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World | The ICC Wont Prosecute Israel for Its Deadly 2010 Gaza Flotilla Raid | The International Criminal Court ICC will not prosecute Israel for its raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010 that killed nine Turkish activists. ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said there was a "reasonable basis to believe war crimes were committed," but she would not pursue an investigation because the case was not of "sufficient gravity.", "I have concluded that the potential cases likely arising from an investigation into this incident would not be of sufficient gravity' to justify further action by the ICC," Bensouda said in a statement. The nine activists were killed when Israeli forces boarded the largest of the six participating ships, the Mavi Marmara, as it tried to breach an Israeli blockade. The flotilla's stated aim was to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestine. Israel said the complaint was "politically motivated" lawyers who brought the case say they plan to launch an appeal. |
World | Fury in Sri Lanka After a Garbage Dump Collapses Killing at Least 26 | Anger is rising in a Sri Lankan community that has suffered at least 26 deaths after a dumpsite residents had long deemed unsafe collapsed on Friday. According to the army, six children were among those killed in the disaster. On Monday, an operation to recover the missing was still ongoing with hopes of finding survivors fading, the BBC reports. The collapse of the 300-ft. 91 m Meethotamulla dump occurred after a fire and floods destroyed dozens of homes near its base. It has provoked anger among local residents who had long complained of health problems caused by the accumulated garbage and demanded the dump's closure. "It's very unfortunate that no one listened to us. Now, after so many deaths, politicians are saying they will stop dumping garbage. These are murders, we will take legal action," resident Nuwan Bopage told the BBC. Locals reportedly blocked politicians from visiting the site of the disaster. Everyday around 800 tonnes of waste were piled onto the Meethotamulla dump, according to reports. After its closure was announced following Friday's collapse, officials said garbage would in future be split across two other sites. BBC |
World | The Christian Woman Acquitted of Blasphemy in Pakistan Faces a Final Court Hurdle | ISLAMABAD AP Pakistan's top court is to decide Tuesday whether to uphold its acquittal of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy a move that would finally set her free and allow her to join her daughters, who have fled to Canada where they have been given asylum. For Aasia Bibi, who spent eight years on death row and who has been under guard at a secret place since her acquittal last October, the court's decision could represent the final legal hurdle to her freedom. Her lawyer, Saiful Malook, says he expects the judges to reject a petition by radical Islamists for a review of their Oct. 31 move to acquit Bibi. Following her acquittal, radical religious parties took to the streets to protest, calling for the killing of judges who acquitted Bibi and for the overthrow of Prime Minister Imran Khan's government. They also filed a last-minute appeal for a review of the Supreme Court acquittal. The protests were spearheaded by the radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, whose single point agenda is protection of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Bibi's case goes to the core of one of Pakistan's most controversial issues the blasphemy law, often used to settle scores or intimidate followers of minority religions, including minority Shiite Muslims. A charge of insulting Islam can bring the death penalty. But the accusation on its own is sometimes enough to whip up vengeful mobs, even if the courts acquit defendants. A provincial governor who defended Bibi was shot and killed, as was a government minority minister who dared question the blasphemy law. Bibi, who always insisted that she was innocent, has said she will leave the country as soon as her legal battles are over. Her lawyer, who fled the country after receiving death threats, returned to Pakistan for the final review. Bibi's ordeal began on a hot day in 2009 when she brought water to fellow farmhands who refused to drink from the same container as a Christian woman. Two of her fellow farmworkers argued with Bibi and later accused her of insulting Islam's prophet Mohammad. Bibi has steadfastly denied the charge. Since her acquittal Bibi has spent her days in seclusion for fear of being targeted by angry mobs clamoring for her death. In her hideout, protected by Pakistani security, she has longed for her children, speaking almost daily to her daughters in Canada, according to a friend who was interviewed by The Associated Press. He asked not to be identified fearing reprisal from radical religious groups. Following protests that accompanied her acquittal, the authorities arrested radical clerics Khadim Hussain Rizvi and Mohammad Afzal Qadri, both leaders of the Tehreekk-e-Labbaik Party, and several of their followers for destroying public property during rallies against Bibi and for inciting their followers to violence. The clerics and the others remain in custody. The cleric petitioning the court for Bibi's return to death row, Qari Salam, is linked with Rizvi's Tehreek-e-Labbaik party. Rizvi's party said Monday it will not accept any decision in favor of Bibi's release and asked its followers to prepare for more mass protests. Pakistani police have stepped up security around the Supreme Court in Islamabad ahead of its decision Tuesday. |
World | This Chinese Propaganda Rap Is the Most Painful Song Ever Recorded | "The red dragon ain't no evil," raps Chuckie, referring to his native China, "but a beautiful place." To scenes of cuddly pandas, spewing smokestacks and goose-stepping soldiers holding aloft a Chinese flag, the English-language music video for "This Is China" begins with a mission to "restore the impression you have of my country, China, which have been sic exactly fabricated by media for such a long time.", The offending media, in case it isn't clear, are foreign, says Chuckie, whose real name is Wang Zixin. "I would like to tell Westerners that young people in China are not foolish," the 22-year-old recent college graduate tells TIME. "We know the good and bad in China. It is just that some problems cannot be solved immediately. I want to change Westerners' stereotypes about us.", Although the rap song was the brainchild of Wang's ensemble CD Rev lyrics by Pissy no, seriously and beats by Chuckie the music video was produced with help from a studio run by the Communist Youth League of China. "This Is China" fits into a campaign by China's ruling party to soften its image amid overseas criticism of Beijing's muscular foreign policy and domestic human-rights crackdown. In recent months, government-linked studios have released videos featuring everything from a cartoon Chinese President Xi Jinping playing whack-a-mole with corrupt officials to an English-language explainer of China's 13th five-year plan for its economy. Another animated music video included a hip-hop verse that went, "It's everyone's dream to build a moderately prosperous society comprehensively." The latter is one of Xi's "four comprehensive" slogans, if not a catchy rhyme., The rhymes on "This Is China" are equally wooden indeed hilarious to foreign ears weaned on a diet of Kanye and Lil Wayne. "As an individual presently based in the southwest of the country," declaims Wang, in what must be the most unlikely introduction ever to fall from the lips of an MC. "First things first, we all know that China is a developing country," he continues, as though reading from a textbook. "It has large population sic and it is really hard to manage.", In like manner, "This Is China" then name-checks the wonders of Chinese society, such as ubiquitous payment by mobile phones even to make appointments with doctors! and strict gun control that prevents "gun slaughtering." Scientific achievements also make it into the song, including KBBF crystals used in laser technology and the discovery of malaria treatment aremisinin by Nobel Prizewinning scientist Tu Youyou. "Obviously China is rising, but we have 5,000 years of Confucian education so we are a peace-loving country," says Wang. "We will not initiate attacks on others.", The rap, which was first covered by Chinese online-media venture Sixth Tone, doesn't shy away from the nation's problems. Air pollution is mentioned "It is real that pollution is severe at the present stage". So are entrepreneurs whose rapaciousness sickened babies with melamine-laced milk and expired vaccines. Corrupt politicians are taken to task for their sexual peccadilloes. But the overall message of "This Is China" is one pleading for understanding. Since forming on China's National Day last year, CD Rev has held concerts in the southwestern city of Chengdu. At first, the shows featured apolitical pop songs. "We didn't want people to think of us as making money from propaganda songs," Wang says. But it turned out many audience members were coming for the political rap, and relishing such lines as, "Meanwhile, we can trust the Public Security Bureau, cuz the policemen are kind to citizens but crucial sic to our enemies.", Wang is not a member of the Chinese Communist Party and says his generation has been exposed to plenty of Western ideas. Still, in an online article published on June 29, Wang wrote that Chinese textbooks, often criticized by outsiders for their focus on patriotic education, are more objective than those from other nations. "We can compare China's one-party system and the Western multiparty system, and we know each system has its pros and cons," he says. "The Chinese Communist Party is not necessarily better than its foreign counterpart, and vice versa.", Still, one of CD Rev's previous efforts, called "The Force of Red," makes certain feelings for the West clear, even if Wang now admits the lyrics are "a little extreme." Foreign media are described as "media punk ass white trash" with a final expletive for emphasis. "Tell Uncle Sam," the lyrics go, "the red king's coming back." Even if the king's chosen heralds have American-sounding accents and stage names. With reporting by Zhang Chi / Beijing |
World | EU Politics Turn Migrants Dreams Into Nightmares on an Overcrowded Greek Island | Her fingers reaching through the small gaps in a barbed-wire topped fence that surrounds the Vial migrant camp in the hills of the Greek island of Chios, 16-year-old Yasmin tells her story. Yasmin, who declined to give her last name for safety reasons, is from Afghanistan, where she lived with her parents in Nuristan, a remote province that has long been home to Taliban militants. She says her father had worked as a driver for NATO, and as security in the province deteriorated, this made him a target for the Talibanand drove them to leave Afghanistan. Yasmin and her family paid smugglers to get them through Turkey, and eventually, to Chios. Like the hundreds of thousands of migrants who took the same route last year, they were hoping to use Greece as a way station into mainland Europe, and then to safety in Germany. But in the last few weeks, the situation in Europe has drastically changed. As a result of the new deal between Turkey and the E.U. which went to into effect last month, all migrants arriving in Greece after March 20 are required to either register for asylum in Greece or be sent back to Turkey. The borders with the rest of Europe have essentially been shut. While their cases are being processed, most migrants are being kept in camps that have been transformed into closed detention facilities Moria on Lesvos and Vial on Chios, where Yasmin is now living with her parents. But perhaps not for longAfghans, abruptly reclassified as economic migrants by European countries, now seem increasingly unlikely to have asylum requests granted. Yet Yasmin says she and her family are still hoping they will be allowed to stay. Read More Amid Clashes, Greek Officials Ready Refugee Deportations, "We apply for asylum in Greece," she says. "But they don't tell us when the interview will be. One month? Two months? A year? Nobody knows.", In the meantime, Yasmin and others who arrived after March 20 are stuck in Vial, where she says conditions have become unbearable. "It is a jail," she says. "Food is terrible. There isn't enough water, we can't wash our clothes. When we are sick, we have to wait three hours to see a doctor. There is fighting every night here. There are too many people.", The day the deal went into effect, Chios had 1,200 new arrivals who were all sent to Vial. In protest of the terms of the E.U. agreement and what they see as the inhumane conditions of detention, many organizations like the Norwegian Refugee Council NRC and even the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees UNHCR, who had formerly provided support to Greek authorities, have minimized their involvement in the camp, which has only made conditions worse. "We don't want to support authorities to manage a jail," says Sbastien Daridan from the NRC in Chios. "A jail where people are kept illegally because they haven't even been informed why they have been detained. A jail that isn't even meeting the minimum standards for a jail.", Read More Meet the Iraqi Refugees Who Are Going Back to Iraq, The Vial centerset up for around 1,100 peopleis now far over capacity with approximately 1,800 people, and without any of the support from the organizations that had been helping to run it. "There was a huge problem with overcrowding," says UNHCR's Katerina Kitidi. "Everyone was on top of each other, with no proper access to assistance. Food was not sufficient. They just didn't have capacity for so many people.", Giorgos Kyritsis, from Greece's Coordinating Body for the Refugee Crisis Management, denies that Vial is a prison or even a detention center. But he still admits that the conditions there are far from ideal. "After the E.U.-Turkey agreement, we had to convert these open camps into closed facilities," he says. "We had to do it in just two days with limited resources and funding. We want to guarantee the rights of everyone who made it under the E.U.-Turkey status, but we did have some problems.", , On April 1, the situation erupted, as a fight broke out between Afghans, who have increasingly been marginalized from the asylum process, and Syrians, whose claims to asylum are more likely to be processed. Six people were hospitalized and around 600 migrants escaped from the camp. One of those who escaped Vial was Syrian Ahmad Al Hamdan, 46, who arrived on Chios on March 20just hours after the deal went into effect. Back in Damascus, he was a lawyer, but during heavy bombing of the civil war, his home, his car and his office were all destroyed. His wife was also injured during the bombing, breaking two bones in her ankle and one in her wrist She made the journey to Greece in crutches while looking after the couple's three children. "I was frightened for my family, for my children," says Hamdan of the fight in Vial. "We escaped and walked three hours to the port, but police told us we couldn't get on a boat.", Read More James Nachtwey A New Purgatory for Thousands of Refugees, Instead, Hamdan and his family set up camp in Dipethe, a small squalid collection of tents in Chios's downtown. Now he's living under a stretch of UNHCR tarpaulin with his family and five other asylum seekers, while he waits for Greek authorities to begin processing his case. It could be a very long wait. According to UNHCR, there are only four Greek officials in Vial to process all 1,800 or so asylum cases currently on the island. "I'm a lawyer," says Hamdan. "I love order, I love systems, I love the law. But here, there is no order, there is no law.", Kyritsis says that wait times will improve, noting that under the terms of the E.U. deal, hundreds of legal specialists and translators are bound for the Greek islands to help with processing. He also says they are working to improve living conditions for those inside Vial. "We are doing our best," says Kyritsis. "We know that people are fleeing war and they are not satisfied with the conditions. But we are a country under severe austerity for six years. We are underfinanced and understaffed. We are trying.", But the influx of migrants into Chios has also stoked tensions with local residents who are suddenly aware thatunlike the hundreds of thousands of migrants who were only passing through Chiosthe 1,800 migrants here now could be stuck indefinitely. "This year, we'll have no tourists, us or Lesvos," says Tasos Hatzelenis, a tour operator in his 50s. "It's a catastrophe, because of the refugees. But what can we do?", In the shadow of a 16th century stone wall that surrounds Chios, another camp has been set up by UNHCR to take up the overflow of migrants from Vial. Though initially meant as a temporary camp, due to the new asylum process it's becoming packed and permanent. Inside, Aveen Barkal, a 25-year-old Syrian, is stuck waiting with her two children, aged four and five. But Barkal is an E.U. resident she fled Aleppo with her husband two years ago, leaving her children in the care of her parents. They reached Sweden and were both granted asylum. Two years later, Barkal's parents also made their way to Europe to reunite her with her children. But, in the wake of the E.U. deal, the situation has completely shifted. Without their asylum claims processed, her children are stuck in Chios. "I've asked many organizations for help," she says. "But they say there is nothing they can do. Now, I'm back living in a tent. Just waiting for my children to be able to come with me.", Situations like these have become increasingly common on Chios, as both residents and migrants adjust to the new reality. "It's Kafkaesque," says Daridan. "Europe has signed a deal that has, as a direct consequence, left thousand of people being illegally detained. And we are doing this in a union that was supposedly based on the rule of law." |
World | New Efforts Promised to Find Girls Kidnapped by Boko Haram | Marking the one-year anniversary of the kidnapping of 276 girls by Boko Haram, President-elect Muhammadu Buhari said on Tuesday that his government plans to do everything in its power to rescue them. However, Buhari was also careful not to overpromise. "We do not know if the Chibok girls can be rescued," he said, according to Reuters. "Their whereabouts remain unknown.", The kidnappings grabbed international attention, in large part because of the viral hashtag campaign BringBackOurGirls, and highlighted the misery being wrought by Boko Haram in its attempt to establish a religious caliphate in northern Nigeria. "Let us use this anniversary to remind each other that the attack on Chibok was an attack on the dreams and aspirations of our young people," Buhari said. Nigeria's outgoing President, Goodluck Jonathan, was roundly criticized for his government's slow response to the tragedy, which he claims was due to concerns that Boko Haram would kill the girls. On Tuesday, Amnesty International released a report claiming that Boko Haram had abducted at least 2,000 women and girls since the beginning of 2014, with many being forced into sexual slavery or combat roles. The report also estimated that over 5,500 civilians had been killed during that time. Reuters |
World | Ode to Autocracy Viral Poem Highlights Cult of Chinas Leader | So wrote Pu Liye, a deputy director at China's official Xinhua news agency and apparent passionate poet, on Feb 19. The object of his ardor was Chinese President and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping, who on Friday visited the offices of Xinhua, as well as those of the party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, and CCTV, the national broadcaster. Xi's news tour was given blanket coverage by state media, which posted photos of the nation's leader trying out the anchor's chair at CCTV and smiling over a Xinhua news desk decorated with a bank of landline phones. Three hours after Pu published the poem on his personal WeChat social-media account, his paean had garnered 20,000 hits. A previous poem Pu posted the day before only received 314 hits., On its Twitter feed, Xinhua noted that Xi gave reporters a few tips, like encouraging "journalists to write stories that people like to read.'" While Twitter is blocked in China by state censors, state media like Xinhua are prolific users of the social-media service, often posting pictures of indolent pandas, comely female soldiers and the occasional cute cat. , China's journalists are subject to intense censorship, with editors receiving daily directives on what topics have been deemed taboo. Self-censorship is rampant. While a few enterprising newspapers gained fame for their muckraking after the turn of the century, their exposs have waned in recent years, as liberal editors have been sacked and investigative reporters punished. In 2015, China had the largest number of journalists behind bars of any nation, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Several imprisoned reporters have been paraded on state TV to confess to their purported crimes. Read Next The Other Side of the Great Firewall, Xi's media tour comes as China published new rules that, if read literally, could block any foreign or joint-venture company from publishing online content "of informational or thoughtful nature" within mainland China without prior government approval. It is unclear how these regulations, which go into effect on March 10, will affect the operations of local-language sites run by international media, like Dow Jones or Bloomberg. Xi, who took the nation's helm in late 2012, has called for China to protect its online sphere from unwanted foreign influences. He advocates national law trumping free flow of information across state borders a concept known as Internet sovereignty. As the Chinese President steps up a crackdown on independent thinkers Beijing has detained hundreds of lawyers, writers and NGO workers in recent months his government has also railed against so-called Western values, like freedom of the press and a vigorous civil society. Chinese universities have been warned against allowing such pernicious foreign values to infect young minds. Meanwhile, the People's Daily has increased its coverage of the Chinese leader, whose front-page mentions have far eclipsed those of his predecessors Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, according to a survey by the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project. But as adulatory as these stories may be, few are as fawning as Pu's poem, which ends with these rousing verses |
World | Two Dead 350000 Urged to Flee Their Homesas Typhoon Nangka Arrives in Japan | Torrential rain and powerful winds of up to 185 km/h 115 m.p.h. prompted authorities in southern Japan's island of Shikoku to order a mass evacuation as Typhoon Nangka made landfall late Thursday. The typhoon's approach in the Pacific led Japanese authorities to warn at least 350,000 people to leave their homes. At least two people have died, according to the BBC, citing Kyodo news agency. Broadcaster NHK reported at least 31 have been injured. While Nangka has since been downgraded to a tropical storm as it moves north, officials worry strong winds and rain could still pose a danger. On Friday morning, parts of the main island of Honshu were lashed by high waves, gales and thunderstorms, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, Though the storm was clocked at just 15km/h, the agency reported a maximum sustained wind speed of 90km/h. |
World | South Africa Goes to the Polls Amid Protests and Unemployment | Voting has begun in South Africa's fifth general election since apartheid ended two decades ago, and the first in which the generation born after the end of apartheid casts its ballots. Though the governing African National Congress is expected to maintain its nearly two-thirds majority and grant Jacob Zuma another five years as President, the party is also expected to lose voters, BBC reports. Polls have shown that many South Africans are dissatisfied with the government over a series of corruption scandals and ongoing high unemployment, which is currently about 25. Protests over the failure of local officials to deliver on basic services are also steadily worsening. A University of Johannesburg report recorded 470 such demonstrations in 2012, compared with just 13 in 2004. , Results of the voting are expected on May 10. BBC |
World | Hurricane Maria Spaghetti Plots Predict Another Hit for the Caribbean | Hurricane Maria is gathering strength as it heads west toward the Caribbean, where a large swath of islands are still recovering from the devastating impact of Hurricane Irma. With maximum sustained winds of 120 mph and the storm moving at 10 mph, Hurricane Maria, now a Category 5 storm, is expected to hit the Leeward Islands many of which were already hit by Irma late Monday. Several predictions, including "spaghetti plots," of Hurricane Maria's path predict the storm will hit the U.S. Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia and St. Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat, which are all under hurricane warning, according to the National Hurricane Center. Other islands, like Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, St. Maarten and Saba and St. Eustatius, have tropical storm warnings. Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, St. Maarten, St. Martin and St. Barthelemy, Saba and St Eustatius and Anguilla are all under hurricane watch. There are a number of different forecasts attempting to predict Hurricane Maria's path as it passes over the Caribbean. So-called "spaghetti plots" or "spaghetti models" show some of these various paths, which are based on different forecasting models, including the European and American models. These spaghetti plots, which can be found here, generally predict Hurricane Maria will pass over many of the islands listed above, as well as Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Some of the models predict the storm will then travel up the Atlantic off the east coast of the United States. However, it's too early to predict with accuracy how Hurricane Maria might impact the U.S. if at all. , The National Hurricane Center also produces other forecasts, including a "cone of uncertainty" chart showing where Hurricane Maria might travel over the next several days. This isn't an exact path the storm might travel anywhere inside this area. Hurricane Maria is expected to hit Puerto Rico early Wednesday morning, according to the NHC. The NHC's forecast does not yet predict whether Hurricane Irma could make landfall in Florida, which was hit heavily by Irma earlier this month, or other states along the American coastline. Florida and islands in the Caribbean are still reeling after the deadly and devastating destruction caused by Irma, which, among other travesties, damaged or destroyed at least 90 of the buildings on Barbuda and St. Martin, leaving large numbers of the population homeless. That hurricane did not come long after Hurricane Harvey, which hit southeast Texas and Louisiana, and caused historic flooding and destruction in Houston, the fourth-largest city in the United States. |
World | The Election Is Driving You Insane So Here Are 5 Good News Stories From Around the World | Sick of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? Of course you areand so are we. But while America's election is forcing us to examine the less attractive aspects of our human natureand our political systemthere are still plenty of good news stories in the world. Here are five to keep in mind as Election 2016 staggers toward the finish line. 1. Lebanon, Let's start with the most recent bit of good news. After 29 months without a president, political compromise was finally reached in Lebanon this week with parliament's election of Christian leader Michel Aoun as president. This in turn paves the way for moderate Sunni leader Saad Hariri to be elected prime minister and form a government. Electing a president and prime minister doesn't usually qualify as good news by itself, but when you've failed 45 times to pull it off, it does. Lebanon is plagued with some of the most dysfunctional politics in the Middle East. Much of that has to do with complex demographics the country is about 40 percent Christian, 27 percent Sunni and 27 percent Shia, and some of that has to do with regional geopolitics Bitter rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, representatives of Shia and Sunni Islam respectively, frequently encroach on Lebanese politics. But given the multiple fires burning in the neighborhood Syria, Iraq and Yemen, in particular, both powers have focused their energies elsewhere, allowing consensus to emerge in Lebanon and politicians there to focus on governance for the first time in three years. Political stability should finally attract some foreign investors and boost consumer confidence, kick-starting economic growth. This is one of the most promising stories in a dark Middle East. Al Jazeera, CIA World Factbook, Read More The Thank-God-It's-Almost-Over Presidential Election Quiz, 2. United Arab Emirates, But not the only one. The UAE is proof that life is possible in a post-oil era it just takes some good planning and foresight. While the UAE still depends on oil to fund roughly 30 percent of the economy, Abu Dhabi has been strategically building its fiscal reserves and political capital to undertake difficult fiscal reforms, unlike some fellow oil-producing nations, such as Saudi Arabia. Dubai, the country's rising economic star, went from relying on oil for 35 percent of its GDP in 1990 to less than 1 percent by 2010. The UAE has also been proactive in cutting government subsidies and trimming bureaucracy, fiscal belt-tightening not often seen in this part of the world. Maybe the best reason to be bullish on the Emirates, though, is its stable succession outlook. While UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has stayed out of the public eye because of his ill health, crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed has used the time to gradually consolidate his power and popularity. He effectively runs the federation and Emirates already when the time comes for political change, the UAE will be ready. The National, Middle East Institute, 3. Kenya, Lost in yet another "Africa Rising/Africa Sinking" debate is the genuinely good news story coming from Kenya. It starts with stability within the ruling coalition, making for a relatively smooth reelection path for President Uhuru Kenyatta next year. Electoral reforms have also vastly improved perceptions around the election, a big deal considering that 2007's contentious vote left more than 1,000 people dead. Read More No, This Election Is Not a Rorschach Test, A decidedly less sexy but no less important development monetary policy management is finally on track under central bank governor Patrick Njorogea former IMF officialstemming inflation and maintaining shilling stability. These improvements are supported by a 1.5 billion stand-by facility with the International Monetary Fund that the Kenyatta administration continues to nurse as a buffer, just in case there are any external economic shocks coming down the pike. That's just smart. True, Kenya has some real terrorism worries, with soft targets along the Somali border remaining highly vulnerable. But when worries about violence associated with terrorism supplant worries about violence associated with democratic processes, that's a step in the right direction. Stratfor, IMF, 4. Panama, Panama's current president Juan Carlos Varela is focused on improving transparency and rooting out corruption, both of which were particular weaknesses of his predecessor, the erratic Ricardo Martinelli. The Panama Papers in particular have increased the government's transparency to staunch the enormous reputational costs associated with the country's criticaland compromisedfinancial services sector. The Panamanian government has also improved its fiscal policy under Varela, in large part by curbing government spending and targeting subsidies to maximize impact and efficiency. Then there's the big expansion of the Panama Canal, a 5.4 billion investment expected to help boost annual revenues by 350 million in just one year. Of course, Panama's reliance on the Canal and the six percent of worldwide trade that passes through it every year makes the country very vulnerable to any slowdown in global trade flows. But Panama will pass through that lock when it gets there for now, it is one of Latin America's best stories. Wall Street Journal, Read More This Powerful Photo Project Shows How This Election Will Impact Women, 5. Cyprus, Finally, let's wrap up with probably the best only? good news story coming out of Europe these days. Decades in the making, the reunification of Cyprus is now closer than ever after a sustained effort to hammer out a potential settlement rejoining the Turkish-Cypriot north with Greek-Cypriot south. Given the main claimants involved, that's pretty impressive. Turkey is convulsing. So is Greece, albeit for different reasons. But both countries represent some of the worse trends going on in global macro politics at the moment, from economic mismanagement to political instability to immigration woes. Despite all that, Cyprus find itself a stone's throw away from resolving one of the world's longest-running and most bitter disputes. Expect an announcement soon of a multi-party international conference outside of Cyprus Switzerland was tailor-made to host these sort of things by the end of this year and dual referenda in the first half of 2017, both of which are expected to pass. Europe needs a good news story at the moment so does the rest of the world. |
World | A Banksy Mural Commemorating Victims of a Paris Terror Attack Was Stolen | A Banksy artwork created to memorialize the victims of a 2015 terrorist attack in Paris has been stolen, Agence France-Presse reports. The black and white stencil depicts a girl gazing downward. It was painted on one of the emergency doors at the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people were killed in November 2015. But over the weekend, the work was reportedly cut out, and taken away. "Banksy's work, a symbol of recollection and belonging to all locals, Parisians, citizens of the world has been taken from us," the concert venue said in a tweeted statement. The establishment stressed the staff's "deep indignation.", , According local media, "a group of hooded individuals armed with angle grinders cut the painting and took it away in a truck," overnight between Friday evening and Saturday morning. The Bataclan mural was one of several works that cropped up around Paris last June and was attributed to Banksy. The famous British street artist, whose identity is not known, made headlines in October when a Banksy artwork self-destructed at an auction after it sold for 1.4 million. |
World | Syrias Health Crisis Spirals As Doctors Flee | It was the third week of an uprising in Syria that would eventually evolve into a brutal civil war and already the wounded were showing up at the hospital in the Damascus suburb where 29-year-old Ahmed was doing rotations during his medical residency. Ahmed, who asked that only one part of his name be published because he is afraid of repercussions from Syria's security agencies, had only just started examining a young man with bruises and a deep puncture wound on his right side when two armed security officials burst into the examining room barking questions. Who was the patient, they wanted to know, and how did he get his injuries? When it emerged that the patient had been at a protest that afternoon against the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad the officials hauled the young man outside. Ahmed could do nothing. "I was so angry at myself," he recalls, as he chain-smokes in a caf in Lebanon nearly three years later. "Why didn't I protect him? I was terrified. I was a coward.", That scene in Ahmed's examining room would play out hundreds of more times across Syria as regime thugs hunted hospitals for wounded protestors, and then later, for rebels fighting against Assad's government. When the rebel forces in Douma, the suburb where Ahmed's hospital is located, grew in number and strength they then took to roaming the hospital corridors, seeking to finish off any regime supporters who had been injured in the vicious street fighting. In July 2012, the Syrian government passed an anti-terrorism law that effectively made it a crime to provide medical care to anyone suspected of supporting the rebels. Ahmed was caught between the Hippocratic oath a doctor's promise to treat every patient and the growing pressure to take sides. "The regime said Why are you helping the Free Army?' and the Free Army said Why are you helping the regime?'" Once a supporter of the revolution, Ahmed has come to the conclusion that neither side will be able to save Syria. So he is giving up, abandoning his "patient" Syria once again, he says with a wry smile. Instead, he has opted for a life in the United States relatives already there are helping him to emigrate. "Yes, maybe I feel guilty," he admits. "Maybe I am a coward for leaving Syria. But as a doctor it is impossible to work there. I have to live, I have to eat.", Ahmed is one of an estimated 15,000 doctors who have fled Syria over the past three years, according to a report released Feb. 2 by Physicians For Human Rights PHR, representing half of the certified physicians in a country whose medical system was once the envy of the Arab world. The doctors who have fled have left behind a horrifying medical crisis. According to the World Health Organization, more than half of Syrian hospitals have been destroyed or severely damaged. Syria's largest city, Aleppo, once boasted 6,000 doctors. According to the PHR report, only 250 remained as of July 2013, serving a population of 2,500,000. In the Damascus suburbs where Ahmed worked, a pre-war population of 1,000 doctors had been cut down to 30 by December, according to the PHR report. Nurses, technicians, ambulance drivers and medical support personnel have been forced to abandon their posts, the report says, unable to provide care in destroyed hospitals and clinics where supplies of life-giving medicine have run out. Even if the war were to end tomorrow, its medical legacy will last a generation. The U.N. estimates that more than half a million Syrians have suffered debilitating injuries that will require long-term care. Outbreaks of communicable disease are on the rise. Manageable chronic conditions, such as diabetes, kidney failure and heart disease, are escalating into life-threatening illnesses. When the war ends, Syria will need more physicians than ever before. Yet the likelihood of doctors returning from exile is slim. The longer the war lasts, the harder it will be for them to give up their new lives. The medical staff who have fled Ahmed's hospital have settled in France, Germany, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Some have lucrative contracts with local hospitals others have set up private clinics. Many are going through the arduous process of getting recertified so they can work in the United States and Europe. "Most doctors will not go back after the crisis," says Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a Chicago-based pulmonologist and head of the Syrian American Medical Society, an organization that raises funds to provide salaries and supplies to doctors still working in Syria. "Once you set up a new practice in a safe country it is a difficult decision to go back, especially since the economic situation will be so bad." He says that around 1,000 to 1,200 Syrian doctors are already in the process of resettling in the U.S since the conflict started. Though not all will continue in the medical field, it is a significant addition to the 7,000 Syrian doctors who were already in the U.S. prior to the war's start. "It's a huge brain drain," Sahloul says. "I am not sure the Syrian medical system can recover from this.", The shortage of doctors is taking an immense toll. Based on an assessment of mortality rates, hospital intake numbers, population and treatment rates for manageable diseases prior to the war, Sahloul estimates that some 200,000 people have died in Syria because they did not have access to routine medical care, what he calls a "secondary death toll" that is even higher than those killed by bombs and firearms. "These are the women who died in labor because there was no one to do a C-section, or the men who have a heart attack and can't find a physician, or have complications from diabetes. People are dying of chronic diseases that three years ago would have been completely manageable." The PHR report has found that 70,000 cancer patients and 5,000 dialysis patients have not been able to receive treatment. Oncologist Michel Abdallah fled for Jordan last year, and is now treating refugees as an employee of an aid group. The situation in Syria, he says, "is really bad. There are situations where a dermatologist might play the role of a dentist or a surgeon. We are losing patients who could have easily survived in normal circumstances. That's not easy to come to terms with.", As Syria suffers, the American health system may benefit. Many Syrian doctors finished their advanced studies in the U.S. and are already licensed to work there. The U.S. with its high salaries and advanced medical care, has long been a magnet for doctors around the globe. Ahmed isn't sure yet what he will do once he arrives in the U.S. After three years of war, he says he is tired of blood. "Real estate might be nice," he muses. Still, he is hedging his bets. Unlike many doctors who fled, Ahmed is applying for official leave from his employer, the Syrian Ministry of Health. He hasn't told them he is leaving the country, only that he is opening a private clinic. That way, if he does come back, he won't be penalized. Sahloul thinks it's unlikely that someone like Ahmed will ever return. That's why, he says, it is so important to persuade the doctors still in Syria to stay. But he admits it's a losing battle. "Doctors there not only have to deal with patients and disease, but politics and fighting groups and security. I can see why they are fleeing, but for the sake of Syria's future, I wish they would stay." |
World | Is Czexit Next President of Czech Republic Calls for EU Referendum | The Czech Republic's President Milos Zeman has called for a referendum on the country's membership of both the European Union and NATO, the latest example of fallout from Britain's vote to leave the E.U. Zeman says that he personally backs the country remaining in both organizations, but said on Czech Radio that he "will do everything for Czechs to have a referendum and be able to express themselves. And the same goes for a NATO exit too," Reuters reports. The center-left president does not have the authority to call a referendum as it would require an amendment to the constitution. Still, the country is home to many Euroskeptics. According to a CVVM institute survey in April, satisfaction with E.U. membership was at 25, reports Reuters. Britain's decision to leave has raised concerns that other member-states might attempt to do the same. Far-right leaders in France and the Netherlands have called for similar referenda, and the far-right People's Party in Slovakia plan to launch a petition to hold a vote on the country's membership to the E.U. and NATO. , , |
