As Japan’s leader, Junichiro Koizumi backed nuclear power. Now he’s a major foe.

the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) say safety standards have been significantly tightened. The aim, said Daisuke Matsuno, director of METI’s nuclear energy policy planning division, is to make the industry “the world’s safest.” “At the same time, it is dangerous to think you can achieve zero risk,” said Matsuno. “Overconfidence is dangerous.” Indeed, overconfidence was Japan’s downfall. A damning report by an independent parliamentary panel in 2012 concluded that the Fukushima Daiichi disaster was “profoundly man-made,” caused by a disregard of the risks of earthquakes by an industry determined to preserve the illusion that nuclear power was absolutely safe. Instead of supervising the nuclear power industry, METI colluded with it, the report said. It said the risks of nuclear power were downplayed in a culture of “reflexive obedience” and a “reluctance to question authority.” METI and Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima plant, should have been profoundly embarrassed by those conclusions, Koizumi said, but instead appear unfazed. “I am stunned, I am stunned,” he said, waving his arms in animation. “I think they are crazy. Everyone at METI and TEPCO are all smart. They all did well in school. Still they don’t get it, they don’t get how this is costing so much money and is so risky,” he added. So why are elected politicians so determined to press ahead? The answer, Koizumi asserted, lies in those same vested interests he has spent the best part of his career fighting. Building nuclear power plants is hugely expensive and involves large swaths of industry, which in turn supports the ruling party, Koizumi said. Labor unions eyeing jobs from nuclear power support the opposition parties, most of whom had backed nuclear power in the past. “Nuclear power is behind both sides,” he said. Since the disaster of 2011, the opposition has swung into the antinuclear camp. But Koizumi has found his own Liberal Democratic Party — also the party of Abe — harder to sway. So much money has also been invested in the industry that there is a reluctance to write investments off. But Koizumi says nuclear power is neither economic nor necessary. The country, he noted, survived without it for two years without a single blackout. Koizumi’s journey to the “zero nuclear” camp began on the day the Fukushima nuclear plant ruptured. In retirement, he has devoured books on the subject, and has come


Will Brexit happen? When? And how? The uncertainty is maddening for business.

out” of Europe’s enormous single market and regulatory regime on March 29. Free and frictionless trade could come to a halt. Britain could find itself suddenly branded a “third country” under E.U. trade rules, subject to quotas, tariffs and border-control inspections. Might the prime minister’s deal squeak through Parliament this week? Might Britain push to delay Brexit? Might the stalemate continue until there’s no choice but to call for a second referendum? May warned Parliament on Friday that rejecting her deal again could mean “more months and years arguing. If we go down that road, we might never leave the E.U. at all.” For modern businesses, operating in the lean, just-in-time delivery ecosystem, this is a problem. “I don’t know anything, and I don’t know anything because they have left absolutely everything until the last moment,” said Charlie Allen, managing director of Shiner, a Bristol-based skateboard distributor that promises “guaranteed stock” and “timely replenishment.” Some high-profile companies decided soon after the 2016 referendum to begin shifting their European headquarters out of London. They hoped to avoid potential tax issues (something electronics company Panasonic cited), or they feared data flow disruptions (of obvious concern to tech companies), or they wanted to secure E.U. market access (a particular worry in the financial sector). Although London is expected to maintain its claim as the financial capital of Europe, the accounting firm EY estimated in January that financial services companies had moved $1 trillion in assets to other European cities. “Dublin is our headquarters for our European bank now — full stop,” Anne M. Finucane, Bank of America’s vice chairman, told the Financial Times’s European Financial Forum last month. “There isn’t a return. That bridge has been pulled up. . . . From a trading perspective, likewise, Paris would be the European trading arm.” Alexandra Renison, head of trade policy at the Institute of Directors, a lobbying group for business leaders, said a recent survey of its members found that a third had relocated part of their operations outside of Britain or were considering it. Those firms that thought they’d stick it out, or that don’t have the sort of business that can pick up and move, are now in frantic contingency-planning mode as they wait to see whether Brexit might sort itself out — or whether things are about to get really bad. If Parliament rejects May’s withdrawal deal on Tuesday, lawmakers are


Faxing is old tech. So why is it also growing in popularity?

