Elvis Presley fans can take to the road in his personal stretch limousine, on his last motorcycle or in a pickup truck if they have the money, an auction house announced Wednesday.

Kruse GWS Auctions said the items will be part of its Artifacts of Hollywood auction on Aug. 31.

Presley drove the white-on-white 1973 Lincoln Continental stretch many times around Memphis, Tennessee, Kruse said. It features an old-school TV and other amenities. There are photos showing “the King” driving the car he was in when he stopped at a car accident in Memphis in 1976.

The auction house said a 1976 Harley Davidson FLH 1200 Electra Glide motorcycle was the last motorcycle Presley ever purchased. He transported it from California to Memphis and sold it 90 days before he died in 1977 at age 42. The Harley has been on display at the Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo, South Dakota, since the late 1980s.

The third Presley vehicle is one of three GMC pickups that Presley purchased in 1967 for his Circle G Ranch in Mississippi. Two years later, his father, Vernon, sold them back to the same dealership, the auction house said. It has undergone a total restoration.

…

Beyonce has dropped a new original song from Disney’s live-action “Lion King.”

The song, “Spirit,” was released Tuesday and should get an Academy-Award push for Academy Award consideration.

The tune comes at a pivotal moment for Nala, the character voiced by Beyonce, in the film that comes out July 18. She also co-wrote the song.

It’s part of an album called “The Lion King: The Gift” that Beyonce is executive producing and performing on along with other artists. It will be released digitally July 11, with the physical album coming July 19.

The collection is a companion to the main “Lion King” soundtrack, which consists mostly of songs from the animated film, along with a new number from Elton John and Tim Rice, who wrote the songs for the original.   

…

Demonstrations in Hong Kong are set to continue after protest leaders denounced Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s reluctance to withdraw a bill that would facilitate extradition to mainland China and her decision to not open an investigation into police conduct.  

Lam, who has characterized her government’s action surrounding the bill as a “complete failure,” declared the controversial extradition bill “dead” on Tuesday, after weeks of protests gripped the nation.   

Lam’s latest actions have failed to appease protestors, who seek to see the bill formally withdrawn.  

“We cannot find the word dead in any of the laws in Hong Kong or in any legal proceedings in the Legislative Council,” said Bonnie Leung, the vice-convener of the Civil Human Rights Front, an organization that worked to mobilize protestors against the extradition bill.

Many protestors worry that the government will attempt to pass the extradition bill at a later date.

Lam has attempted to reassure critics, telling reporters at a press conference that “there is no such plan” to push through the bill in the future.

Activists have also criticized Lam for not opening an independent investigation into the conduct of police officers during the protests.

“How can the government tell us that we should preserve our rule of law, when [Lam] herself does not use the principle without actually speaking to them directly,” Jimmy Sham, another CHRF leader, said in a joint statement with Leung.
 
Lam said that her decision not to withdraw the bill has “nothing to do with [her] own pride or arrogance,” calling the decisions “practical”.

“Give us the time and room for us to take Hong Kong out of the current impasse,” she said.

Joshua Wong, another activist in Hong Kong, also called for Lam to cease prosecution for activists and investigate police conduct.

“As former Chief Justice Andrew Li pointed out today, an independent inquiry is a necessary move to solve the current governance crisis,” he said.

“She has to stop prosecuting activists who participated in the protests,” he later wrote.

…

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, earned more than $15 million in the two years after Biden left government in early 2017, according to tax records released by his campaign on Tuesday.

The majority of their income came from speaking engagements and payments for two books written by Biden, a top contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

The former U.S. senator from Delaware served as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years, leaving office in January 2017 after the election of Republican President Donald Trump.

According to federal and state tax returns, the Bidens earned about $11 million in 2017 and $4.58 million in 2018.

About $13.2 million of that was attributable to book payments.

Biden earned more than $775,000 in salary as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 and 2018.

The Biden campaign released a financial disclosure form mandated for presidential candidates, which provided details of his speaking engagements and book events from Jan. 1, 2018, to May 31, 2019.

The form shows that Biden, who likes to refer to himself as “Middle-Class Joe” on the campaign trail, was regularly paid a six-figure fee for speaking events, many at private universities such as Drew University, where he was paid $190,000, and Vanderbilt University, where he received $180,000.

Last October, Biden received $182,679 for speaking to the Economic Club of Southwest Michigan. In that speech, Biden drew flak from some Democrats for praising Republican U.S. Representative Fred Upton shortly before the 2018 congressional elections.

Most of Biden’s book events and speaking events took place at theaters and auditoriums, but two events were handled through Creative Artists Agency’s Premium Experience – which specializes in “corporate hospitality” events. For a CAA book tour event in 2017, Biden was paid $234,000.

The campaign did not provide any detailed information about Biden’s speaking engagements in 2017.

According to the couple’s tax returns, they paid $3.7 million in federal taxes in 2017 and donated about $1 million to charity. In 2018, they paid $1.5 million in federal taxes and donated about $275,000 to charity.

