ГОЛОВНЕ

Health authorities say about two dozen people, mostly laborers, were killed Saturday when a minibus collided with a truck on a highway in Port Said in northern Egypt.

Officials said in a statement that the minibus, a vehicle widely used in Egypt as communal taxis, was bringing the laborers from a garment factory in Port Said. The city is around 200 kilometers (around 125 miles) north of the capital, Cairo.

At least 22 people were killed in the crash, which took place on a highway linking the cities of Port Said and Damietta, the statement said. The workers were from Damietta.

Eight others were injured, some of them severely. All the victims were taken to nearby hospitals and morgues for treatment and identification, the statement said.

Egypt has a history of serious bus and car crashes because of speeding, careless driving, poor road conditions and poor enforcement of traffic laws.

The country’s official statistics agency says more than 8,000 road accidents took place in 2018, leaving more than 3,000 dead and around 12,000 injured.

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The Sudanese government and nine rebel groups on Saturday signed an agreement on a roadmap towards ending the bloody conflict in the Darfur region.

The deal outlines different issues the parties will need to negotiate during the latest round of talks in Juba.

“We believe this is an important step,” said Ahmed Mohamed, the chief negotiator on Darfur matters from the Sudan Revolutionary Front or SRF, a coalition of nine rebel groups involved in talks with the Sudanese government.

“This step no doubt will help the process to achieve a lasting peace in Darfur and also it will enable the transitional process in Sudan to move smoothly without hindrances,” Mohamed told AFP.

Among the issues they agreed need to be tackled are the root causes of the conflict, the return of refugees and internally displaced people, power sharing and the integration of rebel forces into the national army.

The deal also states that the Sudanese government will address land issues, such as the destruction of property during the conflict.

Khartoum has been negotiating with different rebel groups in the capital of South Sudan for two weeks, in the latest round of efforts to end conflicts in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

Rebels in these areas fought bloody campaigns against marginaliZation by Khartoum under ousted president Omar al-Bashir.

The Darfur fighting broke out in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Bashir’s Arab-dominated government.

Human rights groups say Khartoum targeted suspected pro-rebel ethnic groups with a scorched earth policy, raping, killing, looting and burning villages.

Bashir, who is behind bars for corruption and awaiting trial on other charges, is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for his role in the conflict that left around 300,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced, according to the United Nations.

However, there is fresh hope for peace after Sudan’s transitional government, led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, made peace in these areas a priority.

“We failed to achieve a lasting peace for Darfur simply because the previous government was not ready to take strategic decisions to resolve the conflict in Darfur,” said Mohamed who has been involved in previous failed peace talks.

General Samsedine Kabashi, the top Sudanese government representative at the talks said: “We are committed to ending all the problems in Darfur and ensuring that we restore peace and stability not only in Darfur but across all parts of the country.”

The peace process began in August and mediators aim to reach a final deal by February 2020.

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A U.S. civilian contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk Friday, U.S. officials said.

Several U.S. service members and Iraq personnel were also wounded, the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said in a statement, adding that Iraqi security forces would be leading the response and investigation into the attack.

U.S. officials said, on condition of anonymity, that the service members were lightly wounded and believed to be back on duty.

One official said the United States was looking into the possible involvement of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia group.

Links to Iran?

In December, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iranian-backed forces for a series of attacks on bases in Iraq and warned Iran that any attacks by Tehran or proxies that harmed Americans or allies would be “answered with a decisive U.S. response.”

Tensions have heightened between Tehran and Washington since last year when President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.

Since then Washington has blamed Iran for attacks on oil tankers this summer, including off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, and a major strike on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.

Iran has denied being behind the attacks.

No claim of responsibility

The Iraqi military said in a statement earlier Friday that several rockets were launched into Iraq’s K1 military base, which houses U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Security sources said security forces found a launchpad for Katyusha rockets inside an abandoned vehicle near the base.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Islamic State militants operating in the area have turned to insurgency-style tactics aimed at bringing down the government in Baghdad ever since it retook all territory and declared victory against them in December 2017.

Attacks gather pace

However, a senior U.S. military official said this month that attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were gathering pace and becoming more sophisticated, pushing all sides closer to an uncontrollable escalation.

His warning came two days after four Katyusha rockets struck a base near Baghdad international airport, wounding five members of Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service, the latest in a spate of rocket strikes on bases hosting members of the U.S.-led coalition whose objective is to defeat Islamic State insurgents.

The K1 base, which lies 15 km (9 miles) northwest of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, houses U.S. military forces alongside Iraqi forces from the Federal Police and Counter-Terrorism Service, security sources said.

About 5,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq.
 

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Disc jockey Don Imus, whose career was made and then undone by his acid tongue during a decades-long rise to radio stardom and an abrupt public plunge after a nationally broadcast racial slur, has died . He was 79. 