World | A Culture of Clerical Immunity in Myanmar Is Putting Children at Risk of Abuse | In a whisper, barely audible above the monsoon rain hammering her family's hut, Aye Chan May whose name has been changed to protect her and her family describes an ordeal that she and three other children endured at the hands of a monk in Pathein, a city of nearly 300,000 people in southern Myanmar. The twelve-year-old tells TIME that the monk forced her and the three others to "massage" him nearly every night for the several months she lived in his monastery, before sending all but one child home. That child, Aye Chan May says, was then raped. The alleged perpetrator disappeared in April when the victims' parents approached local police, but he was known to and trusted by the parents before he joined the monkhood. They had been struggling to afford the cost of sending their children to public school and gladly accepted his offer of free accommodation and schooling for them. Aye Chan May's case, and others like it, bring into focus the issue of clerical privilege in this deeply Buddhist nation. Monks have long been Myanmar's moral compass, but in recent years many have used their positions to stir up hostility against the country's Muslim Rohingya, emboldening the military to launch a genocidal campaign against the ethnic minority. Now there are fears that some clerics are preying on the thousands of children receiving free or low-cost education and accommodation at monastic schools, while sheltering under the almost blanket immunity that monks enjoy. How that immunity is handled has the potential to become a vital issue in a youthful, rapidly changing society described as "Asia's final frontier." It also serves as a reminder that the issue of clerical abuse is not limited to Catholic churches in the West. In a country where two-thirds of the population live rurally and one-third lives in desperate poverty, Aye Chan May's parents are typical of many relying on a monastic education for their offspring. They earn a meager income cutting and selling firewood in a small village near Pathein and say they could never have imagined that a monk would commit abuse. "We are not educated. We want our children to be educated. So, we sent our daughter to the monastery," her mother tells TIME. "I did not expect this would happen at a monastery.", Read more A Backlash Against Burma's Islamophobic Buddhist Monks Has Begun, To be sure, for many if not the majority of children a monastic education is a lifeline to a more promising future, provided by decent monks and nuns as a compassionate service. Bonds between novices and their elders can be long-lasting and loving. But for some youngsters, monastic life is a traumatizing experience. It is impossible to say how many are abused, since few records are kept, but there are as many as many as 300,000 children living in monasteries according to some estimates by child safety organizations. There, the unlucky ones can find themselves under the close supervision of unscrupulous individuals who have taken monastic vows but have no training in, or experience of, caring for children and whose personal or criminal histories may be unknown. The red robe affords such monks a kind of protection that renders law enforcement often unable, or unwilling, to investigate alleged wrongdoing. When TIME visited the local police station to seek comment on the status of Aye Chan May's case, a junior officer could not confirm whether the search for the suspect was ongoing. The officer, who did not give his name, refused to summon his sleeping superior, claiming he was "afraid" to wake him. Harsh physical punishments are also a problem at monastic schools. On April 26, a video from a small village near Mandalay, in the north of the country, went viral. In it, a young boy cries out, pleading with a monk who is delivering a savage beating with a stick that ultimately left the youngster hospitalized. San Lae, the victim's aunt, has called for the monk to be held to account, telling local media she wanted him to be disrobed and "sent to jail". "No one is going to tolerate their family member being treated like this," she said. "It is unforgivable.", A sub-inspector from the Mandalay police station, who requested anonymity, told TIME the suspect was never detained. A deputy commander at the same station said they had been barred from speaking to media and referred calls to the regional information department, which also declined to comment. Myanmar law does not explicitly allow differential treatment for monks, but when a monk is accused of criminal misconduct, police begin the investigative process with considerable restraint. In most cases, they contact the regional branch of Myanmar's Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture MORAC for advice on how to proceed. The ministry may then notify the local clerical body. This is where police involvement often ends. Several calls made to MORAC for comment on this story were redirected within the ministry, which ultimately declined to comment. Attempts to get comment from the Sangha, or organization of clergy, were also unsuccessful. Tin Shwe is the director of the Yangon Justice Centre, an NGO that provides legal aid to the poor. He describes the hypothetical arrest of a monk as complicated and fraught with religious sensitivity. Read more Burma's Hard-Line Buddhists Are Waging a Campaign of Hate Nobody Can Stop, "In the Mandalay case, the monk is an abbot and he said he gave punishment to his students because wrongdoing happened in the monastery It is a bit delicate to handle cases related to monks," he says. Kyaw Myint, co-director of the center, says that throughout the judicial process police and legal officials are at pains to show their respect for accused monks. Judges even stand while addressing a monk in court, instead of sitting at the bench. Such deep cultural respect for monks, combined with gaping holes in the nation's education system, leaves children in monastic care uniquely vulnerable. The emphasis given to harmony in monasteries can also work to gag victims and would-be whistleblowers. Anthropologist and researcher Ward Keeler says it creates an environment in which infractionseven sexual abuseare routinely overlooked. Laity and parents are even more unlikely to report concerning behavior due to a perceived inferior moral status. While MORAC looks the other way, it appears unlikely that other branches of the government will take action. According to Sandar Kyaw, a child protection officer with Save the Children, children in monastic care will remain vulnerable to exploitation until authorities address the "challenge" of these schools. "Are you going to register a monastery? How are you going to monitor them? Because the real religious focus is just on Buddhism. The monks aren't encouraged to get involved in social welfare," she says. "I don't know how the Ministry of Religious Affairs is going to address it, but sooner or later it has to be addressed.", Back in Pathein, Aye Chan May's mother is still struggling to come to terms with what happened, but wants the family's experience to serve as a warning to others. "What I want to tell parents," she says, "is to be aware of the risk to their children." |
World | Indias Narendra Modi to Visit Pakistan in 2016 as Regional Foes Continue Dialogue | Correction appended, July 11, 2015, The highly anticipated talks between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Ufa, Russia, on Friday appeared to produce a few tangible positive outcomes, other than the former officially accepting an invitation to visit Pakistan next year. Modi will travel to Pakistan's capital city Islamabad for the 2016 summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation SAARC, of which both India and Pakistan are founding members, according to a statement from the Foreign Secretaries of both countries after the meeting. The one-on-one meeting between Modi and Sharif, the first in more than a year, took place in the led up to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization SCO summit. Modi's visit to Pakistan in 2016 will be his first ever, and the first by an Indian Prime Minister since Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004 Modi's predecessor Manmohan Singh never went across the border during his 10-year tenure. The two leaders also made a renewed commitment to fighting terrorism a thorn in the side of their bilateral relationship for several decades announcing a meeting of their respective national security advisers in New Delhi to resolve security issues and enhanced cooperation regarding the 26/11 terrorist attacks of 2008 in Mumbai which India has accused Pakistan of engineering. The neighbors, which have fought three wars in the past six decades, also moved a step closer to resolving other long-standing issues. Sharif and Modi also pledged enhanced cooperation between security forces at the India-Pakistan border, where violent clashes between troops are a frequent occurrence, and the release of hundreds of fishermen from both countries imprisoned for straying into the other's international waters within 15 days. "Whatever was signed was welcome," Gopalapuram Parthasarathy, a former High Commissioner of India to Pakistan, says to TIME in an interview. "Ultimately this relationship's direction will depend on terrorism and the situation on the borders.", However, given the fragile nature of similar bilateral agreements in the past, Parthasarathy does recognize the need to maintain "healthy skepticism" until concrete action is taken. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," he says. "Don't forget we had great agreements in Lahore during Vajpayee's visit and then we had Kargil war of 1999 within three months.", Correction The original version of this article misstated the year of the most recent visit of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It was 2004. The article also misstated the length of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's time in office. It was 10 years. |
World | The White House and the Pentagon Are Defending the Yemen Raid | U.S. government officials on Thursday said a Special Forces raid in Yemen on Sunday, the first major military mission authorized by President Donald Trump, was successfuleven though it resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL commando and likely several civilians. The New York Times reports that Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, and Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, briefed reporters with a detailed chronology of Sunday's mission, during which Navy SEAL Team 6 came under attack as it neared the home of a suspected al-Qaeda collaborator. Some reports suggest that the Trump administration moved rashly on the decision to carry out the mission, and that it may have been a risky one. However, "This was a very, very well-thought-out and executed effort," the Times quoted Spicer as saying. According to the Times, planning for the operation began last year under the administration of former President Barack Obama, and it was authorized by Trump last Thursday during a White House dinner with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, several other officials, the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his close aide Steve Bannon. The timeline laid out by Spicer on Thursday suggested that the operation had already been vetted and approved by Obama. "The operation was laid out in great extent," Spicer reportedly said. The Times also conceded that "the mission's casualties raise doubts about the months of detailed planning that went into the operation during the Obama administration.", Members of Obama's security team cited by the Times, however, dispute this narrative, claiming that Trump inherited notes that emphasized the potential risks. Colin Kahl, a national security adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden, has tweeted his contention that Spicer's account is inaccurate. "Obama made no decisions on this before leaving office, believing it represented escalation of U.S. involvement in Yemen," was one of a number of Kahl's responses on social media. The Times reports that Kahl's colleagues support his statements that the operation had not been given the greenlight by Obama. Meanwhile, multiple reports about the operation claim that it did not go smoothly the convoy, a joint force of American commandos and troops from the United Arab Emirates, reportedly came under heavy fire as it approached the target, a heavily guarded home that it was hoped would yield valuable data. Militants may have used women and children as human shields when the Special Ops unit fired back, and by some accounts women took up arms and began firing, as well. U.S. air reinforcement was then called in to support the team, according to a statement by the U.S Central Command. The statement said that civilians "were likely killed" in the aerial firefight, and that those casualties could include children. Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen has reportedly claimed that an 8-year-old girl, the daughter of al-Qaeda member Anwar al-Awlaki who was killed by U.S. forces in 2011, was among those who died on Sunday. Trump has defended the value of the operation, the Times reports, which he says gleaned intelligence that could help the U.S. and allies prevent future terror attacks. NYT |
World | Boaty McBoatface Embarks on Its Maiden Voyage This Week | Boaty McBoatface isn't just a silly name the Internet thought up last year during a public campaign to rename a British ship anymore. Now, it's also a yellow submarine that is tasked with finding out what kind of effect global warming is having on oceans. The unmanned sub is part of a fleet that will start its mission this Friday in Antarctica before continuing on to the Southern Ocean, according to the National Environment Research Council. The research group said it chose the name following last year's viral campaign it launched to get the public's help in naming a 300-million research ship. More than 124,000 people voted for Boaty McBoatFace, but they ultimately decided to name it RRS Sir David Attenborough after the British naturalist and broadcaster. "The popularity of Boaty' could not be ignored, and so one of the National Oceanography Centre's Autosub Long Range autonomous vehicles now proudly carries the name," NERC wrote on a page dedicated to the new submarine. Boaty McBoatface can navigate waters for multiple months and its first mission will last through April. The cutting-edge sub can dive deep enough to reach 95 of the ocean, the U.K.'s National Oceanography Center reports. On land, a full-size inflatable version, as well as a cartoon, will continue to entertain Boaty devotees. |
World | 17YearOld Dies After Hickey From Girlfriend Causes Stroke | A 17-year-old boy in Mexico City has reportedly died after a hickey he received from his girlfriend caused a stroke. Doctors believe the suction of the hickeyor love biteresulted in a blood clot, which traveled to Julio Macias Gonzalez's brain and caused a stroke, the Independent and local Mexican media reported. The teenager had convulsions while eating dinner with his family after hanging out with his 24-year-old girlfriend and later died, the newspaper said. This is at least the second reported incident of a hickey causing a stroke. A hickey had caused a 44-year-old New Zealand woman to have a non-fatal stroke, according to a 2010 study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal. Researchers at the time called the medical condition "a rare phenomenon.", Independent |
World | Australia Arrests Five Men Planning to Slip Out of the Country By Boat and Join ISIS | Australian police have detained five men they suspect were planning to sail from the country's northern coast in a bid to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria ISIS. Reuters reports that the five men were intercepted on Tuesday after transporting a 7-meter boat more than 1,800 miles north from Melbourne. They reportedly chose to leave Australia by boat because their passports had been invalidated. "We're investigating the allegation they were planning to make their way through Indonesia to the Philippines, with a view to ending up in Syria," Shane Patton, the deputy police commissioner in Victoria, told reporters. Scores of people are believed to have traveled from Australia to Syria to join ISIS, but Patton said he wasn't aware of any others attempting to join the group by boat. The men, who have not been formally charged, were arrested in Cairns, in the northern state of Queensland, before getting a chance to launch their tiny vessel. They were apparently heading to Australia's northern tip, which lies about 2,000 miles across open sea from the southern Philippines, where ISIS-affiliated Islamist separatists operate. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation identified one of the five detained men as Musa ne Robert Cerantonio, a Melbourne-born Muslim convert who allegedly preaches online in support of militants fighting in the Middle East and North Africa. Reuters |
World | LIVE Scotland Votes to Stay in the UK | Correction appended Sept. 19. Scotland rejected independence in Friday's referendum count, with around 55 of voters choosing to stay within the U.K. The 307-year-strong union has survived, although increased powers will be devolved to the nation. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who spearheaded the Yes campaign, conceded defeat at around 617 a.m. local time. "On behalf of the Scottish government I accept the result and pledge to work constructively in the interests of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom," he said. "The process by which we have made our decision as a nation reflects enormous credit upon Scotland. A turnout of 86 is one of the highest in the democratic world for any election or referendum in history this has been a triumph for the democratic process and participation in politics.", Despite a hard-fought campaign, only four of the 32 local authority districts voted for independence, including populous Glasgow, although even in this key constituency the margin was not particularly large, in a devastating blow to the Yes camp. The final bell tolled for secession advocates after Edinburgh voted to maintain ties with the south by 61. "I am delighted," said British Prime Minister David Cameron, hinting that more devolved powers would also be rolled out to other British regions. "It would have broken my heart to see the United Kingdom come to the end.", Alistair Darling, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer who led the No campaign, admitted that the closeness of the result was a wake-up call. "Today is a momentous today for Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole," he said. "While confirming our place within the union, we have confirmed the bonds that tie us together may they never be broken.", Pubs across the country were staying open throughout the night with customers both anxious and excited to see whether the historic union would be consigned to the history books. Greg Waddell, a doctor working in Glasgow, told TIME that he voted Yes "because disempowerment breeds dependency because the current extent of social inequality in Scotland demeans every one of its people.", Others among the 4.2 million registered voters were less optimistic about prospects for going it alone. Nick Allan, an oil executive from Aberdeen, said the Yes campaign promises were enticing, but he voted No as it would be impossible to pay for them especially not with North Sea oil. "The problem comes down to money," he says. "How on God's earth are you going to be able to afford all of these improvements? The country will be bankrupt in a matter of years.", Many questions regarding what a truly independent Scotland would look like remained unanswered, including over currency, health care, defense and E.U. membership. Spain's Prime Minister was one of several European leaders who said he would not support Scotland's application to the bloc, as the Iberian nation was unwilling to fan separatist campaigns of its own. These fears were echoed by Professor Michael Desch, an expert on foreign policy at the Notre Dame University. "Ironically, a peaceful Scottish secession from the United Kingdom could open Pandora's Box by raising unrealistic expectations about the ease of parting long-established national ways," he said. The vote captivated social media. Over the past 24 hours, 1.3 million people on Facebook in the United Kingdom made 3.3 million interactions regarding the Scottish referendum debate. Correction The original version of this story incorrectly stated where the 1.3 million people on Facebook had made 3.3 million interactions regarding the Scottish referendum debate. It was the United Kingdom. |
World | What the Popes Left Hook in Bolivia Means | Pope Francis' speech in Bolivia on Thursday will likely go down as one of the most significant moments of his July trip to Latin America. In a poetic, 55-minute manifesto, Pope Francis called for economic justice for the poor in some of his strongest language yet. "You are social poets creators of work, builders of housing, producers of food, above all for people left behind by the world market," he told a crowd of Bolivian indigenous workers, farmers, and social activists. "You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability to organize and carry out creative alternatives, through your daily efforts to ensure the three "L's" labor, lodging, land and through your proactive participation in the great processes of change on the national, regional and global levels. Don't lose heart!", From afar, the words make it sound like Pope Francis is rallying at the barricades from the stage of Les Misrables. Throw in the fact that Bolivian President Evo Morales presented the Pope with a hammer-and-sickle crucifix, and it seems even socialist. But context matters. Pope Francis did not give this speech while talking to the U.S. Congress or even in front of the United Nations. He was speaking in Bolivia, the poorest country in South America. He was also standing in front of Morales, an Aymara Indian who was wearing a jacket with a picture of Ernesto "Che" Guevara who is the country's first president to come from its indigenous majority. And he was doing it on his first visit to a country that has had a troubled relationship with the Catholic Church of late. Under Morales' administration, relations with church officials have been strained. Nearly 90 of Bolivians were raised Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center, and yet Morales' government has sought to limit the Church's power. Bibles and crosses were removed from the presidential palace when he took office in 2006, and a new constitution later declared the country a secular state. Meanwhile 60 of current Protestants in Bolivia say they were raised Catholic, also according to Pew, highlighting Catholic concerns of an evangelical exodus from the faith in the region. Francis' apology for Church oppression of indigenous people in the colonial period has particular meaning in this political context. Francis went off script in his apology, making very clear his efforts at reconciliation to set a stage for a future reconciliation. "I also want for us to remember the thousands and thousands of priests who strongly opposed the logic of the sword with the power of the cross," he said. "There was sin, and it was plentiful. But we never apologized, so I now ask for forgiveness. But where there was sin, and there was plenty of sin, there was also an abundant grace increased by the men who defended indigenous peoples.", For his part, Morales was happy to use the occasion of the Pope's visit to score a few political points of his own. He used the visit to say on Thursday that he has been seeking a meeting with President Obama, whom he called an imperialist at the U.N. in November. Bolivia's diplomatic ties with the U.S. broke in 2008 when the country expelled both the U.S. ambassador and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Bolivia is one of the world's largest producers of cocaine. The Pope's role in brokering the U.S.-Cuba dtente was clearly on his mind, and he tellingly gave credit only to the Pope and Cuba. "It is no concession of Obama's, but the triumph of the Cuban people and the world as a whole," he said. For him, then, Pope Francis could be a valuable link between Bolivia and the United States. In the end, the speech is a reminder that Pope Francis is increasingly a political player in a multi-level game of chess. His power and sway holds particular importance for countries in Latin America, who champion him as the first pope who is actually theirs. The push and pull with Morales tests just how much of a free agent Francis really is. That outcome also carries particular weight as the world waits to see how Pope Francis will handle his first trip to the U.S. the world's capitalist superpower, especially looking ahead to his address to a joint session of Congress. There, conservatives continue to raise questions over how close the Pope's ties to socialism actually are, and whether they approve of his critique of capitalism. Former ambassador Otto Reich, President George W. Bush's Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, says Pope Francis' economic and political agenda in his trip to Latin America has gone too far. "This pope grew up in a third world country that frankly is an example of what happens when you don't have capitalism and democracy," Reich says. "I was very optimistic when he was named and I have been extremely disappointed in the political and economic aspects of his papacy. He's a victim of third world education, and Argentina is a particularly sad example.", |
World | German Tourist Dies Posing for Photo at Machu Picchu | A German tourist died Wednesday trying to pose for a photo in a restricted area of Machu Picchu, according to reports. Oliver Park, 51, slipped from a ledge and fell around 130 ft. as he tried to jump to pose for a photo, according to a Washington Post report. Peruvian officials said the area had been restricted. Park was found dead when rescuers reached him 90 minutes after his fall. Park is far from the first to die on Machu Picchu. Many others have fallenor had rocks fall on themat the UNESCO Heritage Site, according to the report. |
World | Swedish Activist Shown Confessing on Chinese State Television | In a virtually unprecedented humiliation for a foreign national, a Swedish activist has appeared on Chinese state TV appearing to apologize for hurting "the feelings of the Chinese people" in his work with human-rights lawyers amid a widening crackdown on dissent by the Chinese government. The Guardian reports that supporters of Peter Dahlin, 35, insist the televised "confession" was scripted and must have been coerced from the Swede, who has reportedly been in China since 2007 supporting the work of local activists. Xinhua reported on Jan. 13 that Dahlin had been placed under "criminal compulsory measures" on suspicion of endangering state security. In a report on China Central Television on Tuesday, Dahlin gave his apparent confession, in English, to an interviewer. "I violated China's law through my activities here," he says. "I've caused harm to the Chinese government. I've hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. I apologize sincerely for this and I am very sorry that this ever happened.", , The television report alleges that Dahlin's nongovernmental organization, the Chinese Urgent Action Working Group was receiving money from overseas organizations and using it to undermine the Chinese state, while Dahlin was also accused of embezzling funds. It featured two anonymized Chinese men who acted as whistleblowers against Dahlin, one calling the legal aid group "a bridgehead set up by anti-Chinese organizations." , "Actually Peter is a spokesman of the foreign anti-China forces in China. Starting from the cases like land acquisition in civil affairs, instigating and cheating the people, asking them to protest against the government," a man identified only as "Mr. Xing" said. A colleague of the detained Swede, Michael Caster, told the Guardian that the words used in the confession could not have been Dahlin's own. "The lines about being sorry for causing harm to the Chinese government or Chinese state are clearly scripted. There was really never a point that he considered what he was doing to be harmful to the Chinese state or the Chinese society," he said. According to the Guardian, the fate of Dahlin's Chinese girlfriend, Pan Jinling, who was also detained, is unknown. An official at the Swedish Embassy in Beijing told the Guardian that "The Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Embassy in Beijing continue to work intensively on the matter.", Televised "confessions" by foreigners are virtually unheard of in China. British risk consultant Peter Humphrey was shown in a prison vest on state-run TV in 2013, accused of illegally obtaining the personal data of Chinese citizens. But his face, unlike Dahlin's, was digitally masked. "The fact that they're doing this to a foreigner is a further marker of the deterioration of the rule of law," said Willy Lam, a scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "They're risking international condemnation, but I think the Chinese don't care. The senior leadership, and Xi Jinping himself, thinks that China is fast becoming a superpower.", Dahlin appears to have been caught up in the Chinese government's ongoing campaign against human-rights lawyers and other critics. The crackdown has drawn particular concern in recent weeks as several men linked to a Hong Kongbased publishing house critical of Chinese leaders have disappeared or been detained by Chinese authorities, including Gui Minhai, who is also a Swedish citizen, and British citizen Lee Bo. Guardian |
World | Philippine Transgender Murder Becomes a Rallying Point for LGBT Rights | The burial of transgender woman Jennifer Laude has sparked a "National Day of Outrage" in the Philippines, with LGBT organizations staging candlelight vigils across the country on Friday. A U.S. Marine has been accused of her killing. "We will deliver messages of solidarity and push for justice," says Charlese Saballe, chairwoman of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines STRAP. "The media attention to Jennifer's case means a slow movement toward bringing transgender issues to the mainstream.", Following Laude's Oct. 11 murder, media have mostly focused on the fact that suspect Joseph Scott Pemberton has been held under U.S. guard, under a defense agreement between the two countries. Loud criticism has been raised over the agreement, with protesters attempting to carry a mock coffin to the U.S. embassy in Manila on Friday. However, as Steven Rood, the Asia Foundation's representative in the Philippines, points out, much of that will blow over. "There's the sensitivity of not treating Filipinos as second-class citizens in their own country," he says. "But the backdrop is that the average Filipino citizen is very much in favor of having U.S. troops here. This doesn't threaten U.S.-Filipino relations the strategic benefits for the alliance will override this specific issue.", Rather, some people hope that the strong bilateral connection between the two countries could impact the LGBT rights struggle in the Philippines. LGBT groups have participated in several protests outside the U.S. embassy in Manila and at vigils in the U.S. "If media and other groups in the U.S. frame Laude's murder as a hate crime and focuses on transgender rights, it might trickle down to people in society here and affect how they treat transgender and LGBT people," says Saballe. While visible, LGBT people in the Philippines lack anti-discriminatory legislation and the legal recognition of transgender available in many other countries, including the U.S. "Seen with American eyes, the position of the LGBT community in the Philippines is an unusual one," says Rood. "It's a normal part of the Filipino community, but the violence they may be subjected to has not been very visible. This will certainly be a rallying cry.", Saballe, whose organization also monitors violence against LGBT people in the Philippines, stresses that the community is "not really accepted in society." She adds, "Only days after Jennifer was killed, two other trans women were murdered.", Friday's protest action is being held simultaneously in four cities in the Philippines, with a solidarity event also arranged in the Netherlands and a discussion forum in Thailand. |
World | North Korea Says Righteous Sony Hack May Be Work of Its Supporters | North Korea's state-run media outlet said Sunday the country is not responsible for the Sony Pictures hack, in its most detailed response to the breach far. The news agency KCNA also praised the cyberattack and said it may be the work of the country's supporters. "The hacking into Sony Pictures Entertainment might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with North Korean in response to its appeal," Reuters quoted from the KCNA article. Previous statements regarding North Korea's involvement came from individual diplomats, one who denied the hack, and another who did not deny the hack. The KCNA article further accused South Korea of "floating the false rumor that the North was involved in the hacking," and warned the U.S. that "there are a great number of supporters and sympathizers with North Korea all over the world.", North Korea is speculated to have conducted the hack as retribution for an upcoming Sony film, The Interview, whose leading characters, played by Seth Rogen and James Franco, are tasked with assassinating North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The hack has exposed the personal data of several Hollywood stars as well as upcoming Sony films. Reuters |
World | Undeclared Chemical Weapons Traces Reported at Syrian Military Site | International inspectors reportedly discovered traces of chemicals used to make weapons at a Syrian military research site that had not been declared. Reuters, citing unnamed diplomatic sources, reports that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons took samples in December and January from a Syrian military research site that tested positive for chemical precursors used to make sarin and VX nerve agents. The Syrian government last year handed over 1,300 metric tons of chemical weapons after it pledged to eliminate its stockpile. "This is a pretty strong indication they have been lying about what they did with sarin," one diplomatic source said. "They have so far been unable to give a satisfactory explanation about this finding.", The Hague-based OPCW did not immediately respond to TIME's request for comment. |
World | This Is the Germanwings Pilot Accused of Crashing the Plane | Andreas Lubitz dreamed of flying since childhood. As a teenager in the Rheinland-Pfalz region of Germany, he joined a local flying club, first honing his skills on a glider plane and working his way up to become a co-pilot on an Airbus A320, flying for one of his country's best-reputed carriers, Germanwings. None of his colleagues or fellow flying enthusiasts seemed to have any inkling that he could end his own life by slamming his plane into the side of a mountain in France on Tuesday, March 24, senselessly taking the lives of 149 passengers and crew members with him. But that is the version of events that French investigators offered during a press conference on Thursday. The 28-year-old had a "deliberate desire to destroy this plane," said prosecutor Brice Robin during a briefing in Paris. When the experienced pilot of the plane briefly left Lubitz alone in the cabin, "he voluntarily refused to open the door of the cockpit to the pilot and voluntarily began the descent of the plane," Robin said. The result was one of the worst tragedies in the history of European aviation, one that raises many questions about the ability of even the best airlines and flight training schools to assess the mental health of their commercial pilots. Briefing reporters on Thursday in Frankfurt, the head of Germanwings' parent company, Lufthansa, said he had complete faith in the competence of the company's pilots even after this disaster. "No system in the world could prevent an event like this," said Carsten Spohr, the chief executive of Lufthansa. Lubitz had undergone the same rigorous tests, including physical and psychological examinations, as the rest of Lufthansa's pilots, and he had been working as a co-pilot for Germanwings since 2013, Spohr said, with 630 hours of experience flying the A320. "He passed not only every medical test but every flight test," he added. "He was 100 flightworthy, without a single restriction.", According to friends of Lubitz who spoke to the media on Thursday, he was a "rather quiet" young man but gave off no signs of being depressed, let alone suicidal. "He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well," a member of his local glider club, Peter Ruecker, told the Associated Press. "He gave off a good feeling.", Before it emerged that the crash may have been intentional, the glider club released a statement on its website mourning Lubitz. "Andreas became a member of the association as a teenager, he wanted to realize his dream of flying," the statement said. "He was able to fulfill his dream, the dream he has now so dearly paid for with his life.", Tragically, however, the fulfillment of his dream may also have cost 149 innocent people their lives. Asked on Thursday whether Lufthansa considered the cause of the crash to be suicide, its chief executive suggested that this was too soft a word. "When one man takes 149 lives along with his own, there is word for that other than suicide," he said. The co-pilot's motives, however, remain unclear. Though he reportedly had an apartment in the city of Dsseldorf, he spent much of his time at his parents' home in the small German town of Montabaur, whose population is about 12,000. His profile on Facebook suggests innocuous tastes in the outdoors and electronic music his photo on the sight shows him sitting in view of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. As the media descended on his hometown on Thursday, police established a presence around his parents' house, while his friends expressed grief and incredulity over the his alleged decision to kill so many innocent people. "He was just another boy like so many others here," Ruecker, his friend from the flying club, told the Reuters news agency. "Knowing Andreas, this is just inconceivable for me." |
World | Meet Evan Mawarire the Zimbabwean Pastor Risking His Life for Political Change | Evan Mawarire does not regret coming back to Zimbabwe, though he risks jail, abduction, torture or being "disappeared" by government thugs. "This is where my family support network is, where my church is, where my roots are, where my life is," the pro-democracy activist tells TIME of his hope for a new liberation struggle in the country. "For me the realization is if you don't do something for your own nation, no one else will do it with the same passion you have.", Mawarire, 39, turned from evangelical pastor to activist in April 2016, when a video he created criticizing the government of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe went viral under the hashtag ThisFlag, provoking a storm of pro-democracy protests and turning him into the face of a movement. Forced into exile last year, he returned in February and was promptly arrested he now faces a 20-year sentence for charges that include subverting the government and inciting public violence. Now out on bail, Mawarire is keen to reignite a movement he midwifed close to a year ago that he hopes could lead to a change in the country's leadership. He is also toying with the idea of running in the 2018 general election, but only if he "is called upon and the shoe fits.", "I don't want to close the door on going into politics," Mawarire says. "This comes from the realization that there are many levels to contributing to the change that Zimbabwe needs.", He says he decided to create the ThisFlag clip, which spoke out against the country's dysfunction, during a moment of clarity as he thought of his children's future. "I kind of snapped I have nothing to my name, not a dime, no property, nothing," Mawarire says. "That is a horrible, horrible, prospect for my children the longer I thought about it the more I realized we are in this situation simply because a group of people have not cared for 37 years.", His eloquent soliloquy in the video struck a chord among Zimbabweans. The country run out of money in 2016, due to decades of economic mismanagement and corruption by Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party. By June, ThisFlag had tens of thousands of views and snowballed into an umbrella movement of various pro-democracy factions. On July 6, it led to a nation-wide shutdown the largest protest the country has seen in a decade. The regime took notice and Mawarire was arrested for a first time that month. But, in a scene straight out of a movie, his charges were thrown out by the magistrate on July 13 after some 150 lawyers stood up in court to represent him, while thousands amassed outside the courthouse in Harare's Rotten Row. It was "extraordinary," as they were all there in solidarity with what seemed to be a new liberation figure. "It gives me goosebumps to think about it" he says. The victory was short-lived. His then-pregnant wife, Samantha, was being harassed by groups of men visiting their home and Mawarire had received a tip-off that he was "either to be arrested or there would be an abduction" after his release from jail. Sometime at the end of July, Mawarire fled to South Africa before moving to an undisclosed location in the U.S. where his wife and three daughters still reside. Little more than six months later, he returned and found himself back at the mercy of the authorities. Resurrecting ThisFlag as a symbol of popular resistance is proving harder than he anticipated some supporters are reportedly resentful he fled last year, while others who remained had to face the brutality of Zimbabwe's state security forces. Local NGO Counselling Services Unit CSU said in October that the country saw record levels of abduction, assault and torture against civil society actors and opposition members. But the pastor remains optimistic. "I don't think support has died down, if anything my return and arrest has proved to citizens that we do have a case to unite and to carry on," he says. There is also perfect storm of socio-economic factors coming into play. While estimates vary, CIA World Factbook has unemployment in the country at 95 and many are worried the government's introduction of a quasi-currency, called bond notes, will spell further economic disaster. The country, once known as the breadbasket of Africa, has been using foreign currencies since 2009, when the discredited Zimbabwean dollar was scrapped after it reached a monthly inflation rate of 79.6 trillion percent. "What breaks my heart is seeing a generation wiped out because a government has not paid attention to things they should have many years ago," Mawarire says. "The health, the economy education.", He wants young Zimbabweans to understand that "they are the ones that are going to be handed a country that is worthless if they don't stand up." More than half the country's population is under the age of 25, and Mawarire hopes to mobilize what he calls "the largest group of first-time voters that we ever had in any point in Zimbabwe's history." , This might be idealistic Mugabe has relied on vote rigging and campaigns of political violence to win the last two elections, and nothing suggests that the world's oldest head of state, who turned 93 on Feb 21, is ready to loosen his grip. His wife, Grace, told supporters on Feb. 17 that her husband would trounce opponents in the next presidential elections even if he died and took part as "a corpse," Associated Press reports. The dictator loathes dissent, and has taken aim at Mawarire during a speech in 2016 "Beware these men of cloth, not all of them are true preachers of the Bible. I don't know whether they are serving God. They spell God in reverse." In 2015, activist Itai Dzamara never returned after being taken by force into an unmarked vehicle and Mawarire is no less vulnerable, despite his high profile. But the pastor is hedging on Zimbabweans to be his salvation. "The way to be safe, at least for me, is to be with the people or stand with the people" he tells TIME. "Even if I do get arrested, even if I do get abducted, the cause remains and the support remainsvictory for me looks like this, without a doubt, that Zimbabweans need to be the agents that change our government." |
World | Iran Displays New Russian Missile Defense System on Army Day | Iran on Sunday touted the strength of its military while showing off parts of its new Russian S-300 missile defense system during the nation's annual Army Day celebration. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani displayed the first part of the S-300, which Russia delivered last week, during the ceremony in Tehran, Reuters reports. The country's soldiers marched around as fighter jets and bombers put on an air show above, according to the news agency. The show of force was not meant to intimidate other countries, Rouhani said. "The power of our armed forces is not aimed at any of our neighbors," he said, according to Reuters, which cited the state news agency IRNA. "Its purpose is to defend Islamic Iran and act as an active deterrent.", The S-300 missile defense system is one of the most advanced systems of its kind, Reuters reports. It can engage multiple aircraft and ballistic missiles about 90 miles away. Reuters |