…

More than 20 people including pregnant women and children have been killed in recent tribal violence in Papua New Guinea, media reported on Wednesday.

The death toll and dates of the violence in the remote highland province of Hela varied in reports by Australian Broadcasting Corp. and the Post-Courier newspaper.

Hela Gov. Philip Undialu told ABC the latest violence was on Monday when 16 people including women and children died at the village of Karida.

The killings were probably retaliation for an earlier attack that left around seven dead, Undialu said.

“This has escalated into the massacre of innocent women and kids,” Undialu said.

The Post-Courier, based in the South Pacific island nation’s capital Port Moresby, reported as many as 24 people were killed in the villages of Karida and Peta since Saturday.

Six people had been ambushed and killed near Peta on Saturday, Hela Police Chief Inspector Teddy Augwi told the newspaper.

The victims’ relatives retaliated with rifles the next day, killing between 16 and 18 people at Karida, including pregnant women, he said.
“This is not a tribal fight where the opposing villagers face each other on field,” Augwi told the newspaper. “This is a fight in guerrilla warfare, meaning they play hide-and-seek and ambush their enemies.”

Many villagers had fled the violence, Hela Administrator William Bando told the newspaper.

It was not immediately clear if any suspects had been arrested. Papua New Guinea Police spokesman Superintendent Dominic Kakas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Tribal violence is common in Papua New Guinea’s interior, where villagers avenge relatives in retaliation known as payback.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said those responsible for the fatal attacks could face the death penalty, ABC reported.

The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. 

…

A replica of the Mayflower will sail to Boston as part of commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ landing in Massachusetts.

Organizers say that the Mayflower II will be on display next year at the Charlestown Navy Yard from May 14 to May 19, and that visitors will have an opportunity to board the ship for free.

The vessel has been undergoing an $11.2 million restoration at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut since 2016.

The original Mayflower was lost to history after returning to England following its famous 1620 voyage to the New World.

The full-scale replica ship was built in England in the 1950s and has been berthed in Plymouth Harbor.

Plans are to take it back to Plymouth following the Mayflower Sails 2020 event. 

…

Turkish-born NBA basketball player Enes Kanter is a wanted man by Turkey, which has revoked his passport and considers him a terrorist for his association with an exiled spiritual leader accused of fomenting a 2016 coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  A longtime critic of Erdogan, Kanter has had his life threatened and sleeps with a panic button next to his bed.  But the basketball star remains focused on his sport and career, despite these hardships, as VOA’s Saba Shah Khan reports.

…

As he reveled in the huge display of military might during last week’s Independence Day celebration on the National Mall, U.S. President Donald Trump encouraged Americans to enlist in the military.

“To young Americans across our country, now is your chance to join our military and make a truly great statement in life, and you should do it,” Trump said in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House the following day, Trump predicted that his display would boost military enlistment. “Based on that, we’re going to have a lot of people joining our military,” he said.

However, with a 2016 Department of Defense report finding that nearly three-quarters of young Americans are unfit to serve in America’s military, Trump’s encouragement and military display may not be enough to reverse declining military recruitment.

According to the Department of Defense, the Navy, Marines, and Air Force met their recruiting goals in 2018, but the Army, the military’s largest branch, fell more than 6,500 recruits short – about 8% below its target of 76,500. 

A 2018 report by Mission: Readiness, a group of 750 retired military professionals that makes policy recommendations to increase the percentage of young Americans eligible to serve in the military, found that 71% of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 fail to meet all of the basic requirements for military service. 

The biggest disqualifier is obesity, with roughly 31% of American youths disqualified because they are overweight. Other factors explaining the shortage of eligible recruits are inadequate education, criminal history and drug use. According to Army Major Gen. (Ret.) Allen Youngman, a member of Mission: Readiness, almost 25% of high school graduates are unable to pass the basic military entrance exams, which not only disqualifies them from technical positions within the service but also from military service as a whole.

Not only is the pool of eligible recruits shrinking, but the number of young Americans interested in military careers is dropping as well, the report found. This is partly the result of a strong national economy, since plentiful civilian jobs may make military careers seem less appealing, according to Youngman.

As the number of people serving in the military declines, the problem is likely to get worse. “The number of what we call influencers in a young person’s life – people who may have had military service of their own who would serve as a role model or even encourage a young person to consider military service – is down because the number of persons who participate in the military over the years has gone down,” said  Youngman. The U.S. Army Recruiting Command reports that 79% of recruits have a relative who also served in the military.

Relaxing education or criminal history standards in order to enlarge the recruiting pool in light of the obesity issue isn’t an option, said General Youngman. “The position today is that the standards are the standards. We’ve just got to work harder to find young people who can meet them.”

However, the trends are not encouraging. 

By age two, 14% of American children are already considered obese, and the proportion of overweight or obese children increases with age, the Mission: Readiness report finds. In the 16-19 age group, 42% of Americans are overweight. These statistics carry over into adulthood, with 70% of overweight teens becoming overweight or obese adults.

