea.

Morrison thanked Swedish authorities for “their invaluable assistance in securing Alek’s prompt release.”

“This outcome demonstrates the value of discrete behind-the-scenes work of officials in resolving complex and sensitive consular cases in close partnership with other governments,” Morrison said.

The Pyongyang university student and tour guide lost contact with family and friends in Japan and Australia last Tuesday.

Morrison’s announcement was the first confirmation that he had been detained.
 

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Editor’s note: A look at the veracity of claims by political figures

WASHINGTON — In his Fourth of July remarks, President Donald Trump will be celebrating the armed forces and showcasing what he’s done for them. But in recent days, he has falsified his record on military matters on several fronts.

He’s claimed, for example, that he came up with the “genius idea” of giving veterans private health care so they don’t have to wait for Veterans Affairs appointments, only to find out that others had thought of it but failed to get it done.

President Barack Obama signed the law getting it done in 2014.

Trump also made the flatly false statement that he won troops their first raise in a decade, suggested he’s made progress reducing veteran suicides that is not backed up by the numbers, and contradicted the record in claiming that North Korea is cooperating on the return of the remains of U.S. troops.

A look at his statements on military matters and personnel, some of which may be heard from the stage Thursday or in tweets:

Military pay

Trump, addressing military members: “You also got very nice pay raises for the last couple of years. Congratulations. Oh, you care about that. They care about that. I didn’t think you noticed. Yeah, you were entitled. You know, it was close to 10 years before you had an increase. Ten years. And we said, ‘It’s time.’ And you got a couple of good ones, big ones, nice ones.” — remarks Sunday at Osan Air Base, South Korea.

The facts: He’s been spreading this falsehood for more than a year, soaking up cheers from crowds for something he didn’t do. In May 2018, for example, he declared to graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy: “We just got you a big pay raise. First time in 10 years.”

U.S. military members have received a pay raise every year for decades.

Trump also boasts about the size of the military pay raises under his administration, but there’s nothing extraordinary about them.

Several raises in the last decade have been larger than service members are getting under Trump — 2.6% this year, 2.4% last year, 2.1% in 2017.
Raises in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for example, were all 3.4% or more.

Pay increases shrank after that because of congressionally mandated budget caps. Trump and Congress did break a trend that began in 2011 of pay raises that hovered between 1% and 2%.

Veterans’ suicide

Trump: “On average, 20 veterans and members take their own lives every day. … We’re working very, very hard on that. In fact, the first time I heard the number was 23, and now it’s down somewhat. But it’s such an unacceptable number.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.

The facts: Trump incorrectly suggests that he helped reduce veterans’ suicide, noting that his administration was working “very, very hard” on the problem and that in fact the figure had come down. But no decline has been registered during his administration. There was a drop during the Obama administration, but that might be because of the way veterans’ suicides are counted.

The Veterans Affairs Department estimated in 2013 that 22 veterans were taking their lives each day on average (not 23, as Trump put it). The estimate was based on data submitted from fewer than half of the states. In 2016, VA released an estimate of 20 suicides per day, based on 2014 data from all 50 states as well as the Pentagon. 

The estimated average has not budged since. 

Trump has pledged additional money for suicide prevention and created in March a Cabinet-level task force that will seek to develop a national roadmap for suicide prevention, part of a campaign pledge to improve health care for veterans. 

Still, a report by the Government Accountability Office in December found the VA had left millions of dollars unspent that were available for suicide prevention efforts. The report said VA had spent just $57,000 out of $6.2 million available for paid media, such as social-media postings, thanks in part to leadership turmoil at the agency.

North Korea

Trump, on North Korea’s help in returning the remains of U.S. troops from the Korean War: “The remains are coming back as they get them, as they find them. The remains of our great heroes from the war. And we really appreciate that.” — remarks Sunday to Korean business leaders in Seoul.

Trump: “We’re very happy about the remains having come back. And they’re bringing back — in fact, we were notified they have additional remains of our great heroes from many years ago.” — remarks June 28 in Japan.

The facts: His account is at odds with developments.

No remains of U.S. service members have been returned since last summer and the U.S. suspended efforts in May to get negotiations on the remains back on track in time to have more repatriated this year. It hopes more remains may be brought home next year.

The Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency, which is the outfit responsible for recovering U.S. war remains and returning them to families, “has not received any new information from (North Korean) officials regarding the turn over or recovery of remains,” spokesman Charles Prichard said Wednesday.