World | Extremists in Iraq Continue March Toward Baghdad | As Islamist extremists captured Tikrit, a major city in Iraq's Sunni heartland, just a day after taking Mosul, analysts offered sobering assessments of a fundamentalist militant force whose ambitions may no longer be the stuff of fantasy. Hardened by years of battle in neighboring Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria ISIS is routing the forces of a modern nation-state and gathering land with the ultimate goal of establishing an alternate form of governance, an Islamic caliphate. "This is not a terrorism problem anymore," says Jessica Lewis, an expert on ISIS at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. "This is an army on the move in Iraq and Syria, and they are taking terrain.", In capturing Tikrit, famed as the hometown of Saddam Hussein, Islamist militants whom the secular dictator had not tolerated were moving south down Iraq's main highway toward Baghdad. Lewis cited reports that Abu Ghraib, the city just to the west of the capital, was also under assault from ISIS forces that have held Fallujah and much of Ramadi since January. "We are using the word encircle," Lewis tells TIME. "They have shadow governments in and around Baghdad, and they have an aspirational goal to govern. I don't know whether they want to control Baghdad, or if they want to destroy the functions of the Iraqi state, but either way the outcome will be disastrous for Iraq.", There was little argument on that point on Wednesday among the American specialists who came to know the country well during the almost nine years U.S. forces remained there, yet faced no opposition as militarily organized as ISIS. The Sunni extremists at the time were known to the U.S. military as AQI, for al-Qaeda in Iraq. "They were great terrorists," says Douglas Ollivant, a former Army Cavalry officer who later handled Iraq for the White House National Security Council. "They made great car bombs. But they were lousy line infantry, and if you got them in a firefight, they'd die. They have now repaired that deficiency.", Like other analysts, Ollivant credits the civil war in Syria for the striking improvement in battlefield ability. "You fight Hizballah for a couple of years, and you either die or you get a lot better," he says. "And these guys got a lot better.", Lewis, who was a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, calls ISIS "an advanced military leadership." "They have incredible command and control and they have a sophisticated reporting mechanism from the field that can relay tactics and directives up and down the line," he said. "They are well-financed, and they have big sources of manpower, not just the foreign fighters, but also prisoner escapees." In Mosul, many of the estimated 1,200 prisoners released as the city fell were thought to be Islamist militants. "They are highly skilled in urban guerrilla warfare while the new Iraqi army simply lacks tactical competence," says Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, who monitors jihadist activity for the Middle East Forum. In a battle that is fought largely on sectarian lines Iraq's government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has championed the country's Shiite majority Iraqi officials have solicited Shiite militias to engage the ISIS, "though they prove to be equally incompetent," al-Tamimi adds. Ollivant, now a fellow at the New America Foundation, says that despite the thunderclap of Mosul's collapse after only four days of fighting, it's not yet apparent how formidable ISIS really is. The windfall of military materiel left behind by fleeing Iraqi forcesespecially simple weapons and ammunition, because they do not require complex maintenanceare significant, but less so than the group's operational depth "Is it holding what it's taking or is it just kind of sweeping through and moving on to the next thing, leaving only a skeletal force behind, that would be easy enough to push out," says Ollivant. "Or is it strong enough to hold the territory it's taken? Those are the two options. One is embarrassing, the other is catastrophic.", But if ISIS can in fact hold the area it has overrun, it may well be able to fulfill its stated mission of restoring the Caliphate, the governing structure for the Sunni Muslim world that inherited authority from the Prophet Mohammed. "This is of great significance," according to an assessment released Wednesday by The Soufan Group, a private security company. A restored Caliphate will attract "many more disaffected young people from all over the Muslim world, especially the Middle East, lured by nostalgia for al-Khulafa al-Islamiya the Islamic Caliphate, which remains a potent motivator for Sunni extremists.", Restoring the Caliphate was the stated goal of Osama bin Laden in creating al-Qaeda, but the terror group has never operated militarily. "It's ISIS that will build the Caliphate, not al-Qaeda," says al-Tamimi. The entire concept of the Caliphate remains obscure to most Westerners. It has not existed since the Ottoman Empire which claimed dominion over the world's Muslims was pulled apart after World War I. The European powers divided the Middle East into their preferred system of governancenation statesthough that arrangement lately seems under threat, especially in Syria and Iraq. Thomas Ricks, who covered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq for the Washington Post and named his bestselling account of the subject Fiasco, says the current crisis in Iraq was set in motion over a decade ago. "I think that the U.S. invasion fundamentally unbalanced Iraq, and the Middle East," Ricks tells TIME in an e-mail. "By removing Sunni power in Baghdad we increased Iran's influence in the countryand so provoked a Sunni backlash. Big picture, I think we may be seeing the beginning of the re-drawing of the map, this time done by residents of the region instead of by British and French diplomats." |
World | About 10 Migrants in Germany Were Attacked Every Day Last Year | An average of almost 10 migrants in Germany were subject to attacks every day last year, according to figures released by the country's interior ministry. The BBC reports that a total of 560 peopleincluding 43 childrenwere injured in about 2,545 attacks on individual migrants. Almost 1,000 more attacks were reported on asylum housing. The figures, which the BBC says were released in response to a question in Parliament, reflect only the number of attacks in 2016 because detailed data had not been monitored in previous years. "People who have fled their home country and seek protection in Germany have the right to expect safe shelter," the interior ministry said in a statement cited by the BBC. Public anxiety has risen in recent years over the expansion of migrant communities and fears about terrorist attacks in various parts of Europe. Some left-leaning politicians have claimed that despite fears that migrants could compromise national security, the more serious threat could be coming from far-right groups who oppose immigration. According to the BBC, the number of asylum seekers entering Germany has reduced significantly from the year prior the country saw some 280,000 arrivals in 2016, less than half of the 600,000 at the height of the migrant crisis in 2015. The reduction in arrivals was due in part to the closure of a migrant route through the Balkans, as well as a deal brokered between Turkey and the E.U. to stem the flow of Syrians coming from Turkey into Europe via Greece. BBC |
World | The Ottawa Attack Changes Everything and Hopefully Nothing at All | It was Canadian humor. On Oct. 21, I emailed an old friend in Ottawa. After updates on life and work and weather, I asked about what was happening in the capital these days. I once worked for the local paper and have fond memories of the city. But as a Toronto native, I could never admit that. "What's the mood?" I ventured. "Does Ottawa even have moods?" You see, Ottawa is so safe and nice that even Canadians joke about how safe and nice it is. Not today. At around 10 a.m. local time on the morning of Oct. 22, the heart of the Canadian capital came under attack. A man with a rifle approached and shot and killed 24-year-old Nathan Cirillo, a reservist standing guard at the National War Memorial, a granite cenotaph that memorializes fallen soldiers. From there, a male suspect, now identified as 32-year-old Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, seized control of a vehicle and drove to the nearby Parliament buildings. Set on rise above the Ottawa River, looking out on Quebec, the site is elegant, but exposed. The north of the complex is a grassy field, the site of group tours, Frisbee tosses and the occasional yoga class. The approach is open and welcoming. You can pretty much walk in. When the gunman arrived, many members of Parliament MPs, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, were gathered inside the Centre Block. Video shot by Josh Wingrove, a reporter for the Globe and Mail, shows police officers rushing in as shots ring through the building's vaulted stone corridors. Politicians and journalists took cover in offices or under desks, live-tweeting the lockdown from their phones. Though what happened next is still unclear, several top Canadian politicians reported that Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers, a retired veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, took down the shooter, potentially saving lives. The position of the sergeant at arms is part security, part ceremony, and involves carrying a ceremonial mace into the House of Commons. Vickers is already being hailed as a hero, and a most Canadian one at that he is described as competent, community-minded, kind. Outside the Gothic towers, police shut down swaths of the city's core, and security personnel appeared on rooftops. By the standards of world capitals, Ottawa is very, very safe. When I worked as a journalist at the Ottawa Citizen, I covered more barn fires and county fairs more than murders there were just nine homicides in 2013. There could have been panic. But footage from the scene shows police officers calmly asking commuters to take cover. Out of habit, they use "please.", Local authorities released the name of the victim and a suspect, but did not speculate on motives just yet. The press, for the most part, was careful not to jump to conclusions in the hours after the gunfire, noting only that this was the second time in three days that members of Canadian security forces were targeted. On Oct 20 an assailant ran over two soldiers in Quebec, killing on of them it is being investigated as a potential terrorist attack., Across the border, media critics took note of the nonhysterical, fact-based live broadcasts. "Canada's CBC News Shows What Thoughtful Breaking News Coverage Really Looks Like," read one headline. "The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation today gave a master class in calm, credible breaking news reporting," observed a piece from Mother Jones. For all its calm and restraint, Ottawa is clearly, and understandably, shaken. In an interview with the Canadian Press newswire, MP John McKay, who was on Parliament Hill during the attacks, said he could not even contemplate what came next. "This changes everything," he said. Everything, yes, and hopefully, nothing at all. For those affected and their families, all is different, darker. In the weeks and months to come, the country and the city will face questions about security. Questions about motive. There will be pointed fingers, grief and fear. But already, the city is showing its best self. People are sending words of support to the victim's family, praising the sergeant at arms, trying not to think, or say, the worst. Within hours, in tweets that would melt any Canadian's heart, was the type of news that lets you know that good old Ottawa will be just fine Minor hockey games are canceled. The Toronto Maple LeafOttawa Senator showdown is delayed, for now. When the smoke clears, they will play the game and, hey, the Senators might actually win. Our capital, our lovely capital, lives to laugh another day. |
World | Thousands of Iraqis Flee to Kurdish Territory to Escape Unrest | What was last week just a dusty plot of land next to a Kurdish military checkpoint in northern Iraq is now a temporary home to at least 500 Iraqis who fled Mosul as Islamist militants took their city. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS, has rapidly taken swathes of Iraqi territory since the start of its ongoing assault. It also vows to take the capital of Baghdad. "We left our home at 5 a.m." said Miriam, who did not want to give her last name. She fled Mosul with her husband and four children, and her family's now among the hundreds at the Kurdish site. "The neighbors told us that by 8 a.m. they were in our house." Miriam's husband often worked as a driver for police and army personnel, and friends told them ISIS was making threats against him. "As we left we were stopped at an ISIS checkpoint," she said. "There was one Iraqi and one Syrian.", ISIS is now in control of Mosul as well as stretches of land from Falluja in western Iraq to the eastern edge of Aleppo in Syria. It also controls parts of the Iraq-Syria border. As ISIS entered Mosul, the national Iraqi army put up little resistance, with many abandoning their posts, stripping off uniforms and leaving weapons and military vehicles some American-made in the hands of the militants. "They came on white pick-up trucks. All of them in the back with their modern weapons," said Loay Annaqi, who also fled Mosul. "As ISIS came in, the army left. They just fired a few mortars.", Annaqi and his family are now staying in one of 100 tents in this camp. The floor and walls are made of plastic sheets and they bake under the harsh Iraqi sun. They don't have running water or electricity. Yet, Annaqi says he never wants to go back to Mosul, fearing ISIS wants to consolidate these lands and establish an Islamic state. "Every place they go they put up their black flag," said Annaqi. But most feel safe here in the Kurdish territory. In recent days the well-trained Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have successfully battled ISIS around Kirkuk, the contested oil-rich city in the north, and some here now see Kurdish military strength as a bargaining chip for the sovereignty-seeking Kurds. As ISIS moves toward Baghdad, Iraqi politicians and religious leaders are calling on citizens to defend their cities, heightening fears that Iraq could face a fresh, all-out civil war along a Sunni-Shi'ite divide. ISIS is a radical Sunni Islamist group too extreme even for al-Qaeda, which distanced itself from the militants last year. But ISIS has sympathy here. Discontent with the Shi'ite-lead government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is rife, particularly among the Sunni population. Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, is primarily Sunni. Sitting in a refugee tent, Abu Mohamed, who didn't want to use his real name, says al-Maliki is worse than ISIS. "Since al-Maliki took over power he did nothing for us. No services. Just jailing people and oppressing people," he said, echoing the complaints of many Iraqi Sunnis. "We have bad, and we have worse.", Mohamed's eldest daughter sits in the corner. Her husband was killed by a militant group in 2012 while he was working with the Iraqi government. But despite losing his son-in-law, Mohamed still says ISIS is better than al-Maliki, revealing deep sectarian tensions. "I left because I have a family and was worried about the violence to come," said Abu Mohammed. "So far ISIS is not targeting civilians. They target the army, the police and government institutions.", But there have been many reports of attacks and summary executions. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR estimates there are now around 300,000 Iraqis taking refuge in Kurdish territory. Catherine Robinson, a UNHCR spokesperson,says Kurdish residents have welcomed the refugees with blankets, groceries and even hot meals. However, there are decades of tensions between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds. In their semi-autonomous region, Iraqi Kurds have achieved relative prosperity and security. It's unclear how far the Kurdish welcome will stretch if Arab refugees continue to pour into their territory. "We are still seeing people crossing the border, leaving the Mosul area, fearing there might be more violence in the coming days," said Robinson. "At this point we are bracing ourselves for more people." |
World | Watch Gitmo Detainees Swapped for Bergdahl Arrive in Qatar | The U.S released five detainees from Guantanamo Bay over the weekend into the custody of Qatar, in exchange for the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan nearly five years ago. The video abovepurportedly released by an Afghan news agencyshows the men as they land in Qatar, welcomed by hugs and smiles. Qatar is believed to have played a crucial role in mediating the release of the American soldier, but the Qatari government remains reluctant to give details about its involvement in the operation. U.S. officials said the men will be subject to security restrictions, including a one-year travel ban. Are the five Taliban leaders a danger to Americans?, Statistics suggest that the Taliban leaders freed may remain a threat. "Of the 614 Gitmo prisoners who had left the care of the U.S. Department of Defense as of January 14, 2014, 104 were confirmed to have reengaged in terrorism and 74 were suspected to have reengaged," TIME's Massimo Calabresi reports. |
World | Indian Minister Backtracks on Statement That Female Tourists Shouldnt Wear Skirts | An Indian minister who said foreign women visiting the country should not wear skirts hastily walked back his controversial comments Monday, saying he was only referring to "religious places" and said what he did out of "concern.", "I am a father of two daughters, I would never tell women what they should wear or not," said Mahesh Sharma, according to local broadcaster NDTV. "Such a ban is unimaginable, but it is not a crime to be cautious.", Quiz Can You Guess These Back to School Prices?, Sharma, a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Minister of State for Culture and Tourism, had said a day earlier that women traveling to India should not wear skirts and avoid going out alone at night. His comments caused a storm and considerable ridicule on Twitter. This is not the first time the politician has made questionable comments, saying last year that it was "not acceptable in India" for girls to go out at night. NDTV |
World | A New London Exhibition Spotlights the Women Who Survived ISIS | A new London exhibition is displaying portraits of Yezidi women who survived violence when living under ISIS. The IamYezidi exhibit at the Lacey Contemporary Gallery in the British capital features portraits of women who were kept captive by the terrorist organization and who sat for the photographer Benjamin Eagle. "We want to tell these women's stories, to make sure that they're not faceless," said Ravinder Singh, the founder of Khalsa Aid, an NGO which helped organize the exhibition. The Yezidis are an ancient religious minority from northern Iraq, who have been the targets of ISIS genocide, according to the UN. The faith draws on multiple religions, including Christianity and Islam. ISIS militants have separated men and boys from their families and kill those who refuse to convert in an attempt to "exterminate" the Yazidi identity. The UN's report found that thousands of women and girls are held captive and are often subject to horrific sexual abuse. Singh and Khalsa Aid staff work in Duhok, in northern Iraq where many of the women now live in an displaced persons camp. Eagle travelled to Duhok to photograph them. The exhibition features the women's portraits accompanied by their quotes, which serves to tell a small part of their stories. "These women have been neglected and ignored. Some of them really want to talk about their experiences." Singh said. He hopes to bring the exhibit to New York as well as to have a one-day display later this year in the British Parliament. The exhibition will run until Sunday. |
World | US Officials Say Russia Is Responsible for the Attack on a Syrian Aid Convoy | U.S. defense officials believe that Russian planes were responsible for the attack on a humanitarian convoy in Aleppo on Monday. Officials told Reuters that two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 warplanes were in the skies above the convoy before the attack occurred. According to the Guardian, at least 20 people, including the local director of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, were killed when 18 vehicles out of a 31-vehicle convoy were hit by an apparent airstrike by either Syrian or Russian forces. "There are only three parties that fly in Syria the coalition, the Russians and the Syrian regime. It was not the coalition. We don't fly over Aleppo We would leave it to the Russians and the Syrian regime to explain their actions," Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesperson, said to the Guardian. During his farewell address to the General Assembly, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, denounced the attack as "sickening, savage and apparently deliberate.", The U.N. emergency-relief coordinator, Stephen O'Brien, said the attacks amounted to war crimes if the convoy was deliberately targeted. Moscow has firmly denied involvement in the attacks. "We are considering, with resentment and indignation, attempts by some foreign curators of rebel units and terrorists in Syria to put the blame for the incident on the Russian and Syrian Aerospace Forces who allegedly bombarded a relief convoy," said a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry to the TASS News Agency. The U.N. later rolled back on claims that the convoy was targeted by an airstrike. "We are not in a position to determine whether these were in fact airstrikes. We are in a position to say that the convoy was attacked," U.N spokesperson Jens Laerke told the Guardian. The strikes have threatened to derail peace talks and came at the end of a one-week truce brokered by U.S. and Russia that was meant to help administer aid to besieged areas. Reuters reported that after the attack, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss the cease-fire before joining a broader meeting of members of the Security Council, the European Union, and Middle Eastern nations to discuss the conflict which has now entered its sixth year. "The cease-fire is not dead," Kerry told media. Not all officials are as optimistic. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters that "U.S.-Russian negotiation has reached its limits." |
World | The Likely New Years Resolutions of World Leaders in 2019 | Every year around this time, people dedicate themselves to self-improvement in the 12 months ahead. So, as a break from my usual column, I'd like to read the minds of the luminaries of global politics and share their New Year's resolutions for 2019, President Donald Trump I resolve to win the trade war with China which is CHEATING us, repeal Obamacare, build a big BEAUTIFUL border wall, cut everyone's taxes, balance the budget FAIRLY QUICKLY, order a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the HELL is going on, take no vacations, play no golf, tell everyone there was NO COLLUSION, make America GREAT again and lose three pounds. Just like last year!, British Prime Minister Theresa May This year, I will keep calm and carry on Oh, who am I kidding? I resolve to take one more shot at this Brexit nonsense and, if it doesn't work, pass this utterly thankless job to Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn and see how they like it, thank you very much. French President Emmanuel Macron I will listen more closely to the desires of my subjects and ensure their government can provide plenty of cake when they are hungry. L'tat, c'est Macron!, Chinese President Xi Jinping In 2019, I resolve to project steady confidence, keep making promises and remain patient until Donald Trump is no longer in my path. I then resolve to proceed as before. North Korea's Kim Jong Un In 2019, I resolve to project steady confidence, keep making promises and remain patient until Donald Trump is no longer in my path. I then resolve to proceed as before. And to take even more selfies with world leaders. Russian President Vladimir Putin I will guarantee Ukraine's elections in March are an event to remember, and promise to use all my discipline and inner strength to avoid laughing at what comes next in the United States, and to find new ways to annoy Washington that are so inventive I surprise even myself. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro This year, I'll show the world why my family gave me the middle name Messias. I resolve to break corruption, devour criminals, bring dignity back to the office of President and make Brazil great again. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman I will take a deep breath and count to 50 whenever someone says something about me that I don't like, work really hard to be my best self and to make new friends. In Russia and China, mainly. Julian Assange This year, I'll be a better guest for my hosts in the Ecuadoran embassy in the U.K. I will do all my dishes clean the cat's litter box on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays and keep digging that tunnel in the basement for the moment we all know is coming. German Chancellor Angela Merkel I resolve to hide my increasingly obvious glee at the reality that after 2021, I won't be responsible for solving Europe's problems and healing all these self-inflicted wounds anymore. Mutti out!, Special counsel Robert Mueller This year, you can be sure of one thing. I will REDACTED. |
World | 4 Lessons Putin Will Take From US Sanctions | On Monday, the Obama Administration moved to punish Russia for annexing the region of Crimea with a round of financial sanctions. The reply from Moscow's political elites was either a laugh or a shrug. None of the individuals targeted that time were particularly close to President Vladimir Putin, nor were they senior enough to threaten his entire hierarchy. But the laughter turned to consternation on Thursday after the latest round of U.S. sanctions. On its website, the U.S. Treasury Department published a blacklist of 16 government officials and four members of what it called Putin's "inner circle." It was an impressive list, and the implicit threats of what's to come were even more pointed than the asset freezes it imposed. Here are a few that Putin could find between the lines of the sanctions list, 1. Now it's personal. It's not just about Crimea or Ukraine anymore. It's not even about punishing Russia's economy. It's about making life as uncomfortable as possible for Putin and his closest friends. In its explanation of the blacklist, the U.S. Treasury Department refers to a place called the Ozero Dacha Collective, a gated community of lakeside villas that Putin and his pals set up near St. Petersburg in 1996. At the time, Putin was just making his move from his hometown, where he'd served as a functionary in the mayor's office, to a position in the Kremlin. Many of his old friends moved with him to the capital, and as Putin's influence grew, so too did the fortunes of the Ozero Collective. Many of the men who had summer homes next to Putin in that community went on to become billionaires or senior officials under his rule, and the word ozero, which means lake in Russian, has become almost synonymous with nepotism in the Putin era. The Obama Administration's direct assault on the members of Putin's clique goes to the core of Putin's inner circle, and for a man as loyal to his friends as Putin has been through the years, that will turn this conflict into a personal grudge. 2. Secrets are no longer safe. Few state secrets are as carefully guarded in Russia as the personal finances of its President. Though rumors and unconfirmed reports have pegged Putin's personal fortune at around 40 billion, the Kremlin has always maintained that its master is a civil servant of modest means, earning less than 200,000 in 2012 and owning only one Russian-made car. But in its statement on Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department stated that Putin has investments in a company called Gunvor, one of the biggest oil traders in the world. That is not public information, and although the U.S. government hasn't given its source, this little bombshell comes with an implicit warning The White House knows things about Putin's wealth that he does not want going public. 3. Insiders are not immune. Last year, Putin tried to preempt Western sanctions against Russia's elites. In his state of the nation address, he ordered all state officials to close their foreign bank accounts and bring their assets home. The move was meant to give the Kremlin some immunity from the unrest that Western blacklists are designed to spread through the halls of power. And even if his officials did not comply with that directive, they would be left in no position to complain when those sanctions hit Putin had already warned them this was coming. But that vaccine does not seem to have worked against the sanctions leveled on Thursday. The targets this time included not just officials, but companies and institutions that do not have the option of bringing their assets home. Bank Rossiya, a lender run by one of Putin's close associates, will have a hard time operating internationally now that its access to U.S. capital markets are restricted. So will the companies of the billionaire Rotenberg brothers, Putin's childhood friends, who are both on the blacklist. 4. Anyone could be a target. The list of sanctioned individuals is astounding in part for its randomness. In addition to Putin's ex-KGB confidants and judo buddies, it includes such obscure politicians as Aleksandr Totoonov, a member of the culture, science and information committee in Russia's upper house of parliament. Why him? The only reason given in the statement is that he supported the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine. But so did practically every single lawmaker in Russia, so all of them are now fair game. At least publicly, both houses of the Russian parliament have defied this threat, openly calling for the U.S. to blacklist all their members in solidarity with their sanctioned colleagues. But in private, many of them have likely been making calls to their bankers and real estate agents to figure out what assets they now stand to lose. |
World | This Woman Is Forecast to be the Biggest Winner of the UK Election | "Oh my god, it's Nicola Sturgeon," a twenty-something woman in a wool beanie cries, sounding genuinely star struck, as she spots the rising star of U.K. politics in the middle of a scrum of journalists, photographers and selfie seekers. The Scottish National Party SNP leader and Scottish First Minister is on the campaign trail, visiting a street in South Queensferry, a town on the western outskirts of Edinburgh, and stopped at a promenade with the spectacular Forth bridges in the distance. With just days to go before the U.K.'s general election on May 7, "Sturgeon-mania" as the British press has branded the politician's sudden spike in popularity is in full swing. Dressed smartly in a red suit and heels, Sturgeon stops to embrace voters, hold babies and snap selfies with the people crowding along the cobblestone street to meet her. Builders call out to her from nearby scaffolding and those working in the cafes and hair salons across the road line up along the street, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of her. Though she took the reins of her party less than eight months ago, Sturgeon has clearly achieved celebrity status in her home country. "She's more of a statesman than anyone else we've got," says Sandy Thomson, a retired builder who lives down the road and came up to meet Sturgeon. He's planning on voting SNP on May 7, after years of voting for either the Labour or Liberal Democrat parties. It's a story repeated over and over by people in the crowd. Sturgeon's popularity is perhaps surprising, considering her party suffered a blow at the Scottish independence referendum last September when 55 percent of Scots voted to remain a part of the U.K. The outcome was heartbreaking for nearly half the country and saw the then-party leader and Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, resign, allowing his long-standing deputy, Sturgeon, to take command. Since then, SNP membership has quadrupled to more than 100,000, making it the third largest party in the U.K. in terms of members. Nicola McEwen, professor of politics at the University of Edinburgh, says that the campaign for independence prior to the referendum "generated a nationalistic movement that didn't exist before." Sturgeon has smartly capitalized on that movement. Says McEwen, "there's no doubt that her leadership of the party has strengthened its appeal.", Polls suggest that the SNP which won a paltry six of Scotland's 59 seats in Westminster in 2010 is on track to take as many as 50 come May 7. Though, notably, Sturgeon won't be one of the victors, as she's not actually running for a seat at Westminster herself., Historically, Scotland has been Labour heartland. But the party one of two major parties in the country, along with the Conservatives has been struggling to keep Scottish voters for years. The SNP, with its pledges to stop the austerity measures put in place by the Conservative and Lib-Dem coalition government, now offers Scots a persuasive alternative. Though the SNP has released an election manifesto with strong similarities to Labour's platform both pledge to introduce a 50 percent income tax rate for top earners and a tax on high-value homes Scots don't seem to care. As Calley Morrison, a 24-year-old who works in a gift boutique in South Queensferry, puts it, "We have more faith in Nicola to push it through.", READ NEXT This New Yorker is Already Mayor of London But is he the Future Leader of the U.K. If the SNP does manage to take the lion's share of Scottish seats, it would very likely make the nationalist party the third largest in the U.K.'s parliament. With polls suggesting the likelihood of a hung parliament between the Conservative and Labour parties, that would put the SNP in the powerful position of influencing which party could actually form government and who could be the U.K.'s next prime minister. As the staunchly left-wing Sturgeon has pledged that SNP MPs would prevent a minority Conservative government from "even getting off the ground," her potential kingmaker status has rattled Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. The Tories have pushed the campaign message that if Labour's Ed Miliband were to be the country's next leader due to support from the SNP, he would be under the influence of a party that aims to break up the U.K. Campaign posters depicting a miniature Miliband sitting in the breast pocket of Sturgeon's suit were released to drive that idea home. READ NEXT Meet the Most Controversial Man in the U.K. Elections, Miliband has publicly rejected any sort of agreement with SNP though Sturgeon has said that Labour is likely to backtrack on May 8 and welcome SNP support if they fail to win a majority of seats. When asked at South Queensferry what her response to an apologetic phone call from Miliband after the election would be, she says amiably, "I don't do smug.", But such emphatic dismissals of the SNP haven't endeared either of the major parties to Scots. Michelle Shepherd, 31, owns the Jitter Bean Caf Barista in South Queensferry with her mother, and is disgusted by the Conservative's English-centric rhetoric. "I think they're hypocritical," she says. Before the referendum "they were saying how much they love Scotland and now they're rejecting our representatives?", The prospect of the SNP influencing Westminster might not even bother many voters in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. A Guardian/ICM poll found that only five percent of respondents had "fears of a smaller party holding the next government to ransom." Rather, voters all over the U.K. seem to admire Sturgeon during the televised leaders' debates on April 2 which saw Sturgeon capably take on not only Cameron and Miliband, but also three other party leaders the sixth most Googled question, reported the Guardian, was "Can I vote for the SNP?", As for the question of another referendum which was previously spun as a "once-in-a-generation" event Sturgeon has revealed little. She told BBC's Newsnight on April 27, "Even if we won every seat in Scotland that would not be a mandate for another referendum." While many of her opponents seem suspicious, McEwen says that, strategically, it wouldn't be prudent of Sturgeon and the SNP to push for another referendum unless they were certain of a victory. "You can lose one referendum and gain from it, as they clearly have done," she says. "Two? That's a different matter.", Even the residents of South Queensferry who voted for independence say they're not especially keen to revisit the issue with another referendum. As one woman puts it, "it's been done, we've made our peace." Many say they're just inspired by what Sturgeon has shown she can do for Scotland, by putting the country front and center in U.K. politics. As Calley Morrison, standing at the counter of the gift shop, says, "You gotta have faith in somebody." |
World | Journalists Rally Behind Veteran Philippine Journalist Facing Fresh Legal Threats | Potential tax evasion charges against prominent Philippine journalist and government critic Maria Ressa have prompted an outpouring of support on social media. Journalists around the world on Sunday praised the founder and editor of investigative news site Rappler, and voiced fears about the state of press freedom in the Southeast Asian nation. Prosecutors in the Philippines said Friday that they have grounds to indict Ressa and Rappler for failing to pay taxes on 2015 bond sales. The penalties could include a fine, as well as a 10-year prison term. The move marks the latest, government-backed attack against Ressa, a vocal critic of President Rodrigo Duterte. Ressa rejected the "ridiculous charges" as a thinly veiled attempt to silence critical coverage. She told the BBC that such indictments are meant to "intimidate and harass" journalists. "I am a journalist doing my job," she said on Sunday. "This tax evasion charge is completely from the left field to intimidate us from doing stories that hold them to account.", The media landscape in the Philippines, which ranks 133rd on the 2018 World Press Freedom Index, has come under extreme pressure since Duterte rose to power in 2016. Rappler, which was founded in 2012 by Ressa and three other journalists, has cast a spotlight on Duterte's brutal war on drugs. In response, Rappler has faced a barrage of online trolls and a series of government-backed lawsuits aimed at shutting the site. As the latest legal case against Rappler mounts, supporters from around the world have rallied behind Ressa. Marty Baron, the editor of the Washington Post, described the potential indictment as "an attack on one of the world's bravest journalists." Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, hailed Ressa as "one of the most important free press figures in the world.", , , , , The Committee to Protect Journalists also said it was "extremely concerned" about the threat to indict Rappler and Ressa, which the government has said could come as soon as this week. In 2017, four journalists were killed in the Philippines, making it Asia's deadliest country for the media. |
World | Emmanuel Macron Wants to Be Globalisms Champion Heres Why Hes Failing | There aren't many people willing to defend the idea of globalism these days. French President Emmanuel Macron offers his leadership, but it's far from clear he can deliver. Here's why the self-appointed lonely champion of globalism looks set to get even lonelier, Since taking office in the spring of 2017, Macron's popularity has steadily dropped among French votershe currently has approval ratings in the 20's other pollsters have him even lower than that. Multiple factors have contributed to his fall from political gracethere was the Benalla scandal, where his bodyguard beat up a May Day protestor then there was the time he was captured on camera telling an unemployed person that he could find work easily by "crossing the street" to a nearby caf or restaurant. Both incidents feed into the narrative that Macron, a former investment banker, is a man out of touch with the common French person. It's a charge that's only gotten more traction as he's attempted to bring pro-business reforms to the country's labor code, putting him at odds with the country's all-powerful labor unions. The country's headline economic growth is sluggish, and unemployment remains north of 9, which is approximately where it was when he took office. In fact, the only people who seem to be giving up their jobs these days are Macron's own ministers, three of whom have already resigned his administration. Rumor has it Macron was considering a cabinet reshuffle just this week but he's had to postpone because of a dearth of qualified candidates willing to take up a post in his administration. It's hard to be an effective globalist on the world stage when you're struggling to stay politically relevant back home. And then we set in on the geopolitics. Macron has been a steadfast defender of the Iran nuclear deal, and alongside leaders from Germany, the U.K. Russia and China has been looking for ways to keep the deal in place following the U.S's decision to abandon the agreement and reimpose sanctions. That was always going to be an uphill battle given the strength and breadth of those U.S. sanctions which have already helped drag down the value of Iran's currency roughly 70 this year. But this mission was complicated yet further by the recent revelation that Tehran attempted to organize a bomb attack against Iranian critics of the Khamenei regime at a Paris rally this past summer. Just last week, French authorities officially concluded that the plot had been ordered by Iran's ministry of intelligence. It's hard enough to maintain a globalist outlook when your country is the target of foreign terrorism, but it's especially difficult when some of those terrorist acts are being ordered by a country you're going out on a diplomatic limb to help. There is no shortage of confusion when it comes to the world's most active geopolitical hotspot, particularly as Syria rolls into its eighth year of a civil war that's more accurately described as a low-grade world war considering that the Syrians, Russians, Turks, Kurds, Iranians, Saudis and Americans among others are all involved in the conflict in one form or another. France has been taking part in the fight against ISIS since at least 2014, but only joined air strikes against Assad's forces as part of a limited strike with the U.S. and the U.K. in response to chemical weapons use by Syrian forces. Steering clear of an active war zone with too many players already in the mix seemed like a good idea until Russia recently accused a French frigate of shooting missiles into Syria while a Russian aircraft was shot down over Syria. Russia later retracted the accusation, concluding that the plane was actually downed by Syrian anti-aircraft weapons aiming for an Israeli fighter jet, but Russian media continued to question France's role in the incident. Keeping one's hands clean in such a messy situation is almost impossible. But it's particularly difficult for a person who frames themselves as rising above the geopolitical fray to defend globalism in the 21st century. Then comes one of the most surprising developments of 2018. On a trip back to China last week, Chinese authorities detained Meng Hongwei, the president of the France-based Interpol, who also happened to be China's Vice Minister of Public Security at least until last week. When Meng was elected to lead Interpol in 2016 for a four-year term, it was seen as a major success for a country with legitimate global leadership aspirations. But there have been signs of fallout between Meng and Beijing since then, and speculation is that he got caught up in China's wide-ranging anti-corruption drive, which Chinese President Xi Jinping has used to effectively consolidate political power. What does all this have to do with France and Macron? It's not clear. But since Interpol is based in Lyon, it is French authorities that are investigating the case after Meng's wife contacted them about her husband's disappearance. More importantly, Interpol is a major multilateral institution that is integral to the globalist world view Macron defends. Will Macron stand up for Meng as the head of this organization, or will he let Beijing treat this as a domestic matter? How far is he willing to push French-Sino relations over Meng's treatment? These are thorny questions for a president trying to balance his leadership of France with his still-aspirational leadership of the free world. It's lonely at globalism's top table, and it's only getting lonelier. Macron's closest ally in the globalist cause, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is a political lame-duck Europe's rising political star is Matteo Salvini, the anti-migrant Italian Interior Minister who has just joined forces with Steve Bannon to launch a far-right nationalist movement across Europe Eastern European countries like Poland and Hungary are forcing Brussels to confront growing illiberalism from within the EU's own political bloc and Macron's friendship with Trump just hasn't amounted to much. Over the last year and a half, Macron has successfully upped his and France's visibility as champions of a globalist vision for the world, but in so doing he's made both himself and his country a target. While Macron might aspire to the global role once occupied by the American commander-in-chief, France just isn't the U.S. And that makes all the difference in the world. |