The problem is especially acute in southern states, which provide a disproportionately large percentage of military recruits, but also have some of the highest rates of obesity in the nation.

Efforts are under way to improve the health of America’s youth.

As an example, Youngman cited the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which provides improved nutrition guidelines for school lunches. The program is the latest in a series of initiatives beginning with the National School Lunch Program in 1946.

“A lot of people don’t realize that the School Lunch Program started right after World War II as a national security program,” General Youngman said. “There was such concern about the overwhelming numbers of young people who were not qualified for military service in World War II because they grew up during the Great Depression and they had all sorts of nutrition issues that resulted in health issues later on.”

In the wake of the Great Depression, the goal of the School Lunch Program was to ensure that kids got enough calories from their school lunches. Today, calories are in general much easier to come by, so modern school lunch programs focus on helping students make healthier food choices. A 2014 study of 1,030 elementary-school children found that students selected 23% more fruit for their lunches and ate 16% more vegetables after the implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

Programs that seek to improve nutrition for school-aged children as well as encourage active lifestyles are important not only for military readiness, but also for society as a whole.

“There are some bright spots out there, but as a nation we still have a long way to go,” Youngman said.

…

The powerful Mojave Desert earthquakes that rocked California ended a years-long lull in major seismic activity and raised new interest in an early warning system being developed for the West Coast.

The ShakeAlert system is substantially built in California and overall is about 55% complete, with much of the remaining installation of seismic sensor stations to be done in the Pacific Northwest, said Robert de Groot of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Areas that have the appropriate number of sensors include Southern California, San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle-Tacoma region, de Groot said.

The system does not predict earthquakes. Rather, it detects that an earthquake is occurring, rapidly calculates expected intensity levels and sends out alerts that may give warnings ranging from several seconds to perhaps a minute before potentially damaging shaking hits locations away from the epicenter.

Depending on the distance, that could be enough time to automatically slow trains, stop industrial machines, start generators, pull a surgical knife away from a patient or tell students to put the “drop, cover and hold” drill into action.

For alerts to be useful, delivery has to be timely, and that’s a problem with current cellphone technology. For cellphone delivery, the USGS ultimately intends to use the same system that delivers Amber Alerts, sending signals to everyone in reach of cellphone towers in defined areas where damaging shaking is expected. 

Pilot programs involving select users have been underway for several years. In October, the USGS announced the system was ready to be used broadly by businesses, utilities, schools and other entities following a software update that reduced problems such as false alerts typically caused by a big quake somewhere in the world being misidentified as a local quake.

Currently, the only mass public notification is possible through a mobile app developed for the city of Los Angeles and functional only within Los Angeles County. 

The ShakeAlertLA app did not send alerts for last week’s two big quakes, but officials said it functioned as designed because the expected level of shaking in the LA area – more than 100 miles from the epicenters- was below a trigger threshold.

Thresholds for alerting are important because California has daily earthquakes.

“Imagine getting 10 ShakeAlerts on your phone for really small earthquakes that may not affect you,” de Groot said. “If people get saturated with these messages it’s going to make people not care as much.”

In the Mojave Desert on Monday, rattled residents cleaned up and officials assessed damage in the aftermath of Thursday’s magnitude 6.4 earthquake and Friday’s magnitude 7.1 quake centered near Ridgecrest.

President Donald Trump on Monday declared an emergency exists in California because of the quakes, paving the way for federal aid. The declaration authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

It could be several more days before water service is restored to the small town of Trona, where officials trucked in portable toilets and showers, said San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert. 

Ten residences in Trona were red-tagged as uninhabitable and officials expect that number to increase as inspectors complete surveys. Wert said he’s seen homes that shifted 6 feet (nearly 2 meters) off their foundations. 

Electricity was restored to Trona over the weekend, allowing people to use much-needed air conditioners as daytime temperatures approached 100 degrees (38 Celsius). 

Teams will need several more days to finish assessments in nearby Ridgecrest, where the number of damaged buildings will likely be in the dozens, Kern County spokeswoman Megan Person said.

Person says officials are bringing in counselors to help residents still on edge as aftershocks rattle the area. 

“You can’t feel every single one, but you can feel a lot of them,” she said. “Those poor people have been dealing with shaking ground non-stop since Thursday.”

…

The British government was hunting Monday for the source of a leak of diplomatic cables from Britain’s ambassador in Washington that branded President Donald Trump’s administration dysfunctional'' andinept.”

British officials are embarrassed by the publication of Kim Darroch’s unflattering assessment _ but more alarmed that sensitive confidential information has been leaked, possibly for political ends.
 
The leaked cables were intended for senior U.K. ministers and civil servants, and officials believe the mole will be found among British politicians or officials, rather than overseas.

“I’ve seen nothing to suggest hostile state actors were involved,” said Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman, James Slack.

The inquiry is being led by civil servants in the Cabinet Office, and Slack said police would only be called in “if evidence of criminality is found.”

