The acting U.S. Homeland Security chief on Sunday defended raids last week on food processing plants in Mississippi searching for hundreds of undocumented migrants, but acknowledged “the timing was unfortunate,” just days after a gunman targeted and killed 22 Hispanics in a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.

Kevin McAleenan told NBC’s Meet the Press that of the 680 migrants detained in the raids on operations at five companies, 200 had criminal records and will be subject to deportation to their native countries.

Television footage showed children weeping when they realized parents had been detained in the raids and would not be picking them up as their school day ended last Wednesday. But McAleenan said the raids were “done with sensitivity” and child care issues taken into consideration.

He said 32 of the migrants arrested were released within an hour of their detention and 270 within a day, often times because of child care concerns.

A policy at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of Homeland Security, calls for prosecution of companies that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants before arresting their migrant workers. But McAleenan deflected a question of why the workers, not the companies, were charged.

He said that “of course” the companies had committed a crime in hiring the workers.

“This case will be pursued,” he said.

Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris told NBC, “I don’t know why they did what they did. Employers have to be responsible.” She accused the administration of President Donald Trump of a “campaign of terror” against immigrants, “making people afraid to go to work, to go to school.”

McAleenan said the raids had been planned for a year and complement stricter immigration enforcement at the southern U.S. border with Mexico to thwart migrants, mostly Central Americans, from entering the U.S. to seek asylum.

“We have to have internal enforcement” against undocumented migrants who are working in the U.S. without official authorization, he said. But the raids, he said, could have been postponed after the massacre at a Walmart store in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, allegedly carried out by a white nationalist who police said targeted “Mexicans.”

Trump has made tough immigration enforcement a hallmark of his White House tenure as he heads to his 2020 re-election campaign. He has called the surge of migrants reaching the border “an invasion.”

On Friday, he said, “If people come into our country illegally, they’re going out.”  

…

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has protested Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest visit to Ukraine’s Crimea region, calling a it a “gross violation” of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“Attempts by the Russian side and the mass media to describe such ‘visits’ as ‘ordinary’ domestic trips by Russian officials are futile,” the ministry said in a statement on August 11, adding that Crimea was an “integral part” of Ukraine.

On August 10, Putin was shown on state television in a leather jacket at a biker show organized by the Night Wolves motorcycle club in Sevastopol, a city in the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow seized in 2014.

The Night Wolves club is known for its allegiance to the Kremlin.

Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power by the pro-European Maidan protest movement the previous month.

Moscow has also fomented unrest and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where more than 13,000 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict since April 2014.

Putin’s visit to Sevastopol took place as tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Moscow to demand fair municipal elections. More than 250 people were detained by police.

…

NEW DELHI — India’s main opposition Congress party on Saturday appointed Sonia Gandhi to serve as interim president until it elects a new party chief. 
 
The party accepted the resignation of her son Rahul Gandhi, who quit in July after Congress’ crushing defeat in national elections. He continues to be a member of Parliament. 

A party working committee then asked Sonia Gandhi, 72, to take over in a stop-gap arrangement, party spokesman K.C. Venugopal said. 
 
Sonia Gandhi handed the top party post to her son in 2017 after she suffered health problems. The party has long been led by the politically powerful Nehru-Gandhi family. 
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won 303 out of 542 seats in the lower house of Parliament, while the Congress party won 52 seats in April-May elections. 
 
In January, Rahul Gandhi inducted his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra into politics as a party general secretary months before the national elections. 
 
Several Congress leaders want Vadra, 47, to  succeed Rahul Gandhi as party president.  She has in the past helped her mother and brother campaign in their constituencies in northern Uttar Pradesh state. 
 
Rahul Gandhi’s father, Rajiv Gandhi, his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, have all served as prime minister since India’s independence from British colonialists in 1947. 
 
Rahul Gandhi entered politics in 2004. 

…

EL PASO, TEXAS — More than 100 people marched through the Texas border city of El Paso on Saturday, denouncing racism and calling for stronger gun laws one week after 22 people were killed in a mass shooting that authorities say was carried out by a man targeting Mexicans.  
 
Chanting “Gun reform now,” ” El Paso strong” and “Aqui estamos y no nos vamos” — Spanish for “Here we are and we are not leaving” — the marchers included Hispanic, white and black people dressed in white to symbolize peace and carrying 22 white wooden crosses to represent the victims of the shooting at an El Paso Walmart. 
 
The man charged in with capital murder in the attack, Patrick Crusius, 21, told investigators he targeted Mexicans at the store with an AK-47 rifle, an El Paso detective said in an arrest affidavit. Federal prosecutors have said they’re weighing hate-crime charges. 
 
Jessica Coca Garcia, who was among those wounded in the shooting, spoke to those gathered at the League of United Latin American Citizens’ “March for a United America.” 
 
“Racism is something I always wanted to think didn’t exist. Obviously, it does,” Coca Garcia said after rising from a wheelchair. Bandages covered gunshot wounds to her leg. 
 
“I love you, El Paso,” she said, her voice cracking. “This is where I’m going to stay.”  
 
Former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also attended and spoke to the crowd.  
 
O’Rourke, who is from El Paso, has blamed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric for spreading fear and hate, leading Trump to tweet that O’Rourke should “be quiet.” 

…

Written by Eugen Tomiuc with reporting by RFE/RL’s Romanian Service, Hotnews.ro, G4media.ro, and Digi24.ro. 

Romanians rallied in Bucharest and other cities across the country Saturday to mark the first anniversary of a massive anti-corruption protest that the government violently quelled. 

The demonstrations came amid public outrage over the authorities’ response to the kidnapping and killing last month of a 15-year-old girl, a case that revealed deep flaws in the police system of the European Union and NATO member state. 
 
About 20,000 people turned up for a rally outside government headquarters in central Bucharest, filling much of Victoria Square into the evening, according to G4media.ro. 
 
Protests had also been urged over social media for Brasov, Cluj, Constanta, Iasi and other large cities, under slogans such as, “We don’t forget what you did last summer,” “We’re watching you” and “Reset Romania.”  

2018 crackdown 
 
Last year, about 100,000 Romanians, many of them expatriates, gathered on Aug. 10 in front of the same government building to protest the leftist government’s moves to reverse anti-graft reforms and weaken the judiciary in one of the EU’s most corrupt countries. 
 