World | Guineas Last Known Ebola Patient Discharged From Treatment Center | Correction appended, Dec. 30, Guinea, the only country still fighting the recent Ebola outbreak, may soon be declared free of the virus after the recovery of the last known infected patient. , A health official in the West African country confirmed that a 21-day-old baby girl had recovered from the virus in the capital, Conakry, the BBC reports. If no new cases are discovered in the next six weeks, the World Health Organization can declare Guinea Ebola-free. "We did two tests after his treatment and they came back negative," Fode Tass Sylla of Guinea's Ebola co-ordination unit said on Monday. , According to Reuters, the girl was born in the Nongo Ebola treatment center to a woman infected with the virus, who did not survive. The epidemic is believed to have first surfaced in a forested region of Guinea in December 2013. The virus spread to neighboring countries Sierra Leone and Liberia, killing more than 11,000 people and triggering an international humanitarian response. The WHO declared Sierra Leone an Ebola-free country on Nov. 7 after giving Liberia the green light in May this year. Correction The original version of this story misstated the patient's gender, age and release date. The patient was a 21-day-old baby girl who had recovered but not been released at the time of publication. |
World | Heavy Flooding Has Shut Down the Indian City of Chennai for the Second Time in a Month | Heavy rains lashed the southern Indian city of Chennai on Monday and Tuesday, causing widespread flooding in the major metropolis for the second time in less than a month. Authorities issued a flood warning and educational institutions were closed, with vehicles seen afloat in the floodwaters in many parts of the city. All flight operations at Chennai airport were also suspended after the runway and tarmac were submerged, the Indian Express newspaper reported. More rain is expected across the state of Tamil Nadu of which Chennai is the capital on Wednesday, and the army was deployed late Tuesday evening to manage the situation. The death toll from rain-related incidents in the state has now risen to 188 over roughly the past three weeks, including dozens killed during similar flooding in mid-November. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter that he spoke to the state's Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and "assured all possible support." |
World | Greek Lawmakers Ratify Macedonias Name Change Ending Nearly 30 Year Dispute | ATHENS, Greece Greek lawmakers ratified an agreement Friday to end a nearly three decade-long dispute over neighboring Macedonia's name, in a landmark vote that will see the small country renamed North Macedonia and clear its path to NATO membership. The deal passed with 153 votes in the 300-member parliament, two more than needed. It has faced fierce opposition in both countries, and recently cost Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras his parliamentary majority after a small right-wing party quit the governing coalition in protest. It passed with the support of independent lawmakers. Tsipras' left-wing Syriza party holds 145 seats in parliament, six short of a majority. "Today is a historic day," Tsipras said. "Greece is safeguarding an important part of its history, its heritage of ancient Greek Macedonia. Today we are writing a new page for the Balkans.", Under the deal, Macedonia changes its name to North Macedonia, and Greece drops its objections to the country joining NATO and eventually the European Union. "Congratulations my friend Alexi Tsipras, together with our peoples we reached a historical victory," Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev tweeted. , The ratification was quickly welcomed by both NATO and the European Union. Friday's vote was "an important contribution to the stability and prosperity of the whole region," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted. "I look forward to the future Republic of North Macedonia joining NATO.", , The ratification came after three days of acrimonious parliamentary debate and numerous street protests, some of which turned violent. A rally last Sunday saw tens of thousands of people gather outside parliament, with clashes erupting between groups of demonstrators and riot police. Torrential rain and driving wind kept many protesters away on the final day of the debate. Scores of demonstrators who braved the weather conditions outside parliament chanted "traitors" as lawmakers voted inside. Top EU officials said the ratification has "written a new page of our common EU future.", European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's top diplomat and the senior official supervising the bloc's enlargement said it "took political courage, leadership and responsibility on all sides to resolve one of the most entrenched disputes in the region.", Greece has long argued use of the term Macedonia implied territorial claims on its own northern province of the same name. The issue has been a contentious one for decades, stymieing repeated rounds of U.N.-mediated negotiations and whipping up nationalist and patriotic sentiment in both countries. Opposition has been particularly fierce in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, which borders the republic that claimed the same name after declaring independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. Critics claimed the deal signs away their identity and a cultural heritage dating back to Alexander the Great more than 2,300 years ago. More than 150 people have been detained for questioning since Thursday following violence at demonstrations against the deal in Athens and two towns in northern Greece. Most were released without charge. At least two lawmakers from the governing the Syriza party have said their homes were targeted by violent demonstrators, while another was targeting in a firebombing that caused no injuries. Greece's tourism minister, an independent conservative who supports the government, said she had received multiple death threats. |
World | Pope Francis Wouldnt Have Wanted the Nobel Peace Prize | Malala Yousafazi and Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Friday morning. Pope Francis, a hotly-rumored choice for the honor, did not. And that's almost certainly just how Pope Francis would want it to be. Popes do not win the Nobel Peace Prize. It's just not done. Not even Pope John Paul II was awarded the prize, even when it was widely rumored that he would be its recipient in 2003 for his opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. MORE Pope Francis, 2013 TIME Person of the Year, Part of the current Holy Father's global appeal is that he shies away from accolades. They do not fit with his mission, or the ethos of humility that he is trying to infuse into Holy See culture. This is a man who pays his own hotel bill the morning after being named the heir of Saint Peter, even though the Vatican owns his hotel anyway. He is a man who wears old shoes and simple robes, and who refuses to live in the Vatican's apostolic palace. He has his eyes on a bigger prize, to quote words of the Apostle Paul, toward the upward call of God. Friday, he again showed that characteristic humility. The announcement of Malala's win came at 11 a.m. Rome time. Typically, every day this week at 11 a.m. Pope Francis has been finishing a coffee break with the bishops from around the world gathered for the Extraordinary Synod of the Bishops on the Family. The gathering is the first major policy event of his papacy, and one he specifically called so that church leaders could discuss practical issues facing modern marriages and families. But this morning, he quietly snuck out of the Synod hall a few minutes before the Nobel Prize committee announced the honoree. Whether it was his intent or not, that move made sure that he would not be in front of any cameras or an audience that might have applauded him if he had won. Malala's win also means that Mother Teresa, who won the prize in 1979, remains the most prominent Catholic in history to have received the honor. It is fitting for Pope Francis, by his absence, to continue the legacy of honoring women's role in societynot only has he been working to bring attention to challenges of family life in the Middle East, but he also has shown sensitivity to women and to their leadership in Church life. Plus, in what is one of history's ironic twistsor some might say, providentially recurring themesMother Teresa opened her acceptance speech with a prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, the saint for whom Pope Francis chose to be named. "Lord, make a channel of Thy peace," the prayer begins, "that where there is hatred, I may bring love that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness that, where there is discord, I may bring harmony that, where there is error, I may bring truth that, where there is doubt, I may bring faith that, where there is despair, I may bring hope that, where there are shadows, I may bring light that, where there is sadness, I may bring joy.", For many, Pope Francis is doing just that, Nobel or not. Dias reported from Vatican City |
World | Masked Swedish Gang Calls for Violence Against Immigrants | As many as 100 masked men distributed threatening leaflets encouraging people to assault refugees in central Stockholm on Friday, Swedish police said. Citing the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, the BBC reported that the slogan written on the leaflets read, "It's enough now!" The fliers also threatened to give "the North African street children who are roaming around" the "punishment they deserve.", Witnesses said the group attacked people who appeared to be foreigners, according to the BBC, but police have not confirmed those reports. One man was arrested for assaulting a police officer. Others were arrested for causing a public disturbance. The event comes after a young employee at a center for asylum-seekers was stabbed to death earlier this week. A teen asylum-seeker was arrested for the stabbing. More than a million refugees travelled to Europe last year, fleeing conditions in parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Among European countries, Sweden has accepted the most refugees per capita. |
World | A Chinese Professor Was Interrupted by Police During a Live Television Interview Hes Been Silent Eve | A Chinese professor and outspoken Beijing critic appears to have gone missing after police broke into his home and abruptly ended his interview with U.S.-backed radio broadcaster Voice of America earlier this week. Wenguang Sun, 84, was speaking by phone to VOA's Mandarin language service Wednesday night when police entered his home in Jinan, Shandong province and forced him off air. "I am entitled to express my opinion. This is my freedom of speech," he is heard saying just before the line cut off, according to VOA. Sun has not responded to VOA's attempts to contact him since the truncated interview. Sources in Shandong not identified by the broadcaster said Sun was being held in a military-run hotel. A retired physics professor, Sun has long history of running into trouble with the authorities over his criticism of China's communist party. During the Cultural Revolution, Sun was detained twice for "counterrevolutionary speech," according to Human Rights Watch, which granted him a free speech award in 2012. While he was en route to a 2009 memorial for Zhao Ziyang, a leader who was dismissed after supporting Tiananmen Square protests, Sun was assaulted so severely that four of his ribs were broken. More recently, Sun has taken aim at China's development projects abroad, criticizing the vast wealth showered overseas when many Chinese remain poor. His opprobrium is seen as an attack on Xi Jinping's signature "Belt and Road" initiative linking Eurasia and China through infrastructure and trade projects. Just before his interview ended Wednesday, Sun said "throwing money around like this is of no benefit to our country and society," according to the Associated Press' translation. On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, the co-chair of the Congressional Executive Committee on China, called Sun's disappearance "an apparent attempt to chill an open exchange of ideas and opinions.", "The Chinese and American people must continue to work toward a day when someone like Prof. Sun can openly share his opinions, via a free press, without fear of reprisal," he said in a statement. |
World | The Possible Price of Scottish Independence | When Scottish voters go to the polls on Thursday to decide whether or not Scotland should stay part of the United Kingdom, many will be looking to their wallets as much as to their sense of national identity. What, voters on both sides of the debate want to know, would be the economic consequences of Scotland going it alone? If Scots are to believe the financial warnings of some banks and major retailers they will vote Yes only with a little trepidation about its impact on their personal finances. Some retailers issued statements on Thursday that they will have to raise their prices to accommodate increased costs and five banks have in recent days revealed contingency plans to re-register or re-locate from Scotland. So is it really all bad news for Scots if they go independent?, An initiative to ask the U.K.'s biggest retailers to outline the economic consequences of a Yes vote is being led by Sir Ian Cheshire, CEO of consultancy Kingfisher Systems, who plans to publish a letter signed by prominent business leaders in the next couple of days. He said on Thursday "Business leaders need to speak out and get the facts in front of Scottish voters who need to make a decision.", Justin King, former head of supermarket chain Sainsbury's, echoed those concerns in an interview with the BBC on Thursday "It is more expensive to do business in Scotland today. Business rates are higher, distribution costs are higher. If Scotland was to be an independent country, with businesses run separately in Scotland as inevitably will be the case prices would be higher." Andy Clarke, chief executive of Asda, the U.K.'s third largest supermarket chain, also spoke on Thursday "If we were no longer to operate in one state with one market and broadly one set of rules, our business model would inevitably become more complex. We would have to reflect our cost to operate here." Clarke's comments have sparked a backlash from pro-independence customers in Scotland, many of whom have taken to Twitter to express their discontent with the hashtag BoycottAsda. Other supermarkets, including Lidl and The Co-operative, have declined to speculate about how independence might affect prices. Comments from major retailers come in the wake of several Scottish-based banks and financial institutions announcing contingency plans last week to potentially relocate or re-register parts of their businesses in England in the event of a Yes vote. Royal Bank of Scotland based in Scotland since 1727 and currently employing 11,500 people there announced on Thursday that it would move its headquarters to London based on a "number of material uncertainties arising from the Scottish referendum vote which could have a bearing on the bank's credit ratings." These material uncertainties include lack of consensus over what currency an independent Scotland would adopt, who would regulate Scottish banks, and when Scotland would join the E.U. as an independent country as part of the U.K. it is already in the E.U. but in it would likely have to re-apply for membership. Other institutions threatening to leave include Standard Life, Lloyds Banking Group, Clydesdale Bank, TSB and Tesco Bank, which collectively employ a further 20,000 people in Scotland. Despite some reassurance about jobs from the RBS chief executive, news of relocation have sparked worries of "capital flight" where deposits are moved out of the country. But some business leaders disagree that a Yes vote will be an economic blow to Scotland. The pro-independence campaign group Business for Scotland claims to have "2,500 members who run businesses in Scotland". In August, seven notable business leaders including Sir Donald MacKay, former chairman of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, and ex-RBS chairman Sir George Mathewson wrote a letter to the Financial Times stating their belief that "the financial sector in Scotland will always prosper." Challenging the "nonsense talked by business and politicians", Tim Martin, the boss of major pub chain JD Wetherspoon, told the BBC that he believed "Scotland could do very well on its own". On Monday, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond accused David Cameron of trying to "pressurize people, pressurize companies", saying "the Prime Minister's fingerprints are all over the scaremongering campaign.", While political leaders appear to be at loggerheads, even financial experts don't seem to agree over the future of an independent Scotland's economy. The economist Paul Krugman told Scotland to "be afraid, be very afraid" and spokespeople from Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank hinted at the possibility of a post-independence financial crisis. But experts from Goldman Sachs stated that in the long run, there is "little reason why an independent Scotland could not prosper." Bill Murray from the International Monetary Fund said that a vote for independence could lead to "uncertainty" in markets, but he underlined that "the longer term will depend on the decisions being made during the transition." As the financial costs of independence continue to be hotly debated from both sides of the campaign, it looks as though Scottish voters will need to decide just whose educated guesses are the most convincing. |
World | An American Art Teacher Who Went to Help Quake Victims in Nepal Has Been Murdered | A young American art teacher has been murdered on a trip to Nepal, CNN reports. Dahlia Yehia, 25, had traveled to the Himalayan nation to assist those who had lost their homes in massive earthquakes that rocked the country in April and May and claimed more than 8,500 lives. She was last heard from while traveling to Pokhara, Nepal's second largest city, in early August, CNN says. , Police say a man who was hosting Yehia in his home confessed to beating the girl to death and to dumping her body in a river. Voice of America reports that she met the suspect, local teacher Narayan Paudel, through the popular accommodation website CouchSurfing.com. No motive is known. Authorities are still searching for the girl's body. CNN |
World | Sinn Fein Leader Gerry Adams Freed from Police Custody | Updated 413 pm E.T. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was released without charges from police on Sunday after spending five days in custody. Earlier in the day, the Associated Press, citing an anonymous police source, reported that the 65-year-old Irish republican politician would not face charges over a 1972 killing, but that police would send prosecutors a file of potential evidence against him. Adams' release was delayed by two hours due to angry loyalist protestors, who attempted to physically block his release until police officers, many of whom were clad in riot-proof gear, escorted Adams out of the building through an alternate exit. Adams was arrested on Wednesday following allegations that he ordered the 1972 killing of a mother of 10 while serving as the Belfast commander in the Irish Republican Army. He has denied the accusations. Adams' detention period was due to expire Sunday. Police would have had to charge him or seek permission from a judge to extend his time in custody, as they did Friday. According to the BBC, Sinn Fein politician and Northern Ireland deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said his party may no longer be able to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland following Adams' time in custody. In response, Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, accused Sinn Fein of trying to blackmail the police with "republican bullyboy tactics.", AP |
World | Prince William Visits Holocaust Memorial During First Trip to Israel | Prince William visited the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem on Tuesday as part of the first official visit to Israel by a senior member of the British Royal Family. The prince laid a wreath in Hall of Remembrance in the memorial before meeting two survivors who were among the Jewish children taken to Britain from Nazi Germany as part of the Kindertransport rescue effort shortly before the outbreak of World War II. William spent an hour and a half at Israel's official memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, where he viewed the Hall of Names and the eternal flame. While standing at a display of shoes from some of the people killed in the death camps, he said, "Terrifying. I'm trying to comprehend the scale.", , At the end of his visit, William wrote a long message in the guest book, referring in part to "those few who took great risks to help others" and mentioning his own great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, who helped to rescue a Jewish family living in Greece and is buried in Jerusalem. Prince William is set to visit her grave on Thursday. , In the guest book, William also wrote of the need to teach future generations about the Holocaust, according to the Jerusalem Post. "We must not forget the Holocaust the murder of 6 million men, women and children, simply because they were Jewish. We all have a responsibility to remember and teach future generations about the horror of the past so that they can never reoccur. May the millions of Jewish people remembered by Yad Vashem never be forgotten.", William met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara at the leader's residence in Jerusalem after his visit to Yad Vashem, and later met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. |
World | Five Surrender to Police Over Indian Temple Fire | Five administrators of a temple in India, where a fire killed more than 100 people and injured over 350 others over the weekend, have surrendered to the authorities. Among those that turned themselves in Tuesday morning were the president and secretary of the trust in charge of Puttingal Temple in Paravoor, Kerala, the Times of India reported. At least 109 people have died thus far because of Sunday's disaster, when a spark from a stray firecracker during an unauthorized fireworks display ignited the rest of other fireworks stored in one of the temple's buildings. The resulting explosion killed several when the building collapsed, following which a rapidly spreading fire trapped dozens of pilgrims inside the temple. Local government officials said 383 others were injured. Law-enforcement authorities have begun an investigation into the fire, and arrested several individuals in relation to the tragedy on Monday. They have charged around two dozen people, including several of the temple's trustees, with attempted murder and attempt to commit culpable homicide, according to the Times. Temple authorities have said, despite the tragedy, that they will not ban fireworks during festivals. Times of India |
World | Uneasy ArabIsraeli Coexistence Threatened By Violence | For years, Ziyad Abul Hawa lived in his apartment building in central Tel Aviv in harmony with his neighbors. Then, about two weeks ago, he came home to find a note posted in the lobby. "Due to the security situation I don't think we can allow ourselves to be indifferent and do nothing about the fact that there is an Arab residing in our building," read the note. "His name is Ziyad Abul Hawa and he lives in apartment 4.", Abul Hawa, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, took a selfie with the note and posted it on Facebook. His post went viral. , It wasn't the first time Abul Hawa had faced racism or discrimination in Israel, but it was probably the most personal. The anonymous note in his apartment building called for a meeting on Oct. 15, "to discuss the situation and decide what can be done.", The rising violence here is shaking the already uneasy coexistence between Jews and Arabs inside Israel's borders. There are approximately 1.5 million Palestinian and Arab citizens of Israel separate from the Palestinians of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. These Arab Israelis theoretically have identical rights to Jewish Israelis but they say the Israeli government treats them as second class citizens, allocating them less resources and restricting the expansion of their communities and prioritizing Jewish Israelis. In recent weeks at least four local school boards moved to fire or restrict Palestinian workers from being in the school during class hours. Most initiatives were prompted by parents but orders were given by administrators to fire or change the working hours of Arab employees. In one case a fund was set up to hire a Jewish worker instead. Other campaigns targeted Arab employees who posted political Facebook statuses seen as anti-Israeli and insisting they be fired. Jewish Israelis feel the discrimination is supported by their leaders, says Rawnak Natour, co-director of Sikkuy, the Association for the Advancement of Civil Equality. In national elections this spring, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israelis that Arab citizens were heading to the polls to vote and recently Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat told Jewish Israelis to "carry your weapons" to protect against an attack by Palestinians. While few Arab citizens of Israel have been involved in attacks like in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, discontent can fuel violence. On Oct. 18, Muhannad al-Uqbi, an Arab citizen of Israel, entered a bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba and shot an Israeli solider before grabbing the solder's rifle and shooting and wounding 11 others, according to Israeli security forces. It was the third alleged attack by an Arab citizen of Israel since Oct. 1. The tensions are so high that Palestinians say Israelis have become too quick on the trigger and shoot unarmed Palestinians or people they suspect are Palestinians. At least three Jewish Israelis have been attacked, at least one fatally, by other Jewish Israelis who believed they were Palestinian attackers. Sheikh Sayid, a leader of the al-Uqbi family condemned the attack by his relative in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. But he also complained about the lack of amenities in their Israeli Bedouin village. His village of Uqbi is one of dozens of Arab Bedouin communities not recognized by the Israeli government it receives few municipal services and it is threatened with demolition. Abul Hawa says, in his case, Jewish Israelis jumped to his defense. After his selfie post, someone created a Facebook event calling on people, from across Tel Aviv to show-up at the meeting Oct. 15 in support of Abul Hawa. More than a thousand people clicked "going" on the page. Hundreds showed up at a rally to back him in a square near his home. Other neighbors wrote him supportive notes assuring him he was welcome. "Luckily enough in this case there were people who were against this," says Natour. "But other people supported it." Natour says her fear is that this latest cycle of violence and incitement is pushing the communities even farther part. "I'm worried about the possibility of being able to live together," says Natour. |
World | President Obama Explains Why The US Is Bombing ISIS | As the United States is ramping up a bombing campaign against an extremist militant group in Iraq, President Barack Obama said in an interview with the New York Times published late Friday that the U.S. has a strategic interest in preventing the group from gaining a foothold in northern Iraq. While Obama said the U.S. can't just be "the Iraqi air force," he argued it needs to "bolster" Iraqi leadership, and prevent Sunni extremists from forming a state through Syria and Iraq under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS. "We do have a strategic interest in pushing back" ISIS, the President said in an interview with Times columnist Thomas Friedman. "We're not going to let them create some caliphate through Syria and Iraq, but we can only do that if we know that we've got partners on the ground who are capable of filling the void.", Moreover, the President said, the U.S. has a moral obligation in Iraq to defend populations that face slaughter at the hands of ISIS fighters, including the Yazidi minority group and Iraqi Kurds, both of whom are threatened by ISIS' advance. "When you have a unique circumstance in which genocide is threatened, and a country is willing to have us in there, you have a strong international consensus that these people need to be protected and we have a capacity to do so, then we have an obligation to do so," the President said. However, Obama argued the U.S. has to act as a catalyst for Iraq's own leaders to handle the crisis themselves. "We do think it's important to make sure that that space is protected, but, more broadly, what I've indicated is that I don't want to be in the business of being the Iraqi air force," the President said. "I don't want to get in the business for that matter of being the Kurdish air force, in the absence of a commitment of the people on the ground to get their act together and do what's necessary politically to start protecting themselves and to push back against ISIS.", NYT |
World | Syria Claims Israel Made Two Air Strikes Near Damascus | Syria accused Israel of carrying out two air strikes near its capital Damascus on Sunday. The Syrian army made a statement on state television claiming that Israeli aircraft dropped bombs close to Damascus airport as well as on the nearby suburb of al-Dimas, the Associated Press reports. The Israeli military has not admitted to the strikes and said on Sunday it would not rely on "foreign reports.", At least 10 explosions were heard in the area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in London. The organization also said an airport warehouse apparently targeted by bombs contained weapons, but it is not clear whether the weapons belong to the Syrian army or to militant group Hizballah. Israel has launched several air strikes in Syria since the civil war began there in 2011, specifically targeted at weapons it believes are being supplied to Hizballah. |
World | ISIS Battle in Iraq Stalled by Ethnic and Religious Strife | As the sun sets over the front line outside the Iraqi town of Makhmour, Sergeant Farsal Goran packs tobacco into a waterpipe. Behind him is the bare concrete building where he and his Kurdish comrades sleep in shifts. In front of him lie a wall of sandbags. Roughly a mile in the distance is a town held by ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria. Earlier in the day, his unit traded mortar fire with the ISIS fighters on the other side. Now the tension has eased. "It's like a picnic," one of them jokes. Goran prepares the shisha over a plastic table, then sits on the ground to smoke. Makhmour is one major front in the battle between ISIS and the forces arrayed against it in northern Iraq. The town is roughly sixty miles south of Mosul. Once Iraq's second largest city home to 2.5 million people, Mosul fell to ISIS during the group's dramatic sweep across the border from Syria in June 2014. Today, Makhmour is a focal point of a much anticipated, but long-delayed operation to reclaim Mosul. The Makhmour front is also a microcosm of the political stalemate that currently leaves the battle against ISIS stalled. Adjacent to the Kurdish units of the Kurdish Regional Government, nicknamed Peshmerga, the Iraqi national army is stationed. Also located in Makhmour is a base used by the U.S. military, which has quietly increased its forces in Iraq to more than 4,000, higher than any time since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. It was in Makhmour that a U.S. Marine staff sergeant, Louis Cardin, 27, was killed in an ISIS attack on March 19. While the Iraqi army, Kurds, U.S. military, and other forces are nominally allied against ISIS, no agreement exists among the various sides for how to conduct an operation to retake Mosul, or how to restore order, rebuild and govern in the aftermath. The gridlock means that a major Iraqi city, with an estimated 600,000 people still living inside, is trapped for the foreseeable future under ISIS rule. In Makhmour, the Kurds share the front with the Iraqi army. According to the commanders on the ground, the two forces coordinate daily, for example radioing each other when there are incoming mortars from the ISIS side. But the coordination does not go beyond this basic level. "I don't know what's going on exactly. They don't tell us," says Colonel Abdulrahman Zebari, a commander leading Kurdish troops along the Makhmour front, referring to his colleagues in the Iraqi military. According to the commanders, if they are going to venture outside of what they regard as Kurdish territory, they need an order from the semi-autonomous Kurdish government. That, in turn, will take an agreement between the Kurdish leadership and the government in Baghdad. "For now we're not going to fight. We're going to help the Iraqi army. These villages are not Kurdish villages," Col. Zebari says. His forces will hold the line, he says, but they will not advance. "In the future I don't know if we're going to try to liberate them or not. We're waiting for the order.", The Iraqi military announced that it launched an operation to re-take Mosul on March 24, but for the moment the campaign has been limited to re-taking a handful of villages. In the meantime, ISIS fighters continue to launch attacks on Kurdish and Iraqi military forces, while the U.S.-led coalition continues its campaign of airstrikes on what it says are ISIS targets across Iraq and Syria. Iraqi and U.S. officials appear to be managing expectations. In an interview with CBS news in April, President Obama said, "My expectation is that by the end of the year, we will have created the conditions whereby Mosul will eventually fall.", When ISIS seized Mosul in June 2014, the Iraqi army collapsed. Farsal Goran, the 29-year-old sergeant who is now deployed with the Kurds along the Makhmour front, had been a member of the Iraqi army when the fall came. He was deployed at Badoush Prison, near Mosul. As the jihadis approached, he and the rest of his unit abandoned the area. "Even the commanders ran away. There was no reason to stay," he says. He fled to Kurdish lines at Mosul dam, he says, where Kurdish soldiers told him and other soldiers to remove their Iraqi army uniforms before proceeding to safety. Goran's Iraqi army unit included both Kurds as will as both Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs. He says his unit splintered along communal lines. Some of the Shiites joined the powerful Shiite militias. He and other Kurds joined the Kurdish forces. Some of the Sunnis, he says, stayed in Mosul and joined ISIS. He claims that some of them are still in contact with him, taunting him over Facebook. "They told me, Kurds are nothing without the Western forces. We're coming to Kurdistan one day," he says. His former comrades betrayal appear to have hardened him, and he now expresses ethnic bigotry. "The Arab doesn't know how to think about the future," he says. He inhales the shisha, exhales, and passes it on. |
World | 60 People Dead and an Estimated 292 Remain Missing After Brazilian Dam Collapse | BRUMADINHO, Brazil Brazilian firefighters moved over treacherous mud sometimes walking, sometimes crawling as they searched Monday for survivors or bodies following a dam collapse that buried an iron ore mining company's buildings and inundated nearby neighborhoods with ore waste. The confirmed death toll rose to 60, with 292 people still missing, according to the fire department in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, where the dam is located. In an ominous sign, no one was recovered alive Sunday, a stark difference from the first two days of the disaster, when helicopters whisked people out of the mud. The death toll was expected to grow "exponentially" on Monday, the Minas Gerais fire department said. Search efforts were extremely slow because of the treacherous sea of reddish-brown mud that surged out when the mine dam breached Friday afternoon. The mud was up 24 feet 8 meters deep in some places, forcing searchers to carefully walk around the edges of the muck or slowly crawl onto so they would not sink and drown. Rescue teams Monday morning focused their searches on areas where a but was immersed and the cafeteria of mining company Vale, where many workers were eating lunch when the dam ruptured. Vale SA's is the world's largest producer of iron ore, the raw ingredient for making steel. The Brazilian company's American depository shares plunged 15.8 percent Monday on the New York Stock exchange. At the scene of the disaster, helicopters looking for bodies took off and landed nonstop. On the ground, dozens of rescuers with tracking dogs were searching for bodies through the mountains of mud. The Associated Press witnessed a helicopter rescue of three bodies that arrived at the search center. Rescue efforts were suspended for about 10 hours Sunday because of fears that a second mine dam in Brumadinho was at risk of failing. About 24,000 people were told to get to higher ground, but by afternoon civil engineers said the second dam no longer posed a risk. Areas of water-soaked mud appeared to be drying out, which could help firefighters get to areas previously unreachable. Still, it was slow going for the search teams, residents were on edge and some started searching on their own for relatives. Wagner Rogerio, 43, said he was looking for childhood friends but had no equipment or instructions how to do so. "My family tells me I'm not a superhero and that I should go home. But the very least my friends deserve is a dignified burial," he said with tears in his eyes. More than 100 Israeli specialists equipped with specialized rescue technology joined the 200 Brazilian firefighters on Monday morning. Throughout the weekend, there was mounting anger at the giant Vale, which operated the mine, and questions rose about an apparent lack of a warning siren ahead of Friday's collapse. In an email, Vale told The Associated Press that the area has eight sirens, but "the speed in which the event happened made sounding an alarm impossible" when the dam burst. Clamor for culpability was growing. Sen. Renan Calheiros called for Vale's board of directors to step down and Attorney General Raquel Dodge told reporters that Vale executives could be held responsible. Over the weekend, courts froze about 3 billion from Vale assets for state emergency services and told the company to report on how it would help victims. The carpet of mining waste also raised fears of widespread environmental contamination and degradation. According to Vale's website, the waste is composed mostly of sand and is non-toxic. But a U.N. report found that the waste from a similar Brazil disaster in 2015 "contained high levels of toxic heavy metals.", That dam by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in the city of Mariana in Minas Gerais, killing 19 people and forcing hundreds from their homes. About 250,000 people were left without drinking water thousands of fish died. An estimated 60 million cubic meters 646 million square feet of waste flooded nearby rivers and eventually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. |
World | HardHit Colombia Could Be the Key to Understanding the Zika Virus | Colombia has had the second-most cases of the mosquito-borne Zika virus after Brazil, and earlier this week health officials from the South American country announced that two more babies had been born with the birth defect microcephaly after their mothers had been infected by the virus. But there was good newsthe rate of Zika infection in the country seems to finally be on the decline. "We are absolutely certain that Zika is on the decrease in Colombia," said Colombian Vice-minister of Health Fernando Ruiz. Nearly 72,000 people in Colombia have been infected with Zika, which has been linked to serious neurological birth defects and Guillain-Barr syndrome, a nervous system disorder. About 17 percent of those cases have been pregnant women. A total of four cases of microcephaly have been definitively connected with Zika and another 22 suspected cases are currently being studied. Additionally, 304 cases of Guillain-Barr have been confirmed as associated with the virus. Read More How the United States Is Bracing for Zika, But while rates of new Zika infections are on the decline, microcephaly cases associated with the virus are likely to rise over the next few months, as women infected by the virus earlier in their pregnancy give birth. Martha Ospina, the director of the National Institute of Health in Colombia, said that given the timing of the peak of infection, she expects that over the next three months, that rates of Zika caused microcephaly will increase before tapering off in October. "Once the Zika outbreak ends we will continue to have an increase of microcephaly cases," says Marth Ospina, the director of the National Institute of Health in Colombia. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC has provided Colombian health officials with testing supplies including the Trioplex PCR assay, which is used to test simultaneously for Zika, dengue and chikungunyaall mosquito-borne diseases. These assays analyze a sample of cerebrospinal fluid, gathered by a painful lumbar puncture, to identify the presence of RNA from the three different viruses. The Ministry of Health and the National Institute of Health are collaborating with the CDC to enhance medical surveillance of pregnant women exposed to Zika virus and their infants. The project has been dubbed VEZ, which is the Spanish acronym for the Surveillance of Pregnant Women with Zika, and has already been implemented in the hard-hit coastal city of Barranquilla. with the hopes of launching it in two other Colombian cities in the coming weeks. Health workers will collect medical histories from women in the study, take tissue samples of both the mother and baby at birth, and follow the infant for at least the first full year of life. Read More What Every Woman Needs to Know About Zika, That study will help scientists answer some of the biggest questions surrounding Zika how often does Zika infection in pregnancy lead to microcephaly? What other disorders might be connected to the virus? Thanks to some of the work already put in place, it should be a matter of months before there will be actionable information produced from the study, rather than years. That's important for the U.S. where the summer mosquito season is just around the corner. "The CDC is committed to sharing what we know, when we know it, as soon as it is appropriate," said Peggy Hoenin, the co-lead for the CDC's pregnancy and birth defects team of the CDC. "There is a lot that we do not know about Zika infection during pregnancy.", Scientists from the CDC in Atlanta have been visiting Colombia for one-week stints to help provide training on how to use the PCR tests as well as other methods and techniques for tackling the Zika outbreak since earlier this year. Brigid Bollwey is a biologist who normally works in the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta. A couple of weeks ago she found out that she would be coming to Bogot, Colombia to share her knowledge with local pathologists. Standing in a whitewashed room at the National Institute of Health, she demonstrates the pipetting technique used to prepare samples for PCR testing. The time necessary to complete each test varies widely based on the condition in which the samples are receivedanywhere from 24 hours to a week per test. Read More Why America's Top Health Official Is Worried About Zika, "The infrastructure is definitely different," says Bollwey. Though the lab benches are home to modern looking centrifuges and other technical equipment, the room itself seems antiquated and stuck in the late 1970s. That can make a differencethe rate of testing is significantly slower in Colombia. "Here we do tens of tests per day, as opposed to hundreds of tests per year in Atlanta," she says. Honein wants to pinpoint exactly when pregnant women are most vulnerable to the Zika virus so that they could focus more intently on protecting the women from mosquitos during that time. She also wants to know what overall percentage of pregnant women exposed to Zika have babies with adverse outcomes. She thinks both of these pieces of information are critical for women to know, especially when considering whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. "Never before in humans have we seen a virus spread by mosquito cause a birth defect," says Honein. "Our collaborative work will provide critical scientific information to help the U.S. Colombia and many other countries better prepare to tackle the unprecedented challenges posed by Zika virus infection." |