It’s possible the leaker could be charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act, which bars public servants from making “damaging” disclosures of classified material. Breaching the act carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison, though prosecutions are rare.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said there would be “very serious consequences” if the culprit was caught.

He said the ability to communicate frankly was “fundamental” to diplomacy.

Slack said May had “full faith” in Darroch, a long-serving diplomat, although she didn’t agree with his characterization of the Trump administration.

He said ambassadors were hired to provide “honest, unvarnished assessments” of politics in the countries where they served, which didn’t necessarily reflect the views of the British government.

In the leaked cables _ published in the Mail on Sunday newspaper _ Darroch called the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran incoherent,'' said Trump might be indebted tododgy Russians” and raised doubts about whether the White House “will ever look competent.”

“We don’t really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” one missive said.

The cables cover a period from 2017 to recent weeks. Darroch has served as Britain’s envoy to Washington since 2016.

After the cables were published, Trump said the ambassador “has not served the U.K. well, I can tell you that.”

“We are not big fans of that man,” Trump said.

The leak is an embarrassment for outgoing prime minister May, who has sometimes clashed with Trump, and could make things difficult for Darroch, who is accused by some Brexit-backing U.K. politicians of a lack of enthusiasm for Britain’s departure from the European Union.

The journalist who reported the leak, Isabel Oakeshott, is a strong supporter of Brexit and ally of Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, Britain’s leading champion of Trump.

Trump said in 2016 that Farage would “do a great job” as ambassador to Washington.

Farage brushed off that idea on Monday, saying “I’m not a diplomat, and I think that’s quite an understatement.”

But Farage said Darroch’s comments were “pretty irresponsible.”

Robin Renwick, who served as Britain’s ambassador to Washington in the 1990s, said Darroch had done nothing wrong, but the leak had made his position “untenable.”

“There will of course be a decent interval. He will then have to be moved on,” Renwick told the BBC.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, who was meeting U.S. officials in Washington Monday, called the leak “malicious.”

“I think it is unconscionable that any professional person in either politics of the civil service can behave in this way,” he said.

Fox, who is due to meet Trump’s daughter Ivanka, told the BBC that he would apologize for the fact that standards of either our civil service or elements of our political class'' hadlapsed in a most extraordinary and unacceptable way.”

…

A 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck southwest Iran near the border with Iraq on Monday, causing one death due to a heart attack and dozens of injuries, the country’s relief and rescue organisation said.

The quake, whose epicenter was in the Masjed Soleiman area of Khuzestan province, hit at 11:30 am (0700 GMT) at a depth of 17 kilometers, the national seismological center reported.

The region was rattled by seven aftershocks, the strongest of which measured 4.7 magnitude, it said.

At least 45 people were injured, the head of Iran’s relief and rescue organization, Morteza Salimi, told state TV.

“One citizen at Masjed Soleiman also passed away due to a heart-attack after the earthquake,” Salimi said.

In nearby cities and villages affected by the quake, there were “only minor cracks in buildings” and roads to some villages were cut off.

Iran sits on top of major tectonic plates and sees frequent seismic activity.

In November 2017 a 7.3-magnitude tremor in the western province of Kermanshah killed 620 people.

In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake in southeast Iran decimated the ancient mud-brick city of Bam and killed at least 31,000 people.

Iran’s deadliest quake was a 7.4-magnitude tremor in 1990 that killed 40,000 people in northern Iran, injured 300,000 and left half a million homeless.

…

Iran’s nuclear energy agency said Monday the country has surpassed the limits on how much it was allowed to enrich uranium under the 2015 international nuclear deal.

Iran said it had passed 4.5% enrichment, breaching the 3.67% limit set in the accord aimed at restraining Tehran’s nuclear weapons development.

Iran said it could consider enriching uranium to 20% as the next step in its move to back away from its commitments under the nuclear deal, unless it gets the help it wants from the accord’s other signatories to overcome the crippling effect of U.S. economic sanctions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump after he withdrew from the pact last year.

Uranium enriched to 5% is sufficient to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, but still far below the 90% needed for building a nuclear weapon.

The United Nations atomic watchdog agency said it was in the process of verifying the Iranian claim that it had breached the enrichment limit.

The European Union, one of the signatories to the deal with Iran, said it was “extremely concerned” about Tehran’s action.

“We strongly urge Iran to stop and reverse all activities that are inconsistent with the commitments” it had made under the international agreement, the EU said in Brussels.

Russia said it is concerned about the Iranian action, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it had warned that Trump’s withdrawal from the pact would have negative consequences for global security.

Trump warned Iran on Sunday it “better be careful.”  

He did not specify to reporters any specific reactions his administration was considering, but reiterated the position that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump made his comment hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that Iran’s decision will lead to “further isolation and sanctions.”

“Nations should restore the longstanding standard of no enrichment for Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s regime with nuclear weapons would pose an even greater danger to the world,” Pompeo wrote.