same standards of administrative, technical and physical security. The Obama administration spent more than $25 billion encouraging doctors and hospitals to adopt electronic medical records systems. Crucially, rather than forcing competing systems to be compatible to receive federal support, the administration believed the market would decide on a standard to communicate. What happened was that competing companies deliberately created incompatible systems. Doctors’ offices and hospitals that use different records databases can’t communicate with each other digitally — but they can via fax. For many medical professionals, particularly independent physicians, faxing is far easier than dealing with expensive, hard-to-use software that doesn’t actually do what it was supposed to: securely share patient information. One more personal factor preserving faxing is users’ reluctance to change. Small businesses who find that faxing meets all their needs have little reason to spend the money and effort to try a new technology for document exchange. Every company that prefers faxes inherently encourages all its customers and suppliers to keep faxing, too, to avoid messing up existing ordering processes. Fax machines and multifunctional printers with a fax capability provide an inexpensive backup capability in case of technical problems with an Internet connection, or even a cyberattack, such as the Russian attack on Estonia in 2007. Absent a compelling reason or some management or government mandate, people often don’t change technologies. This is true beyond faxing: I drive a 2005 Camry. There are plenty of cars that are better in some way — safer, more fuel-efficient, more comfortable — but so long as the Camry passes state inspections and performs adequately, I can avoid the challenges and costs of buying a new car and learning how to use its new features. Faxing is still popular overseas, too. In Britain, the 2000 Electronic Communications Act encouraged but did not explicitly authorize electronic signatures. In 2018, urged partly by the European Union’s promotion of electronic identification, the British Law Commission concluded that electronic signatures were indeed legal but needed significant promotion to increase their acceptance and use. Not surprisingly, a recent survey found that Britain’s National Health Service operated more than 8,000 fax machines. Matt Hancock, British secretary of state for health and social care, labeled faxing a symbol of NHS technological backwardness and pledged to introduce new technologies more quickly. In December, the NHS decided to stop buying fax machines in 2019 and end their use by the


An unvaccinated child contracted tetanus. It took two months and more than $800,000 to save him.

For more than 30 years in Oregon, cases of tetanus in children were almost mythical — studied in textbooks but never seen in person — thanks to the effectiveness of pediatric vaccination programs. That streak ended in 2017 when an unvaccinated 6-year-old boy arrived at a hospital in the state, experiencing jaw spasms and struggling to breathe, according to a new case study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The child was playing on a farm when he cut his head on something, the report said. His parents cleaned and stitched the wound at home, but alarming symptoms emerged six days later. The boy’s jaw began clenching, and his neck and back were arched — a trademark indication of tetanus called opisthotonus that is caused by involuntary muscle spasms. He was airlifted to a pediatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with tetanus. It was the first instance of the life-threatening neuromuscular disease in a child in Oregon in more than three decades. “Fortunately, the emergency department physicians immediately recognized the symptoms of severe tetanus,” Judith Guzman-Cottrill, an author of the report and a pediatrics professor at Oregon Health & Science University, told The Washington Post in an email. “Physicians have all read about tetanus, and we have seen pictures of people suffering from tetanus. ... It is profound.” It would be only the start of a downward spiral and lengthy hospital stay for the boy. When he was first admitted to the hospital, he was alert — but couldn’t open his mouth, the report said. Physicians sedated and intubated him because the spasms of his diaphragm and larynx were causing breathing problems. The boy was given an anti-tetanus immunoglobulin for his wound, as well as the DTaP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. He was also placed in a dark room with ear plugs, which helped reduce the intensity of his spasms. His scalp wound was cleaned by medical professionals. Still, the arching of the boy’s neck and back worsened. His blood pressure shot up, and he became feverish. Doctors inserted a tube in his windpipe so a ventilator could help with his breathing, and treated him with neuromuscular-blocking drugs to reduce his muscle spasms. He would remain on those drugs for more than a month, and in the intensive care unit for a total of 47 days. By the time he was transferred out of


BSO offers two musical portraits of the beguiling narrator Scheherazade

Jorge Luis Borges once observed that the basic problem facing translators of “The Arabian Nights” is how to entertain contemporary audiences with pulp fictions from the medieval Islamic world. That problem surfaced in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s fascinating concert at Strathmore on Saturday night. Led by Music Director Marin Alsop, the program offered two contrasting musical portraits — one classic and one modern — of Scheherazade, the beguiling narrator of these exotic and fantastical tales. The resulting juxtaposition revealed the ways in which translations, whether literary or musical, are rooted in their time and place, even as the source material can be endlessly malleable. The American composer John Adams’s captivating “Scheherazade.2” is billed as a “dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra.” Premiered in 2015, this ambitious, 45-minute work is Adams’s modern take on the legend. Adams has said that the casual brutality toward women endemic to the original tales inspired a musical program about a contemporary young woman persecuted by patriarchal forces. (In preconcert remarks, Alsop vouched for Adams’s bona fides, calling him “probably the biggest feminist I know.”) Adams conjures a dazzling sound world — fraught, mysterious, tense and atmospheric — indebted to Sibelius and Prokofiev and enlivened with exotic touches from the cimbalom, celesta and percussion. Frequent unison writing for the orchestra suggests the oppressive force of society. At the work’s center is the epic solo violin part, performed by Leila Josefowicz, whose incisive and impassioned musicianship brought to life the grit, vulnerability, violence and beauty of the heroine’s journey. The earnest conviction of Adams’s revisionism appeared to carry over after intermission to the opening movement of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 19th-century symphonic suite, “Scheherazade.” With a ponderous beat and heavy textures, Alsop’s reading of the story of Sinbad the Sailor unfolded more as a stately voyage than a swashbuckling adventure. Things perked up with the second movement, yet with the notable exception of concertmaster Jonathan Carney’s rhapsodic solos, the performance remained stubbornly prosaic and strait-laced. It seemed as if Alsop were conducting a granitic German symphony and was reluctant to lean into the unabashedly Orientalist flavor of Rimsky-Korsakov’s score. Something was lost in translation. style@washpost.com