Imus died Friday morning at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, after being hospitalized since Christmas Eve, according to a statement issued by his family. Deirdre, his wife of 25 years, and his son Wyatt, 21, were at his side, and his son Lieutenant Zachary Don Cates was returning from military service overseas. 

Imus survived drug and alcohol woes, a raunchy appearance before President Bill Clinton and several firings during his long career behind the microphone. But he was vilified and eventually fired after describing a women’s college basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.“ 

His April 2007 racist and misogynist crack about the mostly black Rutgers squad, an oft-replayed 10-second snippet, crossed a line that Imus had long straddled as his rants catapulted him to prominence. The remark was heard coast to coast on 60 radio stations and the MSNBC cable network. 

Despite repeated apologies, Imus — just 10 years earlier named one of Time Magazine’s 25 most influential Americans — became a pariah for a remark that he acknowledged was “completely inappropriate … thoughtless and stupid.“ 

Lost show, but won settlement

His radio show, once home to presidential hopefuls, political pundits and platinum-selling musicians, was yanked eight days later by CBS Radio. But the shock jock enjoyed the last financial laugh when he collected a reported multimillion-dollar settlement of his five-year contract with the company. 

Imus’ unsparing on-air persona was tempered by his off-air philanthropy, raising more than $40 million for groups including the CJ Foundation for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He ran a New Mexico ranch for dying children, and often used his radio show to “solicit“ guests for donations. 

A pediatric medical center bearing Imus’ name was opened at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. 

Imus, born on a Riverside, California, cattle ranch, was the older of two boys — his brother Fred later became an Imus in the Morning show regular. The family moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, where Imus joined the Marines before taking jobs as a freight train brakeman and uranium miner. 

Only at age 28 did he appear on the airwaves. His caustic persona, though it would later serve him well, was initially a problem: Imus was canned by a small station in Stockton, California, for uttering the word “hell.“ 

The controversy only enhanced his career, a pattern that continued throughout the decades. 

More awards

Imus, moving to larger California stations, earned Billboard’s “Disc Jockey of the Year“ award for medium-sized markets after a stunt where he ordered 1,200 hamburgers to go from a local McDonald’s. 

His next stop was Cleveland, where he won DJ-of-the-year honors for large markets. By 1971, he was doing the morning drive-time show on WNBC-AM in New York, the nation’s largest and most competitive radio market. Imus brought along a destructive taste for vodka, along with a growing reputation for irascibility. 

In 1977, Imus was ignominiously dismissed by WNBC and dispatched to the relative anonymity of Cleveland. Within two years, though, he turned disaster into triumph, returning to New York and adding a new vice: cocaine. While his career turned around, his first marriage, which produced four daughters, fell apart. 

Imus struggled with addiction until a 1987 stint at a Florida alcohol rehabilitation center, coming out just as WNBC became the fledgling all-sports station WFAN — which retained Imus’ non-sports show as its morning anchor. 

Imus’ career again soared. Time Magazine named Imus one of the 25 Most Influential People in America, and he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. His show began simulcasting on cable’s MSNBC in September 1996. 

In the decade before his slur debacle, Imus redefined his show by mixing his comedy segments with A-list guests: politicians (Senators John Kerry and John McCain), journalists (NBC-TV’s Tim Russert and The New York Times’ Frank Rich) and musicians (Harry Connick Jr. and John Mellencamp). 

A book plug on Imus’ show guaranteed sales, and authors were soon queuing up for a slot on the show. 

Feud with Stern

But he rarely missed a chance to get in trouble, even in the good times. He engaged in a long-running feud with shock jock Howard Stern, who usurped Imus’ position as the No. 1 morning host in New York City. 

And he outraged guests at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner in 1996, cracking wise about Clinton’s extramarital activities as the first lady sat stone-faced nearby. “We all know you’re a pot-smoking weasel,“ Imus said at another point about the president. 

A White House spokesman called Imus’ bit “fairly tasteless.“ 

One year later, he was sued by a Manhattan judge after ripping the jurist on air as a “creep“ and “a senile old dirtbag.“  

A February 2006 profile in Vanity Fair contained the quote that might best serve as Imus’ epitaph. 

“I talk to millions of people every day,“ he said while riding home in a limousine after one show. “I just like it when they can’t talk back.“ 

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Iran intensified its suppression of internal dissent Thursday, breaking up a memorial for a man killed in recent anti-government protests, flooding streets with security forces and slashing mobile internet access.

The repressive measures appeared aimed at dissuading Iranians from heeding activists’ calls for December 26 public gatherings to mark the end of a traditional 40-day mourning period for a prominent victim of last month’s protests, Pouya Bahktiari. The dayslong nationwide demonstrations, sparked by a November 15 government decision to sharply raise gasoline prices, marked Iran’s deadliest unrest in decades.