Riot police then used water cannons and tear gas in a display of violence unseen since the early 1990s. 
 
Television footage of protesters and bystanders with hands up being chased and beaten with batons sparked fury across the country and prompted condemnation from the EU and the United States. More than 450 people needed medical assistance and one person reportedly died after the crackdown. 
 
Some observers cited the Aug. 10, 2018, violence, as well as the “failure of so-called judicial reforms,” as the reason for the Social Democratic Party (PSD)-led coalition’s losses in European Parliament elections May 26. 
 
A day after the August 2018 crackdown, PSD leader and lower-house speaker Liviu Dragnea was imprisoned following the rejection of his appeal of a conviction in an abuse-of-office case. 

Teen’s death
 
However, public anger has recently grown over what many see as an increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional public administration after the gruesome slaying of a 15-year-old girl from Caracal, in southern Romania, whose calls for help were mishandled by police in July. 
 
Alexandra Macesanu phoned the European emergency number three times to say she had been kidnapped, beaten and raped. It took the authorities 19 hours to locate and enter the premises where she had been taken, as they initially made light of her calls and then struggled to trace them. 
 
Authorities later found burned bone fragments on site, which they identified with DNA tests earlier this month as being Macesanu’s. A 65-year-old car mechanic has confessed to killing Alexandra and Luiza Melencu, 18, in April 2019. 
 
The authorities’ handling of the case has triggered street protests across the country and stark condemnation from opposition-backed center-right President Klaus Iohannis. 
 
Iohannis, who is up for re-election in November, said the PSD-led coalition was “the moral author of the tragedy” because of its measures against the judiciary. 
 
The interior minister resigned, while the chief of Romanian police, the education minister and several other officials were fired. 

Allegations of crime, trafficking
 
However, media allegations of organized crime and human-trafficking networks’ ties to senior politicians and local police continue to surface, adding to what many Romanians already see as growing social insecurity. 
 
According to U.N. estimates, at least 3.4 million people have left Romania since 2007, when it joined the EU — a number second only to the refugee total from war-torn Syria. The World Bank said roughly 3 million to 5 million Romanians are working and living abroad, in jobs ranging from day laborers to doctors. 
 
Furthermore, the latest Romanian statistics show that almost 220,000 people emigrated in 2017 after the PSD-led coalition took over in December 2016 and initiated a series of measures to weaken the judiciary and the rule of law. 
 
Many Romanian expatriates had planned to attend Saturday’s protests. 
 
“We were defeated last year,” a woman from the northeastern city of Iasi told reporters on her way to Bucharest. ‘We failed to push for change after August 10. We did not continue the fight to reform the system. As a result of our complacency, two girls are now dead.” 

…

Amanda Browder works with fabrics of all kinds. But, instead of creating clothing for people, she “dresses up” buildings with her unique style of installation art. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.
 

…

More than a year has passed since protests against changes to Nicaraguas pension program turned into a full scale socio-political crisis. The government crackdown by President Daniel Ortega has resulted in more than 200 deaths, and forced more than 65,000 people to leave the country. Among them journalists who say they’ve been targeted. But even though they’re not there, many of these journalists are still sending the news back home. VOA reporter Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story.
 

…

For many years, the United States has been issuing advisories, warning potential travelers about countries plagued by terrorism or armed conflict.  But now, Amnesty International, Japan, Uruguay and other countries are warning about the danger of travel to the U.S., citing gun violence. This sparked a response from President Donald Trump, as VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
 

…

Cameroon has instructed its military to be on the alert as Equatorial Guinea says it is building a border wall to stop Cameroonians and West Africans from illegally entering its territory. Equatorial Guinea’s announcement comes as officials of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) regional economic bloc, of which Equatorial Guinea is a member, are encouraging the free movement of people and goods to boost economic growth in the region.

Thirty-two-year old Cameroonian merchant Kome Pascal imports wine from Equatorial Guinea. He also exports cement, roofing sheets and farm produce from Cameroon to the neighboring nation. 

“I feel very bad because goods will not come again into Cameroon and farmers who sell in Equatorial Guinea, what do they expect them to do with their goods,” he told VOA. “Building that particular wall is not going to permit Cameroonians to sell their goods.” 

When Equatorial Guinea said it was building the wall and erected milestones on the border near the Cameroon town of Kye-Ossi, Cameroon army chief Lieutenant General Rene Claude Meka visited the border. Meka said he was told the neighboring state was not respecting territorial limits and was encroaching on Cameroon land. He said the Cameroonian army would not tolerate any unlawful intrusion.

Anastasio Asumu Mum Munoz, Equatorial Guinea ambassador to Cameroon, was called up by Cameroon’s minister of external relations on Thursday to explain his country’s plans for the border.

Ambassador Munoz said his country plans to build a wall, but that reports that the its military had installed milestones in Cameroon territory are misleading.

Equatorial Guinea has always accused Cameroon of letting its citizens and West Africans enter its territory illegally.

More than 100 migrants from Togo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Benin on their way to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are currently stranded in Cameroon after they were rescued from their capsizing vessel in the Atlantic Ocean.
 
Cameroonian-born Christian Mbock, visiting lecturer of international relations at the National University of Equatorial Guinea, said the wall will stop illegal migrants and secure Equatorial Guinea.

“There was a problem in Equatorial Guinea because there was a coup there, then the government had to protect itself and said that the government was suspending the implementation of [CEMAC’s decision for free movement],” he said. “It is a complex situation.”

Equatorial Guinea has often sealed its border with Cameroon, complaining of security threats posed by illegal immigration.

In December 2017, Equatorial Guinea said it had arrested 30 foreign armed men from Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan on the border.  The report said they possessed rocket launchers, rifles and a stockpile of ammunition to destabilize the government of President Theodoro Obiang, who has led oil-rich Equatorial Guinea since 1979.

Cameroon said it also arrested 40 heavily-armed men on the 290-kilometer boundary. 

Both countries are members of the CEMAC, which in 2017 said it had reached a milestone when heads of state meeting in Chad lifted visa requirements for their 45 million citizens traveling within the six-member nation economic bloc.  
 