Iran has threatened further steps away from the deal within 60 days if the remaining signatories do not help it avoid the effects of the U.S. sanctions. The remaining parties, along with Russia and the EU, are Britain, Germany, France and China.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif contended that Britain’s seizure of an Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar last week has set “a dangerous precedent and must end now.”

Zarif said on Twitter, “Iran is neither a member of the EU nor subject to any European oil embargo. Last I checked, EU was against extraterritoriality. UK’s unlawful seizure of a tanker with Iranian oil … is piracy, pure and simple. It sets a dangerous precedent and must end now.”

British Royal Marines impounded the tanker on suspicion it was carrying oil to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions, a claim Iran denied.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said last week Iran was prepared to enrich “any amount that we want” beyond the 3.67% level. He further pledged to resume construction of the Arak heavy water reactor, a project Iran agreed to shut down when it signed the 2015 deal. Iran has also already gone past the 300-kilogram limit for the amount of enriched uranium it is allowed to keep in its stockpile.

…

The heavily favored United States team has defeated Netherlands 2-0 in the women’s World Cup soccer final in Lyon, France, securing its fourth title and winning back-to-back tournaments for the first time.

The Americans defeated four other European teams — Sweden, Spain, France and England — on their way to the final, and dominated Sunday in defeating the reigning European champion Dutch.

Football analysts say the United States women’s national team went into the match as favorites because of their greater depth and experience than the Dutch.

One of the top American players, Megan Rapinoe, who sat out the semi-final win over the British with a slight hamstring strain, scored the opening goal for the U.S. side on a penalty kick in the 61st minute. Rose Lavelle added a goal in the 69th minute to seal the victory.

U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated the team on their win via Twitter.

Congratulations to the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team on winning the World Cup! Great and exciting play. America is proud of you all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 7, 2019

The U.S. also won the world title in 1991, 1999 and 2015, along with Olympic gold medals in 1996, 2004, 2008 and 2012. Germany is the only other country to win multiple women’s World Cups, in 2003 and 2007.

Former U.S. soccer star Julie Foudy explained before the match what was at stake for the Americans.

“They’ve done all the hard stuff. Weathering the storm that was the Spanish game. Beating the hosts in Paris. Knocking out a very good English team. But they … must bring it home to secure their legacy, especially against a team that doesn’t have the same depth of talent and which is playing on less rest,” she said.

Even as its success in the tournament earns it unprecedented acclaim at home, the U.S. women’s team is suing the country’s soccer federation for equal pay with members of country’s much less successful men’s national team. The pay disparity is pronounced, with female soccer players’ base salary roughly $30,000 less a year than their male counterparts. The players agreed to submit to arbitration following the end of the tournament.

The soccer federation awarded the men’s team a $5.4 million bonus after it lost in the round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup, while handing the women’s team $1.7 million when it won in 2015.

Rapinoe has also feuded Presiden Trump, saying that in opposition to his presidency she would not accept an invitation to go to the White House if the Americans won the title.

Trump said in response, “Megan should WIN before she TALKS,” and invited the whole team whether it wins or loses the title.

…

Malawi President Peter Mutharika has warned of unspecified action against the leaders of violent protests following his narrow recent election victory. 

Mutharika, whose legitimacy is being challenged by key opposition leaders, said during the country’s 55th Independence Day celebration in Blantyre on Saturday that he has learned the protests have nothing to do with election results, but are aimed at toppling his government. The protests organizers dispute this and say they cannot be intimidated.

The celebrations started with a morning of prayer, with religious leaders appealing for the return of peace and unity to a country now torn by political violence.
 
Malawi has faced street protests, which in many cases turned violent, since the Malawi Elections Commission announced on May 27 that President Mutharika had been re-elected.
 
The MEC declared Mutharika the winner with 39 percent of the vote, and said opposition Malawi Congress Party leader Lazarus Chakwera was a close second with 35 percent.
 
Vice President Saulos Chilima’s opposition United Transformation Movement Party came in third with 20 percent.
 
Chakwera and Chilima are challenging the election results in court, alleging ballot-stuffing and the use of a popular correction fluid to alter ballots.
 
Both opposition leaders shunned Mutharika’s Independence Day speech, in which he called for peace.

“This is the day we must raise our flags of patriotism,” said Mutharika. “This is a day everyone must show how we love this country. Malawi is the only country that we have. If we destroy this country, as we are currently doing, we have destroyed ourselves.”
 

However Mutharika had harsh words for the organizers of the protests. He said he knows that opposition leaders want to use the protests to unseat him because they lost the election “big time.”   

“Let me assure them that they will take over this government over my dead body. They will never, never take over this country. Let me warn them,” he said.
 
Mutharika said his government will soon hold accountable those who are leading the violent protests.
 
Gift Trapence is the deputy chairperson of the Human Rights Defenders Forum, a civil society group organizing the protests.

“We are not targeting unseating the government.  But our issue is with Dr. Jane Ansah, who failed to manage the election,” said Trapence.
 