Prichard said his agency is “still working to communicate” with the North Korean army “as it is our intent to find common ground on resuming recovery missions” in 2020.

Last summer, in line with the first summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that June, the North turned over 55 boxes of what it said were the remains of an undetermined number of U.S service members killed in the North during the 1950-53 war. So far, six Americans have been identified from the 55 boxes.

U.S. officials have said the North has suggested in recent years that it holds perhaps 200 sets of American war remains. Thousands more are unrecovered from battlefields and former POW camps.

The Pentagon estimates that 5,300 Americans were lost in North Korea.

Health care

Trump, on approving private-sector health care for veterans: “I actually came up with the idea. I said, ‘Why don’t we just have the veterans go out and see a private doctor and we’ll pay the cost of the doctor and that will solve the problem?’ Because some veterans were waiting for 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, they couldn’t get any service at all. I said, ‘We’ll just send them out.’ And I thought it was a genius idea, brilliant idea. And then I came back and met with the board and a lot of the people that handled the VA. … They said, ‘Actually, sir, we’ve been trying to get that passed for 40 years, and we haven’t been able to get it.’ … I’m good at getting things done. … It’s really cut down big on the waits.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.

Trump: “We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability to give our veterans the care that they deserve and they have been trying to pass these things for 45 years.” — Montoursville, Pennsylvania, rally May 20.

The facts: Trump did not invent the idea of giving veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense. Nor is he the first president in 40 years to pass the program.

Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.

Under the expansion, which took effect last month, veterans still may have to wait weeks to see a doctor. The program allows veterans to see a private doctor if their VA wait is 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes.

Indeed, the VA says it does not expect a major increase in veterans seeking care outside the VA under Trump’s expanded program, partly because waiting times in the private sector are typically longer than at VA.

“The care in the private sector, nine times out of 10, is probably not as good as care in VA,” VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told Congress in March.

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday that Japan cannot give South Korean exports preferential treatment because the country is not abiding by an agreement regarding wartime issues that Japan insists have been resolved.
 
Abe was objecting to criticism over escalating tensions between the two neighbors amid disputes over Koreans forced to work as laborers during World War II.

He was defending a decision announced Monday to impose restrictions on Japan’s exports of semiconductor-related materials to South Korea. As of Thursday, exports of some materials used in manufacturing computer parts, including fluorinated polyimides used for displays, must apply for approval for each contract.

We did not intertwine historical issues with trade issues,'' Abe said.The issue of former Korean laborers is not about a historical issue but about whether to keep the promise between countries under international law … and what to do when the promise is broken.”

Abe made the comment when asked about diplomacy during a party leaders’ debate ahead of Tuesday’s start of official campaigning for the July 21 Upper House elections.
 
Relations between the two main U.S. allies in East Asia have rapidly soured since South Korea’s top court in October ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. to pay 100 million won ($88,000) each to four plaintiffs forced to work for the company during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea’s top court ordered the seizure of local assets of the company after it refused to pay the compensation. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries also has refused an order by South Korea’s Supreme Court to financially compensate 10 Koreans for forced labor during Japan’s colonial era.

Abe said each country bears a responsibility to carry out export controls for national security reasons. “Within that obligation, if another country fails to keep its promise, we cannot give it preferential treatment like before,” he said.

Abe and other officials have offered conflicting explanations for the move, citing both a lack of trust and unspecified security concerns.
 
On Tuesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga cited national security concerns and lack of trust'' after exchanges with Seoul for Japan's export control measures on South Korea.  <br />
 <br />
Japan is a major supplier of materials used to make the computer chips that run most devices, including Apple iPhones and laptop computers. Tokyo's decision is also expected to affect exports calledresists” that are used for making semiconductors, and hydrogen fluoride used for semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and polymers such as nylon and Teflon.

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In the United States, the Everglades National Park has been on the U.N.’s ‘World Heritage in Danger’ list since 2010. UNESCO is meeting this week and is expected to keep the troubled wetland on that list, despite decades of restoration efforts. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.

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With cellphones becoming more sophisticated, internet becoming faster, and VR headsets becoming cheaper, we are at the precipice of a whole new virtual world.  Deana Mitchell talks to an expert who breaks down what this all means in, well—in reality.

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Hundreds of Israelis are protesting across the country against alleged police brutality against the country’s Ethiopian community following the killing of an Ethiopian Israeli teen by an off-duty police officer.
 