Georgetown Law student among the victims in Ethiopian plane crash

One of the 157 victims killed Sunday in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane bound for Nairobi was Cedric Asiavugwa, a third-year law school student at Georgetown University in Washington. University officials announced his death Sunday evening, describing Asiavugwa, 32, as a member of the campus ministry and a residential minister with a history of work to better other people’s lives. He had been traveling home to Nairobi after the death of his fiancee’s mother, they said. “With his passing, the Georgetown family has lost a stellar student, a great friend to many, and a dedicated champion for social justice across East Africa and the world,” said a joint letter from William Treanor, executive vice president and dean at Georgetown Law, and the Rev. Mark Bosco, vice president for mission and ministry at Georgetown University. Asiavugwa, born in Kenya, was passionate about serving refugees and other marginalized people and had spent time in Zimbabwe, where he received a degree in philosophy from the University of Zimbabwe, and Uganda and Tanzania before arriving at Georgetown. He helped found a community-based organization that worked for the protection of women and children fleeing the war in Somalia, the school said. Asiavugwa also had served as editor in chief of the philosophy journal Chiedza and directed a television series on peace and reconciliation, the university said. At Georgetown, he was studying for a joint degree in international business and economic law. He had spent eight years in the United States and Africa studying the Jesuit tradition. He was remembered by friends and faculty as a “kind, compassionate and gentle soul” with a “beautifully warm and infectious smile,” the letter from the university said. It called his death a loss not just for family and friends but for Georgetown and the broader social justice community. Asiavugwa aspired to return to Kenya to work promoting the rights of refugees, officials said. This semester, he was enrolled at the Center for Applied Legal Studies clinic and worked with refugee clients seeking asylum in the United States. In another local connection to the tragedy, the plane’s pilot, who was identified by relatives as Senior Captain Yared Getachew, 28, of Addis Ababa, had relatives in Northern Virginia and Texas. The airline confirmed Getachew was the pilot. donna.stgeorge@washpost.com


The Health 202: Jayapal’s Medicare-for-all bill reflects influence of hard-line progressive groups

same companies and others.” Three drug companies and 10 of their subsidiaries asked for a 100-day delay to a jury trial, and lawyers for the companies plan to appeal the judge’s decision OOF: In the first two months of the year, 206 cases of measles were confirmed nationwide, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the highest year-to-date figure going back more than 25 years, our Post colleague Christopher Ingraham reports. This year’s total is more than the yearly totals for all but three years since 2000, when measles was declared eliminated. But it doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a record total of cases by the end of 2019. “In 2015, for instance, there were 154 cases in the first two months of the year followed by 34 for the remainder of the year, putting it at right about average relative to the past decade’s annual totals,” Christopher writes. Along with Washington state, which is the location of many of this year’s reported cases, there are ongoing outbreaks in New York, Texas and Illinois, according to the CDC. OUCH: A new case study from the CDC revealed details of a 2017 case of an unvaccinated 6-year-old in Oregon who contracted tetanus and accumulated more than $800,000 in medical charges — before that, it had been more than three decades since the state saw a case of tetanus in children. “The child was playing on a farm when he cut his head on something, the report said. His parents cleaned and stitched the wound at home, but alarming symptoms emerged six days later,” our Post colleague Amy B Wang reports. “The boy’s jaw began clenching, and his neck and back were arched — a trademark indication of tetanus called opisthotonus that is caused by involuntary muscle spasms.” The boy was taken to a pediatric hospital, where a tetanus diagnosis was just the start of what would be a lengthy hospital stay for the child. He was in the intensive care unit for 47 days, and 10 days later was transferred to a rehabilitation enter for another two-and-a-half weeks. “In all, the boy’s medical charges in the hospital amounted to $811,929 — which did not include the cost of being airlifted to the hospital or of inpatient rehabilitation, according to the CDC,” Amy writes. “The complex and prolonged care led to the high treatment cost,” an


Why does Malawi have 1,331 candidates running for 193 seats in parliament?