Trapence said the protests will continue until Ansah resigns.
 
“You cannot be intimidated because for us to do demonstration is in our [Malawi] constitution. So, for us to be intimidated because people were exercising their rights, that’s something regrettable,” he said. 
 
Political commentator Vincent Kondowe said Mutharika could have used the occasion to call for peace talks with the opposition leaders.

“I think the president coult have gone further and reach out to the opposition and probably call for dialogue and then thereafter, moving forward peacefully. Because what it means now, where the tempers are already very high, it sparks more violent protests, on the side of opposition,” said Kondowe.

The protesters said Friday that they would hold another protest in Blantyre on Monday should Ansah fail to resign by before then.
 

…

Discord broke out in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition Sunday, after the United States urged the country to send ground troops to Syria as Washington looks to withdraw from the region.

“We want ground troops from Germany to partly replace our soldiers” in the area as part of the anti-Islamic State coalition, U.S. special representative on Syria James Jeffrey had told German media including Die Welt newspaper.

Jeffrey, who was visiting Berlin for Syria talks, added that he expects an answer this month.

Last year U.S. President Donald Trump declared victory against IS and ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 American troops from Syria.

A small number have remained in northeastern Syria, an area not controlled by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and Washington is pushing for increased military support from other members of the international coalition against IS.

“We are looking for volunteers who want to take part here and among other coalition partners,” Jeffrey said.

A clear rejection of the American request came from Merkel’s junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD).

“There will be no German ground troops in Syria with us,” tweeted a member of the interim SPD leadership, Thorsten Schaefer-Guembel.

“I don’t see people wanting that among our coalition partners” in Merkel’s centre-right CDU, he added.

But deputy conservative parliamentary leader Johann Wadephul told news agency DPA that Germany should “not reflexively reject” the US call for troops.

“Our security, not the Americans’, is being decided in this region,” added Wadephul, seen as a candidate to succeed Ursula von der Leyen as defense minister if she is confirmed as European Commission chief.

Syria’s war has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.

‘This isn’t a banana republic’

Washington has two goals in northeastern Syria: to support the US-backed Kurdish forces that expelled IS from northern Syria as they are increasingly threatened by Turkey, and to prevent a potential IS resurgence in the war-torn country.

The US is hoping Europe will help, pressuring Britain, France and now Germany, which has so far deployed surveillance aircraft and other non-combat military support in Syria.

However Germany’s history makes military spending and foreign adventures controversial.

Berlin sent soldiers to fight abroad for the first time since World War II in 1994, and much of the political spectrum and the public remains suspicious of such deployments.

As well as the SPD, the ecologist Greens, liberal Free Democrats and Left party all urged Merkel to reject the US request for troops.

The US appeal comes after Trump has repeatedly urged Berlin to increase its defence spending, last month calling Germany “delinquent” over its contributions to NATO’s budget.

But such criticisms have more often hardened resistance to forking out more on the military rather than loosening the country’s purse strings.

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told business newspaper Handelsblatt on Saturday that Trump wanted “vassals” rather than allies.

“I’d have liked the federal government to tell him once or twice that it’s none of his business” how much Germany spends on defense, Schroeder said.

“This isn’t a banana republic here!”

…

Joao Gilberto, a Brazilian singer, guitarist and songwriter considered one of the fathers of the bossa nova genre that gained global popularity in the 1960s and became an iconic sound of the South American nation, died Saturday, his son said. He was 88.

Joao Marcelo said his father had been battling health issues though no official cause of his death in Rio de Janeiro was given. “His struggle was noble. He tried to maintain his dignity in the light of losing his independence,” Marcelo posted on Facebook.

A fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova emerged in the late 1950s and gained a worldwide following in the 1960s, pioneered by Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim, who composed the iconic The Girl From Ipanema that was performed by Gilberto and others. His wife, Astrud Gilberto, made her vocal debut in the song.  

Began guitar at 14

Self-taught, Gilberto said he discovered music at age 14 when he held a guitar in his hands for the first time. With his unique playing style and modern jazz influences, he created the beat that defined bossa nova, helping launch the genre with his song Bim-Bom.

By 1961, Gilberto had finished the albums that would make bossa nova known around the world: Chega de Saudade; Love, a Smile and a Flower; and Joao Gilberto. His 1964 album Getz/Gilberto with U.S. saxophonist Stan Getz sold millions of copies.

“It was Joao Gilberto, the greatest genius of Brazilian music, who was the definitive influence on my music,” singer Gal Costa wrote on social media. “He will be missed but his legacy is very important to Brazil and to the world.”

Born in Bahia in northeastern Brazil, Gilberto moved to Rio de Janeiro at a young age. He was influenced by U.S. jazz greats and recorded songs in the United States, where he lived for much of the 1960s and 1970.

Over his career he won two Grammy Awards and was nominated for six, and the U.S. jazz magazine DownBeat in 2009 named him one of the 75 great guitarists in history and one of the five top jazz singers.