Demonstrators blocked a main highway in central Tel Aviv and major thoroughfares around the country on Tuesday. They have been voicing frustration over perceived systemic discrimination against the community’s roughly 150,000 members. Police say officers arrested at least three protesters at a demonstration outside Haifa that turned violent.
 
On Sunday, an off-duty police officer shot and killed Ethiopian Israeli teen Solomon Teka. Police said the officer was arrested and placed by a court in protective custody.
 
Thousands of people attended Teka’s funeral at a cemetery near Haifa on Tuesday.

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A Mexican official says about 70 Central American migrants who’d been returned to Ciudad Juarez to await the outcome of their U.S. asylum claims are being bused back to their countries.

The official with the Foreign Relations Department says the bus left Juarez on Tuesday morning. All the people are said to have volunteered, and all are from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras.
 
The official isn’t sure what impact their decisions might have on their asylum claims in the United States.
 
The person adds that similar busings are expected “soon” in Tijuana and Mexicali, two other cities that have been taking in returnees from the United States under the program.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made public.

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Saturn’s moon Titan has all the right ingredients for life. NASA’s newly announced mission, Dragonfly, will explore the icy moon from the air and the ground to determine whether life ever arose there.

A familiar alien landscape

At first glance, Titan looks a lot like Earth. Lakes and seas are scattered across the northern hemisphere, and occasional rains dampen its sandy surface. The similarities end there – Titan is so cold that water exists as rock-hard ice, and oily methane falls from the sky and trickles into the seas. The sand is made up of organic materials built from carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, completely unlike what you’d find on any beach on Earth.

“One of the things I think is so exciting about Titan is how it can be alien and familiar at the same time. It’s 94 K [-290°F/-179°C] – it’s totally different material than what we’re used to interacting with on a daily basis: water-ice bedrock and liquid methane reservoirs and organic sand dunes,” said Elizabeth Turtle, Dragonfly’s principal investigator.

Titan’s surface is hidden from view by its hazy atmosphere, which is four times denser than Earth’s. Combined with the low gravity – just one-seventh as strong as what we’re used to – the thick atmosphere makes Titan an ideal target for an airborne explorer.

The idea of building an aircraft to fly in Titan’s thick atmosphere isn’t new, but it wasn’t until drone technology became more advanced that the Dragonfly team realized they could make their dream of flying on Titan a reality.

Leapfrogging across Titan

With its two sets of four propellers stacked on top of one another, Dragonfly looks a little bit like a drone, but it’s much bigger than something you would fly around in your backyard – around 3 meters long and more than a meter tall. The design will allow Dragonfly to take pictures from the air and land on Titan’s frozen surface for a closer view.

It will initially target a region near the moon’s equator that is covered in sand dunes, similar to what is found in deserts on Earth. From there, it will begin to explore the moon in a “leapfrog” way, scouting beyond its next target to see what lies ahead, then flying back to its planned landing site to touch down and analyze samples of the surface, snap photographs and scan for earthquakes – or titanquakes, rather.

Traveling eight kilometers per leap, Dragonfly will make its way toward Selk crater, over 100 kilometers away. Scientists think that the heat from the collision that formed the crater would have liquefied the water ice in Titan’s crust, creating an environment with all the necessary components for life. The Dragonfly team hopes to learn whether combining organic material with liquid water and energy in the form of heat could have caused complex molecules to develop – or even life itself.

“We have this chance to explore a world that we know has all the ingredients for life, but how far did it get towards life?” said Melissa Trainer, deputy principal investigator for the mission.

Looking for life

If life has arisen on Titan, Dragonfly should be able to detect it. One thing its instruments will be on the lookout for is a class of molecules called amino acids, which are found in all life on Earth. Amino acids come in left- and right-handed varieties, just like a pair of gloves. When scientists make amino acids in a lab, they tend to form both kinds in equal amounts. Life, however, seems to prefer the left-handed kind. If amino acids are present on Titan, Dragonfly should be able to tell if there are unequal amounts of left- and right-handed varieties – a sign that life is present on the frozen surface.

Dragonfly will launch in 2026 and arrive at Titan in 2034 after an eight-year interplanetary cruise. The science and engineering teams have plenty to do in the meantime. “We have to finish designing and building a spacecraft, we have to test a bunch of instruments and get them calibrated,” said science team member Sarah Hörst. “There’s a lot of work to do … I can’t wait to get started!”

It’s a long way off, but the team is confident that the mission will be worth the wait and is excited to share what they learn with the public. “We want everyone to be able to come along on the journey to explore Titan,” Turtle said.

Link: Johns Hopkins APL Dragonfly image gallery

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