World | Climate Change Could Destroy This Peruvian Farmers Home Now Hes Suing a European Energy Company for | Climbing a snowcapped mountain in the predawn light, Sal Luciano Lliuya says he could sense something changing. All his life, pristine glaciers have nestled between the peaks surrounding his hometown in the Cordillera Blanca region of the Peruvian Andes, providing water, work and beauty. "Now you can see it," he says. "They're disappearing.", The region's glaciers are receding rapidly as temperatures rise, thanks to greenhouse gases trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere, ice accumulated over thousands of years has melted away in a single generation. Between 30 and 50 of glaciers in the tropical Andes have disappeared since 1976. As they melt, they are dumping water into the Palcacocha lake, a few thousand feet uphill from the city of Huaraz, creating a troubling flood risk. In 1941, when a huge chunk of glacier broke off and plunged into the Palcacocha, it created a wave that swept 1,800 people to their deaths. The level of the lake is now higher than it was then, and 50,000 now live directly in the water's anticipated path. Angry about the risks facing his community, in 2015, Lliuya took a drastic step. He traveled 6,600 miles to Essen, Germany, and filed a lawsuit against energy company RWE, Europe's largest carbon emitter. "We were paying for something we didn't cause," he says, sitting in his lawyers' bright and airy offices in Hamburg. Lliuya claims that because research by the Carbon Disclosure Project and the Climate Accountability Institute says RWE is responsible for 0.5 of global greenhouse-gas emissions, it should pay for 0.5 of the cost of flood defenses for Huaraz about 20,000. The suit was initially dismissed in Essen. But in November, a higher court in Germany ruled he was on sound legal ground and agreed to hear the case. The lawsuit has turned Lliuya, a mountain guide and farmer, into the reluctant public face for a burgeoning climate-justice movement. For years, communities and NGOs have been suing governments for failing to regulate carbon emissions. But over the past two years, legal challengers have begun taking the fight directly to energy companies, arguing that an industry that has created vast wealth by exploiting natural resources should use some of its revenues to help mitigate the human consequences of its activity. "Global warming is happening, and we are seeing the effects more and more every day," says Mojib Latif, a meteorologist and author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "At some point you have to ask the question Who is responsible? Who is going to pay?", In the U.S. alone, 13 cases have been filed since 2017. Plaintiffs tend to be communities or large organizations in California two counties and a city are suing Chevron. In the Netherlands, charity Friends of the Earth says it will take legal action against Shell. So far, Lliuya is the only one going it alone. Before he flew to Hamburg in 2015, Lliuya had never set foot outside Peru. Three years later he and his wife Lydia seemed a little out of place as they sat in the bright yellow halls of a high school in the German city of Kassel on a mild September Saturday afternoonhim in a hiking jacket zipped up to his chin, her in the thick tights and tall bowler hat worn by women in the Peruvian Andes. They were in town to accept the Glass of Reason, an award given by local residents to "people who think outside the box to change the world," says committee chairman Bernd Leifeld. Established a few months after the reunification of Germany in 1990, previous recipients include NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden and Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. The prize givers celebrate Lliuya as "a modern David" to RWE's Goliath. But as he addressed a crowd of curious German teenagers at a youth symposium on the eve of the ceremony, he offered little in the way of inspiring speeches. "Some people have called me crazy," he said. "But the mountain is everything to us. If you'd seen what's happening to it, you'd do the same thing.", Lliuya's lawsuit follows a strikingly straightforward logic. It is based on a nuisance law in the German civil code normally used in disputes between neighbors. It says that if you're doing something that causes damage to another person's property, even if it's legal, you have to either stop what you're doing or take responsibility for preventing the damage. Normally that means, for example, making someone cut down a tree that is at risk of falling on their neighbor's property. The court ruled it could apply to RWE's carbon emissions potentially damaging Lliuya's home. In 2017, researchers at the Climate Accountability Institute and the Carbon Disclosure Project found that 71 of global greenhouse-gas emissions since 1988 were produced by just 100 energy companies, including RWE. Lliuya's legal case is being backed by nonprofit Germanwatch, which he heard about through a tourist he guided around the Cordillera Blanca. "Twenty-three years of climate-change negotiations have taught us that the political process for getting companies to cut emissions is too slow to save the planet," says the NGO's board chairman Klaus Milke. "To speed it up, we need leverage.", But many doubt there is enough evidence to link a particular instance of climate change to a specific company like RWE. "Science is pretty clear that we're not able to say that a particular glacier melting is caused by the climate changing as a result of CO emissions," says Douglas Crawford-Brown, former director of the University of Cambridge's Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research. "And we're nowhere near being able to say that the loss of a glacier is due to a particular source of the emissions.", Roda Verheyen, the lawyer leading Lliuya's case, says that is not their intention. "We're not saying RWE's individual emissions caused the glacier to melt," she says. Based on evidence from Latif and other scientists, Verheyen argues that carbon dioxide emitted by RWE has contributed to raising the probability of extraordinary events like glacier melt or breakages threatening Lliuya's home. "That is not just, and my job is to see what we can do about it.", In September, the court appointed two experts in hydrology, the science of water flows. Over the coming months they'll assess the risk to Lliuya's home, the role of climate change and to what degree RWE is responsible. The outcome largely rests on their conclusion, Verheyen says. Guido Steffen, a spokesperson for RWE, says Lliuya's claims have no legal basis and that under German law, "individual emitters are not liable for universally rooted and globally effective processes like climate change." He adds that RWE is abiding by German and European goals on emission reduction and is taking steps to reduce its emissions by 40 to 50 by 2030. "We think of climate change as a global social and political issue," he says. "It is national governments and international agreements, such as at the U.N. climate conference, that have to develop instruments to reduce carbon dioxide.", That was a U.S. court's judgment in one of the most famous climate-justice lawsuits to date. In 2009, Kivalina, an Alaskan village predicted to be underwater within a decade, sued Exxon-Mobil and 23 other oil and gas companies for the cost of relocating its 400 residents. A U.S. district court dismissed its claim on the grounds that climate change is a political, not a legal, matter. If Lliuya wins his case, it might set a significant legal precedent in Europe. But even the lower court ruling was a valuable win, Verheyen says. "It established that individual responsibility for climate change exists in German law, and I think it could apply in other jurisdictions," she says. "If we lose now, it's on details.", Climate-justice advocates like to compare their movement to the early wave of lawsuits brought against tobacco companies in the mid20th century after medical journals began to publish studies linking cigarette smoking to increasing lung-cancer rates. Over four decades, some 800 individuals and 40 U.S. states filed claims, eventually achieving vast payouts and restrictions on tobacco advertising. "Those cases went on for years before there were positive verdicts," says Noah Walker-Crawford, a climate activist who acts as Lliuya's translator. "But eventually tobacco companies had to admit that smoking does cause cancer. They had to take responsibility.", For Lliuya, a victory would give him and his family a measure of justice. But it would do little to soothe their worries about the risks to their home today. "We're facing a catastrophe," Lliuya says. Even if they manage to protect Huaraz from floods, the loss of the glacier and the drying out of lakes may one day leave the city without a water source. "The people who caused these effects aren't doing anything about it," he says. "Someone has got to." |
World | Sun Sea and ISIS How Radical Insurgents Have Made the Southern Philippines a NoGo Zone | Gagay Jaire's proudest moment was making the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. "It was inspiring," she says, drawing clear, cool water from a cast-iron pump on the northeast rim of Samal Island in the southern Philippines. "It is one of the Muslim dreams to reach Mecca.", Since she returned from Saudi Arabia, where she worked for fours years, Jaire moved back to her family home next to the island's Dungas Mosque. The squat, whitewashed building is the largest of Samal's four Muslim places of worship, sitting right on the shore between tidal fishing pens of crooked poles and fields of scavenging goats. "It's a beautiful spot," she grins. It is for some, at any rate. On Sept. 21, Samal ceased to be an insular idyll and became instead an infamous site of global terrorism, presenting a security headache for the nation's new President, Rodrigo Duterte, who was elected by a landslide on May 9. That day, just a few miles down the palm-fringed coastal road, beyond rows of drying coconuts neatly sorted into halves, quarters and shards, around 20 members of Abu Sayyaf, a local Islamist militant group that recently pledged alliance to ISIS, launched a speedboat raid on the plush Holiday Oceanview Resort. They abducted four guests two Canadians, John Ridsdel and Robert Hall Hall's Filipina girlfriend Marites Flor and Norwegian national Kjartan Sekkingstad. The kidnappers demanded a 100 million ransom after making an easy escape. "Unfortunately, the lead time that the abductors had and the darkness of night were able to cover the retreat of the abductors," military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla told reporters in Manila. No ransom has been paid. On April 25, the severed head of Ridsdel, a 68-year-old Calgary businessman, was found in a plastic bag on in a street in Jolo, the main island of Abu Sayyaf's heartland of Sulu, itself a chain of islands that stretches from Mindanao to the northern tip of Malaysian Borneo. His three fellow captives remain among a dozen foreign hostages held by the group. "Abu Sayyaf are not good Muslims," says Jaire, her gregarious demeanor abruptly lost in a grim frown. "Taking persons to another place like that and to kill him, they do not believe in God, in Allah.", The Philippines is no stranger to militancy. Islam arrived to the archipelago's south over half a century before the Spanish colonizers, and its practitioners naturally railed against the Catholic rule of European interlopers. There was also all round brigandage. "Since before Spanish colonial rule, the Tausugs of Sulu had a cultural affinity for piracy and head-hunting," says Joseph Franco, a Philippine terrorism expert. Communist rebel factions are also still prominent, but the more recent headlines have been made by militant groups identifying with the marginalized Moro Muslim minority, who have waged a guerrilla war that has claimed some 120,000 lives since the 1970s. Two of these principal armed groups the Moro Islamic Liberation Front MILF and Moro National Liberation Front MNLF have since signed piece deals with the government. But splinter cells like Abu Sayyaf continue to launch lighting raids like the one on the Oceanview. Kidnapping is bread and butter for Abu Sayyaf, whose adherence to Islamist doctrine has waxed and waned according to the whims of its leadership. Often, it is little more that a criminal enterprise that uses the specter of extremism to strike fear into its victims, and encourage the payment of hefty ransoms. Many join the group out of desperation. "There are 14- and 15-year-old farming kids who join Abu Sayyaf simply because they pay more," says Clarke Jones, a radicalization expert at Australia National University. As such, the beheading of Ridsdel was probably an act of brutal expedience. "Ridsdel was too sick to move around and posed a liability," says Franco, "so they killed him." Franco adds his beheading was probably also an attempt to attract acceptance, and thus elicit funds, from ISIS central command. Philippine domestic terrorism has been complicated by the emergence of ISIS, and fissures within Abu Sayyaf itself. A faction led by Radulan Sahiron has not pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but the impoverished Basilan faction, led by Isnilon Hapilon, has been accepted as an ISIS branch in the Philippines. It has changed its name to ISIS Philippines and adopted the terrorist group's black battle flag. "The rank and file of Abu Sayyaf are deeply influenced by ISIS's battlefield successes," says Professor Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore. "Abu Sayyaf fighters spend their evening watching ISIS videos. If Radulan Sahiron is killed or dies, it is likely that the entire Abu Sayyaf will join ISIS.", According to Abdul Sahrin, secretary general of MNLF's Sima faction, "A good number of youths are already attracted to ISIS. In the Sulu archipelago as much as 10-15 could support them. They feel hopeless.", This threat is replicated all over Southeast Asia, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia, where would-be jihadists are regularly intercepted en route to Syria to fight for ISIS. Jakarta was rocked by an ISIS-inspired bomb-and-gun attack in January. It's a security headache for President-elect Duterte, who was voted in on his pledge to fight crime, drugs and corruption based on his three decades running Davao City, which sprawls across a narrow strip of sea from Samal. There, the 71-year-old former lawyer and prosecutor quelled an epidemic of crime, drugs and kidnappings launched by gangsters and politically motivated rebels. Abu Sayyaf were already stepping up their attacks in the run up to his election. According to Gunaratna, the latest attack was on a Philippine army position in the town of Maluso in Basilan province, where one soldier was killed and another wounded. It was the second attack in the Philippines claimed for ISIS, the SITE Intelligence Group says. The first, on April 13, saw nearly 100 Philippine troops killed., Though Duterte's reputation is uncompromisingly tough on those who bring terror to the city of 1.5 million, he draws grudging respect from rebel groups for his honest sympathy for their grievances. Moro leaders backed his call for the presidency, given his support for devolving power to the regions through federalism. His close personal contacts to rebel groups, particularly the communist New People's Army NPA, are well known. On April 25, the NPA handed over five kidnapped policemen to Duterte personally. Yet Duterte's zero-tolerance approach fighting crime "death squads" under his control are responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial executions, say human-rights groups may backfire. According to Jones, "With this new President we're in for a crisis in the Philippines correctional system.", The nation's already brimming prisons one Manila jail boasts 1,700 maximum security inmates, the largest such facility in the world have long been crucibles for radicalization, and a recent crackdown on gangs means the eye has been taken off the terrorist cells, says Jones. Speaking to TIME last month, Duterte fully backed Washington's war on terror. "The U.S. is hunting down rebels all around the world and they have every right to do it," he told TIME. "America can just go in and out of any country like the big boss, strutting around like they own the place. I don't mind that, as the fight against terrorism really is a war.", The people of Samal are very much aware of that war. Security is tight all over the island. Guests need to sign waivers from their resorts simply to wander out onto the pearl-white beaches, and there is a 10 p.m. curfew. At Oceanview's concrete perimeter walls, a security guard's terse refusal of entry is accented by twitches of a shotgun. Requests for comment from the resort's management were unanswered at time of publication., "We have over 20 security guards," says Rhonade Manlunar, standing sentry at the Samal's Pearl Farm resort, which was hit by a failed Abu Sayyaf kidnapping raid in 2001 that claimed two lives. "Police, army and private security all patrol here.", For many, that is still not enough. Tourist arrivals are down. Francis Scott, a dad of two from Nova Scotia who has lived 12 years in the Philippines, says a large number of the 120-odd foreigners who have homes on Samal haven't returned after the Oceanview raid, even if the local community is rallying around. "I know an Australian who lives in the middle of a Muslim village and they are very protective of him," says Scott, "as they don't want to be associated if anything bad happened to him.", For Jaire, the worry is more than just violence. She fears the allure of ISIS getting its tentacles into local youth. "We worry about young people going over to the Middle East," she says, as the fading dusk light drawing the world's largest colony of fruit bats from the neighboring Montford Cave, swirling and diving overhead, forming a vast dark cloud. At least that cloud will soon be lifted fear and Islamist militancy will loom over Samal for a long time yet. |
World | North Koreas Missile Test Over Japan Was a Carefully Calculated Move | Cellphone emergency alerts buzzed and loudspeakers crackled on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Tuesday morning, as North Korea launched its first ballistic missile test over the East Asian nation since 2009, setting off warning systems and prompting the government to urge residents to "evacuate to a sturdy building or basement.", In the end, the launch flopped harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean, though it represents a distinct provocation at a time when 67,500 U.S. and South Korean troops are engaged in joint military exercises on the Korean peninsula. However, it did not target the U.S. territory of Guam, which Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un said he was "examining" striking earlier this month a scenario U.S. President Donald Trump warned would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen.", Nevertheless, the missile test North Korea's 13th this year, after three more over the weekend puts Trump in a difficult position. The lack of a clear and present danger to U.S. forces makes any retaliation problematic, as the U.S. commander-in-chief would be painted as the aggressor. But not to respond weakens Washington's alliance with Tokyo, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the launch an "outrageous act" and an "unprecedented, serious and grave threat that greatly damages regional peace and security.", Abe and Trump spoke for 40 minutes soon after the missile was detected. The launch has ramped up calls in Japan and South Korea for increased offensive and defensive measures, something vehemently opposed by China. Read more The 200 Americans Living in North Korea Have Little Time Left to Leave, "In some ways it is devilishly well-calibrated," Prof. Stephan Haggard, a Korea expert at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, says of Tuesday's launch. "It's driving a wedge between Seoul, Washington and Beijing on this issue.", On Monday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for his military to establish as "three-axis system" that could launch a preemptive strike upon imminent attack and also to develop an indigenous missile defense system. Moon highlighted the need to "quickly switch to an offensive posture in case North Korea stages a provocation.", South Korea currently hosts one battery of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system, which Beijing has deemed an affront, even organizing boycotts of South Korean businesses in response. Beijing has pushed for a so-called "double-freeze" agreement, under which Washington and Seoul suspend their joint military drills, and put THAAD deployment under review, in exchange for Pyongyang halting its nuclear and missile tests. Moon has also supported negotiations if the conditions are right. However, Tuesday's provocation makes such a "double freeze" extremely problematic. "How can South Korea, which is facing this existential threat, make itself more vulnerable and less prepared, and undermine its military capabilities to respond to North Korean military threats?" asks Daniel Pinkston, an East Asia expert at Troy University in South Korea. "That's just not happening.", Tuesday's test also spotlights the impotence of Japan's own defensive measures. The U.S. Navy and Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force maintain interceptors aboard Aegis Combat System-equipped guided missile cruisers and destroyers in the Sea of Japan. However, these did not attempt to intercept Tuesday's missile, which flew eastward from near Pyongyang for 1,678 mi 2,700 km at an altitude of 342 mi 550 km, according to the South Korean military. There will be renewed calls within Japan for it to host its own THAAD or Aegis Ashore anti-missile batteries, a move that could further drive a wedge between Tokyo and Beijing, which on Aug. 5 agreed to unprecedented U.N. sanctions against North Korea. Resolution 2371 targets a third of North Korea's 3 billion worth of foreign earnings chiefly iron, lead, coal and seafood exports plus revenues through its banks and foreign ventures. Read more Five Things Things in North Korea Could Still Go Badly Wrong, However, soon after Resolution 2371 passed the U.S. announced secondary sanctions against 10 Chinese and Russian firms and six individuals doing business in North Korea retaliations described by Beijing as a "mistake." The prospect of enhanced U.S. military hardware like THAAD which has phenomenal surveillance capabilities on China's doorstep will only further vex Beijing. And given that China is responsible for 90 of North Korea trade across the 880-mile border it shares with Pyongyang, it would only be too easy for an aggrieved Beijing to loosen sanctions enforcement. Finally, the test indicates that North Korea's technical expertise is advancing despite the sanctions. The distance flown by the missile, supposedly a mid-range Hwasong-12, clearly demonstrates that Guam situated 1,550 mi 2,500 km southeast of Tokyo is now a viable target. The missile was launched at 528 am local time time from Sunan near Pyongyang's international airport, according to South Korean officials, suggesting this may have been a road-mobile launch, undermining the effectiveness of preemptive U.S. missile strikes. Still, the launch was not without risk for Kim. There was a chance that a fishing or naval craft could have been hit by the ditching missile, or even that it would break apart during the two minutes it spent in Japanese airspace, and shower its civilian population with debris. But the 33-year-old has never flinched in his pursuit of a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the continental U.S. and few believe he can be convinced otherwise when so tantalizingly close. "Even if the U.S. ceased to exist, North Korea's worldview and ideology requires self reliance and force and nuclear weapons," adds Pinkston. "As long as there's another nuclear state they feel they should also have this capability." |
World | How Cities and StatesTook the Spotlight in Paris Climate Talks | Jerry Brown may not be a world leader, but he's the talk of the town in Paris at what organizers hope will be the most significant international gathering ever on climate change. The governor of California is here to spend a week touting his efforts on the issue at the state level, where he has overseen the launch of a cap-and-trade program and instituted targets to reduce carbon emissions by 80 from 1990 levels by 2050. Those are programs and goals President Obama could not dream of implementing on the federal level. But Brown isn't just in Paris to show off his state's accomplishments. The governor, who notes that he traveled to Paris at the invitation of U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, has used his time here to deepen the partnerships he's formed with states and provinces around the world, in an effort to bypass the cautious U.S. government and forge direct agreements with foreign partners more motivated to fight climate change. "We don't have to wait for the federal government to say jump. We're already moving," Brown said in an interview with TIME. "We're working with China and Germany and Mexico and provinces all over the place. We're a global force.", Brown, a three-time Democratic presidential candidate, may be one of the best-known U.S. governors, but he's far from the only representative of states and local governments here in Paris. Walk near the conference center and you may spot former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard or one of dozens more governors and mayors in attendance from around the world. Many climate policy experts paint states, cities and local governments as the potential savior of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when national efforts fail to materialize. Mayors and governors gathered here in Paris on the sidelines of formal negotiations say they're up for the fight. "The task of reducing our carbon footprint is so great and so global that every entity that can needs to pitch in," said Brown. "Modernity has two major elements individualism and oil. And those two we have to transform.", Read More Why the Paris Climate Summit Is All About the Money, Countries from around the world made commitments to address their greenhouse gas emissions in the build-up to the Paris conference, formally known at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties COP21. These commitments would have been unthinkable even a decade ago, but they still don't go far enough to solve the climate crisis. Whatever agreement emerges this week is unlikely to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2C 3.6F, a threshold climate scientists say will trigger the most catastrophic effects of global warming. Commitments from countries around the world would still allow temperatures to rise by more than 3C 5.4 F. Cities, states and other subnational governments could come in to make up the difference, policy experts say. The activities of cities alone account for more than 70 of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, a number which is expected to grow as urbanization continues across the globe. What sub-national leaders lack in prestige on the international scene, they've made up for in action. The Compact of States and Regions, a consortium of sub-national governments from six continents, announced commitments on Dec. 6 to cut greenhouse gas emissions by a cumulative 12.4 gigatons by 2030 when compared to business as usual projections. For perspective, the U.S. emits between 5 and 6 gigatons annually. In another announcement, cities across the U.S. and China jointly announced plans in September to cut their emissions by 1.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually. California and Quebec have also partnered to launch a cap-and-trade scheme that allows emitters to trade the right to emit carbon dioxide, which gives companies an incentive to stop polluting and eventually drives down greenhouse gas emissions. A number of Chinese regions have also been experimenting with a similar program, which led to the creation of a national program. "Mayors are incredibly fired up and they're proud of what they accomplished," said John Coequyt, the Sierra Club's director of federal and international climate campaigns. "If cities take this seriously, they can be huge drivers of progress without any real support from national governments.", Read More How Climate Change Became the Central Development Issue, But, for all the work they're doing, sub-national governments face a number of difficulties in their efforts to stem the use of fossil fuels. Efforts tend to occur in a more piecemeal fashion with most efforts in most cities barely registering on a global scale. Observers may also struggle to follow up on commitments made in so many different cities and governments. A number of different alliances and consortiums aim to combat those problems with varying levels of success, but in the end local leaders are going to keep doing what they're doing and hope that it pushes their national governments to do the same. "Local governments are actually leading national governments. They are the driving force," Seoul Mayor Said Park Won-soon told TIME. "In the new climate regime, this will continue." |
World | Survivors Survey Their Paradise Lost After Ecuadorean Earthquake | The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the coast of Ecuador on Saturday night left at least 413 people dead and devastated the small resort city of Pedernales, located near the epicenter. The city was previously a vacation destination for Ecuadorians and foreigners alike drawn to its rich beaches and secluded location. Those familiar with the city dubbed it "a paradise in the middle of the world.", But on Monday, the soccer stadium at the center of the city had been turned into a makeshift control center for the various military, governmental and non-governmental organizations responding to the disaster. In one corner was stacked plastic wrapped coffins next to the makeshift morgue, a sign that no one believed the death toll was done rising. The purr of pickup truck motors was interrupted by wails of devastated family members as they were informed that their loved ones had died. A tent was set up with a cardboard sign displayed out front saying, "missing persons.", Surrounding the pseudo headquarters, buildings sag and lean with broken glass and rubble piled on the sidewalks below. The outside walls of some of the structures had fallen away, exposing the bedrooms and living rooms of second story family dwellings. Heavy machinery and excavators worked to slowly transfer the remnants of demolished buildings into waiting dump trucks while firemen and rescue units sorted through the debris, searching for survivors. "It's been tough work," says Diego Almeida, a crew leader of one of the many teams of firemen from all over Ecuador responding to the earthquake. "We've been working since yesterday, practically without sleep because these first 72 hours are the most vital in saving the highest possible amount of people.", At 658 on Saturday night, the largest earthquake since 1979 struck the pacific coast of Ecuador. Most affected cities were left without power or water and the quake could be felt as far north as Colombia and as far south as Peru. After the initial fear of a tsunami that never materialized, the residents of Pedernales spent much of Sunday reacting to the disaster and coping with shock. By Monday many of them decided that they could not stay, even if their homes remained standing. "There's no light, there's no water and everything is covered in dust," says one man standing outside of his car as the traffic backed up for miles on the road heading out of the city. Landslides from the earthquake resulted in multiple bottlenecks where emergency heavy equipment and with trucks packed with family's belongings battled for a single lane passage. "It's not livable," he said. "Getting water to the residents is one of our number one priorities," says Carlos Arias, a project coordinator for the Ecuador branch of the Red Cross. The other main priority was to help connect the remains of the victims of the earthquake with families searching for loved ones. But Arias stressed that the Red Cross is a voluntary organization and they were having a hard time getting enough trained personnel to deal with the huge burden of victims being recovered. Less than two days after the city shook, home owners have turned into scavengers, sifting through the rubble for the few belongings that can be saved. The atmosphere is solemn, but communal. Neighbors help each other in whatever way they can, even if that just means offering a shady space and a plastic molded chair under a hastily hung tarp. "The city is totally destroyed. We have to start again. It's totally destroyed. Even in 20 years, it won't have recovered," says one man who sits outside the three buildings he used to own but which are precariously leaning in impossible angles. He is visibly exhausted and distraught. But in his voice he remains strong. "We feel absolutely broken. But we have to keep fighting.", |
World | Rohingya Refugees Stand on the Precipice of More Tragedy One Year After Brutal Crackdown | Saturday marks the first anniversary of one of the darkest events in Myanmar's recent history Aug. 25, the beginning of a military campaign of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, and arson that drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims from the country's western Rakhine state. Top diplomats and U.N. officials have labeled the military's crusade as ethnic cleansing and some have likened it to genocide. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate who leads Myanmar's civilian government, has repeatedly denied abuses in Rakhine and this week used a rare public address in Singapore to blame the crisis on Rohingya "terrorist activities.", Her dispassion is unsurprising the Rohingya face widespread hostility in Myanmar, where they are perceived as illegal interlopers from Bangladesh. In recent years, the maligned minority has been stripped of citizenship and voting rights they have been denied freedom of movement, access to basic services, and are targeted by sporadic waves of violence. Some 140,000 Rohingya remain interred in displacement camps in Rakhine, since they were expelled from the state capital Sittwe in 2012 in the aftermath of sectarian riots that claimed nearly 100 lives. To many observers, the vigor of the military's most recent campaign betrayed a wish to drive the Rohingya out of the country once and for all. Human rights advocates are calling for Myanmar's generals to face prosecution at the International Criminal Court ICC. But for the Rohingya, the crisis is far from over over 1 million refugees now languish in sprawling refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh with no guarantee of a safe return to Myanmar. In the early hours of Aug. 25, 2017, Rohingya militants armed with knives, clubs, and improvised explosives attacked 30 police and border guard garrisons across northern Rakhine, killing 12 officers. At least 80 insurgents were also killed. The assault was the second by the self-declared Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army ARSA. In October 2016, ARSA, then known as Harakah al-Yaqin, killed nine police officers in an attack on border posts. Myanmar's military, known as the Tatmadaw, responded with so-called "clearance operations" that were described by the U.N.'s human rights body as "devastating cruelty." The violent reprisals displaced at least 92,000 Rohingya, who fled with credible reports of murder, rape and torture. But that episode was just a preview. In response to the Aug. 25 attacks, the Tatmadaw launched a ferocious counterinsurgency campaign that Rohingya survivors and rights watchdogs say made no effort to distinguish between civilians and insurgents. Villages were pillaged and burned, women and girls gang raped by soldiers, and fleeing civilians executed. At least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in one month, according to Mdecins Sans Frontires MSF, a number the group called both "staggering" and "an underestimation.", Read more The Villages are Burning Down.' Fear and Fire Send Rohingya Fleeing to Bangladesh, The attacks sparked an unprecedented exodus, with entire Rohingya communities fleeing through the forests and mountain passes, and crossing the Naf River into Bangladesh. In total, more than 700,000 fled Myanmar, many of them carrying relatives too old, ill, or injured to walk. Hours before the violence erupted, a government advisory commission chaired by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan had presented recommendations to solve Rakhine's protracted ethnic conflicts. "The situation in Rakhine State is becoming more precarious," Annan had then warned. Read more Reprisals, Rape, and Children Burned Alive Burma's Rohingya Speak of Genocidal Terror, A report by Bangkok-based Fortify Rights suggested the Myanmar military campaign was premeditated. The report documented military preparations for attacks on the Muslim minority months before ARSA struck, including depriving Rohingya villagers of food, confiscating household items that could be used as weapons, and training and arming local non-Rohingya communities. For the Rohingya in Bangladesh, the past year has been one of insecurity. According to the U.N. 919,000 people now reside in camps. The Kutupalong-Balukhali complex, home to over 609,000 people, is the largest refugee camp in the world. Settlements have expanded over the past year, with schools, medical clinics, mosques, and internal governance attempting to piece communities back together. Refugees now have basics such as food, shelter, and healthcare, representatives of aid organizations working onsite tell TIME. But the perils are manifold, from disease and deprivation to labor and sex trafficking 77 of recent arrivals are women and children to illegal methamphetamine trade, which enlists refugees, barred from conventional work, as drug mules. "The camps are desperately overcrowded and the population is almost entirely reliant on aid," Fiona MacGregor, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration IOM in Cox's Bazar wrote to TIME. "Under such conditions, people are very vulnerable to traffickers seeking to exploit them with promises of jobs or other opportunities elsewhere.", Read more Rohingya Refugees Myanmar's Crisis Is Bangladesh's Burden, Seasonal monsoons have brought deadly flooding, mud and landslides, as well as risk of diseases. Most structures are made of plastic sheeting and bamboo, and conditions are "far" from meeting minimums for shelter or sanitation, according to International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies IFRC operations manager Frank Kennedy. "If we get to the end of this wet weather, without an outbreak of communicable disease, it will be enormous victory," Kennedy tells TIME from Cox's Bazar. More than 24,000 Rohingya have been relocated to safer ground, according to UNHCR, but tens of thousands remain at risk, and a direct hit from a cyclone would be "catastrophic," Kennedy says. "We are clear we cannot protect these people where they are.", One of the most damning responses has come from the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Yanghee Lee, who said the army's campaign bears "the hallmarks of genocide." Similarly, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called it a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" that contains "elements of genocide" he has repeatedly urged the U.N. Security Council to refer Myanmar to the ICC. Condemnation has come from leading American politicians as well former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the violence "constitutes ethnic cleansing" his successor, Mike Pompeo, is reportedly considering whether to label the crisis "genocide.", Last week, 17 U.S. Senators wrote to Pompeo to demand urgent action and the public release of an upcoming State Department investigation into alleged atrocities. "United States government must do more," the Senators wrote. Over 130 lawmakers from five Southeast Asian countries echoed demands for accountability, describing Myanmar's response so far as "woefully inadequate.", Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on four military and border guard commanders and two military units, extending measures passed in December against the general responsible for overseeing the crackdown. Canada and the E.U. also imposed sanctions on seven officers in June. Read more The U.N. Isn't Ruling Out Elements of Genocide' in Myanmar. Here's What That Means, Yet Myanmar has remained staunchly unapologetic, denying allegations of atrocities and clearing its soldiers of wrongdoing in an internal probe last year. Instead, the government has launched a succession of toothless advisory commissions, the latest in July, that critics say are intended to defer responsibility. , Only seven Myanmar soldiers have been disciplined for the entire crackdown, sentenced to 10 years with hard labor for the execution of 10 Rohingya men discovered in a mass grave. Meanwhile, two Reuters reporters who investigated the incident face 14 years in prison for possessing "state secrets.", International NGOs are calling on Myanmar and Bangladesh to resolve the crisis, but there is no political solution on the horizon. Humanitarian groups and the Bangladeshi army are digging in to reinforce the camps by improving roads and bridges and laying concrete foundations for meeting halls and women's shelters. They're also replanting denuded land to reduce mudslides when next year's rains arrive. But the camps won't be the Rohingya's home forever. In June, U.N. agencies signed a long-awaited deal to begin repatriating the Rohingya to Myanmar, but rights groups have criticized its terms. As recently as this week, the U.N. complained they were still being blocked from northern Rakhine, as did MSF, which in the past had provided medical services after most international NGOs had been expelled. Independent investigators and journalists have been barred as well, except on government-chaperoned excursions a dedicated U.N. Fact-Finding Mission has been denied visas for over a year. Read more Myanmar's Case Against Reuters Reporters Is a War on Truth, Rights groups warn that without independent monitoring, Rohingya face no guarantees of safety should they return to Rakhine, where as many as 600,000 Rohingya still remain. Those concerns seemed validated this week when Human Rights Watch reported that six Rohingya who returned to Myanmar last year were arrested, interrogated, and tortured. Meanwhile, UNICEF warned this week that a "lost generation" of Rohingya children is at risk of growing up in the camps without an education. The Joint Response Plan, a 950 million humanitarian initiative, is only one-third funded. "The Rohingya refugees stand on the precipice of yet another tragedy," IOM's MacGregor says. "More support is desperately needed if another disaster is to be avoided." |