An entire subsequent generation of Brazilian musicians, including Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso, are considered his disciples.

Journalist and bossa nova expert Ruy Castro called the death of Gilberto a “monumental” loss.

Castro wrote in his book The Wave that Built in the Sea that Gilberto loved soccer and was a fan of the Fluminense club, whose games he liked to watch with a guitar in his hands.

‘A mystique’

“He managed to create a mystique about him abroad, being who he was and not even speaking English,” he told the Globo television station.

The musician had spent his final years wrapped in legal troubles, debts and disputes with his children. His last live performance was in 2008 and he canceled a commemorative show to mark his 80th year because of health problems.

With little interest in giving interviews, he’d become known as the “reclusive genius” in the streets of Leblon, the neighborhood in a southern part of Rio where he lived but was seldom seen.  

His funeral is to be held on Monday. He is survived by three children.

Singer Daniela Mercury called Gilberto a “genius who revolutionized popular Brazilian music. He taught us how to sing in the most beautiful way in the world.”

“Go in peace, maestro,” she wrote.

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Greeks vote on Sunday in a snap election that polls say will bring opposition conservatives to power, ending four years of leftist rule blamed for saddling the country with more debt and mismanaging crises.

The election is largely a showdown of two contenders.

Incumbent Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza party is on one side — a 44-year-old radical leftist who stormed to power in 2015 vowing to tear up the austerity rule book, only to relent weeks later.

On the other side of the fence is Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 51, of New Democracy. He is from a famous political dynasty; he hopes to follow the footsteps of his father as prime minister, while a sister of his was foreign minister.

Opinion polls put New Democracy’s lead at up to 10 percentage points, potentially giving it an absolute majority in the country’s 300-seat parliament. Voting starts at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) and ends at 7 p.m., with first official projections expected about two hours after voting ends.

Financial crisis

Greece endured a debilitating financial crisis from 2010 that saw the country needing a cash lifeline from its European Union partners three times.

The economy is the public’s main concern, said Thomas Gerakis of pollsters MARC.

“Voters want to know the government can give Greeks a better tomorrow,” he said. Some voters wanted to punish Syriza for reneging on past pledges, he added.

Tsipras was also roundly criticized for mismanagement of crises on his watch, and for brokering a deeply unpopular deal to end a dispute over the name of neighoring North Macedonia.

One hundred people died in a devastating fire that swept through a seaside village east of Athens last year; while Mitsotakis was quick to the scene to console survivors, Tsipras was out of the public eye for several days.

Greece wrapped up its last economic adjustment program in 2018, but remains under surveillance from lenders to ensure no future fiscal slippage. Though economic growth has returned to the country, unemployment is the eurozone’s highest at 18 percent.

New Democracy has promised to invest in creating well-paying jobs with decent benefits. The outgoing government, meanwhile, hopes voters will reward it for upping the minimum wage by 11 percent and reinstating collective bargaining.

Mitsotakis hopes that his reforms will persuade lenders to show more flexibility in due course.

“The first thing that is necessary for economic growth to be boosted is a stable government, a strong majority in the next parliament,” Mitsotakis told Reuters.

Tsipras said that a vote cast in favor of Mitsotakis would go to the political establishment that forced Greece to the edge of the precipice in the first place.

“Each and every one of you must now consider if, after so many sacrifices, we should return to the days of despair,” he told voters, wrapping up the pre-election campaign on Friday.

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British Interior Minister Sajid Javid will soon formally endorse Boris Johnson to be the next leader of the Conservative Party and the country’s next prime minister, the Sunday Times reported. 

Johnson is the front-runner in a contest with Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt to be the next leader. Voting is due to close on July 22, with the winner set to be announced the following day. 

Johnson has pledged to leave the European Union with or without a deal on Oct. 31 if he becomes prime minister, while Hunt has said that he would, if absolutely necessary, go for a no-deal Brexit. 

The Sunday Times said Javid has positioned himself to be Johnson’s finance minister, taking over from current Finance Minister Philip Hammond. 

It reported that in a speech on Tuesday, Javid will say: “Trust in our democracy will be at stake if we don’t make Oct. 31 a ‘deal or no deal’ deadline. To prepare that, we are agreed on the need for ramped-up no-deal preparations, including a budget.” 

The newspaper also said that Johnson would visit the United States before the end of September to meet President Donald Trump. 

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As governments around the world try to tackle air pollution problems, some cities are looking to ban fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. But cars and tractor trailers are not the only things that run on dirty fuels. A new vehicle will hit the market to tackle another source of emissions: ice cream trucks. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.

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Leftovers. It’s what’s for dinner. In Germany that saying does not just apply to people who cook too much at home. These days, more and more restaurants are selling their leftovers to hungry city dwellers at reduced prices. It’s good for business, good for the consumer and good for the environment. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. 

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Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser to the president, has been the subject of criticism and ridicule after her prominent involvement during President Donald Trump’s visit to Asia last week. Many are questioning her competence to be in such high-profile events, accusing the administration of harming the country’s interest through nepotism, as well as wondering whether the president is grooming his daughter for a bigger role in the future. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.