More than anything else, candidates from all major parties argued about which party members were eligible to vote. In the primaries, the eligible voters are representatives of “area committees” — a form of local party branch. But candidates were often quibbling about what area committees to recognize and whether certain delegates were actually representatives of those area committees. Parties have designed elaborate electoral systems, but usually lack the capacity to ensure that primaries actually follow these rules. What may be the democratic consequences of Malawi’s flawed primaries? The lack of integrity in Malawian party primaries may have several consequences for the upcoming election. First, a high number of independents emerged from the contentious primary season. In the 2014 election, 27 percent of all MPs elected to parliament were independents — more than were elected from any party. Most of those had run in party primaries before running as independents — often believing that they had lost primaries because of corruption. Historically, independent MPs have often ended up defecting to the ruling party, bolstering the president’s already strong political position. Second, poor quality primaries reduce women’s representation in parliament. That’s what we saw in the 2014 Malawi election, when the number of female MPs declined in comparison to the previous 2009 election. Out of the 32 women elected to parliament, 40 percent were independents. Research suggests that female candidates are disadvantaged when elections are plagued by corruption. Although there is a larger proportion of female candidates in the 2019 election than in 2014 — 23 percent compared with 20 percent — only 20.5 percent of the four major parties’ parliamentary candidates are women. That’s especially disappointing given an ambitious civil society campaign to increase female parliamentary representation to 50 percent. Third, when disgruntled primary losers turn independent, primary conflicts can spill over to the general-election campaign. For instance, in 2014, supporters of the People’s Party (PP) in Karonga Central fought one another during the primaries. That continued during the general election. Organizations promoting electoral integrity in Malawi might wish to observe closely where primaries were characterized by high levels of conflict. The need to strengthen electoral integrity in primaries International organizations plan to invest considerable resources in strengthening the Malawi elections. But the party primaries remind us that parties that can’t carry out credible, internally democratic candidate selection make it harder to build strong African democracies. Merete Bech Seeberg Michael Wahman


I helped open all military jobs to women. We can’t go backward.

previously closed, whereas before the only standard had been gender. The military spent three years conducting extensive scientific studies and determined exactly what physical and mental skills and abilities are needed for each job. By opening all jobs to women, and ensuring that every person in those jobs meets these standards, actual military readiness has improved. The second argument — that, as one commentator put it in the Wall Street Journal, a “more serious effect of sex integration has become taboo to mention: the inevitable introduction of eros into combat units” — is hard to dignify with a response, particularly in the #MeToo era. Blaming women and banning them from serving in particular jobs is hardly the appropriate response. Indeed, one of the most important reasons for ending gender discrimination against women in the military was the fact that the military has struggled with the scourge of sexual assault and continues to work to change its culture that had historically regarded women as less than equal to men. The reality is that the most effective way to deal with sexual assault is to increase the number of women in command positions in the military. Equal leadership is the key to equal service. We need women in the military in greater numbers than ever to meet our troop-strength targets without lowering our standards. We want the best to serve and have the opportunity to advance regardless of gender. Indeed, a key factor in persuading the top military brass, who had concerns about women in combat, was that the “front lines” of battle have fundamentally changed. They could not deny that women — such as Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) — were already serving in combat and playing essential roles in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, more than 80 women have been killed in fighting since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There are now hundreds of women serving in positions that had previously been closed to them, and tens of thousands of others who are aspiring to do the same. This is not the time to reverse course and undermine their service or weaken our military readiness by replacing them. The United States is strong because everyone deserves a chance to serve our country. To fight for our nation is not a privilege for a few, it is a right and responsibility for all Americans in the 21st century.


Trump budget seeks cuts in science funding

more than the Trump administration asked for last year, as administrator Jim Bridenstine pointed out Monday in a statement describing the FY2020 budget as “one of the strongest on record for our storied agency.” Bridenstine said the budget keeps NASA on track for putting humans on the moon again by 2028. But the proposed NASA budget does not include money for a new space telescope, WFIRST, which would look for distant planets and study the mysterious “dark energy” permeating the cosmos. Two Earth science missions aimed at understanding climate would be eliminated, as would an educational effort, the Office of STEM Engagement. The White House also sought to defer upgrades to NASA’s Space Launch System — a powerful new rocket that is still in development — and move some its proposed payloads to other vehicles. The Trump budget proposes to eliminate three environmental programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Sea Grant, which supports environmental research on the coasts and in the Great Lakes; the National Coastal Zone Management grants, which provides incentives for states to restore and sustainably develop coastal resources; and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, established by Congress 19 years ago to revive plummeting salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest. The new budget request drew immediate criticism from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “If enacted, the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to the fiscal year 2020 non-defense discretionary budget would derail our nation’s science enterprise,” said AAAS chief executive Rush Holt, a physicist and former Democratic congressman. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.), the chair of the House Science Committee, called the cuts to science “unreasonably deep.” “This proposal is simply absurd and shows a complete disregard for the importance of civilian R&D and science and technology programs," she said in a statement. Trump has roiled the waters of the research establishment since he came into office, not only by embracing scientifically discredited theories and casting doubt on mainstream climate science, but also by proposing massive cuts to science and medicine programs funded by the federal government. His previous budgets have requested cuts to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Energy Department. The leaders of the scientific and medical community were outraged. But Congress, which has the power of the purse, largely ignored the 2018 Trump budget requests and protected the agencies.