…

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said Friday he is not quitting despite facing mounting criticism for failing to properly take his oath of office.

Prayuth led the inauguration of his Cabinet in a ceremony presided over by the king on July 16.

However, he omitted a phrase in the oath of office in which he was supposed to pledge to uphold every aspect of the constitution. The omission has raised questions over whether the inauguration was legally valid.

Prayuth told reporters Friday that he was continuing to conduct his duties “to the best of my abilities because I am the prime minister.”

The oath of office is required under Article 161 of Thailand’s Constitution, which includes the complete oath and states it must be said to the king before Cabinet ministers take office.

Prayuth’s failure to recite the oath in full, which also led to other ministers making the same error because they repeated what he said, was pointed out by opposition politician Piyabutr Saengkanokkul during a Parliament session on July 25.

Legal activist Srisuwan Janya filed a complaint over the issue to the Office of the Ombudsman on Monday which has been accepted for consideration.

Prayuth led a military junta that seized power in 2014 and was dissolved with the inauguration of the new Cabinet. The junta had ruled with a heavy fist and regularly cracked down on its critics. It also introduced new election laws to favor Prayuth’s return as prime minister.

Mongkolkit Suksintaranont, a leader of a political party that was part of Prayuth’s coalition, said on Thursday that he and four other parties which hold single seats in the House of Representatives were leaving the coalition.

“I did not think that being part of the government coalition would mean that we would have such little freedom,” Mongkolkit said, adding that he had been told to refrain from criticizing the government in Parliament sessions.

When asked how he would handle the issue of the Cabinet’s incomplete oath of office, Mongkolkit said, “If I was prime minister, I would have resigned already.”

…

The World Food Program’s partial aid suspension in Yemen has increased concerns for families.

Mohammed Qaid worries for his four-day-old boy Nazeh.  Qaid has seven other children, and little hope that he can feed his family.  But this family is not the only household feeling the pinch of the recent reduction in food aid delivered to Sana’a.  

Qaid is among the thousands of residents in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, a Houthi stronghold, who is dependent on international humanitarian aid in the midst of the conflict.  The war has ravaged Qaid’s life, and his family now survives on scraps. “We’re now sort of dependent on restaurants’ leftover rice,” he told VOA.  “We pay dishwashers $0.80 for collecting leftover rice.”
 
Destitute and hungry, families have resorted to sending their children out to collect leftover rice granules.  Qaid tells VOA his young sons were crying the morning of the interview because he could not afford to pay the cost of two eggs, opting instead for tea. 

Normally, Qaid’s family would have received a monthly basket from the World Food Program consisting of 75 kilograms of wheat, two bottles of cooking oil, sugar, and lentils.  That stopped when WFP shipments were held up due to a standoff between the agency and the Houthi authorities.  Both sides had disagreed over who would be responsible for monitoring the food routing system.  U.N. officials now say they have the Houthi’s agreement to implement a biometric registration system to prevent diversion of food aid.  

The WFP says partial food aid to 850,000 people in Sana’a will resume next week, but the relief is not coming soon enough for many struggling to survive as the war heads into its sixth year.  

The conflict began in 2014 when the internationally-recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was run out of the capital, Sana’a, by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.  Prompted by rife political corruption and mounting civil unrest, the rebels took the capital and have been fighting against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which seeks to restore the previous government.   

As the war rages, 13 million Yemeni civilians on the ground face starvation.  U.N. officials say Yemen is suffering the world’s current largest humanitarian crisis and one of the largest man-induced famines in history. 

Critics identify two main culprits.  The first are the Houthi rebels, who have been accused of unlawfully confiscating food and reselling aid to fund the war.  The second is Saudi Arabia, whose campaign of air strikes and bombings of civilians has been labelled by the international rights group Human Rights Watch as illegal.  These attacks have not only made it difficult for Yemen to produce food, but also hampered efforts to get food aid to the people who need it most.   

Aid workers say grain often rots as supply routes are regularly attacked.  Saudi air strikes have not only targeted mosques, schools, stores and homes, but farms, grain storage units, seaports, and food factories. 

The food shipments that do make it through are often not getting to where they are most needed.  Speaking at the U.N. Security Council last year, WFP director David Beasley said there is “serious evidence that food was being diverted and going to the wrong people.”   As many as 60% of residents of the capital, he said, were not receiving food. 

 
WFP officials say using a biometric registration system that includes iris scanning, facial recognition, and fingerprints will help identify those who need aid the most and combat corruption in distribution.

Critics at the United Nations, WHO, and even within the United States, point to the U.S. role, which they say is propelling the conflict by selling billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. 

Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia had agreed to spend $110 billion in “leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism.”   While the arms deal mostly consists of letters of intent and is a far smaller number than the detailed $110 billion, the kingdom’s anti-terrorism campaign, along with its efforts to contain Iranian influence, are in line with Washington’s wider strategic interests in the region.  Houthis oppose this arms deal because they view Saudi Arabia as pandering to western influence and not supporting pan-Arab culture.   

While some claim the U.S. bears indirect responsibility for Yemen’s food shortages, others point, paradoxically, to America’s role in saving millions of Yemenis from starvation.  The United States donates approximately $2.5 billion annually–more than Britain, and Germany and other EU members combined. 

…

Investigators believe a man who stabbed four people to death and wounded two others targeted his victims at random during a bloody rampage across two Southern California cities, authorities said. 
 
The 33-year-old man from the city of Garden Grove was “full of anger” when he carried out violent attacks and robberies at businesses and killed two men at his own apartment complex during the two-hour wave of violence Wednesday, police said.

He was arrested as he walked out of a convenience store in the neighboring city Santa Ana, dropping a knife and a gun he had taken from a security guard he had just killed.

Authorities planned to release his name Thursday afternoon.

The violence appeared to be random and the only known motives seem to be “robbery, hate, homicide,” Garden Grove police Lt. Carl Whitney told reporters.

“We know this guy was full of anger and he harmed a lot of people tonight,” Whitney said Wednesday.

The attacker and four of the victims were described as Hispanic, while two victims were described as white, police said in a statement. Initially, all had been described as Hispanic.

The two people who were wounded were listed in stable condition Wednesday night and were expected to survive.