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Marilyne Tatang, 23, crossed nine borders in two months to reach Mexico from the West African nation of Cameroon, fleeing political violence after police torched her house, she said.

She plans soon to take a bus north for four days and then cross a 10th border, into the United States. She is not alone, a record number of fellow Africans are flying to South America and then traversing thousands of miles of highway and a treacherous tropical rainforest to reach the United States.

Tatang, who is eight months pregnant, took a raft across a river into Mexico on June 8, a day after Mexico struck a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump to do more to control the biggest flows of migrants heading north to the U.S. border in more than a decade.

Trump threats encourage migrants

The migrants vying for entry at the U.S. southern border are mainly Central Americans. But growing numbers from a handful of African countries are joining them, prompting calls from Trump and Mexico for other countries in Latin America to do their part to slow the overall flood of migrants.

As more Africans learn from relatives and friends who have made the trip that crossing Latin America to the United States is tough but not impossible, more are making the journey, and in turn are helping others follow in their footsteps, migration experts say.

Trump’s threats to clamp down on migrants have ricocheted around the globe, paradoxically spurring some to exploit what they see as a narrowing window of opportunity, said Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

“This message is being heard not just in Central America, but in other parts of the world,” she said.

Record breaking numbers from Africa

Data from Mexico’s interior ministry suggests that migration from Africa this year will break records.

The number of Africans registered by Mexican authorities tripled in the first four months of 2019 compared with the same period a year ago, reaching about 1,900 people, mostly from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which remains deeply unstable years after the end of a bloody regional conflict with its neighbors that led to the deaths of millions of people.

‘They would have killed me’

Tatang, a grade school teacher, said she left northwest Cameroon because of worsening violence in the English-speaking region, where separatists are battling the mostly French-speaking government for autonomy.

“It was so bad that they burned the house where I was living … they would have killed me,” she said, referring to government forces who tried to capture her.

At first, Tatang planned only to cross the border into Nigeria. Then she heard that some people had made it to the United States.

“Someone would say, ‘You can do this,’” she said. “So I asked if it was possible for someone like me too, because I’m pregnant. They said, ‘Do this, do that.’“

Tatang begged her family for money for the journey, which she said so far has cost $5,000.

Epic journey

She said her route began with a flight to Ecuador, where Cameroonians don’t need visas. Tatang went by bus and on foot through Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala until reaching Mexico.

She was still deciding what to do once she got to Mexico’s northern border city of Tijuana, she said, cradling her belly while seated on a concrete bench outside migration offices in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula.

“I will just ask,” she said. “I can’t say, ‘When I get there, I will do this.’ I don’t know. I’ve never been there.”

Reuters spoke recently with five migrants in Tapachula who were from Cameroon, DRC and Angola. Several said they traveled to Brazil as a jumping-off point.

They were a small sampling of the hundreds of people, including Haitians, Cubans, Indians and Bangladeshis, clustered outside migration offices.

Political volatility in Cameroon and the DRC in recent years has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

People from the DRC made up the third largest group of new refugees globally last year with about 123,000 people, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency, while Cameroon’s internally displaced population grew by 447,000 people.

The number of undocumented African migrants found by authorities in Mexico quadrupled compared with five years ago, reaching nearly 3,000 people in 2018.

Most obtain a visa that allows them free passage through Mexico for 20 days, after which they cross into the United States and ask for asylum.

More families coming, too

Few choose to seek asylum in Mexico, in part because they don’t speak Spanish. Tatang said the language barrier was especially frustrating because she speaks only English, making communication difficult both with Mexican migration officials and even other Africans, such as migrants from DRC who speak primarily French.

Those who reach the United States often send advice back home, helping make the journey easier for others, said Florence Kim, spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration in West and Central Africa.

Like their Central American migrant counterparts, some Africans are also showing up with families hoping for easier entries than as individuals, said Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute.

U.S. data shows a huge spike in the number of families from countries other than Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras at the U.S. southern border. Between last October and May 16,000 members of families were registered, up from 1,000 for the whole of 2018, according to an analysis by the MPI.

Regional approach

The grueling Latin America trek forces migrants to spend at least a week trudging across swampland and hiking through mountainous rainforests in the lawless Darien Gap that is the only link between Panama and Colombia.

Still, the route has a key advantage: Countries in the region typically do not deport migrants from other continents partly because of the steep costs and lack of repatriation agreements with their home countries.

That relaxed attitude could change, however.

Under a deal struck with United States last month, Mexico may start a process later this month to become a safe third country, making asylum-seekers apply for refuge in Mexico and not the United States.

To lessen the load on Mexico, Mexico and the United States plan to put pressure on Central American nations to do more to prevent asylum-seekers, including African migrants, from moving north.

For the moment, however, more Africans can be expected to attempt the journey, said IOM’s Kim.

“They want to do something with their life. They feel they lack a future in their country,” she said.

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