The neighborhood that got a much-needed dining boost in February: Dupont Circle

was more impressive than the gimmick of using dry ice to provide the titular “smoke,” while the Hasta La Vista, made with chipotle-infused mezcal, promised more heat than it delivered. Happy hour, which runs from 4 to 7 p.m. weekdays, is disappointingly taco-free — $2 bowls of chips and salsa are the only food special — but it’s hard to turn down $6 margaritas. 99 M St. SE. Pembroke: It’s been years since Dupont Circle had the same pull for diners as 14th Street or the Wharf do now, but the Dupont Circle Hotel’s reimagined restaurant should lure many back to the neighborhood, or just offer locals a place for a casual dinner. Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema was particularly taken with the lamb tagine: “[Chef Marlon] Rambaran braises together neck, shank and shoulder, which end up on a bed of saffron-perfumed couscous set off with apricots, figs, preserved lemons and toasted almonds. Each bite goes down like a sumptuous banquet.” And Sietsema says the dining room’s allure extends beyond your plate: “There’s no part of the Pembroke, outfitted with leather bar stools and coral couches, and set off with floor-to-ceiling windows, that doesn’t make for a fashion statement.” 1500 New Hampshire Ave. NW. [ Rooster & Owl: Yuan Tang might not have the name recognition of some of the Food Network stars who’ve opened restaurants in the area recently, but his impressive résumé includes many Michelin stars, including New York City’s Jean-Georges, the Modern and Dovetail. His first solo outing offers four-course meals for $65 — a relative steal on 14th Street NW — and dishes that might include oxtails and rutabaga masquerading as “pot roast.” Don’t miss dessert from pastry chef Olivia Green, of Métier and Kinship of late. 2436 14th St. NW. Roy Boys: Much of the pre-opening noise about Roy Boys, which replaces Tasty Burger in the Atlantic Plumbing building near the 9:30 Club, concerned its decor: paintings of hip-hop legends Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur turned into chickens. Chef Rock Harper was among the voices calling out Roy Boys for cultural appropriation. The restaurant’s owners — including Scott Parker of the G.O.A.T. and Don Tito, in Clarendon — decided to remove the offending murals. And now the attention might turn back to the fried chicken — normal or Nashville hot — and regional oysters. Oysters are $1 all night on Mondays. 2108 Eighth St. NW.


If Brexiteers were smart, they would support Theresa May’s flawed Brexit plan

Britain’s Parliament will vote again Tuesday on Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal. Conservative Brexiteer MPs should swallow hard and support the imperfect deal rather than risk losing Brexit entirely. They have opposed the deal so far with good reason. It does not provide for a final trading relationship with the European Union, leaving the United Kingdom tied indefinitely to current E.U. rules. This creates uncertainty for businesses trading with E.U. countries and makes it difficult for Britain to sign new comprehensive trade deals with other nations, such as the United States. The deal’s most controversial element is the so-called backstop. This was included to ensure that the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland would remain free of large-scale customs checks and border posts, something the deal’s negotiators believe to be crucial to maintaining the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland. If a U.K.-E.U. trade deal is not reached by December 2020, the backstop would create different trading rules for Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. while keeping both closely aligned with E.U. regulations. This upsets Brexiteers by keeping Britain aligned economically with the E.U. while also angering Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which fears the separate treatment is a first step to reuniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. In a perfect world, Brexiteer MPs would hold out for a better deal. Yet this is far from a perfect world, and Britain’s Parliament is very imperfect. If the deal is again voted down, it is highly likely that Parliament would reject the “no deal” position favored by Brexiteers the following day. In that case, May has promised a vote on Thursday to extend the date on which Britain would leave the E.U., which raises the prospect that a new government might choose to revoke the withdrawal entirely. The deal does give Brexiteers some important elements of what they want. Britain would regain control over its borders for immigration purposes, meaning it could limit the number of Eastern Europeans coming to the country in search of work. Public anger over the high level of this migration — and the belief that it has cost less-skilled Britons jobs and higher wages — is a significant reason Brexit passed in the first place. Throwing this important gain away in hopes of more free-trade agreements breaks faith with many of the people who voted to


Venezuela is truly on the verge of collapse

kidney dialysis patients, unable to receive treatment, may face a slow and agonizing death. The economy has simply stopped operating. Due to hyperinflation, the country is chronically low on paper money: The Venezuelan central bank just can’t keep up with the demand for bills of larger and larger denominations. As a result, the vast bulk of payments are made electronically — point-of-sale transactions using debit cards and Venmo-like bank transfers have been the only practical way to pay for things for years. With the power system out, you literally can’t access money. The only economic activity that can likely take place now is transactions in foreign currency: U.S. dollars, mostly, but also euros, Colombian pesos or whatever else is around. Most Venezuelans do not have access to foreign money. And then there’s the hard stop to communications, with the vast bulk of fixed phone, cellular and Internet connections now down. People in Caracas have taken to driving around hoping to see a signal bar. When, exceptionally, they do get a signal, large numbers of cars congregate as people desperately send SMS and WhatsApp messages to relatives abroad. For most people, it’s like the outside world has stopped existing. The government has significantly cracked down on independent media, and the Maduro government has blamed U.S. sabotage for the power crisis. To the millions of Venezuelans who have left the country fleeing its myriad dysfunctions, the past few days have been especially hair-raising. For many, it has simply been impossible to contact their loved ones back home at all. To make matters worse, in many families, it was the young people at the peak of their working lives who fled the country, reasoning they’d be best placed to get jobs and send money back home. This means that those left behind were disproportionately vulnerable: the old, the sick and children. The blackout leaves them doubly exposed: The fittest people in their families aren’t around to help them, and, with no power, those in Venezuela can’t receive money sent to them, either. To be clear, the sabotage accusations against the United States lack any semblance of credibility: Venezuela’s power grid has been in gradual decline for over a decade. Rolling blackouts have been common in Venezuela’s smaller cities for years, as an overstretched grid struggled to cope with demand. Six- and eight-hour blackouts insinuated themselves into the fabric of everyday life. But at