World | The Accidental WhistleBlower How a Retired London Journalist Uncovered Massive Corruption Half a Wor | A week before she was to give a keynote address at an antifraud conference in Singapore, Clare Rewcastle Brown received an anonymous email. "Dear Madam, I want to thank you for exposing all the corruption and wrongdoing in Malaysia," it read. "I am writing to you urgently with regards to your upcoming trip to Singapore," it continued. "The Malaysian Special Branch knows that you are coming and they have arranged with their Singapore counterparts to arrest you on arrival.", Rewcastle Brown is accustomed to this sort of thing, and she decided to stay in London, where she lives with her family, and deliver her Nov. 21 remarks over streaming video. Singapore's Attorney General's Chambers told TIME in a statement that "there are no special arrangements between Singapore and Malaysia in relation to the extradition of any particular individual.", She gave her speech from her dining room, which also functions as her newsroom. It is here that she runs Sarawak Report, a nearly seven-year-old investigative news website. Sixteen months earlier, in July 2015, she had published a bombshell of a report the personal bank accounts of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, she alleged, held nearly 700 million tied to state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad 1MDB. "I want to say first how sorry I am not to be able to join you in Singapore as planned," Rewcastle Brown, 57, told the crowd nearly 13,000 km away. Her audience, comprising mostly executives and auditors, was rapt. "The loss is entirely mine as it was a huge opportunity for me to meet with so many people of expertise in financial fraud where I have been stumbling along as a jobbing journalist.", "So, where do I fit as a mere reporter into this juggernaut of a story?" she asked the crowd. "You can hardly expect me not to take advantage of this platform you have kindly provided me with, to put in a plea for the vital role of journalism and free media in exposing corruption that threatens to undermine all our democratic systems.", Rewcastle Brown's British penchant for understatement is deceptive. The 1MDB controversy uncovered by this "mere reporter" is the biggest corruption scandal in recent memory to involve a head of government, in terms of both the sum of money involved and the magnitude of the sensational news story it has become. Rewcastle Brown is, as Abraham Lincoln apocryphally said of the antislavery author Harriet Beecher Stowe, "the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war." Along with the Wall Street Journal, which has also reported the story thoroughly, Sarawak Report has been instrumental in both informing the Malaysian public and bringing the story into the global consciousness. There are eight governments around the world concurrently investigating 1MDB. In July, U.S. federal prosecutors announced what they described as the "largest single action" against kleptocracy in U.S. history they were seizing more than 1 billion in assets apparently obtained with illicit 1MDB funds. The assets include a 30 million penthouse atop Manhattan's Time Warner Center and art by Monet and Picasso. Rewcastle Brown was first tipped off about 1MDB in December 2013 when she learned that Najib's stepson Riza Aziz had bankrolled The Wolf of Wall Street. In its complaint, the U.S. Department of Justice said the cash used to fund the film tens of millions of dollars was "directly traceable" to 1MDB. Riza is specifically named by the U.S. Department of Justice Najib is not, but several mentions of a "Malaysian Official 1" refer to him, government minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan told the BBC. The Prime Minister has denied all allegations of wrongdoing the Saudi government donated the 700 million, say Malaysian officials. In July 2015, Sarawak Report became the first news website officially blocked in Malaysia by state censors. Anywhere from three to six times a week, it publishes piecemeal updates to its investigations. The site receives around "a couple million" visitors each year, according to the programmer Rewcastle Brown hired in 2010 to handle the tech side of things. One major story can bring in more than a hundred thousand hits in its first few hours online most of them from Malaysia, where 7 in 10 people are now online, and where traditional forms of media are controlled by the government. What began in 2010 as a blog about an environmental crisis in the Malaysian state of Sarawak is now the most comprehensive portrait of a diseased body politic and its attendant scandals. The principal subject of this portrait is Najib, 63, a British-educated career politician who has been the country's Prime Minister since 2009. He rose to power as a reformer. When he took office seven years ago, many were optimistic that he would establish Malaysia as a model Muslim democracy by easing ethnic tensions and rejuvenating the country's economy. "For us to move up a few notches, we have to address the structural problems," Najib told TIME in 2010. To that end, he instated economic programs to encourage private investment and pledged to repeal internal-security measures that the Human Rights Watch once condemned as "a draconian and anachronistic tool to stifle political dissent." He pushed for stronger ties with the U.S. an effort the Obama Administration embraced, eyeing the liberalizing country as a strategic counterweight to China's clout in the region. Today, that early optimism is a distant memory. In 2013, Najib only barely won his bid for re-election his coalition, Barisan Nasional National Front, in fact lost the popular vote and in the years since, "all principles have become subservient to the principle of self-interest," says Bridget Welsh, a political scientist who focuses on Malaysia. In recent years, a number of Malaysians who have criticized the government have been arrested under the country's array of antisedition laws remnants from colonial statute books that Najib's government has expanded. "Prime Minister Najib has become a political Jekyll and Hyde character, talking like a moderate on the international stage, but then directing a crackdown on his critics at home," says Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division. In a July 2016 statement, Najib defended the expansion of security laws as "necessary in the fight against terrorism" and said that critics have "fear-mongered for political reasons.", Things have worsened in the wake of the 1MDB revelations, which have continued to mount. Najib has sacked senior figures in his government who have questioned his version of events. His Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin got the ax in July 2015 after airing his criticisms. So did the then Attorney General, Abdul Gani Patail, who had reportedly planned to file criminal charges against Najib. The apparent warrant for his arrest was leaked to Sarawak Report, which published it., In a March 1, 2016, statement, the Malaysian government dismissed the 1MDB controversy as a "politically motivated, anti-Najib campaign, which sought to use Western media." Officials in Kuala Lumpur accuse Rewcastle Brown of being unprofessional and allied with local oppositionists. She says "I simply followed the story.", The unlikely fugitive, In the popular narrative, the uprisings of the early 21st century the Arab Spring, the smartphone-wielding pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong affirm the triumph of information over repression. This interpretation is a tad naive. Sarawak Report's programmer, who requested anonymity in the interest of his safety, says that he spends much of his time fending off waves of cyberattacks, which Rewcastle Brown believes are coming from groups sponsored by Najib's supporters. In August 2015, Kuala Lumpur notified Interpol that it had charged Rewcastle Brown with disseminating false documents and partaking in "activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy" charges that can result in 25 years in prison. Interpol has rejected Malaysia's petition, but Rewcastle Brown, though she affects indifference, is now cautious about where she goes. She has received police protection in London after realizing she was being followed and photographed in Hyde Park. "Despite all the threats and posturing, the government has yet to be able to take any real legal actions against her, presumably because she writes the truth," says Wong Chen, a bookish, charismatic member of Malaysia's parliamentary opposition. The truth is written on a MacBook Pro that sits on Sarawak Report's news desk, which is also Rewcastle Brown's dining-room table. The headquarters of this national security threat are an apartment with high ceilings on the fourth floor of a central London walk-up. There are spy thrillers on the bookshelves and Christmas cards from relatives on the mantle. She lives here with her husband Andrew and their two college-aged sons, and, on the day I visit, her father's cheerful Spanish Farm Dog that she volunteered to babysit. "We've done this all on a wing and a prayer," says Rewcastle Brown. She looks uncannily like Joni Mitchell, all wide eyes and wistful gravity. Her husband whose brother is former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is reading in the living room the younger of their two sons, Patrick, is playing PlayStation in his room down the hall. And she is logging onto her laptop. It opens to her email inbox, where there's a note waiting from a prominent former ambassador to Malaysia, applauding a recent Sarawak Report update. There's also an email from a man who identifies himself as a manager at a major Malaysian bank, claiming he has information concerning further missing funds. After six years of doing this, skepticism is Rewcastle Brown's baseline she likes the words fishy and dodgy and she knows how to vet him. She screens sources by trawling relevant databases and cross-referencing to confirm that people are who they say they are. Rewcastle Brown has benefited from the fact that many involved in Malaysian politics are increasingly jaded with it. Her biggest scoops have depended on documents and information leaked by quietly disgruntled government and financial officials. Anonymous tips continue to clog her inbox. At the bottom of every Sarawak Report webpage, above the site's teal logo, there's a link with instructions for how to send her an encrypted email. "I'm fairly practiced at squirreling out stories and sources I talk to people I ask people if they know anyone worth talking to," Rewcastle Brown says. "But now people have started finding me, because they know I'm the only guy on the block who does this.", "I didn't grasp the magnitude of what we were doing", You could call Sarawak Report a strange kind of homecoming. In December 1951, a young man named John Rewcastle arrived in the Crown Colony of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. He had studied law at Oxford, but didn't practice it because he sought to avoid "the obvious thing." Instead joined the colonial police force and, in the twilight of the world's biggest empire, made his way up the ranks. In Sarawak, he fell in love with and married a British nurse, and in June 1959, they had a daughter, Clare. Colonial rule in Sarawak ended in 1963, when the state merged with Malaya to create the nation of Malaysia, but the Rewcastles stayed on for six more years. It was a "fantastic place for a child to live," Rewcastle Brown says a playground of beaches and virgin jungles, where indigenous tribes lived unscathed by civilization. Her mother Karis would go to these villages to work as a midwife, and her daughter would tag along. Rewcastle Brown left Sarawak in the spring of 1967, when "the classic British colonial childhood thing was still to get kicked back to boarding school in England at the tender age of 8.", "And that was that," she says. "But I have this vivid memory of flying over Borneo down the coast to Singapore. It was a two-hour journey in those days, and I remember looking out the window for two hours at this amazing canopy of unbroken jungle beneath me.", Rewcastle Brown spent her childhood in fashionable girls' boarding schools and then studied modern history at King's College London, taking a particular interest in Soviet studies. "I was trying to get a handle on how the world works," she says. In 1983, when pursuing a master's degree at the London School of Economics, she took a secretarial job in the BBC World Service's current-affairs department. When she graduated, the BBC took her on as a researcher, then promoted her to assistant producer. While working at the BBC, she was introduced by colleagues to Andrew Brown, a fellow producer whose elder brother Gordon was then an ambitious young Member of Parliament. The future Prime Minister would be the best man at their wedding in 1992. "I would stress that she has always been fiercely independent, someone who is free of political influence, irrespective of who's in power and who's running any country," Gordon Brown, tells TIME. "That's what makes us proud of her she's always been utterly professional.", She then spent 14 years covering the London news at the BBC, then Sky News and ITV during which she developed a reputation among colleagues as an aggressive investigator who made no secret of her faith in journalism as a moral enterprise. Her cameramen called her Rocky Rewcastle, after the scrappy boxer from the movies. "She has the ability to deliver killer punches to those in the shadows who are up to no good," says Glen Campbell, who worked with Rewcastle Brown at ITV and is now the producer of the BBC's Panorama news program. He recalls one such example, when they camped out in doorways to film corrupt parking wardens who were ticketing innocent motorists. Rewcastle Brown had heard that the wardens got a bonus for every car they ticketed including hers. "For Clare, injustice, even a whiff of it, immediately grabs her attention.", Rewcastle Brown retired from television reporting in 2001 to look after her children, but five years later, an acquaintance who knew about her childhood in Sarawak tipped her off on a media conference that was being held in the state by its then chief minister, Taib Mahmud, to "bolster its positive environmental image." Her curiosity was piqued, and so after four decades on the other side of the world, she returned to her birthplace. There, she found her next story. She was startled by the deforestation she witnessed there, and over the next three years, she traveled back and forth with the intent of making a documentary on it. In 2009, an armed group of officers sent her home. She remained committed to exposing the story and bringing it to an audience in Malaysia, where traditional forms of news media are effectively state mouthpieces. The country ranks 146 out of 179 on the World Press Freedom Index three-quarters of Malaysians say they distrust the news they read. "And so I got a blog," Rewcastle Brown says. "They have a totally controlled media, but they also have an Internet.", Sarawak Report went live in February 2010 and, within six months, traffic had climbed from about 300 hits a day to 50,000. Her programmer was on holiday when he got the notification that the site had crashed. "I didn't grasp the magnitude of what we were doing," he says. For its first year, Rewcastle Brown ran the website anonymously, out of concern for herself and her family's safety. In its reporting, Sarawak Report is thorough and transparent. Its stories are almost always accompanied by screenshots of the various documents that sustain their allegations bank statements, transaction reports, and the like. These, Rewcastle Brown says, were hidden in plain sight in public records databases that no one thought to check. It was a rabbit hole that she fell down nightly, after kissing her sons and husband goodnight and going to her laptop, where she would remain connecting the dots until dawn. "I discovered the Internet," she says plainly. "I started seeing how much company information was out there they didn't think it would be accessible to a middle-aged journalist sitting in her kitchen in England.", "We have reached something that is unstoppable", In January 2016, the office of Malaysia's Attorney General announced that it had concluded its investigation into 1MDB, and exonerated Najib of all allegations. But on Nov. 19 tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Kuala Lumpur to demand Najib's resignation, as spirited and outraged as ever. Protesters were not dissuaded by the fact that the rally's organizer, Maria Chin Abdullah, had been arrested the night before she was later released, or by the fact that the government had declared the rally illegal. "We have to speak out," said 25-year-old Elissa Abubakar, a business student at the University of Kuala Lumpur. "Before this not everyone was aware, but now we have this information, and people want to speak out and fight.", "We have reached something that is unstoppable," Rafizi Ramli, a popular opposition figure who has been sentenced to 18 months in jail he's appealing for leaking government secrets related to 1MDB, said that afternoon as thunderclouds gathered over the capital's iconic Petronas Towers. "It's a matter of time before Najib gives in.", Rewcastle Brown is modest about her role in all this, but concedes that "this conversation it would have been unthinkable even a year and a half ago." Said a 25-year-old freelance photographer at the Kuala Lumpur protest who declined to give his name out of concern for his safety "We see Sarawak Report as the truth. And the truth needs to be revealed. The media here can't cover it.", Malaysia is a country with a long tradition of diaspora, and there were solidarity rallies in cities around the globe that Nov. 19. Hundreds attended the protest in London, where all attention was on Rewcastle Brown, who addressed the crowd. "I've come here to join you, and I think we're all in awe of the bravery of the people who did go out and demonstrate in Malaysia itself today," she said. "I've played just one small part.", "A big part!" someone in the crowd yelled. Said Zainah Zain, 45, originally from Kuala Lumpur but now living in Cardiff, Wales "Clare stands for justice." |
World | ISIS Militants Declare Islamist Caliphate | The extremist Sunni group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria ISIS on Sunday declared a new caliphate or an Islamic state to claim dominion over Muslims across the globe on the territory it holds in the two countries. An online statement declared the group's shadowy leader, known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliph, or successor to the Prophet Mohammed, who died in 632. The position has been vacant since 1924, when the founder of modern Turkey abolished the office as a remnant of the Ottoman Empire, and bundled the last man to hold it, a bookish Francophile named Abdulmecid Efendi, into exile aboard the Orient Express. Restoring the caliphate, and with it a measure of the glory that attended Islam's golden age, has been the stated goal of Sunni Muslim activists for decades, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Hizb ut-Tahrir to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. But al-Baghdadi's group is the first to assert it. "The time has come for those generations that were drowning in oceans of disgrace, being nursed on the milk of humiliation, and being ruled by the vilest of all people, after their long slumber in the darkness of neglect the time has come for them to rise," said the statement. "They are saying that they are now the center of gravity in global jihad," says Hayder Al-Khoei, a specialist on Iraq at Chatham House, a London think tank. "They have leap-frogged in that sense al-Qaeda.", The most immediate tangible effect of the announcement, attributed to ISIS spokesman Mohammed al-Adnani, was to shorten the group's name. It now wants to be called simply Islamic State, moving past debates over transliterations of the former title, sometimes rendered as ISIL, for Levant instead of Syria, or al-Shams. Social-media sites like Twitter, which the group has used expertly to amplify its message and sense of a strong following, came alive with a new IS hashtag, while Facebook carried posts claiming to document celebrations shooting in the air from pickups in the streets of Raqqa, the Syrian city the Islamist group has held the longest. Any further impact will depend on public reaction. In the immediate wake of the announcement, skeptics were not hard to find. , , , The world, after all, is pretty well organized as nation states, the governing concept that admirers of the caliphate reject. "To me," says al-Khoei, "it sounds like a publicity stunt.", Even if it is, it might pay off. It's not hard to imagine Sunday's announcement, at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, inspiring young Muslims already inclined toward jihad. "If they're a caliphate now, a lot of people, possibly living in America or Europe the ones who are already radicalized and inclined to join them, it's more of an impetus," al-Khoei tells TIME. "Maybe the publicity stunt will affect recruiting in that sense. There'll be more eager, young volunteers excited by the sense that it's here now, it's a reality now.", The fact is, a certain nostalgia for the caliphate lingers in much of the Muslim community and not only among fundamentalists, or so-called takfiri groups like ISIS that see Shiite Muslims as apostates. Catholics still have their Pope, these mainstream believers point out, and Eastern Orthodox Christians their patriarch. But there are Caliphs and there are Caliphs. And while many, like the current Christian leaders, preach peace, the summons from the Mesopotamian desert Sunday was to "greedily drink the blood" of nonbelievers according to an early translation posted online, "The sun of jihad has risen The glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph looms on the horizon. The signs of victory have appeared. Here the flag of the Islamic State, the flag of tawhd monotheism, rises and flutters. Its shade covers land from Aleppo to Diyala. So rush O Muslims and gather around your khalfah caliphate, so that you may return as you once were for ages, kings of the earth and knights of war. Come so that you may be honored and esteemed, living as masters with dignity. Know that we fight over a religion that Allah promised to support. We fight for an ummah global Muslim community to which Allah has given honor, esteem, and leadership, promising it with empowerment and strength on the earth. Come O Muslims to your honor, to your victory. By Allah, if you disbelieve in democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the west, and rush to your religion and creed, then by Allah, you will own the earth, and the east and west will submit to you. This is the promise of Allah to you. This is the promise of Allah to you.", |
World | Thailands Military Junta Doesnt Want You to See This Report Alleging Torture | Thai officials have threatened to arrest human rights researchers who were preparing to launch a report alleging that authorities routinely use torture against a range of victims. Rights group Amnesty International, which authored the report, said Wednesday that a scheduled launch in Bangkok had been canceled after its staff members were intimidated by Thailand's military government. , The report, Make Him Speak By Tomorrow, details 74 cases of alleged torture documented between 2014 and 2015, claiming that abuse has increased since a military coup two years ago granted broad powers to the armed forces. Abuses were documented against a broad range of alleged victims including suspected insurgents, political opponents, migrants and people detained by police in rural areas. Some alleged victims claimed they had been subjected to waterboarding, electric shocks to their genitals, various forms of humiliation and other abuses. Thai authorities have denied the allegations. At the report launch on Wednesday, which was to be attended by a representative of the U.N. office of the high commissioner for human rights, authorities warned Amnesty's foreign representatives that speaking publicly at the event would be a violation of Thai labor laws. A spokesperson for Amnesty, Conor Fortune, told TIME that all of the organization's representatives had entered Thailand with proper documentation and authorities knew in advance that they were visiting the Kingdom on business as human rights workers. No representatives of the organization had been detained or charged, he said. An Amnesty Asia representative present at the event, Omar Waraich, said the disruption was likely to bring even more attention to the report. "It's pretty sad that the authorities seem to consider human rights activists as more of a problem than perpetrators of torture, who operate with impunity," Waraich tells TIME. "But the move appears to have backfired, and drawn more attention to the report.", Thailand's military junta has a reputation of being sensitive to criticism, and the country's authorities have a history of allegations of corruption and intimidation of government critics. The country has a number of criminal defamation laws at its disposal and other legal tools that some say have been used to silence dissent. Last week, British rights activist Andy Hall was found guilty of defaming a Thai company and committing "computer crimes" after he contributed research to a report alleging serious labor abuses in Thai food processing facilities, where many migrant laborers work. The verdict stunned advocates who claimed it could have a "chilling effect" on freedom of expression and human rights reporting in the country. |
World | Indian Expats Enter the Electoral Fray | For months, braving India's hot summer, Maya Vishwakarma crisscrossed the dusty roads of Hoshangabad, her hometown in Madhya Pradesh, central India. As a candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party AAP, she patiently went from door to door asking for people's votes. But apart from her platform, there was something separating Vishwakarma from other candidates and that's her expatriate status. The U.S.-based Non-Resident Indian NRIs, as they're known left her job in Silicon Valley where she worked in developing leukemia vaccines and on bone-marrow gene therapy and came home, motivated by the desire to make a difference. "When I come home, I do not see any change," Vishwakarma says. "No hospitals, no electricity, same roads, same schools. People are illiterate and there is widespread corruption.", For Vishwakarma, the emergence of the fledgling AAP an antigraft party running on a populist ticket was the spur to leave behind the comforts of American life. She is far from alone. This year's polls have galvanized NRIs like never before. Not content with discussing Indian politics around distant dining tables, thousands of NRIs are now on the ground in their homeland. Some have left their jobs, some are on sabbaticals or on leave without pay. But all are defying the heat and dust to campaign for what they believe. "We are bound together with a desire to change the future of India and usher in clean politics and accountable governance," says Shalini Gupta, a Chicago-based organization-development consultant, who left her job in the U.S. to become an AAP adviser. "We long to see India join the list of developed nations and for the development to benefit all segments of society and not just a select few.", While India is yet to experiment with postal ballots or online voting, at 10 million people, the NRI community is a sizable vote bank. They're also able to use their overseas experience to help modernize political parties and improve the way campaigning is conducted. "As NRIs, it is very easy to sit and criticize constantly, talking about how bad the system is in India, how nothing changes," says Smita Barooah, a Singapore-based therapist who is on a three-month sabbatical in Delhi campaigning for the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP. "But one day I sat back and asked myself how I can change the system.", Almost all the NRIs participating in this year's polls would say the same. The U.S. chapter of the BJP reportedly has about 2 million volunteers and says more than 10,000 are now in India campaigning for the party. AAP says it has over 5,000 active volunteers in over 40 countries. In the U.S. there are supporter teams in at least 30 major cities and in over 40 major universities. "This is a big election. India's future is at stake," says Pran Kurup, AAP's U.S. spokesperson. "Our goal is to defeat candidates with criminal records, who are products of dynasty politics, who are proponents of communal politics, and those who are corrupt.", While the emergence of AAP and its leader Arvind Kejriwal has inspired many NRIs, for others the BJP's prime-ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, is a huge draw. Business types, particularly, admire his track record in developing and governing the western state of Gujarat. Deepak Kanth, a 35-year-old investment banker from London in charge of NRI engagement for the BJP, is inspired by Modi's call for "minimum government, maximum governance." He says Modi is an important catalyst for NRIs who are working hard to replicate on his behalf tactics from U.S. President Barack Obama's first presidential campaign. "It is very unusual that so many thousands are coming to campaign," says Chandrakant Patel, president of the Overseas Friends of BJP and a U.S.-based businessman. "It points to concern among NRIs about India's future and their faith in Modi as a strong leader who will be able to turn back India's flailing fortunes and restart the growth story.", However their political beliefs may differ, what unites NRIs is a sense of responsibility for the future of their country. "My boys are growing up, and I am keenly aware of the need for them to be proud of their country," Barooah says. "I am an Indian no matter where I am, and I want my children to have that same sense of ownership about India." |
World | Prince William and Kate Are Expecting Another Baby | It's official The Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant with her second child. A tweet posted Monday from the official account of the British monarchy confirmed that Kate Middleton, who married Prince William in 2011 and gave birth to their son Prince George in July 2013, is expecting another baby. "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting their second child," the tweet said. Royal officials told the Associated Press that the Duchess was being treated for severe morning sickness, and Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "delighted by the happy news.", Since William is second in line to the British throne, this would make the upcoming addition to the royal family fourth in the order of succession. |
World | The Liberal Democrats Bet on a Brexit Election It Hasnt Paid Off | It's a cold evening in April, and a loud bang has just stopped a huddle of political canvassers in South London. "He shut the door in my face," says Richard Phillips, a 62-year-old retired advertising executive campaigning for the Liberal Democrats party in the constituency of Vauxhall. "I suppose they won't be voting for us," he says to George Turner, the Liberal Democrats candidate for Vauxhall who is attempting to take the seat from the local MP. The group moves on, to bang on more doors and hand out more leaflets. Doors have been slamming across the U.K. over the past six weeks as voters are presented with yet another set of political pitches on their stoops before the snap general election on June 8, called by Prime Minister Theresa May a little less than two months ago. It's the third vote in three years here, after the general election of 2015 that delivered David Cameron a parliamentary majority and last year's Brexit' referendum that forced his resignation. May launched the election as a bid to boost her mandate in the upcoming negotiations to leave the E.U. and many expected Britain's future outside the political and economic bloc to be the focus of the race. On the face of it, this seemed like good news for the Liberal Democrats Britain's third party, created in 1988 as a center-left alternative to the two largest parties. Having been all but wiped out in the 2015 election, the "Lib Dems" plotted a comeback built on the support of anti-Brexit voters. The "Lib Dems" launched a manifesto calling for a second referendum on the final Brexit deal, where voters can either accept the deal or choose to remain in the E.U. something both Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party and May's Conservative Party, or "Tories," have ruled out. Promising a do-over on "Brexit" should logically have been a popular pitch the 16 million Remainers' number five million more than the Tories' total vote share in 2015, and nearly 7 million more than Labour's. A vast center-ground remains unaccounted for as the country's biggest parties become more polarized, tilting their messages further left and right on the political spectrum. "The election was called because of Brexit," would-be MP George Turner tells TIME. "In many ways this is a single issue vote.", But polls suggest the Liberal Democrats will gain barely any seats at all on June 8. Analysts predict that they will struggle to win back its seats in rural, Euroskeptic areas, especially in South West England. "The result is going to be patchy," Tony Travers, an elections expert at the London School of Economics, tells TIME. "The Liberal Democrats set their stall so strongly against Brexit and in favor of another referendum, have got virtually nowhere with it." Betting on Brexit is looking like a bust. Two years ago, it looked as if the Lib Dems had hit rock bottom. The party went from holding 48 parliamentary seats to just eight after the 2015 election, as younger and left-leaning voters punished the party for the five years it spent in coalition government with the Conservative Party. The Lib Dems were seen to have reneged on key promises, most infamously a pledge to stand in the way of tuition fees for higher education that was dropped under pressure by their Conservative partners. The party was enthusiastically anti-Brexit in the referendum campaign, and defeat appeared to galvanize it in opposition. Under new leader Tim Farron, the party rode an anti-Brexit strategy to success in December in a local election in the London constituency of Richmond. More than 100,000 people joined the party in the wake of the referendum, among them Rachel Johnson, a prominent journalist and sister of vocal Leave campaigner Boris Johnson, now Foreign Minister. Speaking to a Brexit convention on May 12 in London, Johnson said, to loud cheers from the Remain-leaning audience, she became a Liberal Democrat because the party was offering voters "a second look at whatever deal there is.", Some 600 pro-European candidates also flocked to the Lib Dem ranks people like George Turner. His key rival in Vauxhall an urban constituency of about 73,000 people is Kate Hoey, a former Labour Party cabinet minister who was among the most vocal Brexiteers.' Hoey even joined former far-right leader Nigel Farage on the campaign trail. Turner, by contrast is a British-Croatian national who voted to remain in the E.U. Almost 8 in 10 of his potential constituents did, too one of the highest shares against Brexit in the country. , And yet the polls have consistently given the Liberal Democrats between 7 and 10 of the vote which will likely give them roughly the same result as last time around. In many ways, it's not their fault. A handful of political upsets, which includes a terrorist attack in Manchester and another assault at London's Borough Market five days before the vote, has tilted a one-issue vote into a traditional race focused more on domestic issues such as social services, security, austerity and the country's creaking health provider, the National Health Service NHS. Prime Minister May, who was initially predicted to win in a landslide, saw her unassailable 20-point lead against Labour narrow to around five points at the end of May due to a pledge to make people pay more of the costs of social care, which was branded the dementia tax.' Some are predicting a hung Parliament or a small majority for the Tories. But the apparent shift in voting intentions has not translated to votes for the Liberal Democrats. Those who have Brexit buyer's remorse seem more likely to vote for Labour who, unlike the Liberal Democrats, have a better chance of winning and have positioned themselves as slightly less pro-Brexit than the Tories. Some say there just isn't room for a third party to make much difference. "The Tories are getting 30 of Remain voters and will win about two thirds of leave voters, while the plurality of Remain voters will go for Labour," Philip Cowley, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University in London tells TIME. Even the most senior Liberal Democrats concede that many Brits feel the Brexit question has been answered, no matter how they voted in 2016. "Much as I'd like to think there's an army of 48 of the British electorate ready to rise up as one and say that they're all Liberal Democrats now, former leader Nick Clegg tells TIME, "the truth of course is there are many people who, in keeping with a very sort of pragmatic British spirit, are saying oh well, we must now move on and make the best of it.", There's also a sense that two years is not quite enough to spend in the wilderness, especially among younger voters who feel the Lib Dems did not do enough to resist the Tory agenda while in government. According to a You Gov poll for the Sunday Times, nearly three-quarters of people between the ages of 18 to 24 will vote Labour no doubt buoyed by the party's popular policy pledges of increased taxes on companies and the abolishment of college fees. "The damage done to the Liberal Democrats by the years in the coalition are going to take more than one Parliament to repair," Travers says. The object for Liberal Democrats, then, is to use this election to build a platform for the future not just on Brexit, but on other campaign pledges pitched at young, metropolitan voters, like marijuana legalization and cleaner air standards. "This isn't an election when the Liberal Democrats will be sweeping to power," Lib Dems strategist Mark Pack says. "It is important to play the long game in some sense.", But some see more radical changes coming, once this election is over. One senior party figure, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely, told TIME that a new movement needs to rise from the ashes of the snap election, much like the En Marche! movement which Emmanuel Macron rode to the French presidency. "I am not saying electoral packs I'm not saying progressive alliances," says the senior figure. "They will be minor and on the edges, but something which brings those who hold broadly progressive views together and which above all, appeals to those beyond the political parties.", First, though, comes this election. The Liberal Democrats are still hoping to spring a surprise in Vauxhall, where Turner is campaigning hard to overturn Hoey's majority of 12,000. Bookmakers don't favor a shock, though Hoey is 1/7 to retain the seat, according to local media. If she does, it will be because of voters like Georgie Darroch. The 31-year-old conservationist voted for the Liberal Democrats in 2010, and to Remain in 2016, but is now leaning towards voting Labour in Thursday's vote. The referendum has polarized the country, she says, and she wants to vote for a party that will foster national unity. "I don't necessarily think going back on the referendum vote is going to be the best. I think we should be pushing for meaningful change." |
World | Prince William and Princess Kate Make Solemn Visit to Stutthof Concentration Camp in Poland | Prince William and Princess Kate made a poignant visit to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland on Tuesday. Located near the small town of Sztutowo, more than 65,000 people died at Stutthof, which was the first camp set up outside German borders in September 1939, and one of the last camps liberated by the Allies in May 1945. The royal couple, who are on day two of their five-day tour of Poland and Germany alongside Prince George and Princess Charlotte, also met with five survivors of the camp during their emotional tour. Later in the day, they will visit the site of Gdansk's shipyards, the birthplace of Poland's Solidarity movement that helped topple Communist rule. And when they arrive in Germany on Wednesday, they will tour Berlin's Holocaust museum and memorial in the German capital. The royal tour will "include time acknowledging the complex 20th century histories of each country," the palace stated. "At each location Their Royal Highnesses will meet survivors of these periods, who will describe their personal experiences.", The royal family was greeted by Polish President Andrzej Duda and the country's First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda when they touched down in Warsaw on Monday. |