Romanian immigrant

One of the dead was identified by his son as a hard-working immigrant originally from Romania.

Erwin Hauprich said in a telephone interview that his father, Helmuth Hauprich, 62, called him Wednesday afternoon and told him his Garden Grove apartment had been burglarized. The father said his passport, green card, sword collection and even a dining table were taken.

Erwin Hauprich said his father never called back and he went to check on him after hearing there had been a stabbing at the complex.

A police officer told him that Helmuth Hauprich had been taken to the hospital, where he died, the son said. He said he was told his father’s roommate was killed in the apartment.

A body was removed from the complex by stretcher late Thursday morning.

Erwin Hauprich said his father left Romania first for Germany and then the United States more than two decades ago. He said his father worked on an assembly line and lived in the complex for years.

He said Helmuth Hauprich was a down-to-earth man who strove to make a life for his family.

Surveillance cameras 

Police said surveillance cameras caught some of the carnage.

“We have video showing him attacking these people and conducting these murders,” Whitney said.

Whitney said the man lived in an apartment building where he stabbed two men during some kind of confrontation. One man died inside and the other at a hospital.

Whitney said a bakery also was robbed.

The owner, Dona Beltran, said she sitting in her car charging her cellphone when she saw a tattooed man get out of a Mercedes and go inside the business. Beltran followed him inside to offer help, but kept quiet when she saw him trying to open the cash register. 
 
Beltran, 45, said she thinks he mistook her for a customer. He ended up taking the entire register with him, which had about $200, she said.

“I saved myself because I was in the car,” she said in Spanish on Thursday. “Thank God I am alive.”

‘Very brave’ victim

The man also robbed an insurance business, where a 54-year-old employee was stabbed several times and was expected to survive.

The woman “was very brave,” Whitney said. “She fought as best she could.”

An alarm company saw the robbery on a live television feed and called police.

The man fled with cash and also robbed a check-cashing business next door, the lieutenant said.

Afterward, the attacker drove up to a Chevron station, where he attacked a man pumping gas “for no reason,” Whitney said. 
 
The man was stabbed in the back and “his nose was nearly severed off his face,” the lieutenant said. 
 
Undercover detectives tracked the suspect’s silver Mercedes to the parking lot of the 7-Eleven in Santa Ana and within a minute the man emerged from the store, carrying a large knife and a gun that he had cut from the belt of a security guard after stabbing him, Whitney said.

Police ordered the man to drop his weapons and he complied and was arrested.

Police then learned that a male employee of a nearby Subway restaurant also had been fatally stabbed during a robbery, Whitney said.

The brutal and puzzling attack came just days after a pair of mass shootings in Texas and Ohio left 31 people dead and stunned the nation. 

…

The chief facilitator of negotiations between Venezuela’s socialist administration and opposition has downplayed the decision by President Nicolas Maduro to skip a scheduled round of talks.

Dag Nylander of Norway’s Foreign Affairs Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday he’s in contact with both sides about finding a date for talks to resume.

Maduro on Wednesday night said he had decided not to send envoys to the Caribbean island of Barbados, where talks were to resume Thursday. That was to protest the Trump administration’s decision to freeze the Venezuelan government’s assets in the U.S. and threaten to retaliate against foreign companies that continue to do business with his government.

Maduro’s government also said it would review the mechanism of the talks to ensure it contributes to an efficient solution to the problems Venezuelans face.

“Norway is facilitating the negotiation process at the request of the principal political actors in Venezuela and schedules all meetings based on the availability of the parties. Accordingly we are in touch with them regarding the next meetings,” said Nylander, the head of the peace and reconciliation office at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

He added:  “The facilitation continues under the principle that the parties would like it to, and that there are realistic prospects of a negotiated solution that can benefit the Venezuelan people.”

In announcing the sweeping move, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the dialogue between the government and opposition was being used by Maduro to buy time.

“We will not fall for these old tricks of a tired dictator,” Bolton declared Tuesday at a meeting in Peru of more than 50 governments aligned against Maduro. “No more time for tap, tap, tapping. Now is the time for action.”

But some believe Bolton’s admonishments might end of strengthening the negotiations, which have been taking place since May.

The United Nations reiterated Thursday U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “strong support” for Norway’s mediation effort.

“Our position is unchanged — that only a settlement through negotiations will solve this ongoing situation,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric.  

Meanwhile, the U.N.’s top human rights official criticized the U.S.’ response as overhanded and bound to intensify suffering in a country already racked by six-digit hyperinflation, food shortages and an economic recession worse than the U.S. Great Depression.

Michelle Bachelet, who sharply criticized Maduro’s human rights record following a visit to the country in June, said that provision in the new sanctions allowing for the shipment of food and medicine are unlikely to suffice.

“They are still likely to significantly exacerbate the crisis for millions of ordinary Venezuelans, especially as there will certainly be over-compliance by financial institutions around the world that have commercial relations with the governments of the US and Venezuela,” she said.

…

Witnesses say fears of the Ebola virus have brought border traffic between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to a virtual standstill. Long lines and lengthy delays at the border crossings have left many traders frustrated, but officials say health checks are necessary to stop the spread of the deadly virus. 

Beatrice Irunga, a 35-year old Congolese trader, says no one can cross the border without washing hands and being checked for fever.

The measures are necessary to prevent people from carrying the virus across the border. But trade-wise, Ebola fears have hit hard.

Jemima Ibrahim, a Congolese trader who sells rice and oil in Rwanda, says the long delays at the crossing are costing her time and money.

“The loss is huge,” she said. “We buy goods here in Rwanda. To export them to Congo is becoming very hard.”

Rwandan Claudine Irunga says she owns a shop in Goma, on the Congolese side, but can’t reach it because of the delays.

“I left Goma in the morning,” she said. “My shop is open now, and here they are not allowing us to go regardless of every document you can have. I am so sad. They say the border is open, but just look.”

The Rwandan government estimates that 80,000 people cross between Goma and the Rwandan city of Gisenyi each day.

The government has not said the border is closed. However, it is urging its people not to enter the eastern DRC, where the Ebola virus has killed more than 1,800 people over the past year.

Dr. Diane Gashumba, Rwanda’s Minister of Health, is encouraging Rwandans not to go to DRC, and instead to find other ways to do their business in the country.