The more we learn about Brexit, the more crooked it looks

did pursue the deal — and even identified a shell company, based in Sweden, that could be used to pursue it. Because Banks still denies that the deal happened, and because the story is so hard to follow further, we won’t know the truth before March 29, when Britain is scheduled to leave the E.U. But even if this story won’t delay Brexit, it does firmly locate the referendum within a larger context. The truth is that Britain has become a place where untransparent money, from unknown sources, is widely accepted with a complacent shrug. London is the world capital of offshore banking, home to the most sophisticated accountants and lawyers; a third of British billionaires have availed themselves of those services and moved their money beyond the reach of the state, according to a report Thursday in the Times of London. Many of them nevertheless continue to make donations to British political parties, and many continue to lobby to keep the rules that favor them exactly as they are. As a result, the British political class does not have the willpower to force them to bring their money home. The British state does not have the legal tools to force Banks to show where his cash came from. The British media continue to investigate, but if anyone were trying to influence the British referendum campaign from outside the country — beyond the social media manipulation that is now de rigueur in almost every election — it’s possible that we’ll never know. And here’s the final irony: If Brexit was the creation, in part, of this new world of offshore money and political influence campaigns, Brexit may well ensure that it continues unrestricted. The E.U. is probably the only power in Europe — maybe even the only one in the world — with the regulatory strength to change the culture of tax avoidance. And since 2016, it has been slowly enacting rules designed to do exactly that. Britain, once it leaves the E.U., may well be exempt. British industry might suffer after Brexit, and British power will be reduced. But the gray zone — where politics meets money, where foreign money can become domestic, where assets can be hidden and connections concealed — will survive. Perhaps that was the point all along. applebaumletters@washpost.com Read more from Anne Applebaum’s archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.


The pipeline between the military and the academy, and what it means

gap is large enough for Peter Singer to request an explanation from the hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts. He tweeted: “The pipeline of Pentagon leaders to college presidents is both fascinating and under-explored given how frequently it happens, relative to small number of these positions.” So why does this happen at all? The logic from the university side is clear. Senior Pentagon officials are presumed to excel at running large organizations with lots of arcane rules, and universities are certainly large, arcane entities. Politically, universities are consistently vulnerable to charges of being hostile to conservatism. Hiring someone from a conservative profession can counteract that pressure. I have also heard many a high-ranking university official opine that someone who can cadge billions of dollars from Congress should be able to solicit millions from wealthy alums. As for the Pentagon officials, the attraction seems to be mutual. Wilson said that when Jim Mattis recruited her, she told him, “Sir you do know that being a college president is like the best job in America, right?” Why would retired generals and secretaries consider taking a position of academic leadership when there are fat consulting dollars to be made in the private sector? There are a few commonalities between the two institutions that are worth remembering. Both institutions run as much on prestige and recognition as material rewards. Both institutions function on honor codes, even if they are imperfect. It is impossible to succeed as an officer in the U.S. military without embracing the importance of professional military education (PME). The higher echelons of the military take higher education seriously. Being able to transition from the Pentagon to the academy is less of a cognitive leap than outside observers might appreciate. Nonetheless, not every former Defense Department denizen excels at running a university. Getting money from Congress when you represent the last respected bipartisan institution in the country is a wee bit different than asking opinionated donors to cough up some dough. Some former four-stars have been surprised that being the head of an academic institution does not give them the plenipotentiary powers that they might have possessed in the military. Perhaps most important, the military selects for people prepared to follow orders; the academy selects for disorganized contrarians. There are sound reasons that universities court former military leaders to run their institutions. But that does not mean that the marriage always works.


The summer of hard seltzer is coming. Here’s how 4 of the top brands stack up.