World | Turkeys Election Could Only Deepen Its Political Divide | Turkey is set to hold its second parliamentary election in five months on Sunday in an atmosphere of political crisis that has resulted in part from violence overflowing from the ongoing wars in neighboring Syria and Iraq. In the last election, in June, the party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lost its majority in parliament for the first time in 13 years. Since then, Turkey's four rival parties failed to form a ruling coalition and the country has been shaken by at least two massive bomb attacks blamed on ISIS militants. Both attacks, including one in July the town of Suruc, on the Syrian border, and a second in Ankara in October that killed at least 102, targeted people affiliated in different ways with Turkey's political opposition, a fact that contributes to the sense of bitterness among Turkey's divergent factions. The election and the parliamentary maneuvering that will surely follow will be a test of whether Turkey's rival political factions can deescalate an increasingly volatile situation. "Unless politicianssociety itselfsmartens up about what can happen, what will probably happen is slow burning civil strife, depending on the election results and how the parties react to the results," said Burak Kadercan, a political scientist at the U.S. Naval War College. "The last four or five months the political parties have been acting individually rationally but collectively crazy.", , Analysts saw the June election as a referendum on Erdogan and his conservative Justice and Development Party AKP, which has been credited with growing Turkey's middle class and raising the country's profile in international affairs. Over more than a decade, Erdogan star has fallen both at home and abroad. While his core supporters still regard him as a democratic savior, his critics now denounce him as an autocrat. Opponents also accuse the government of turning a blind eye toward the threat posed by the jihadi groups fueled by the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria. The June election also saw the rise of a new force in Turkish politics in the form of the leftist, pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party HDP, which to enter parliament for the first time by passing a 10 percent threshold of the popular vote. Led by its charismatic co-chair Selahattin Demirta, the party represents a kind of rainbow coalition of progressive groups, including Kurdsan ethnic group whose heartland is spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkeyand the country's first openly gay candidate for parliament. But the leftists' euphoria faded soon after the election. In July, a bombing killed more than 30 people at a cultural center in Suruc that was a staging area for pro-Kurdish volunteers heading to aid the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani. In October, a twin suicide bombing struck a rally organized by a coalition of groups including trade unions and the pro-Kurdish HDP, killing more than 100 people in the worst terrorist attack in Turkey's modern history. The Ankara blast was quickly termed "Turkey's 9/11," but the attack did nothing to bring the country together. Instead, the aftermath exposed the deeply divergent worldviews of Turkey's factions. The state prosecutors' office has attributed the bombing on ISIS, but Erdogan blamed an unlikely array of enemies, including the Syrian regime, Kurdish militants, and ISIS, a scenario analysts dismissed as implausible. Kurdish groups in Syria are at war with ISIS, as is the regime. On the other hand, Demirtas of the HDP held the government responsible for bombing its own people, "The reaction, different from most terrorist attacks, similar bombings, say Madrid and London or the United States, did not bring the citizens of turkey together. Instead it ripped them apart," said Kadercan of the U.S. Naval War College. As a result of the bombings and other attacks, pro-Kurdish activists and politicians are worried about their personal security. At an HDP headquarters in Istanbul on Friday, a plainclothes security guard administered a thorough pat-down to every single visitor, and scrutinized the contents of bags. Whatever the outcome of Sunday's election, a key question is whether some combination of the four main political parties can form a ruling coalition. Also in the mix are a center-right secularist group called the Republican People's Party CHP, which captured the second largest bloc of seats in the June election after the AKP. Also running is the far-right Nationalist Movement Party or MHP, who are hostile to the Kurdish cause and who might impose limits on the entry of refugees from Syria. If the parties fail again to form a governmentand it is difficult to predict whether that will happenanalysts speculate that the government could be forced to hold yet another election. Critics say that an obstacle to forming a government will be the AKP's unwillingness to relinquish power. "He Erdogan wants to be in the drivers seat," said Ali arkolu, a political scientist at Istanbul's Koc University. "Not only for himself but to protect his entourage from all these accusations of wrongdoing and corruption.", The election is also taking place in an increasingly restrictive media environment. Earlier this week the state seized control of an opposition media company as a part of an investigation into the movement of the preacher Fethullah Gulen, whose vast movement of Islamic charities is influential in Turkey. Following the takeover, in a change that astounded Turkish media observers, the formerly critical newspaper's coverage became markedly pro-government almost overnight. A crucial dynamic in the election is the Turkish state's fraught relations with its minority Kurdish citizens and a nearly three-year-old peace process with domestic Kurdish militants that is collapsing under the weight of the Syrian crisis. The victories of Kurdish militants fighting ISIS in Syria has energized pro-Kurdish politics in Turkey. At the same time the Turkish government has renewed airstrikes against Kurdish fighters in Eastern Turkey and Iraq. "All the problems in Turkish democracy and instability now are related to the Syrian policy and the Kurdish issue," said Bayram Balci, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Without resolving the Syrian crisis it is unthinkable to image an improvement of the situation in Turkey.", Regardless of the results on Sunday, the election is unlikely to produce a conclusive resolution to the complex and interlocking problems of Turkish policy toward Syria and the Kurds. In Turkey today, both ordinary people and seasoned observers of politics fear a hard road ahead. |
World | After Seizing Power Thai Army Chief Summons Political Foes | Following Tuesday's declaration of martial law, Thai army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha called a meeting of key government and opposition figures Wednesday to help end the political deadlock that has crippled the nation for almost six months. He promised that peace "will be quickly restored.", Calm prevailed in Bangkok, where gun-toting soldiers fanned out across the steamy capital and tourists enjoyed souvenir selfies atop military jeeps. Protests were allowed to continue, but were confined to well-defined areas. However, the sudden imposition of draconian media censorship, the curbing of civil liberties and the lack of an exit timetable have led to accusations of a "de facto coup.", "The military has pulled a 100-year-old law off the shelf that makes the civilian administration subordinate to the military, effectively rendering the executive, legislative and judicial branches powerless," said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch. There is little doubt the military is now in charge. When asked if the army was maintaining contact with the government, the notoriously gruff Prayuth answered "Where is the government right now? Where are they now? I don't know.", More than a dozen television channels have been taken off the air and social-media users threatened with harsh punishments for posting comments that "incite conflict and violence.", Prayuth's sudden intervention which came as a surprise to the caretaker government, police force and other uniformed branches took place after six months of street protests claimed at least 25 lives and left 700 wounded. The unrest has brought Southeast Asia's second largest economy to the brink of recession amid portents of civil war. Thailand's long-running political crisis was aggravated on May 7, when Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was forced from office by the nation's Constitutional Court on charges of nepotism and abuse of power. Nine members of her cabinet were also sacked. Yellow Shirt antigovernment protesters are demanding legal reforms to neuter Yingluck's politically powerful family before any new polls are held, but the suggestion is anathema to her Red Shirt supporters, who are also currently camped out in the capital. And as Thailand's powerful military has traditionally been aligned with the anti-Shinawatra political establishment, many Red Shirts are seething at the latest developments. "They want to destroy the democratic system. The want to destroy some articles of the constitution that govern elections, and no matter who does that it is the same as a coup d'tat," prominent Red Shirt leader Weng Tojirakarn tells TIME. Caretaker Prime Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan emphasized the need for expedited elections. "The government has sent a letter to the Election Commission suggesting that it organize an election on Aug. 3, which we think is suitable," he told reporters. Academics also have reservations about the military's intervention. The Khana Nitirat Enlightened Jurists, a group of seven law lecturers at the prestigious Thammasat University outside Bangkok, published a four-point explanation of why martial law was "unconstitutional and illegal.", Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has refused to say if a coup has taken place. Any such admission would automatically trigger sanctions against a strategic defense partner. Such measures were introduced in 2006 after Yingluck's divisive brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, was toppled in Thailand's 11th putsch since the end of monarchial rule in 1932., "As you may know, martial law, the declaration of that, is allowed for in the Thai constitution," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a press briefing Tuesday. "But we're certainly closely watching what's happening on the ground, and we'll continue to make evaluations of what's happening." |
World | 4 Things to Know About the Nobel Economics Winners Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrm | The Nobel Economics Prize went to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrm for their pioneering contributions to contract theory, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday. British-born Hart and Finland-born Holmstrm created insights that "are valuable to the understanding of real-life contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in contract design," the Academy said in a statement. In other words, they were awarded for creating theoretical tools on how to write contracts for employers and their workers or companies and their customers that will ensure mutually beneficial behavior. Here's what you need to know about this year's winners, Both academics teach in Cambridge, Mass. Hart, 68, is the Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1993. He was born in London and studied at University College London, Cambridge University and Warwick University before receiving his Ph.D. in 1974 at Princeton,. Helsinki-born Holmstrm is the Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics and Professor of Economics and Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, and his been on the faculty since 1994. He received his Ph.D from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and previously taught in Northwestern and Yale. He has also served on the board of mobile phone company Nokia. Holmstrm pioneered research into executive pay, Holmstrm demonstrated in the late 1970s how a company's owners should design contracts for people hired as top executives. His informativeness principle' stated how their contract should link the executive's pay to performance-related metrics. He said the best sort of contract provides the right balance of risks and incentives, which according to the Guardian encourages top executives eschew recklessness for innovation. His later work, according to the Academy, "generalized these results to more realistic settings, namely when employees are not only rewarded with pay, but also with potential promotion when agents expend effort on many tasks, while principals observe only some dimensions of performance and when individual members of a team can free-ride on the efforts of others.", Holmstrm said his interest in contract theory came while he was working for a company in the 1970s that attempted to use computers to figure out a way to make strategic plans. "That's when I realized that the issue wasn't really about the difficulty of coming up with the best plans," he said after winning the award. "The bigger issue was also to create incentives for people to give the right information that is needed for these plans and incentivize them in general.", Hart's work has shown the failings of private prisons, His speciality in the theory of incomplete contracts "shed new light on the ownership and control of businesses," the academy said. The research went on to inform new theoretical tools for questions "such as which kinds of companies should merge, the proper mix of debt and equity financing, and when institutions such as schools or prisons ought to be privately or publicly owned.", His work showed that cost reduction and improvements to quality are the two conflicting forces at work when a government decides whether it should privatize a service or run it on its own. A 1997 paper showed that private contractors have a strong incentive to cost reductions, which can result in a drop in quality. Hart cited the U.S. prison systems as an example in a paper written in the 1990s. "Federal authorities in the United States are in fact ending the use of private prisons, partly because according to a recently released U.S. Department of Justice reportconditions in privately-run prisons are worse than those in publicly-run prisons" the academy said. Hart is the second consecutive British national to win the Award, He receives the prize a year after Angus Deaton, who won the award in 2015 for his findings on the study of consumption. In response to his win, Hart told reporters "I woke at about 440 and was wondering whether it was getting too late for it to be this year, but then fortunately the phone rang my first action was to hug my wife, wake up my younger son and I actually spoke to my fellow Laureate." |
World | Thousands of Protesters Across Mexico March Against President Trump | MEXICO CITY Thousands of protesters in more than a dozen Mexican cities took to the streets on Sunday to express their fierce opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump, portraying the new leader as a menace to both America and Mexico. Waving Mexicans flags and hoisting anti-Trump signs in both Spanish and English, some vulgar, many protesters also heaped scorn on their own president, deriding Enrique Pena Nieto as a weak leader who has presided over rampant corruption and violence at home. Trump and Pena Nieto have been locked in battle over their countries' deep ties for months, even before Trump won the presidency with promises to get tougher on immigration and trade from Mexico. Mexico fears Trump's policies could send Latin America's second biggest economy into crisis. In a rare display of national unity, marchers and organizers came from across the country's deeply polarized political factions, encouraged in part by a pro-march ad campaign by Televisa, the country's dominant broadcaster. Local officials estimated that a total 30,000 marched in the country's two largest cities, Mexico City and Guadalajara. In the Mexican capital, two separate marches were set to converge on the Angel of Independence monument on the city's leafy Paseo de la Reforma avenue. "He's such a bad man and he shouldn't act the way he does," said 62-year-old marcher Jorge Ruiz about Trump. Ruiz was particularly angry at how the former reality TV star has insulted migrants. One marcher carried a larger-than-life painted Trump mannequin, portraying him as an outlandish cartoon character, while others carried piatas resembling the U.S. leader wearing floppy Mexican hats bearing pro-Mexico slogans. "Mexicans demand respect, we want bridges not walls," read one banner carried by nearby marchers. "Trump you diminish America," read another. Maria Paro Cassar, an organizer, said Trump has made Mexico and Mexicans in the United States "his favorite target.", "His policies are a global threat that go against pluralism and diversity and they represent a particular threat to Mexico," she added. Three weeks into his administration, Trump has vowed to move ahead with construction of his signature border wall, which he has repeatedly said Mexico will pay for, as well as signaling a new push to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants from the country. While organizers of the marches promoted them as non-partisan, many singled out Pena Nieto as a major obstacle. "We're also marching today to demand that our own rulers put an end to corruption and so much loss of life here and actually look out for the good of the country, not just themselves," said 28-year-old office worker Victor Robledo. Last month, a poll showed that Pena Nieto's approval ratings had hit a record low at just 12 percent, the lowest level of support for any president in decades. "We as Mexicans have to demand that Pena Nieto defends us and acts with dignity," said Mari Carmen Quiroz, a 51-year-old university professor. "Unfortunately, so far he's done a bad job." Additional reporting by Roberto Ramirez and Lizbeth Diaz Editing by Mary Milliken and Sandra Maler |
World | Dual Bombings Kill 19 People in Iraq | Separate bombs in a northern neighborhood of Baghdad killed 19 people Thursday amid an upswing in violence across the country over the past year. A car bomb that exploded in a commercial street in the neighborhood of Azamiyah killed 12 people and wounded 28, the Associated Press reports. Minutes later, a bomb exploded in a nearby market, killing seven and wounding 27. A surge in attacks last year led to the highest death toll since 2007, when sectarian violence began to subside. AP |
World | Chinese Media Says India Needs to Be Taught a Bitter Lesson Over Its Border Dispute | An editorial that ran in China's Global Times Tuesday has ramped up the rhetoric in an ongoing military dispute along a portion of the Sino-Indian border. The English-language Global Times is published under the aegis of the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily. Under the headline, "India will suffer worse losses than in 1962 if it incites border clash" the newspaper said that New Delhi needed to be taught "a bitter lesson" for allegedly trespassing across the border in Sikkim border, known in China as Donglang. The headline refers to the year China launched offensives against India in the Ladakh region. "We firmly believe that the face-off in the Donglang area will end up with the Indian troops in retreat," the editorial said. "The Indian military can choose to return to its territory with dignity, or be kicked out of the area by Chinese soldiers.", It continued "The Chinese public is infuriated by India's provocation. We believe the Chinese People's Liberation Army is powerful enough to expel Indian troops out of Chinese territory.", Willy Lam, a professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong's centre for China studies, tells TIME that while hawkish editorials do not necessarily reflect the intention of the Chinese government, "this unusually pugilistic article is geared toward establishing the moral high ground for China.", It's unlikely Beijing would want to risk an accidental skirmish with India, let alone a full-fledged war similar to that in 1962 particularly in the midst of North Korean missile tests and diplomatic tension on multiple fronts over maritime borders. Nevertheless, says Lam, "Xi wants to appear strong and "in control" in the run-up to a critical party congress scheduled for late autumn.", |
World | Putin I Would Be Justified Using Force in Ukraine | , Vladimir Putin could not have picked a better day than Thursday, April 17, to hold his annual call-in show on Russian television. Two days earlier, Ukraine's government had sent its military to fight armed Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The result on Wednesday in the region of Donetsk was a series of clashes and confrontations between the military and the local separatists. So on Thursday, when Putin appeared live on TV, he clearly felt he had every excuse to move one step closer toward a Russian intervention. "The people in the eastern regions have started arming themselves," Putin said in response to a question about the Ukrainian crisis. "And instead of realizing that something isn't right in the Ukrainian state and moving toward a dialogue, the government in Kiev began threatening more force and even moved in tanks and planes against the peaceful population. This is yet another very serious crime of Ukraine's current rulers." He then reminded viewers that the Russian parliament has given him approval to send troops into Ukraine. "I really hope that I'm won't be forced to use that right," he says. But Russia has been warning for months that it would take eastern Ukraine "under its protection" if the local population came under threat of military force. The Kremlin's television channels have meanwhile been hyping that threat with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. Their narrative has been simple Ukraine's revolution brought fascists to power in February those fascists are out to repress the Russian-speaking regions of southern and eastern Ukraine salvation lies in separatism and, if needed, in Russia's protection. MORE Should Vladimir Putin be on the 2014 Time 100? Vote now. In late February, when Russia began its invasion of Crimea on the pretext of protecting its residents from Ukraine's revolution, that story was an easy sell. The new government in Kiev was only a week old at the time, and most people in Ukraine's outlying regions had no clear idea of the leaders who would emerge from the revolution. Many people in Crimea bought into the Russian line that nationalist thugs were on their way from Kiev to terrorize the local population. But in the past few weeks, the Kremlin's narrative had grown increasingly hard to maintain. The people of eastern Ukraine have had nearly two months to size up their new leaders and compare them to the fascist cabal depicted on Russian TV, and they could see that Russia's warnings were overblown. "It's all lies," says Vera Oleynik, a pensioner in the city of Donetsk who said she stopped watching the news Russian and Ukrainian weeks ago. "It's enough to give you heart trouble," she says. "I only believe what I see with my own eyes." And it has been clear enough to the locals that no nationalist thugs have come to cause havoc, while Kiev's choice for the new governor of the Donetsk region, Serhiy Taruta, turned out last month to be a local tycoon who runs the region's football club. Even if his constituents do not like him, they know him well enough to tell that he's no fascist. For the region's pro-Russian separatists, that has been a frustrating development. The crowds that have come out to support them in eastern Ukraine have been thin, numbering a few thousand people at most, many of them idle gawkers or truant teenagers. Opinion polls suggest that there is nowhere near a majority of people in these regions would favor breaking away from Ukraine and joining Russia, as the separatists managed to do last month in Crimea. But in the past two days, the tanks rolling into eastern Ukraine have helped Russia revive its narrative and build its case for an intervention. That effort has involved large doses of deception. In his call-in show, for instance, Putin neglected to mention what exactly these tanks were doing in eastern Ukraine. So far, they have mostly been surrendering to the local gunmen rather than firing a shot. In the village of Pchyolkino, a column of Ukrainian tanks was surrounded for hours on Wednesday by a mix of civilians and uniformed gunmen, and rather than forcing their way through, the soldiers abandoned their tanks and armored vehicles to the crowd. Though humiliated, those soldiers most likely avoided a bloodbath at the cost of their pride and their careers. The government in Kiev pledged on Thursday to put them on trial for "cowardice." But the separatists in eastern Ukraine still managed to get the gunfight they have been trying to provoke for days. On Wednesday night, a group of gunmen arrived at a military base in the south of the Donetsk region and demanded the Ukrainian soldiers surrender their weapons and "come over to the side of the people." Though it is not clear who fired the first shot, the ensuing firefight reportedly left a dozen people wounded and as many as three dead before midnight. The Russian state media jumped on this news immediately. The Kremlin-funded Russia Today network reported that the casualties resulted from a "confrontation between anti-government protesters and soldiers." Its report neglected to mention that the protesters were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, which they were not shy in firing at the military servicemen. But those details are easily lost in the Kremlin's broader picture of peaceful civilians being overrun by the Ukrainian army. Across the Donetsk region, the increasing brazenness of the separatist attacks now seems geared to provoke that kind of violence. On Wednesday morning, for instance, a group of masked gunmen stormed city hall in the region of Donetsk. Calling themselves members of a group called Oplot in English, Bulwark the two dozen men walked into the building with shotguns and assault rifles and set up positions at every entrance. One of their leaders, a pudgy man in his fifties who identified himself as Igor, told TIME near the backdoor of the building that they were simply there to make sure that local officials "do their job without interference" from the central government in Kiev. And what if Kiev sends its military to interfere? "I don't know," Igor said, lifting his surgical mask to drag on a cigarette. "Maybe Moscow will help us." |
World | Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Suggests Iran Committed Act of War | The heir to Saudi Arabia's throne has accused Iran of "direct military aggression" which could be an "act of war," after Saudi air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile on Saturday fired toward the capital, Riyadh, from across the border in Yemen. Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since 2015 between a Saudi-led military coalition in support of the Yemeni government, and Houthi rebels believed to be funded by Iran. "The involvement of Iran in supplying missiles to the Houthis is a direct military aggression by the Iranian regime," the Saudi news agency SPA reported Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman as saying on Monday, "and may be considered an act of war against the Kingdom." The language closely matched a statement earlier given by the Saudi-led coalition. Iran immediately denied it was behind the missile launch. The accusation comes alongside an unprecedented crackdown on political opponents by the prince, who is attempting to overhaul the conservative kingdom. The head of the Saudi military coalition said that experts in military technology had examined other missiles and "confirmed the role of Iran's regime in manufacturing these missiles and smuggling them to the Houthi militias in Yemen for the purpose of attacking the Kingdom, its people, and vital interests.", The crown prince's reported remarks mark a new height in tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the region's rival powers. The civil war in Yemen is widely seen to be a proxy war between the two countries, and has resulted in the deaths of over 10,000 civilians and triggered a humanitarian disaster including a cholera outbreak which has infected nearly a million people. |
World | 3 Dead in Lebanon in Spillover Clashes from Syria | Three people were killed in fighting in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday as clashes broke out between opponents and defenders of Syria's government. Two men were declared dead after violet outbreaks occurred overnight between ethnic Sunnis from the city's Bab al-Tabbaneh district and the neighborhood of Jebel Mohsen, which is dominated by ethnic Alawites, Reuters reports. An elderly civilian man was also shot dead by a sniper, and medical officials said 11 others were wounded. The city of Tripoli is only 30 miles from the border of Syria and its ethnic divisions have been exacerbated by the civil war. Many Sunnis support Syria's rebels, while the minority Alawites, who are from the same sect as Syrian President Bashar Assad, support the Syrian government. Each side frequently accuses the other of using the city as a base for shipping personnel and weapons in and out of Syria. Reuters |
World | Redemption at the Feast of the Black Nazarene A Maroon Tide Sweeps Through Manila | The first time Jeric Narciso held up a jeepney it was because his cousin needed money to give her baby a proper Catholic burial. He hopped aboard one of Manila's chromed public-utility vehicles and pulled a secondhand .45 pistol he'd tucked under the waistband of his basketball shorts. In the shivering seconds that followed, Narciso scooped up about 300 worth of loot almost double what he'd paid for the gun and equivalent to an average monthly salary in the Philippines. It was so easy that he did it again. And again. Even though there were no more nieces to bury. He used the cash to support his family and sometimes he spent it on drugs. Narciso says nobody in the neighborhood filed charges for the string of robberies he committed but police eventually pinned him for possession of an unlicensed firearm. Over the course eight months in prison, Narciso tells TIME, he got clean. By the time he got out in November, about 20 of his friends and neighbors had been shot dead by police or vigilantes amid Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal drug war. Since the President took office on July 1, more than 6,200 suspected drug users and sellers have been killed. "It's tough they chose that path," the 22-year-old says, "I chose a different path this time, I want to straighten out.", Read More In Manila, Death Comes By Night, Narciso lives in Quiapo a neighborhood in the Philippine capital that a local priest says he could "liken to field hospital" for clergy, so many and so urgent are the sins that require divine attention. On Jan. 9, he joined up to 2.5 million devotees seeking redemption at the annual Feast of the Black Nazarene. The Philippines is home to Asia's largest Catholic population and the country with third most Catholics in the world after Brazil and Mexico. Like the hajj in Mecca or the Ashura in Iraq's Karbala, the Feast of the Black Nazarene draws millions of pilgrims they come to give thanks, to pay penance, and to pray for miracles at the holy procession of a dark-skinned statue of Jesus Christ carrying a cross, which is pulled through the city by long ropes. Among the pilgrims are thousands of gangsters, crime lords and petty criminals seeking absolution. "When I pull the rope, I whisper to the Black Nazarene," Michael Salceda, a local government official and a former user of methamphetamine, which is known locally as shabu, tells TIME, "Prayers for forgiveness for the things that I've done.", The evening before the procession, thousands of families slept on pieces of cardboard on the streets or under parasols at Manila's Rizal Park, which with its food concessions, candles and tangled bodies resembled more a music festival than a religious gathering. Read More This Is the Latest Chilling Statistic to Emerge From the Philippine War on Drugs, They come from as far as Davao City on the southern island of Mindanao and from Ilocos Norte at Luzon's northern tip to hear Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the Archbishop of Manila, deliver a midnight homily on the theme of love and empathy. For most of the year the statue stays in the Basilica Minor in Quiapo, then a few days before the procession it is taken to the Quirino Grandstand, in Rizal Park. At dawn, the devotees follow the Nazareno the statue's nickname in Filipino on its near 24-hour journey from the park back to Quiapo Church. According to church authorities, the Black Nazarene was carved by an unknown artisan in 16th century Mexico, and there are various stories as to why it is black. Some say it was carved from black mesquite wood, others that it was darkened by smoke from votive candles, and still others that it was charred when the galleon that carried it from the New World caught fire. However it happened, the statue's unusual color engenders a special devotion according to Monsignor Hernando Coronel, the rector at Quiapo's Basilica Minor. "You identify, because it's your color. It's not alien to you, its not foreign to you," he tells TIME. "The Nazareno eases the pain of the Filipinos the aches, the hurt," Coronel says. "It's a little taste of heaven in this cruel, desperate hard time.", That afternoon of Jan. 9, the bridge approaching Quiapo was thick with hawkers selling white handkerchiefs and vials of holy water. Groups of devotees in maroon shirts bearing the names of their neighborhoods passed soldiers in fatigues toting M16s. Their aim was to get as close to the Black Nazarene as possible, and that required bare feet footwear would be torn off in the melee. Read more The Fighter How Leila de Lima Ended Up Leading the Opposition to Rodrigo Duterte's Drug War, At Dasmarinas Street, the throng tightened and TIME caught up with the Nazarene proper. As the carriage judders between the grime-caked buildings hemming the street, thousands of devotees whirled white handkerchiefs over their heads and chanted "viva, viva," while the crowd surged forward attempting to touch the statue of Jesus. As the carriage drew closer still, they tossed their handkerchiefs up to the Hijos del Nazareno Sons of the Black Nazarene marshals from the Minor Basilica who brush them against the Nazareno before throwing them back at their owners for luck. Inside the churning crowd, rows of devotees crossed their arms to protect their chests from the sea of people. Many tried to grab the rope, others scrambled over shoulders in a bid to mount the platform. Those who made it onto the carriage pressed their lips to the cross, their arms tightly wrapped around the statue as they jolted forward. To pull the ropes hauling the Black Nazarene through the city every Jan. 9 is a popular form of panata an act of penance or holy devotion often undertaken as a repayment to a prayer that was answered. Other instances of penance in the Philippines include self-flagellation, or re-enacting the crucifixion by driving steel nails through the palms and feet on Good Friday. For the former armed robber Narciso, pulling the Nazarene is a way to give thanks for getting straight and to pray for the recovery of his elder sister who had tuberculosis, he says. Since leaving jail he has taken numerous odd jobs, from selling fruit at the market to arranging fake diplomas for people, to support his family. He says he no longer keeps a gun and steers clear of drugs. "It feels good to do it the right way," he tells TIME, "it feels good that my family and people around me can see my improvement.", And for the local government official, Salceda, his panata consisted of saying prayers to avoid slipping back into habits that could cause "someone to break into my house and kill me.", A plump man in a T-shirt with pictures of cartoon swordfish, Salceda confides that although his faith is strong he worries about being accused of taking shabu again. "It would be O.K. if they just arrested you. But they make up stories that you fought back against the police, and then they shoot you," he tells TIME, referring to police antidrug operations that have been accused of carrying out extra-judicial killings. The procession, which snakes through winding streets and swells by the hour into the millions, poses a massive challenge to medics and security forces. This year, the Philippine Red Cross treated almost 2,000 people for hypertension and dizziness, among other ailments. Last year, two devotees died during the procession, and two more devotees were killed in 2015. But it's not only stampedes and exhaustion authorities have to be concerned about. After the leader of a separatist Islamist organization was recently killed in the country's south, and following an ISIS-linked attempted bombing outside Manila's U.S. embassy in November, rumors that terrorists would attack the Feast of the Black Nazarene haunted the procession. In response, police banned backpacks and blocked cellphone signals along its route. "God is with us," the chief of the Philippine National Police PNP Ronald dela Rosa assured devotees the Friday before the procession, local TV network ABS-CBN reported. The PNP, the armed forces and the coast guard dispatched almost 6,000 personnel to the event and loaded rooftops with snipers. Despite the millions that descend on Manila and the thousands of criminals that came to Quiapo seeking redemption, during the Feast of the Black Nazarene the crime rate dips dramatically. On Jan. 9 it apparently hit zero. "On the actual date we have not recorded any crime nothing on snatching, nothing on robbery," National Capital Region Police Office chief Oscar Albayalde tells TIME. By contrast, Metro Manila averaged 56 robberies, 135 thefts, three "car-nappings" and 17 "motorcycle-nappings" per week for the second half of 2016. Albayalde chalked up the absence of crime which also reportedly happens when boxer Manny Pacquiao fights to the focus of the devotees. But he also attributed it to Duterte's campaign against illegal drugs. Thousands of street killings have taken place since the President took office on July 1 mostly of small timers like Narciso in neighborhoods like Quiapo. The Philippines will also shortly vote on whether to reintroduce the death penalty for crimes including drug possession, and another law being mulled proposes lowering of the age of criminal responsibility to just 9 years old. Read More The Killing Time Inside Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's War on Drugs, "There's 3 million drug addicts," the President said last year, citing a number at odds with the findings of the country's Dangerous Drugs Board, "I'd be happy to slaughter them all.", His approach, of course, contrasts the doctrine of the Catholic Church, whose Filipino members will stage a "Walk for Life" on Feb. 18 to oppose drug-related killings. At just after 3 a.m. on Jan. 10, the Black Nazarene made it home to Quiapo's Basilica Minor. On the palisades in front of the church hang red banners proclaiming the fifth commandment of the Catholic catechism "Huwag Kang Papatay," it reads. "You Shall Not Kill.", Eduardo Alegria, a skittish recovering drug addict who makes a living scavenging from trash, had helped drag the Nazareno on a portion of its journey. "It is really hard pulling the rope. You run out of energy. I pushed myself to my limit just to be able to hold on," he tells TIME. "When I see the Nazarene, I see God. You have challenges in life and doing this gives me strength." Then, alongside his fellow devotees some exhausted, some ecstatic Alegria spills from the church back out into the streets. |
World | Egypts Token Reforms Fail to Protect Women Says Amnesty International | Recent efforts to address Egypt's deeply entrenched problems with sexual violence are too little, too late, according to a new report from Amnesty International. "Recent measures to protect women taken have been largely symbolic," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International, in a statement. "The authorities must prove that these are more than cosmetic changes by making sustained efforts to implement changes and challenge deeply entrenched attitudes prevalent in Egyptian society.", In 2013, Human Rights Watch declared sexual violence an "epidemic" in Egypt, after 91 women were assaulted or raped during four days of protests against then-President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo's Tahrir Square. A disturbing video surfaced last year of a woman being assaulted by a gang of men during the inaugural celebrations for Egypt's new president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, despite el-Sisi's campaign promise that he would "restore a sense of shame" to perpetrators of sexual violence. El-Sisi later visited a woman in the hospital who had been gang-raped during the celebrations, and apologized to her and "to every Egyptian woman.", According to a United Nations poll almost all Egyptian women more than 99 say they've experienced sexual harassment, and UNICEF reports that more 90 of Egyptian women have undergone female genital mutilation. A Reuters poll from 2013 rated Egypt as the worst country in the Middle East to be a woman. "As the miserable poll results show, we women need a double revolution, one against the various dictators who've ruined our countries and the other against a toxic mix of culture and religion that ruin our lives as women," Egyptian-American columnist Mona Eltahawy told Reuters after the poll was released in 2013. Amnesty International's most recent report suggests that little has changed since 2013, despite repeated government assurances about the importance of protecting women. Amnesty found evidence that the justice system has not effectively responded to the numerous rapes and attacks during the Tahrir Square protests, and that authorities have not done their "due diligence" to find those responsible. And even though nearly half of all women surveyed by the Ministry of Health said they'd been the victims of domestic violence, Egypt's legal system does not explicitly criminalize domestic violence or marital rape. And to divorce an abusive husband, Egyptian women must either forfeit all financial rights or fight a long and costly court battle. Egyptian men, by contrast, can get a divorce much more easily., The Egyptian government's efforts to curb the violence have been tepid at best. In 2014, el-Sisi promised to take "all necessary measures" to end sexual violence after a video emerged of a 42-year old women who had been gang-raped in front of her daughter during the celebrations following El-Sisi's victory. Yet state media had also tried to paint the videos as evidence that ousted President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood was using sexual violence as political weapon to embarrass the current administration, suggesting that the videos and attacks may have been fabricated. El-Sisi instructed his Interior Minister to fight sexual harassment closer to the American definition of sexual assault, and the government passed a new law in June of last year to punish harassment with at least 6 months of jail time or hefty fines. But under the new law, a judge can decide whether someone who participated in a gang rape serves jail time or merely pays a fine. And according to Amnesty, the criminal justice system is still biased against accusers, and the laws themselves "fall short of international human rights standards.", "The authorities have made big promises, but actually delivered very little of the root and branch reform that's sorely needed," Sahraoui said. Amnesty is calling on the Egyptian government to use the 2015 legislative elections as a reckoning point for dealing with violence against women. They ask that the government uses the new elections as an opportunity to pass legislation that gives women equal representation under the law, repeal all discriminatory laws, and write new legislation to impose harsh criminal penalties on all forms of violence against women. |
World | Which World Figures Should Be on the 2014 TIME 100 | While TIME's editors will choose the TIME 100 our annual list of the most influential people in the world we want readers to have a say too. Cast your vote here for the people who you think have changed the world this past year, for better or worse. Voting closes at 1159 p.m. on April 22, and the winner of our reader poll will be announced April 23. This year's official TIME 100 list will be announced April 24. Click here to vote in other categories U.S. Politics, Business Tech, Culture Fashion, Movies TV, Music, Media and Sports. See the poll results in real time here. |
World | Watch Justin Trudeau Break Down Remembering Gord Downie Gord Was My Friend | Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wept while remembering late Canadian music icon Gord Downie. Downie, the longtime frontman of rock band The Tragically Hip and Canada's unofficial poet laureate, died of brain cancer on Tuesday at age 53. Trudeau gave reporters an emotional, bilingual statement about his death on Wednesday morning, tears rolling down his cheeks all the while. "Gord was my friend. Gord was everyone's friend, it's who we were," Trudeau said. "Our buddy Gord, who loved this country with everything he hadand not just loved it in a nebulous, Oh, I love Canada' way. He loved every hidden corner, every story, every aspect of this country that he celebrated his whole life.", Halfway through his statement, Trudeau became so emotional he had to pause his prepared remarks. "I thought I was going to make it through this, but I'm not," he said. "It hurts.", Watch Trudeau's full address in the video above. |