This stance goes against advice from the World Health Organization.

Dr. Kasonde Mulenga Mwinga, WHO country director, supports a flow of people to the member country to be able to address the response that is needed there.

The Rwandan and Congolese health ministers met Tuesday to discuss measures to stop the Ebola outbreak from spreading.

Afterward, they said they resolved to enact ways that allow for smoother border crossings while taking “very strong measures to keep the epidemic at bay.”

…

Samsung unveiled a new version of the Galaxy Note smartphone on Wednesday with fast 5G network connection and improved camera features, hoping the premium model helps it revive slumping profit and widen the gap with struggling rival Huawei.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has emerged as the biggest beneficiary  of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.’s trouble in the second quarter with a nearly 7% jump in smartphone sales, as the Chinese firm sold fewer phones in the global market after it was put on a U.S. trade blacklist in May.

With emphasis on improved video and photography features, which helped Huawei become the world’s No. 2 smartphone vendor, Samsung hopes the Galaxy Note 10 will appeal to YouTubers and fans of social media.

Along with its first foldable phone, the big-screen Note 10, unveiled at an event in New York on Wednesday, is the South Korean tech firm’s most important new product planned in the second half of this year to expand its mobile sales.

With two screen sizes of 6.3 inches and 6.8 inches, the Note 10 boasts enhanced video effects such as augmented reality and stabilization modes, and a front-facing camera centrally located at the top of the display for better selfies. It lacks a headphone jack, a tweak Apple Inc. made to its smartphones three years ago.

The Note 10 will be sold starting at $949.99 while the bigger Note 10 plus will start at $1,099. The Note 10 model with 5G capability will start at $1,299.99.

The phone will go on sale Aug. 23 and square off against Apple’s latest iPhones, which are widely expected to come out later this year.

Samsung declined to disclose its sales target for the new Note series, but said it expected to achieve higher sales volume than the predecessor Note 9 models.

Analysts expect similar shipments of about 9.6 million units, with price likely to be the most important factor in a weak market. The global smartphone market shrank 3% in the June quarter, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

“It is hard to expect strong sales for the new Note with just a few upgrades in its camera features,” said Park Sung-soon, an analyst at Cape Investment & Securities.

Samsung is reeling from sagging profits in its mobile division due to weak sales of flagship models, even as it boosted overall shipments by 6.7% and stayed on top with market share of 22% in the second quarter.

Its first foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, is set to go on sale in September, but analysts say headlines about glitches with sample Folds will dampen consumer excitement around the launch.

…

North Korea is encouraging its beauty-conscious middle class women to choose domestic cosmetics over foreign brands in an effort to boost self-reliance as international sanctions deepen. 

Promoting homegrown beauty has been a political strategy since the days of state founder Kim Il Sung, but has become more focused under his foreign-educated grandson, Kim Jong Un. 

The international popularity in recent years of South Korea’s K-beauty trend — innovative cosmetic products with natural ingredients such as ginseng and snail slime — has added momentum, say defectors who fled the North and experts who study the isolated state. 

But North Korea’s push has yet to translate to a winning formula, marred by quality issues and constraints in obtaining foreign ingredients because of sanctions over its nuclear program. 

Leader Kim Jong Un was once dismissive of domestic beauty products. 

“Foreign eye liners or mascaras stay on even after get into water, but domestic products make raccoon eyes even with just a yawn,” Kim said during his visit to a Pyongyang cosmetics factory in 2015, according to the Japan-based Choson Sinbo newspaper. 

But Kim has since visited cosmetics factories several times with his wife to promote the products. 

Earlier this year, North Korea’s state-run television KRT aired a video about Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory showing a woman replacing Chanel products with domestic products instead. 

“Lots of foreign customers living in the state visit our shop. Sheet mask, lipstick and cleansing products are best sellers,” Yang Su Jong, a sales assistant at Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory, told Reuters on a rare visit to the capital last year. 

Chanel, in response to Reuters’ questions, said it did not export products to North Korea and any items on sale there were likely counterfeits or diverted products. 

First lady and a girl band

North Korea has long regulated its citizens’ appearance. 

Hair dyeing, blue jeans and clothes with writing in English were banned under Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, as the reclusive country tried to keep Western influences out. 

But that has changed since Kim came to power in 2011 and began making public appearances with first lady Ri Sol Ju, a former member of a pop orchestra. 

Nam Sung-wook, a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University, said the young first lady’s short haircut and colorful suits appealed to a desire for self-expression within the constraints of North Korea’s society. 

“There was no role for the first lady in Kim Jong Il’s era,” Nam said. “But the Kim Jong Un era gave rise to first lady Ri Sol Ju, who furthered the regime’s interest in cosmetics.” 

Kang Na-ra is one North Korean defector who said she used to buy South Korean cosmetics at private markets known as jangmadang that are the backbone of the North’s informal market economy.

“I really wanted to copy K-pop idol’s makeup style when I was in the North,” she said. 

Today women are encouraged to follow style trends set by the first lady or the ‘Moranbong’ band, Pyongyang’s all-female answer to K-pop.

“North Korea is such a tightly controlled society and a style we can follow is very limited. Ri Sol Ju or Moranbong band members are our only allowable role models,” said the 21-year-old Kang who fled to the South in 2014 and now runs a YouTube channel sharing tips on beauty and North Korean culture.

New markets and limits

Pyongyang Cosmetic Factory shipped its first batch of Unhasu brand cosmetics to a new boutique in Moscow in May, Russian media reported.

“Korean Care,” another Russian cosmetics shop selling South Korean products online, started importing North Korean beauty products directly from Pyongyang last year.

The company, which targets Russian women and has more than 10,000 customers, said the selling point for North Korean products was their natural ingredients and minimal preservatives.

“I am a fan of all kind of new cosmetics, and it was especially interesting because it’s North Korean,” said Margarita Kiselyova, 45, a Russian customer who bought aloe vera moisturizer and anti-ageing cream. “Overall, I am satisfied with the quality.”

However, Nam, the Korea University expert, and leading South Korean cosmetics firm Amorepacific tested 64 North Korean products and found quality issues in seven of them, including traces of potential harmful ingredients methylparabens, propylparabens and talc. 

Amorepacific told Reuters it did not have further details of the tests. 