If there’s a drink that exists, someone will make it boozy. Consider it the Rule 34 of the beverage industry. Boozy root beer. Boozy Capri Sun. Boozy kombucha. So, given the recent mega-popularity of seltzer, a boozy version of the pleasantly neutral drink was hot on its heels. And now that warmer weather is approaching, it’s poised to become even bigger, as more companies introduce new brands and flavors of the fizzy malted drink. In 2018, alcohol-infused seltzer sales grew about 169 percent, to nearly $487.8 million, while volumes increased 181 percent, according to a January Nielsen report. The category now makes up 1.3 percent of total beer category dollar share. Meanwhile, beer sales have flattened out, with category-wide dollar sales growing only 0.7 percent. Many major beer brands already have a hard seltzer: MillerCoors has Henry’s Hard Sparkling Water; Boston Beer Co., of Sam Adams fame, shares a parent company with Truly; Mark Anthony Co., the parent company behind the Mike’s Hard brand, has White Claw; and Anheuser-Busch has the brand formerly known as SpikedSeltzer, which recently rebranded as Bon & Viv, with a splashy Super Bowl commercial. Now more brands are getting in the game: Corona announced this week that its Refresca brand of spiked seltzers would hit stores in May. The sparkling water brand Polar is teaming up with Harpoon Brewery to launch a hard seltzer line called Arctic Summer, debuting at the end of April. And smaller craft breweries such as Kentucky’s Braxton Brewing Co. and Colorado’s Oskar Blues are jumping on the trend, too. What exactly is hard seltzer? It’s a malted beverage — similar to Smirnoff Ice or Zima — or it’s made from brewed fermented sugar. Most of the drinks are gluten-free, and they tend to be both low in calories and sugar, which has made them popular with dieters. None of the brands we sampled have more than two grams of carbohydrates. More geared toward a backyard barbecue or a trip to the beach, they sell better in warm weather but haven’t picked up much steam at restaurants. They’re also a good mixer: Make a vodka soda with one, and it won’t dilute the drink as much. We tried four of the most popular brands of spiked seltzer — one of the mixer-worthy citrus flavors for each, to make them easier to compare. Here’s how they stack up: Bon & Viv Flavors:


‘They can’t believe he is gone’: Beloved Nigerian cultural critic among dead in Ethiopian Airlines crash

of Adesanmi in a remembrance. “He spoke his truths fulsomely, without calculation, with an honesty and courage that drew people to him. His writing pops with life, even now when he sleeps with the ancestors.” In his last column, posted the day before he died, Adesanmi ruminated with characteristic aplomb on Nigeria’s current affairs. That day, Nigeria held state elections that observers criticized for alleged military interference. Two weeks earlier, President Muhammadu Buhari was reelected in a poll marred by delays and violence. “Sadly, I think our people have been psychologically defeated and have come to accept and love these things about Nigeria. They turn on whoever tries to awaken them. Nigeria’s irresponsible rulers have us where they want us. I write basically these days for the purposes of archaeology. A thousand years from now, archaeologists would be interested in how some people called Nigerians lived in the 20th and 21st centuries. If they dig and excavate, I am hoping that fragments of my writing survive to point them to the fact that not all of them accepted to live as slaves of the most irresponsible rulers of their era,” he wrote. The Nigerian Canadian professor taught at Carleton University in Ontario. More than 40,000 followed him on Twitter, where he sparred with Nigeria’s feisty readers. He was a mentor to many young African writers. “My intellectual life was built by him. He supervised me, mentored me, and yet he always treated me like a colleague,” wrote Wandia Njoya, a Kenyan writer. “I cant imagine thinking or writing without him. My heart is crushed.” Adesanmi’s second book, a collection of essays called “You’re Not a Country, Africa” (2011), received the inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing in the nonfiction category. In July, Adesanmi was involved in a traffic accident that left him bedridden, but it was during that time that he began writing his most popular columns, which he labeled “Injury Time.” Benoit-Antoine Bacon, president and vice chancellor of Carleton University, said in a statement, “Pius was a towering figure in African and post-colonial scholarship and his sudden loss is a tragedy.” "Some of the students have been hanging around the makeshift memorial at the Institute all day. They can’t believe he is gone. Pius lived well. He affected a lot of people. He made time for his students. He listened and believed in them,” Bacon told Nigeria’s Guardian newspaper.


Pentagon faces internal questions about program to screen recruits with foreign ties, emails show

A Pentagon program designed to screen potential recruits with foreign ties, including green-card holders and some U.S. citizens, has prompted questions from military officials about whether it will have detrimental effects on the services, according to emails and documents obtained by The Washington Post. Defense officials touted the program as a way to speed up vetting of recruits who have what the Pentagon considers “foreign nexus” risks. The process could be completed “in a matter of days or . . . in a few weeks, as compared to months and years” required under traditional background checks, according to one Defense Department memo. The program, which was tested by the Army last summer but has not been implemented, would rely on mining several government databases for information. But the plan also may come with complications, according to emails obtained by The Post. That would be a concern for a military that has long sought to attract immigrants to meet its recruiting goals in part by promoting the possibility of U.S. citizenship. Discussions about the program began in earnest after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in November ordering the Pentagon to begin sending a backlog of thousands of green-card recruits to initial training. The order came after two prospective recruits — one born in China and interested in joining the Navy and one originally from Jamaica who planned to join the Air Force — sued the Pentagon, arguing that months-long delays in screening had caused them harm. The two men were among thousands who were left in limbo after the Trump administration, citing security concerns, adopted a policy in October 2017 that called for green-card holders to submit to more stringent background checks before they could go to boot camp. That was in addition to standard requirements for green-card applicants, such as biometrics screening. The program would need approval in court to overcome the injunction. But internally, some defense officials have expressed concern that it also will create some delays. Russ Beland, a senior civilian official in the Navy Department, said in a Feb. 27 email obtained by The Post that the estimates officials were using to determine which recruits needed additional screening “may be far too low.” After assessing its pool of recruits waiting to go to initial training, the Navy determined that “somewhere between a third and half” could require new screening, he wrote. “I recognize there are