Iranian security forces make arrests at cemetery in Karaj, Iran, Dec. 26, 2019

♦️ویدئو کوتاه|درگیری ماموران امنیتی با مردم و بازداشت آن‌ها در بهشت سکینه#پنجم_دیpic.twitter.com/BHi0BwDn1m

— VOA Farsi (@VOAIran) December 26, 2019

A video received from Iran and verified by VOA Persian showed security personnel detaining several people at the Beheshe Sakineh Cemetery in the northern town of Karaj on Thursday.

Family members of Bakhtiari had appealed to the public and journalists to join them at his grave to mark 40 days since his killing and had used Instagram to spread the word. They had said he was shot in the head November 16, the second day of the protests.

The family’s social media campaign to raise awareness about Bakhtiari’s killing has made him one of the most high-profile fatalities of the demonstrations.

Social media users in Iran also had called for gatherings to be held nationwide to commemorate the hundreds of other people whom rights groups say were killed by security forces using live ammunition against the protesters.

Iranian officials have dismissed the reports of hundreds of fatalities as exaggerations without offering their own death toll.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported that some relatives of Bakhtiari made it to the cemetery for Thursday’s memorial, after others had been arrested earlier in the week, including his parents, for planning the public gathering.

But the video sent to VOA Persian showed security personnel leading several people away from the cemetery as bystanders screamed and shouted abuse at the officers.

Bystanders denounce security forces at Karaj cemetery, Dec. 26, 2019

♦️ ویدئو کوتاه | بستن دسترسی به مزار #پویا_بختیاری از سوی ماموران امنیتی: دیکتاتوری که از قبر هم می ترسد pic.twitter.com/iPL5SCAj9G

— VOA Farsi (@VOAIran) December 26, 2019

In another clip filmed at the cemetery, a woman holding the camera said authorities were blocking access to Bakhtiari’s grave. A helicopter also flew overhead. 

“The dictator is afraid even of a grave and has unleashed his hyenas,” the woman said, referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Other bystanders could be heard shouting “let him go!” in apparent response to a person being detained.

VOA Persian could not independently confirm the number of those arrested at the cemetery.

Social media users also reported a heavy security presence on the streets of cities across Iran for a second day.

Basiji militiamen ride through a street in Fardis, Iran, Dec. 26, 2019

♦️ویدئو کوتاه|حضور پر رنگ بسیجیان موتورسوار در فردیس #کرج همزمان با #پنجم_دی ماه pic.twitter.com/OS0uEOSmRl

— VOA Farsi (@VOAIran) December 26, 2019

A clip from the town of Fardis in Tehran province showed government-backed Basiji militiamen riding through a street on motorbikes. 

“They are trying to terrify people,” said a man filming the scene from the window of a building.

Iranian officers deploy in a Tehran square, Dec. 26, 2019

♦️ ویدئو کوتاه | جو شدید امنیتی در فلکه دوم آریاشهر تهران همزمان با چهلم کشته‌شدگان آبانماه pic.twitter.com/5S9W9rDcOJ

— VOA Farsi (@VOAIran) December 26, 2019

In a video from the Ariashahr district of the capital, Tehran, uniformed officers also could be seen crowding the edges of a traffic circle at Sadeghiyeh Square.

A report by state-approved news agency Tasnim quoted Tehran police chief Hossein Rahimi as saying there were no security incidents in the capital Thursday, thanks to the show of force by the security services.

In another move apparently designed to thwart the calls for anti-government gatherings, Iranian authorities further reduced mobile internet access to 5% of ordinary levels on several networks, according to London-based internet monitoring group NetBlocks.

A day earlier, semi-official news agency ILNA had reported that authorities began blocking mobile internet services in several provinces because of security concerns and would extend the outage as needed.

Iran imposed an almost complete nationwide internet shutdown on both fixed line and mobile networks for a week following the outbreak of the November protests. The move temporarily stopped Iranians from sending images and information about the protests to each other and the outside world, before the sharing of material resumed after internet access was restored. 

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.
 

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Australian authorities said Friday they are focused on protecting water plants, pumping stations, pipes and other infrastructure from intense bushfires surrounding Sydney, the country’s largest city.

Firefighters battling the blazes for weeks received a reprieve of slightly cooler, damper conditions over Christmas, but the respite is not expected to last long.

Temperatures in New South Wales (NSW) state are forecast to head back toward 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) early next week, fueling fires near Warragamba Dam, which provides water to about 80% of Sydney’s 5 million residents.

“In recent days up to the cool change, the fires had been a potential threat to supply and assets, particularly in Warragamba and in the Blue Mountains,” a spokesman for the state’s water authority, WaterNSW, told Reuters. “With the coming very hot conditions the fire situation may escalate in both those fronts and possibly elsewhere.”

Warragamba Dam is 65km (40 miles) west of Sydney, catching water flowing from the mountains.