Pyongyang Cosmetic Factory says its Unhasu line has received quality assurance certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), but Reuters could not independently verify those claims. 

“Developing new cosmetics products requires supplies of new materials and substances from overseas, but current U.N. sanctions prohibit the North from importing chemicals, which makes product development difficult,” Nam said. 

Most North Koreans still prefer higher priced South Korean products especially for gifts, said Kang Mi-jin, an economics expert who regularly speaks with North Koreans for Daily NK, a news website run by defectors.

“Even if it’s hard to get, people try to buy South Korean cosmetics for their fiancees as a wedding gift, since it is regarded as the best and symbol of wealth,” Kang Mi-jin said.
 

…

Thousands marched Wednesday in Caracas in support of President Nicolas Maduro, two days after the United States imposed the toughest sanctions yet on Venezuela. 

National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello, considered the country’s second most powerful leader, called the latest sanctions “a new aggression amongst the madness of genocides that govern the United States.” 
 
Others at Wednesday’s rally accused President Donald Trump of wanting to “get his hands” on Venezuela. 
 
Reporters in Caracas said most of those marching were government workers and militia members. 
 
The Trump administration has banned all U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with the Maduro government as part of U.S. pressure to drive him from power. 
 
The U.S. was the first of more than 50 countries to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president.  
 
Guaido declared himself Venezuelan leader in January, using his constitutional authority as the National Assembly president to declare Maduro’s  
re-election last year illegitimate because of fraud. 
 
Russia, China, Iran and Cuba are Maduro’s top defenders. 
 
Guaido’s popular uprising against Maduro earlier this year appears to have lost much of its steam, but the U.S. is still determined to see Maduro go and says military action is still on the table. 
 
The collapse of world energy prices, corruption and failed socialist policies have wrecked the oil-rich Venezuelan economy. Basic food staples and fuel are in severely short supply, and millions of Venezuelans have fled the country. 
 
Maduro has refused to consider early elections and has used violence against anti-government protesters. 

…

Ayaz Gul in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

As Kashmir remained locked down for a second straight day, India’s parliament approved scrapping the special status that gave Kashmir significant autonomy, and passed a bill to split the state. 

Plunged in a communications blackout and a virtual shutdown, it has been difficult to ascertain the reaction local residents to the radical steps.

Curfew-like restrictions continued on Tuesday. Troops patrolled deserted streets with barbed wire barricades in the capital, Srinagar, while the internet, mobile and landlines remained suspended to stem protests in the region wracked by a violent separatist struggle for three decades.   

The measures passed by an overwhelming majority in the lower house of parliament are being seen as a message that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a tough stance on Kashmir and with rival Pakistan, with whom India has a long-running dispute over control of the Himalayan region. 

After the vote, Modi called it a “momentous occasion in our parliamentary democracy.” In a tweet he said, “Together we are, together we shall rise, and together we will fulfill the dreams of 130 crore Indians!”

The steps fulfill a long-standing pledge of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to end the constitutional provision that allowed Kashmir to have its own constitution and draft its own laws on all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications. 

Kashmir also will be split into two federally administered territories, effectively tightening New Delhi’s grip on the region. One will comprise of the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and Hindu-majority Jammu, and the second of Buddhist-majority Ladakh. All Indian laws will now apply in Kashmir. 

Barring the main opposition Congress Party and a handful of regional parties, the BJP has won wide support for overturning Kashmir’s autonomous status. 

Defending the radical moves, Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament the special status granted to Kashmir was responsible for fomenting terrorism in the region, and revoking it would break down the wall created with the rest of India. He said it did not mean that India had given up its claim to Pakistani Kashmir. 

The most significant difference now is that with Kashmir placed on par with the rest of the country, outsiders can buy land and live in the region, which was banned earlier. The government says this would open up the area to investment and spur development.

Divided support

But opinion remains sharply divided on whether these steps will help New Delhi meet its goal of integrating Kashmir with the rest of the country and ending an armed rebellion, or whether it will exacerbate tensions in the region where anti-Indian sentiment runs deep. 

Congress Party leader Shashi Tharoor warned that it would give a “fresh lease of life to terrorism” and would make Kashmir, where Muslim insurgents have been waging a separatist struggle, more vulnerable to militant groups like Islamic State.

Several political commentators say Kashmiris will view the steps as a ploy to take away their special “identity.” 

“India will now come across as the hard Indian state instead of the soft Indian state,” said independent political analyst Neerja Chowdhury, pointing out that previous governments had always tried a “carrot and stick” policy. She says the measure could deepen alienation among Kashmiris. 

In New Delhi, most newspapers carried banner headlines on what most hailed as a “bold” move, but also warned that it carried risks and said it was a politically and communally contentious step.

“India’s decision is sure to spark unrest in Kashmir, and especially in the Kashmir Valley, once the Indians end their lockdown there,” said Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based expert on South Asian affairs. He told VOA the move “could even spark a new phase of insurgency, that is if India gives insurgents enough space to operate.”

The word “historic” has reverberated in parliament during the two-day debate, but in different contexts. Ruling party benches have said they have corrected a “historic” injustice done to Kashmir, while the opposition Congress Party has slammed it as a “historic blunder.” 

The move has infuriated pro-India parties in Kashmir, who call it a betrayal of trust. Three Kashmiri political leaders under detention in a government guest house have warned the step will backfire and deepen anger among Kashmiris.

…

The Buddhist enclave of Ladakh cheered India’s move to break it away from Jammu and Kashmir state, a change that could spur tourism and help New Delhi counter China’s influence in the contested western Himalayas.

Beijing, though, criticized the announcement, made on Monday by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a wider policy shift that also ended Jammu and Kashmir’s right to set its own laws. In a statement on Tuesday, China said the decision was unacceptable and undermined its territorial sovereignty.

Ladakh is an arid, mountainous area of around 59,146 square kilometers (22,836 square miles), much of it uninhabitable, that only has 274,000 residents. The rest of Jammu and Kashmir is roughly 163,090 square kilometres (62,969 square miles) with a population of some 12.2 million.

China and India still claim vast swaths of each other’s territory along their 3,500 km (2,173 mile) Himalayan border.