World | A Backlash Against Burmas Islamophobic Buddhist Monks Has Begun | The rise of a sometimes violent anti-Muslim movement has tarnished Burma's transition from a military dictatorship toward democracy. But the country's hard-line nationalists now find themselves isolated. Members of the ruling National League for Democracy NLD have openly criticized the most prominent group responsible for spreading Islamophobia. And the country's officially sanctioned council of monks this week declared that the group the Organization for the Protection of Race and Religion, known by the Burmese-language initials Ma Ba Tha should be disbanded. Could Burma finally be squaring up to its bullying Buddhists?, Tensions between Buddhist and Muslim communities in Burma, formally known as Myanmar, have heightened since a military junta began handing over power to civilian leaders. In 2012, violent clashes in the west of the country saw scores killed and about 140,000 people displaced, mostly from the Muslim Rohingya community whose claims to citizenship in the country are angrily contested. As outbreaks of communal violence then spread to towns across the country, a contingent of Buddhist monks claiming the country's dominant faith was under threat from Islamic interlopers used their sermons to call for a boycott of Muslim-owned businesses and to push legislation restricting religious conversion and inter-faith marriage. Some of those monks, most prominently the cherubic-faced Wirathu who featured on a TIME cover story titled "The Face of Buddhist Terror", formed Ma Ba Tha to organize this movement. Read More Burma's Hard-Line Buddhists Are Waging a Campaign of Hate That Nobody Can Stop, After setting up branches nationwide, the group had success in getting the military-backed administration of former President Thein Sein to pass four "race and religion" laws that clearly targeted Muslims one law allowed the government to attempt to stem population growth the nationalists' hallmark scare story is that Muslims will eventually outnumber Buddhists in parts or the whole of the country. But when Ma Ba Tha threw its weight behind the then ruling party at elections last November, most people ignored its call to vote for candidates who "will not let our race and religion disappear." After the elections, a senior Ma Ba Tha monk left the group, denouncing its political activities. Anti-Muslim sentiment has continued to simmer, however. The NLD and its leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, have been accused of not standing up for the Muslim minority. The party purged Muslim candidates from its lists ahead of the polls and, since it came to power in late March, has been labeled "cowardly" for its approach to the Rohingya issue. In just the past few weeks, mobs in two separate areas of the country attacked mosques, setting one on fire. But the tide appeared to turn earlier this month when Phyo Min Thein, the NLD's new chief minister of Rangoon, was recorded during a trip to Singapore openly criticizing Ma Ba Tha. The group responded by calling for the official to be punished. In the not too distant past, an NLD official was jailed for "insulting religion" after he criticized the group. But a senior NLD member said the party would not heed Ma Ba Tha's demands. And when Phyo Min Thein, arrived at Rangoon's airport last week, greeted by reporters and a handful of proMa Ba Tha demonstrators, he refused to roll back on his statements. He had meant what he said Ma Ba Tha was unnecessary, given the existence of the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, a panel of 47 of Burma's most senior monks that oversees the practice of Buddhism in the country. On Tuesday, the committee itself came to the same conclusion, throwing the future of the saffron-robed nationalists into doubt. Read More Why Burma Is Trying to Stop People From Using the Name of Its Persecuted Muslim Minority, "It's another sign that Ma Ba Tha has probably overreached its self-importance and overestimated its public appeal," says David Mathieson, a senior researcher on Burma with Human Rights Watch. "Chastised by their weak showing of political clout around the election, the movement has tried to move back to some nationalist and defender-of-the-faith credibility, but they are seriously hobbled by some of their prominent monk leaders and their shrilly racist and clearly unspiritual messages.", Although Ma Ba Tha may be weakened, that doesn't mean Buddhist nationalism is going away, Mathieson says. Tensions between Buddhist and Muslim communities stretch back to when Burma was under British colonial rule, and later were fanned by dictators seeking legitimacy. There's no reason to think anti-Muslim sentiment has vanished overnight, in recent years there has been a drastic uptick in Islamophobic messages spread on social media, and by other means. Mathieson says that a network of schools giving nationalistic instruction to Buddhist children also warrants concern. The Dhamma School Foundation which has links to 969, a movement focused on identifying Buddhist businesses, in contrast to Muslim-owned ones is setting up schools all over the country. An even more virulent anti-Muslim movement also remains in the country's western Arakan state, where local Buddhists continue to seek further marginalization of the Rohingya. As for Ma Ba Tha's front man, Wirathu has indicated that he won't go quietly. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, he branded Suu Kyi, the country's de facto leader, "a woman dictator," according to Agence France-Presse. "I have seen that the ruling party and the new civilian government is stepping forward to target me as enemy No. 1' to destroy the whole Ma Ba Tha group to the end," Wirathu wrote. |
World | Kim Jong Un Promises Major Change After First Ever Summit Between Leaders of US and North Korea | Seated before a background of six North Korean flags and six Stars and Stripes, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un signed a vague denuclearization agreement at Singapore's palatial The Capella Hotel on Tuesday. According to the document, Washington would provide unspecified "security guarantees" in exchange for North Korea's "unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula." In a press conference following the announcement, Trump indicated that the joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises which Pyongyang hates as a rehearsal for invasion would halt. "They are very provocative," Trump told reporters. "We will save a tremendous amount of money.", Four bullet points laid out goals of future talks without specifying the immediate steps either side had to take. Trump said Kim had already agreed to destroy a "major" nuclear testing site. He said human-rights were discussed "very briefly.", "The world is going to see a major change," Kim, dressed in his trademark dark Mao suit and horn-rimmed glasses, said during the signing ceremony. "It worked out better than anybody could have predicted," Trump told Kim. "It was a great honor to be with you.", Trump added that North Korea's denuclearization process will be starting "very quickly." Specifics, however, were sparse. North Korea has tested six nuclear bombs to date and now has missiles capable of targeting any American city. But the ending of joint military drills must be seen as a huge coup for the North Korea leader. The document also says both leaders will strive "to build a lasting and stable peace regime" on the Korean Peninsula. Trump said he learned Kim is a "very talented man" who "loves his country very much" and agreed to invite him to the White House. Trump said he will travel to Pyongyang "at the appropriate time." "We have developed a very special bond," Trump said. Trump and Kim began the first ever summit between the heads of these longtime enemies with a one-on-one meeting, with interpreters, that lasted 38 minutes, followed by an expanded bilateral meeting with advisers before a working lunch. The summit ended early in the afternoon with the participants due to travel home that same day. Speaking to reporters between sessions, Trump said the meeting was going "very, very good. Excellent relationship." Kim was asked three times whether he would give up his nuclear weapons but did not reply. "Well, it was not easy to get here," Kim said. "The past worked as fetters on our limbs, and the old prejudices and practices worked as obstacles on our way forward. But we overcame all of them, and we are here today.", During a walk along the hotel's breezeway, Kim's translator said, "Many people in the world will think of this as a form of fantasy from a science fiction movie," according to audio from CNN. Kim was in relaxed mood before the summit, leaving his hotel Monday night for a walkaround the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay with his sister Kim Yo Jong and other top deputies, even stopping to snap a selfie. Singapore's foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan posted a photo of himself with Kim on Facebook. The sojourn even made the front page of Tuesday's main newspaper in North Korea. In an unprecedented sign of openness, the summit was transmitted in real time by North Korea's state broadcaster KCNA. Normally North Korea's 25 million people are normally only informed of such state events around 24 hours afterward. There were two North Korean videographers, one cameraman, and one supervisor, all wearing a pin which bore the image of North Korean founder and Kim's grandfather, Kim Il Sung. Reporters also noticed a female North Korean bodyguard. The expanded bilateral meeting saw Kim joined by Workers Party vice-chairman Kim Yong Chol, and North Korean foreign ministers Ri Yong Ho and Ri Su Yong. Trump was joined by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief-of-staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser John Bolton, despite the latter being despised by Pyongyang for his recent suggestion that the regime follow the Libyan model of disarmament. In 2003, North Korea even described Bolton as "human scum and a bloodsucker.", "He's the national security advisor and certainly North Korea is a threat to U.S. national security, so I think it's appropriate he's there," Bruce Klingner, former CIA station chief for Korea and now an analyst with The Heritage Foundation, tells TIME. "If North Korea doesn't like that, well, you can argue we should exclude Kim from the room since the U.N. Commission of Inquiry ruled that he's a purveyor of crimes against humanity.", In a bizarre movement, after the working lunch Trump appeared to take Kim to check out his presidential Cadillac, in what observers suggested was an attempt to bond with the millennial despot. It remains to be seen how the agreement will be implemented. Pompeo has promised North Korea an unprecedented and "unique" security guarantee if North Korea commits to denuclearize. But Christopher Green, a senior Korea analyst for the International Crisis Group, doubts that would be enough to make the regime give up its nukes. Read More The Story of President Trump and Kim Jong Un's Singapore Summit in Four Photos, "If North Korea can get some astronomical and unforeseen benefit, the leadership might be able to sell that to the elite and the people," he tells TIME. "I don't see that kind of offer on the table but North Korea will be aware that is one potential outcome.", U.S. officials said many more meetings would take place between the sides. But despite Tuesday's historic signing, Klingner highlights the regime's brazen history of noncompliance. "Well, first North Korea signed four international agreements promising never to build nuclear weapons, and then four subsequent ones promising to give up what they promised never to build in the first place. "In January and April, Kim gave speeches that said we will continue to ramp up production our nuclear weapons," adds Klingner. "That doesn't exactly sound like they're ready to give them up." |
World | Ancient Greek Fort of Acra Found in Jerusalem Archaeologists Say | Archaeologists believe they have unearthed the Greek fort of Acra from beneath a parking lot in Jerusalem. The newly discovered stronghold ruinsbuilt in the middle of the City of David the archaeological site of ancient Jerusalem by the Greek Emporer Antiochus IV has solved one of "Jerusalem's greatest archaeological mysteries," says Israel's Antiquities Authority. The excavations under the parking lot have been going on for over a decade, but it was only in recent months when excavators found evidence of the 2000-year-old fort. "The new archaeological finds indicate the establishment of a well-fortified stronghold that was constructed on the high bedrock cliff overlooking the steep slopes of the City of David hill. This stronghold controlled all means of approach to the Temple atop the Temple Mount, and cut the Temple off from the southern parts of the city" according to a statement by excavation directors,Doron Ben-Ami, Yana Tchekhanovets and Salome Cohen. The mystery of identifying the location of Acra has plagued experts for over a century. Both the historian Josephus Flavius and the Book of Maccabees locate the fort within the City of David. , |
World | Vladimir Putin Doesnt Understand the Limits of Donald Trumps Power | There are still many in Russia who take pleasure in watching the White House consumed by infighting and stumbling from one setback to another, most recently the failure to push through health care reform and the rapid hiring and firing of foul-mouthed communications director Anthony Scaramucci. But the more common feeling around the Kremlin these days might seem familiar to many Republicans. After observing Trump in office for more than six months, there is a mix of disappointment and foreboding. President Vladimir Putin seems particularly out of sorts. By now he has realized that betting on Trump represents a mistake he has made before with Western leaders, and his decision on Sunday to expel hundreds of diplomats and other personnel from the U.S. embassy in Moscow shows that he's ready to cut his losses. "There was nothing more to wait for," his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said in explaining the decision on Monday. "It was all pretty obvious.", And Putin should have known better. His closest alliances with the West have all gone the same way. Whether it was Jacques Chirac in France, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy or Gerhard Schroeder in Germany, each was built on a personal rapport with an incoming head of state, always another man, usually also a blowhard. Each collapsed when that leader was confronted by the limitations of democracy term limits, a free press, an independent legislature, an unhappy electorate, or any of the other checks and balances built into their constitutions. But with each new attempt at a friendship with the West, Putin seemed to hope that his counterparts could override these curbs on their authority the same way Putin has done in Russia. They have always let him down, though none quite as spectacularly as President Trump. The U.S. Congress sent Trump a veto-proof bill on July 27 imposing new sanctions on Russia for its alleged interference in the U.S. presidential elections last year, not even a month after the two Presidents met for the first time during the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. To many in Moscow, the legislation proved Trump to be a feckless leader, unable to make good on his earnest promises to "get along" with Russia. "Since Trump cannot handle his own lawmakers, it means he is weak," the Russian political analyst Alexei Makarkin wrote in an analysis of the sanctions bill. But the point Makarkin missed was the one that Putin also seems incapable of getting his head around that members of the U.S. Congress, including the Republicans, are not Trump's "own lawmakers." They represent a co-equal branch of government, much like the judiciary that has repeatedly blocked Trump's agenda on immigration. That confusion over the limits on executive authority goes back to the early years of Putin's presidency, when he established control over the Russian media and began to assume that his Western counterparts could do the same in their countries. During a summit in 2005 with then-President George W. Bush, Putin refused to believe that the U.S. commander-in-chief does not have the power to muzzle American journalists. "Don't lecture me about the free press," Putin said, according to Bush's memoir. "Not after you fired that reporter.", It took a moment for Bush to realize what Putin was talking about. "Vladimir," he said, "Are you talking about Dan Rather?" The veteran broadcaster had been forced to apologize and resign from CBS News a few months earlier, not due to any White House fiat but because of a flawed report on Bush's service in the National Guard. In Putin's eyes, the incident showed that the American posturing about freedom of the press was a charade. Bush tried to set him straight. "I strongly suggest you not say that in public," he recalls telling the Russian President. "The American people will think you don't understand our system.", But that's just it he doesn't. A few years into my stint as a reporter in Moscow, I lost track of the number of officials who tried to explain to me that there is no such thing as an independent journalist. One official even started our interview by exclaiming that American reporters are all just secret agents in disguise. This is how Pavel Astakhov, then the Kremlin ombudsmen for children's rights, greeted me one afternoon in 2013 "The CIA is here!" he shouted, laughing, to his assistant. "Send him in!", He wasn't entirely kidding. In Russian officialdom and among the public generally people often assume that the West functions a lot like Russia, with a tame judiciary, a subservient media and a ruling clique that pulls all the strings. This view of the world makes it easier to brush away foreign criticism if everyone is corrupt, no one has the right to judge. But a lot of very senior officials in Moscow also happen to believe this. They tended to believe, for instance, that Trump would be able to override the other branches of government in pursuing his agenda, especially when it comes to easing U.S. sanctions against Russia. On a deeper level, they believe that power in the U.S. like in Russia, is concentrated in the hands of the executive, while the rest is mostly democratic window dressing. And that conviction is not likely to budge amid the latest lesson in American civics. On Russian state television channels, Trump's failure to silence the media and force his agenda through Congress and the courts has simply been cast as further proof that the U.S. is run by some all-powerful cabal only this time the cabal has turned on the U.S. President. It is a new twist on a familiar narrative, and it suggests that the Kremlin still holds out hope for Trump getting a grip on the American system and steering it toward an alliance with Moscow. "We have fed the hope that the situation will change," Putin lamented on Sunday in a televised interview. "But it seems that if this change does come, it won't be soon." |
World | Concerns Mount That US Rules Are Impeding Western Investment in Iran | Just three months ago, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani flew to Rome and Paris on a frenzied shopping spree, signing nearly 50 billion euros worth of deals within a few days, for dozens of new aircraft, upgraded rail lines, overhauled airport terminals, and much else. It was just a week after most Western sanctions against Iran had endedthe result of the nuclear deal inked last year with the United States, European Union, and the United Nationsand Iranian officials were ecstatic at the prospect of filling huge needs that had developed under years of sanctions, and kickstarting their hard-hit economy. "We don't see any obstacles for companies who would want to come and invest in Iran," Rouhani told French executives in Paris at the time, after shepherding through dozens of agreements with global companies. "My coming here is to show that Iran is ready for investments.", Iran is still more than ready for those investments. Yet nearly three months later, companies wanting to invest in Iran say they face obstacles aplenty. What is more, they warn that the complications involved in doing business there could slow their investment deals to the point that Iran's reform program could ultimately be at risk. "Nothing is moving," says Adarvan Amir-Aslani, a Paris lawyer who has recently negotiated deals in Iran for major French companies. The problem, say business leaders, is a disconnect between Europe and the U.S. over Iran sanctions. Nuclear sanctions imposed by the E.U. U.S. and the U.N. over the decade ended in January, after Iran dismantled its centrifuges and rid itself of uranium stockpilesthe key conditions of the nuclear deal last year. In theory, Iran can now sell its oil on world markets, and move money through the global financial-transaction system known as SWIFT, and foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies can invest in Iran's 400-billion economy for the first time in years although most will still need permission from the Treasury Department. Left in place, however, were many other sanctions that Washington has imposed on Iran over the years on the grounds that the country violates human rights and supports terrorism. Since January, Congress has made it clear that those sanctions are there to stay. These restrictions bar American companies from doing business with the Iranian government or with any entity that has links to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. In addition, U.S. financial institutions are barred from dollar transactions involving Irana major hurdle for all global companies, since countless transactions pass through a U.S. financial intermediary at some point. The continued U.S. restrictions, say European executives, have caused serious complications, and are causing fear within some companies that they could run afoul of U.S. law if they invest in Iran. In recent weeks, the confusion has boiled over into frustration. U.S. officials, two from the State Department and two from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, faced a barrage of questions and skepticism in Paris on Thursday, when they met with major French companies, including Airbus Group, L'Oral S.A. Thalys and PSA Peugeot Citron, to try explain Washington's rules about investing in Iran. Billed as a friendly "roundtable" to ease concerns, people instead aired deep frustrations over confusing U.S. policies, according to some who were at the meeting and who spoke to Fortune afterwards the event was closed to journalists. A representative from Airbus, for example, said the company faced difficulties in fulfilling Iran's 25-billion order from January for 118 new airplanes, because some companies involved were fearful about U.S. sanctions Iran urgently needs to upgrade its national fleet of airplanes, after decades of sanctions. Boeing last week began its own talks with Iran. "The Airbus rep said okay, we are not U.S. persons,' but our suppliers come from the U.S. and they don't want to supply goods headed to Iran,'" said one person who was at Thursday's meeting. Other companies described daunting logistical complications in getting Iran deals off the ground. Some complained about a new U.S. rule, introduced in January, requiring anyone who has visited Iran during the past five yearsincluding dozens of European executivesto apply in advance for visas to the U.S. And some said that large financial transactions with Iran are extremely difficult to execute, because no international bank has yet opened in Iran. Most fear the ramifications of violating U.S laws. Last year, BNP Paribas agreed to pay a 8.9 billion fine after the bank pleaded guilty to doing business in Cuba, Sudan, and Iran. In Washington on Wednesday, Treasury Acting Under Secretary Adam Szubin said the U.S. believes it is "important to keep our promises, and to ensure that the Iranian people see the economic benefits of this deal." Otherwise, he said, U.S. sanctions might not work in the future to compel governments to change their policies. In an email to Fortune on Thursday, Treasury spokeswoman Elizabeth Bourassa said OFAC officials have briefed business executives in several cities across the world, believing that the investments were "critical to making sure the JCPOA the acronym for the nuclear deal is effective.", Iranian officials and political observers believe the stakes are higher than just business opportunities. If Western investments fail to flow into Iran, they believe, it could jeapordize Iran's reform programand perhaps even risk the nuclear deal itself. Through the U.S. and Europe's fraught nuclear talks with Iran last year, Rouhania liberal reformer keenly in favor of opening to the Westpersuaded reluctant conservatives that the country needed to abandon its cherished nuclear program in order to salvage the battered economy. Rouhani faces reelection next Spring, and hardliners, including his virulently anti-Western predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are already voicing their opposition to him. Last month, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khameneiwho wields ultimate authority in the countrytold a meeting of the ruling clerics that despite the flurry of business interest from European companies, the West could not be trusted. "Visits are made by western sides having no positive effects so far," he tweeted after a meeting of the Assembly of Experts, a governing body of senior clerics. "Unless results are seen in action, agreement on paper is of no use.", Amir-Aslani says he warned U.S. officials in Paris on Thursday that conservatives could make a comeback in Iran unless Western companies begin plowing money into the country. "I said, Look, we have six months before things start going in another direction,'" Amir-Aslani said, recounting his conversation in the meeting. "The conservatives will go back and tell people, you promised change, and we see nothing coming in,'" he said. U.S. officials "responded by saying that if there were U.S. sanctions, there are reasons for it," he said. For all that, European and Asian executives have poured into Tehran to meet officials and scout for investment opportunities and to move ahead on dealscertain that in the end, the opportunities are huge, in a country with 80 million people, about two-thirds of them younger than 35, and many of them well-educated. "This is such a historic moment, we feel the history," Nicholas Notebeart, president of Vinci Airports France, said, sitting in a Tehran hotel in March, when Fortune visited the country for a week. The company has a contract with Iran's Airports Authorities to rebuild terminals in Mashhad and Isfahan, cities that expect hugely increased numbers of tourists, with sanctions lifted. All over Tehran, deals are being discussedand sometimes signed, too. In another hotel lobby in March, a group of men sat huddled over a pile of documents, sipping cups of tea. After a while, the French executive at the tableChristophe Landais, AccorHotels' COO for Iranstood up, shook hands and beamed with delight. He had just agreed to take over four major hotels in Iran, the first step towards building and operating dozens of hotels across the country, he said. Iranians believe the arrival of American and European companies has the potential not only to do well in Iran, and to revive Iran's economy, but also perhaps to transform the country itself, by instilling Western business practices and standards, undercutting corruption and tilting the country towards the West. "Once Western factories are here, you will have a lot more influence," says Nasser Hadian, political science professor at the University of Tehran, sitting in an apartment overlooking Tehran. "Right now we can ignore you," he says, referring to the U.S. "Sanctions has helped We have been able to survive. But once you are present massively, nobody can ignore you.", This article originally appeared on Fortune.com |
World | Sydney Teen Who Made AntiSemitic Remarks Ordered to Attend Shabbat Dinner | A Sydney teenager who drunkenly yelled anti-Semitic remarks has been ordered to visit a Jewish museum, attend a Shabbat dinner and read Night by Elie Wiesel. The decision comes months after a group of five teenagers yelled remarks like "Heil Hitler" and "Kill the Jews" at a group of Jewish children, some as young as six, aboard a Sydney bus, according to a The Times of Israel report. Two of the other teens received a warning while the other two went unpunished. The punishment was reached through mutual agreement at a meeting meeting the teenagers and the children they harassed. "It gave her an opportunity to question the offender, to hear from him and to hear him express remorse for his actions," said Vic Alhadeff, a Jewish community leader who attended the meeting. Times of Israel |
World | Cambodias Prime Minister Wants to Expel a US Charity Over a Report About the Sex Trade | Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that a U.S. charity "must get out of Cambodia," accusing the organization of making misleading exaggerations about the country's sex industry during an interview aired on CNN, the New York Times reports. CNN's report, Life after trafficking The girls sold for sex by their mothers, was a follow-up to a 2013 documentary on sex trafficking shot largely in the fishing village of Svay Pak, an infamous center of child prostitution throughout the 1990's and early 2000's. The report featured interviews with officials at a Christian NGO called Agape International Missions AIM, and with trafficked women and girls the organization had rescued in Svay Pak. But soon after it aired and although it featured the head of AIM saying the local situation had improved the government accused Agape of overstating the issue. The Prime Minister, reportedly speaking at a commencement ceremony in the capital Phnom Penh, lashed out at the organization, pledging that it must leave the country "by any means," and that the children under its care would be transferred to government custody. "My country is poor, but you cannot insult our people," Hun Sen said. "You bombarded our country, and now you make more trouble. It is fitting that CNN was blasted by President Donald Trump. I would like to say that President Trump is right U.S. media is very tricky.", Government officials took particular offense to CNN's suggestion that some ethnically Khmer mothers had sold their daughters into prostitution. The program's title which has since been corrected initially identified the trafficked girls as Cambodian, though they are actually ethnic Vietnamese, according to the Times. Read More Strongman Hun Sen Has Cambodia's Economy Sewn Up,' Says Report, "This violates the dignity of Cambodian mothers and girls, as culturally Cambodian mothers will never sell their girls for sex at any cost," said Interior Ministry official Huy Vannak, according to the Times. The official reportedly suggested the organization may have even intentionally deceived the network, thereby violating its in-country operating agreement. While the area featured in CNN's report has by all accounts improved markedly since its height as a nexus of the child sex trade, Cambodia is still considered a source and destination for human trafficking. The State Department has declared it a Tier Two country, meaning it "does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking" but is making significant efforts to improve. NYT |
World | Man Dies After Doing 56 Shots Bartender Found Guilty of Manslaughter | A bartender in France has been given a four-month suspended jail sentence after he served 56 shots to a customer who subsequently died, the Guardian reports. Gilles Crepin, 47, was convicted of manslaughter after Renaud Prudhomme, 56, died after a drinking contest in October 2014 at a bar in the town of Clermont-Ferrand in central France. The court was told that the bar displayed on a notice board the record number of shots that had been consumed on the premises and that Prudhomme wanted to beat the record. Crepin admitted that the display was a mistake because it encouraged Prudhomme to go too far, the Guardian said. Prudhomme suffered from alcohol abuse and respiratory complications that were unknown to the bartender. After downing the shots, he was rushed to the emergency room and died the next day in the hospital. Crepin's lawyer, who plans to appeal the sentence, said, "We can't ask every customer who buys alcohol to present their medical certificates.", However, counsel for Prudhomme's daughter countered, "We want to remind some professionals that it is illegal to serve alcohol to clients who are in an advanced state of inebriation.", Crepin has also been banned from working in bars for a year. Guardian |
World | Mother Posts Indias First Gay Marriage Advert to Seek Groom for Her Son | On the face of it, the matrimonial ad placed by 57-year-old Mumbai resident Padma Iyer in an Indian tabloid on Tuesday followed the usual form of such notices in a country where many marriages are still arranged by parents seeking a suitable partner for her son, she listed his age, height and occupation in the ad in the city's Mid-Day newspaper. But instead of a girl, Iyer sought a suitable boy for her gay son a 25-to-50 year old "well-placed, animal-loving GROOM," according to the ad, the first such notice in a country where homosexuality is illegal. The ad soon went viral on Facebook and Twitter, generating accolades for Iyer for challenging a widespread social taboo against homosexuality. Writing on the website of a local news channel, her son the prospective groom, Harish said that the ad only made it into Mid-Day after being rejected by other newspapers, including the country's leading English-language daily, The Times of India, which reportedly turned down the ad on legal grounds. "I think it's absolutely normal for any mother to wish for her son to settle down. My mother is no different. She's 57, and fears I'll be alone after she's gone," Harish, who is a leading LGBT rights activist, wrote, saying he had already received six responses to the ad. "Last week, she asked me a question any mom would ask her 36-year-old son Are you dating someone? Are you fond of someone?' And when my answer was in the negative, my mom did what any Indian mother would do she decided to place an ad in a newspaper.", India's Supreme Court recriminalized homosexuality in late 2013, when it upheld a British colonial-era law that punishes "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal" with up to 10 years in prison. The judgement was widely criticized by human-rights groups, with the then U.N. human-rights chief Navi Pillay saying the ruling by India's top court represented a "significant step backwards" for the country. "The Supreme Court of India has a long and proud history of defending and expanding protection of human rights. This decision is a regrettable departure from that tradition," Pillay added. |
World | Brazilian Leaders Call for Unity after Vicious Presidential Race | After what was the most aggressive Presidential election in recent Brazilian history, both the winner and loser have called for unity, striking a tone of reconciliation following the close of a nail-biting campaign that resulted in a second term for the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff. The Workers' Party leader only just kept her job, securing 51.64 of the vote in a weekend run-off vote against Acio Neves, the candidate of the center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party who took 48.36. In her victory speech on Oct. 26, Rousseff, whose party has been in power since 2003, said the election had mobilized "at times contradictory ideas and emotions, but moved by a common feelinga search for a better future." Neves said he had "fought a good fight" and that the main priority for Rousseff should be "to unite Brazil.", The two made common cause after a riveting and at times vicious campaign. Only weeks ago, Rousseff was expected to face a final-round challenge from Marina Silva, the environmentalist who made a late entry into the race after the sudden death of the Socialist Party candidate Eduardo Campos. But her support ebbed away as the Workers' Party targeted her campaign. Rousseff said Silva would abolish the government's flagship income support scheme, while a Workers' Party campaign advert suggested the environmentalist, who promised to grant autonomy to the country's central bank, would deliver Brazil to greedy financiers. She came third in the first round vote. In the second round, with Silva out of the picture, Rousseff and Neves repeatedly insulted each other with accusations over corruption and nepotism. Neves enjoyed a last-minute surge of support as he capitalized on a corruption scandal involving the state-controlled oil company Petrobras. But it wasn't quite enough to unseat Rousseff. No sooner had the dust on Sunday's victory settled than attention focused on the problems Rousseff now faces, and the political capital she had shed on her way to this narrowest of victories. "She came out weaker," says David Fleischer, professor of political science at the University of Braslia. "I am not sure how she is going to put the country back together.", Brazil split over the vote, with poorer states in the north and northeast, plus the southeastern states of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, voting for Rousseff, while the rest of the richer states in the south and southeast chose Neves. "A very acute north-south divide," adds Fleischer. "It is also a divide of rich and poor.", Now Rousseff's most pressing problem is the Brazilian economy, mired in a technical recession after two quarters of retraction, with inflation simmering above the government's 6.5 target. A new Finance Minister will be appointed to replace the incumbent, Guido Mantega, who, like Rousseff herself, is seen as too interventionist and has been unpopular with the markets. "I think she will nominate someone more market friendly," says Tony Volpon, an analyst at Nomura Securities in New York. Volpon thinks Rousseff is also likely to ease off on her campaign's anti-banker rhetoric. "There is no reason for her to keep beating on the class warfare rhetoric, against the elite, against the bankers," he adds. "The market's going to give her the benefit of the doubt to see if she is going to have a more market-friendly attitude.", The danger, Volpon says, is that the Workers' Party will see this election victory as an endorsement for its economic policies, which have kept unemployment relatively low but failed to stimulate growth. The government has blamed the international financial situation. Neves blamed the government. Comments by Guido Mantega reported by local media on Monday confirmed this fear. "This shows that the population approves the economic policy we are doing," Mantega said of the result. Volpon says in the longer term market frustration will rise. "She will try and move policy in the right direction but the market will see it is not enough," he explains. "Markets only look at profit. That clash of vision will lead to a nasty divorce.", Rousseff's other big problem is managing Brazil's Congress, where she will need to unite nine unruly parties in her winning coalition. Her key ally is the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party PMDB, in its Portuguese acronym, of which Vice President Michel Temer is a member. While Rousseff's Workers' Party has a slight majority in the House of Deputies, in the upper chamber, the Senate, the PMDB is bigger. "The governability is dependent on the PMDB," says Rafael Cortez, a political analyst at the So Paulo economic, financial and political consultancy Tendencias. In Brazil's labyrinthine maze of seemingly contradictory political alliances, parties that are allied at the national level often face off against each other in the states. In Rio Grande do Norte state, Rouseff's predecessor and political mentor Luiz Incio Lula da Silva or Lula, as he is widely knownsupported Robinson Faria in his successful campaign to become governor. Faria is from another of Rousseff's coalition members, the Social Democrat Party, and he defeated the PMDB's candidate for state governor. Rousseff will need to repair the damage caused by these state-level rivalries. "Her so-called partners are very discontented," says Fleischer. "They are going to put some very heavy demands on her." These will include more key ministerial posts, when Rousseff announces her new cabinet, expected before December. But diplomacy is not Rousseff's strong point, despite her conciliatory victory speech. "She does not like to do negotiationwhich was the strong part of Lula's game," adds Fleischer. The charismatic former president was the first person Rousseff thanked in her speech and there has been speculation that he could return to fight an election in 2018. Current rules prevent Rousseff from seeking a third consecutive term. Fleischer, however, discounted a Lula comeback. "He's not very keen on risking his legacy, his charisma, or his prestige," he says. Cortez, on the other hand, argues it is too early to call. "It will depend on the second mandate," he says. "The government won, but lost political capital." |
World | Piece of Debris May Have Belonged to MH370s Interior | A piece of debris found on an island off Africa's eastern coast will undergo examination to determine if it belonged to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the airliner that vanished from the skies just over two years ago. The flotsam was discovered by a Mauritian hotel owner who said its patterning resembled wallpaper leading some to suspect that it may be the first piece of wreckage from the Boeing 777's interior cabin, Reuters reports. Australia, which has led the massive investigation into the plane's disappearance, said that the debris is an "item of interest." After more than a year of futility, the investigation has in recent months uncovered pieces of wreckage that officials believe belonged to the plane. Reuters |
World | A Former US Marine Imprisoned in Iran Has Gone on Hunger Strike | As the U.S. and Iran engage in dialogue over Tehran's nuclear program, a former U.S. Marine who fears that he may be forgotten amid the diplomacy has gone on hunger strike to draw renewed attention to his plight. Amir Hekmati, who has been imprisoned near the Iranian capital since 2011, announced the hunger strike to his family in a phone call Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. Hekmati holds dual U.S. and Iranian citizenship, and was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison on suspicion of espionage. The U.S. government has repeatedly denied that he is a spy, as has his family in Flint, Mich. who says he went to Iran to visit his grandmother. "I ask that you not forget me, Mr. President," Hekmati said in a letter dictated to his family and addressed to Barack Obama. "I ask that you make it clear that my case should be resolved independent of your talks.", AP |
World | A 620km Human Chain Indian Women Rally for Equality | In the midst of an ongoing battle over women's right to visit an important Hindu temple, women in the southern Indian state of Kerala lined up to form a 620km 385-mile human chain in a mass demonstration for gender equality on Tuesday, reported the BBC. The protest comes during a fraught period for religious and gender rights in Kerala. In September, India's highest court overturned a historical ban on women of "menstruating age," defined to be between ages 10 and 50, from entering the state's Sabarimala shrine. Protesters have attacked women who attempting to visit the temple. Tuesday's rally was organized by Kerala's left-leaning government, with approximately five million women from across the state taking part in the "women's wall," officials told the BBC. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Party of India Marxist said on Monday that women's issues were "part of the party's class struggle," reported the Indian Express. He went on to say that the women's wall "is required to protect the renaissance tradition of the state.", Most Hindu temples allow women to enter if they are not currently menstruating, rather than disallowing women from a broad age group, according to the BBC. Some Hindu communities regard menstruating women as unclean. Two women were able to reach the Sabarimala temple premises in October, thanks to the protection of more than 100 police, but they were forced to retreat after a confrontation with protesters outside the temple sanctum, reported the BBC. The fight over women's right to enter the temple also comes in the lead-up to India's general election in April and May. India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party BJP, which has pursued a Hindu nationalist agenda, has painted the September court ruling as an attack on traditional Hindu values. Critics have accused the BJP of exacerbating religious tensions in order to rally their conservative Hindu base. In an interview with Reuters affiliate ANI on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence in the BJP's prospects in the upcoming elections, despite the party's recent losses in state contests. "In 2019, if there is one party which the country trusts and is connected with the people, it is the BJP," Modi told ANI. , , |
World | Norways Army Has Introduced Unisex Dorms and Reports No Problems | It may sound like a counter-intuitive move, but the Norwegian Army's decision to make females share bedrooms with their male colleagues has actually led to a drop in sexual harassment. The unisex dorms, housing two women and four men, have been tried out at a military base in northern Norway. Ulla-Britt Lilleaas, co-author of the report The Army The Vanguard, Rear Guard and Battlefield of Equality, said that the experience helped the women become "one of the boys.", One of the women was surprised to find that sharing a room made gender differences less relevant. "You have to be a team here, and then you have to live together in order to be able to trust in one another," she said. The Norwegian armed forces have previously distinguished themselves for progressive ideas such as allowing male recruits to grow their hair long as long as it's kept in a pony-tail or braids and serving vegetarian meals once a week. In 2013, Norway became the first NATO country to make military service compulsory for both genders. The Local |