It is at 44.8% capacity, down from almost being full less than three years ago, as a prolonged drought ravages the continent’s east.

40 New South Wales dams

Despite the widespread destruction, the state’s water infrastructure network has not been damaged, the spokesman said.

With more than 40 dams across the state, WaterNSW supplies two-thirds of untreated water to the state’s water utilities, which then treat and clean the resource to provide drinking water to cities and regional towns.

Large quantities of ash and burned material could pose a threat to the quality of water in the dams if the fires are followed by heavy rain.

However, there is no significant rain forecast for NSW in the short-term and WaterNSW has put containment barriers to catch potential debris run-off, the water authority said.

Volunteer firefighters

Australia’s reliance on a large volunteer firefighting force has been tested during this fire season that potentially has months to run through the southern hemisphere summer.

While conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously said compensation for volunteers was not a priority, he said Tuesday that government workers could receive additional paid leave for volunteering.

A senior government minister said Friday the government was now looking into providing wider relief.

“The prime minister is looking at this issue further on how we can provide targeted support in these extreme circumstances so that our volunteers get the support they need to keep volunteering,” Defense Minister Linda Reynolds told media in Perth.

While there are different rules across Australia’s states, volunteers tend to negotiate time off directly with their employer.

Morrison has been under intense political pressure after it was revealed he was holidaying in Hawaii shortly before Christmas while the country grappled with an emergency and two volunteers near the fire frontlines had been killed. Eight deaths, including the two volunteer firefighters, have been linked to the blazes since they flared in spring.

Fires destroy millions of hectares

Fires are traveling immense distances through bushland before hitting towns and containment lines where volunteer firefighters concentrate their resources.

The bushfires have destroyed more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) across the country, dwarfing the terrain burnt by fierce fires in California during 2019.

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U.S. President Donald Trump continued to lash out at Democratic lawmakers over his impeachment Thursday as a legislative standoff continues over a Senate impeachment trial.

“The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats said they wanted to RUSH everything through to the Senate because ‘President Trump is a threat to National Security’ (they are vicious, will say anything!), but now they don’t want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly. Liars!,” Trump write on Twitter.

The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats said they wanted to RUSH everything through to the Senate because “President Trump is a threat to National Security” (they are vicious, will say anything!), but now they don’t want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly. Liars!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2019

On a near straight party line vote, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against Trump last Wednesday, making him only the third U.S. president to be impeached in the country’s 243-year history. He is accused of abusing the power of the presidency to benefit himself politically and then obstructing congressional efforts to investigate his actions.

House Speaker Nancy  Pelosi  has indefinitely postponed the sending of the articles of impeachment to Republican-controlled Senate so a trial can begin.  She has she will not act until the Senate agrees on rules governing the process.

Last week, U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell dismissed calls by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to hear testimony from four officials during a Senate impeachment trial, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.  The officials had refused to testify during the House impeachment inquiry of the president.

On Monday, however, McConnell softened his position, saying Republicans have not ruled out calling witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial.

“We haven’t ruled out witnesses,” McConnell told “Fox & Friends.” on Monday. “We’ve said, ‘Let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton.’ Fair is fair.”

In addition to testimony from key witnesses, Schumer said Monday he also wants relevant emails and other documents that “will shed additional light on the administration’s decision-making regarding the delay in security funding to Ukraine.”

“It’s hard to imagine a trial not having documents and witnesses,” Schumer said, “If it does’nt have documents and witnesses, it’s going to seem to most of the American people that it is a sham trial. Not to get at the facts.”

Trump’s impeachment stems from a July call with Ukraine’s president in which Trump asked for an investigation into Joe Biden, a former vice president and a leading Democratic rival to Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump has insisted he did nothing wrong in his push to get Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s lucrative work for a Ukrainian natural gas company.  Trump had also called for a probe into a debunked theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.

Trump made the appeal for the Biden investigations at a time when he was temporarily withholding $391 million in military aid  Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The U.S. president eventually released the money in September without  Zelenskiy launching the Biden investigations, proof, Republicans have said, that Trump had not engaged in a reciprocal quid pro  quo deal, the military aid in exchange for the Biden probe.

Trump has on countless occasions described his late July call with Zelenskiy as “perfect,” when he asked him to “do us a favor,” to investigate the Bidens and Ukraine’s purported role in the 2016 election. As the impeachment controversy mounted, Trump has subsequently claimed the “us” in his request to Zelenskiy referred not to him personally but to the United States.

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Billboard charting quartet, “Sons of Serendip,” won the hearts of fans and judges alike as finalists on the NBC program, “America’s Got Talent” with their interpretations of pop music, arranged with a unique blend of vocals, harp, piano and cello.  The group has released three successful albums, “Sons of Serendip, Christmas: Beyond the Lights and Life and Love.”

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