The Asian rivals had a two-month standoff at the Doklam plateau in another part of the remote Himalayan region in 2017.

“The fact that India took this move … can be seen as one way that India is trying to counter growing Chinese influence in the region,” said Sameer Patil, a Mumbai-based fellow in international security studies at the Gateway House think-tank.

In a statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China contests the inclusion of what it regards as its territory on the Indian side of the western section of the China-India border.

“India’s unilateral amendment to its domestic law, continues to damage China’s territorial sovereignty. This is unacceptable,” Hua said.

In response to a question about Hua’s statement, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said on Tuesday the Ladakh decision was an internal matter.

“India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise,” said Kumar, without directly mentioning China.

Patil from Gateway House said monks he interviewed in Ladakh told him China-endorsed monks had been extending loans and donations to Buddhist monasteries in the area in an apparent bid to win influence.

Reuters was not able to contact any monks in Ladakh.

“Our Own Destiny”

By announcing it would turn Ladakh into its own administrative district, the Indian government fulfilled a decades-long demand from political leaders there.

Ladakh locals were tired of being hurt or ignored because of the many years of turmoil in the Kashmir Valley resulting from separatist militant activity and the Indian military’s moves to crush them.

Local politicians and analysts expect the change to bring Ladakh out of the shadow of Kashmir, which has long been a flashpoint with Pakistan. It could also help the area pocket more government funding as it seeks to build up its roads and facilities to lure tourists.

“We are very happy that we are separated from Kashmir. Now we can be the owners of our own destiny,” Tsering Samphel, a veteran politician from the Congress party in Ladakh, said on Tuesday. He added the area felt dwarfed by Jammu and Kashmir – which is a majority Muslim area – and that the regions had little in common culturally.

In Ladakh’s city of Leh on Monday, members of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party danced in the streets and distributed sweets, Reuters partner ANI reported.

Ladakh will be governed by a centrally-appointed lieutenant governor, handing New Delhi stronger oversight over the area.

However, while Ladakh will become a Union Territory, it will not have its own legislature – a sore point for some locals.

“Hopefully we will be getting that also, slowly,” said Samphel, 71, adding that local politicians would put that demand to New Delhi.

Ladakh’s economy, traditionally dependent on farming, has benefited from tourists visiting ancient monasteries and trekking up mountain peaks.

P. C. Thakur, general manager of The Zen Ladakh hotel in Leh, hopes that dissociating from Jammu and Kashmir will further attract visitors. He expects the hotel’s occupancy to jump by up to 7 percentage points from an average of around 80-85% currently.

“Next year will be good,” he said.

…

Small-satellite launch firm Rocket Lab announced on Tuesday a plan to recover the core booster of its Electron rocket using a helicopter, a bold cost-saving concept that, if successful, would make it the second company after Elon Musk’s SpaceX to reuse an orbital-class rocket booster.

“Electron is going reusable,” Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck said during a presentation in Utah, showing an animation of the rocket sending a payload into a shallow orbit before speeding back through Earth’s atmosphere. “Launch frequency is the absolute key here.”

The Auckland, New Zealand-based company is one of a growing cadre of launch companies looking to slash the cost of sending shoebox-sized satellites to low Earth orbit, building smaller rockets and reinventing traditional production lines to meet a growing payload demand.

Electron, which has flown seven missions so far, can send up to 496 pounds (225 kg) into space for roughly $7 million.

Medium-class launchers such as Los Angeles-based Relativity Space can send up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) into space for $10 million while Cedar Park, Texas-based firm Firefly can do it for $15 million.

Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which reignites its engines to land steadily back on Earth “propulsively” after much larger missions costing around $62 million, Rocket Lab’s Electron will deploy a series of parachutes to slow its fall through what Beck called “the wall” – the violently fast and burning hot reentry process the booster endures shooting back through Earth’s atmosphere.

A helicopter will then hook the booster’s parachute in mid-air as it descends over the ocean and tow it back to a boat for recovery, Beck said.

“The grand goal here is, if we can capture the vehicle in wonderful condition, in theory we should be able to put it back on the pad, recharge the batteries up, and go again,” Beck said.

Some launch companies, such as Boeing-Lockheed venture United Launch Alliance which flies its Atlas V rocket, are skeptical of the economic case for reusing first-stage boosters propulsively, arguing that the fuel spent landing the rocket through the dense atmosphere and back on Earth would be better used to launch heavier payloads.

Beck said propulsive recoveries like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 “don’t scale well” with Electron’s smaller build, anyway. A spokeswoman would not say how much money Rocket Lab expects to save from its foray into hardware reusability, but said “cost reductions could flow from this in time.”

…

Ugandan musician and opposition leader Bobi Wine is urging police to investigate the death of one of his supporters who died from injuries sustained during torture by unknown abductors.

Wine said the victim, an entertainer whose stage name was Zigy Wyne, was missing an eye and two fingers when he was found dumped outside a hospital. He was hospitalized for a week before his death Sunday.

Wine’s statement said that supporters of his People Power movement have been targeted by state agents.

Joel Ssenyonyi, a spokesman for People Power, said Tuesday that until police find contrary evidence the group presumes the torture was politically motivated.  

Police spokesman Fred Enanga told reporters that police are investigating and urged the victim’s relatives to provide information to authorities.

…

The European Union says its door remains open should British Prime Minister Boris Johnson want to discuss his country’s departure from the bloc but it insists that the Brexit divorce agreement cannot be renegotiated.

EU Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Tuesday that the Brexit agreement “is the best possible deal” that Britain is going to get.

Johnson says he will take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal, raising fears of a damaging no-deal exit.

He says the backstop arrangement to keep goods flowing smoothly between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland in the U.K. would bind his country to European trade rules and must be dropped from the Brexit agreement.

Breidthardt says Brussels is available should Britain “wish to hold talks and clarify its position in more detail.”

…

The scars from the nine bullets the gunman fired into Temel Atacocugu run down his left side like knotty rope. But it’s the recurring mental images from that day at the mosque that he often finds hardest to cope with: The gunman’s face. The puff of smoke from his gun. The worshippers falling as they clamored to escape.

After coming so close to dying nearly five months ago, Atacocugu feels he has been “reborn.” And this week he plans to express his gratitude to God for being given the chance for a new life when he participates in the hajj, the holy Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

The 44-year-old kebab shop co-owner is among 200 survivors and victims’ relatives from the Christchurch mosque shootings who are traveling to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman. The king is paying for their airfare, accommodation and travel costs, a bill that will run well over $1 million. The group will also travel to holy sites in Medina.

Lives Forever Changed by Christchurch Shootings

On a small farm on the outskirts of Christchurch in New Zealand, Omar Nabi digs a small hole and sharpens a knife as he prepares to slaughter a sheep as a blessing to his father — a victim of the mass killings at the Al Noor mosque.

Hunched between his father’s collection of rusted cars, Nabi softly said a prayer and slit the animal’s neck, facing it towards Mecca. He removed the pelt and prepared the meat for cooking. Blood was pooled in a hole where he plans to plant a tree.

All able-bodied Muslims are required to perform the hajj once in their lifetime, with many saving for years to make the journey. The annual pilgrimage draws nearly 2 million Muslims from around the world to Mecca and sites around it to perform a series of ancient rites and prayers meant to cleanse the soul of past sins and bring people closer to God.

The Saudi ambassador to New Zealand, Abdulrahman Al Suhaibani, says King Salman was shocked by the March 15 attacks at two mosques in which an Australian white supremacist has been charged with killing 51 people.

The Christchurch shootings have been cited as inspiration by other white supremacists, most recently in an attack at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, that left at least 22 people dead.

Each year, the king invites several hundred people to perform the hajj as his own guests, often selecting those most touched by tragedy that year. Al Suhaibani said this is the first time the king has invited anyone from New Zealand on his annual program to help get people to the hajj who otherwise may struggle to make it.

Two weeks ago, the ambassador traveled to Christchurch to hand out the simple white garments the male pilgrims will wear. The terry cloth garments worn by men are meant to strip pilgrims down of adornment and symbolize equality of mankind before God.

“It’s a wonderful time and this is a golden chance for people to get spiritual elevation,” says Gamal Fouda, the imam at the Al Noor mosque, one of the two mosques that were attacked.

Fouda, who also survived the shootings, is travelling with the group as a spiritual leader. He says that while all Muslims want to do the hajj, many tend to delay their trips due to the expense, especially from distant New Zealand.

Fouda says the memories of the shooting remain fresh in everybody’s minds and his mosque hasn’t yet returned to normal.

“The most important thing is that the New Zealand community, including Muslims, they stood together against hate,” Fouda says. “And we are still saying that hate is not going to divide us. We will continue to love each other.”

New Zealand Announces Assault Weapons Ban in Wake of Christchurch Mass Shootings

Nearly one week after 50 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand were gunned down, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed an immediate ban on all military-style semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles.

The ban, which Prime Minister Ardern announced Thursday in Wellington, includes high-capacity magazines, which can hold multiple rounds of ammunition, and accessories that can convert ordinary rifles into fast-acting assault rifles.

Atacocugu says he was feeling good on March 15 when he entered the Al Noor mosque for Friday prayers after finishing a final session with an acupuncturist, who was treating him for a sports injury.

When he saw the gunman walk into the mosque, he thought at first he was a police officer because of his paramilitary clothing. Then the man started shooting and Atacocugu found himself looking right at him as he fired a bullet into Atacocugu’s mouth, shattering his jaw.

“And then I said, ‘Oh my God, I am dying.’ When I see he’s shooting, when I see the smoke, I said, ‘Yeah, I’m dying.’ That’s the first thought,” Atacocugu says.

After falling to the floor, his left arm ended up protecting his vital organs as the gunman continued firing bullets into him.

Recovering at the Christchurch Hospital after the shooting, Atacocugu couldn’t eat for a week and couldn’t walk for three weeks. But after several surgeries, he’s now able to walk unassisted and get some use from his left hand. He has more surgeries ahead and is being helped in Saudi Arabia by his 21-year-old nephew, who is traveling with him.

Another of those traveling to the hajj is 33-year-old Aya Al-Umari, whose brother Hussein, 35, was among those killed at the Al Noor mosque.

“We had a very typical sibling relationship,” she says. “So you have your nagging elder brother, nagging little sister. But at the end of the day you love each other, even though you don’t verbally say it. But you just telepathically know that.”

She says witnesses and video taken by the gunman indicate her brother stood up to the attacker, allowing others to escape.

“So he fought to the very last minute,” she says. “And this is Hussein, in his nature. He’s always the type of person who would want to see if there is danger, he’d face it, he wouldn’t escape from it.”

When visiting Mecca, Al-Umari says, she’ll pray for her parents and herself to have the patience to cope with the loss of Hussein. She also plans to pray for the other families from her mosque who lost loved ones. And she says she feels her brother will be with her in Saudi Arabia.

“I will carry his presence with me the whole time when I’m in Mecca,” Al-Umari says. “He is with us every day. But in the journey, I will feel like he will accompany me.”

Al-Umari says she wants to return to the hajj another year.

“I will do my level best to make sure I fulfill my duty first, and then I will do it on his behalf next time,” she says.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. During the five-day pilgrimage, Muslims circle Islam’s most sacred site, the cube-shaped Kaaba, and take part in rituals intended to bring about greater humility and unity.

Fouda, the imam, says that while he has been to Mecca before, he has never been there during the hajj, so it will be a special journey for him as well.

“I will pray for God to forgive my sins, because every human is sinful,” he says.

“And I will also pray for the peace of the world. Peace for the people of Christchurch. Peace for the people of New Zealand. And peace for the whole world,” he says. “We ask God that we find a better world than we live in, rather than spreading hate.”

…

The Greek Orthodox Church says it has filed a new lawsuit against a Jewish settler group in a bid to overturn an Israeli Supreme Court decision upholding the sale of three properties in predominantly Palestinian parts of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Patriarchate claimed in a statement Monday that it had “clear proof” of corruption in the long-disputed 2004 sale of Old City properties, including two Palestinian-run hotels.

In June, the court ruled in favor of the Israeli organization, which seeks to increase the Jewish presence in Palestinian areas of the contested holy city.

Most Orthodox Christians in Jerusalem are Palestinian, and the sale of the properties to Israelis sparked outrage.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians seek it as capital of a future state.

…