Trial to start in Saudi Arabia for jailed female activists, relatives and rights groups say

appear in the Riyadh court. A Saudi government media office did not immediately respond to queries about the hearing. Saudi prosecutors announced this month that the activists were being referred to trial after the completion of an investigation. Hathloul was among a group of roughly a dozen women’s rights activists held by the authorities since May and accused of having illegal contacts with unspecified foreign entities. Also due in court Wednesday, according to Amnesty and other people briefed on the cases, are Eman al-Nafjan, who wrote a widely read feminist blog before her arrest; Aziza al-Yousef, a retired professor and veteran of the Saudi women’s rights movement; and Amal al-Harbi, who advocated for political prisoners, including her husband, Fowzan al-Harbi, a jailed human rights activist. The roundup of female activists was part of a broader campaign of arrests spearheaded by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the past two years, moves that analysts said were part of his effort to consolidate power. Those detained included rivals in the royal family, prominent business executives, clerics and political activists. The crackdown drew greater international scrutiny in October after Saudi agents traveled to Istanbul and killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. The CIA concluded with medium to high confidence that Mohammed had ordered Khashoggi’s killing. The Saudi government denied that the crown prince was responsible and said it was prosecuting 11 Saudi officials accused of carrying out the killing. The Trump administration has avoided publicly criticizing the Saudi government over the Khashoggi killing or the detentions of the women’s rights activists. On Tuesday, a State Department spokesman, Robert Palladino, started his briefing by condemning as “barbaric” Iran’s reported sentencing of a female human rights lawyer, Nasrin Soteudeh, to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. When asked why Hathloul’s family said she was forced to sign a request for a royal pardon — suggesting perhaps that the Saudi leadership was looking for a face-saving way to release her and the other women. But human rights groups have warned that the women and other detained Saudis were still very much in peril. “Saudi women’s rights activist @LoujainHathloul is scheduled to appear before a specialized criminal court tomorrow,” Amnesty International said in a tweet Tuesday. “We fear she will be charged & tried on terrorism-related charges for peaceful human rights work.” kareem.fahim@washpost.com


The E.U. must stand for human rights in Saudi Arabia — and justice for Jamal Khashoggi

Antonio Panzeri is chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights at the European Parliament. “If no proper response is given to the murder of Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, if all of this remains without clarity, this will be a terrible stain on the fight for human rights." This was the warning issued by Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, in February at a meeting of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights, of which I am the chair. She initially raised the alarm about Khashoggi’s disappearance on Oct. 2, after waiting for hours outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul while he was brutally murdered within the consulate walls. But as she told us, her presence at the European Parliament was not just about playing the part of the journalist’s fiancee. Rather, it was about highlighting the importance of respect for human rights all over the world. Khashoggi’s heinous murder shines a light on how these rights have been brutally trampled on under the Saudi regime. As Cengiz’s broken yet determined voice reveals, the actions of the Saudi government and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are exposed for what they are. For months, the crown price has been on a tour of world capitals to showcase the alleged transformation of his country into an open and tolerant society. He wants to portray Saudi Arabia as being at the forefront of progress in the Middle East. In reality, in terms of human and civil rights, the regime is following a path that leads in a completely different direction. The regime, despite small concessions, has continued to behave in an authoritarian and repressive manner. Last June, it seemed to be making progress by abolishing the ban on women driving. But it also arrested activists who for years fought to obtain this right. Moreover, the opportunity to get behind the wheel has not changed the everyday reality faced by Saudi women: The guardianship system persists, preventing them from independently carrying out the simplest of tasks, such as opening a bank account or traveling. Everything must be done with the permission of a male relative. With this in mind, the European Parliament passed a resolution in May encouraging Saudi Arabia to release human rights activists unjustly imprisoned, adopt legislation to define violence against women and end the guardianship system. This picture contradicts the image depicted by the crown prince on his visits to world and business leaders. For


Tesla’s Elon Musk asks judge to reject contempt order, accuses SEC of ‘retaliation,’ ‘power grab’

competitive pressures, and the ballooning costs of expanding into new cars and countries — but Tesla investors say the company is instead having to deal with the self-inflicted chaos of Musk’s social media accounts. The company recently announced that it was closing many of its retail stores and laying off staff to help get the Model 3 sedan’s price tag down to $35,000. Also Monday, an attorney for former Tesla employee Sean Gouthro announced that a third whistleblower tip had been filed with the SEC against the company. In this tip, Gouthro, the former head of Tesla’s global security operations center and investigations, told the SEC that a potential plan to take Tesla private was discussed widely within the company before Musk’s infamous “funding secured” tweet but that the plan was viewed with deep suspicion, said Stuart Meissner, the attorney representing Gouthro. Gouthro submitted his whistleblower complaint in January and updated it last week, said Meissner. His last day at the company was Dec. 12, 2018. Gouthro’s tip backs up allegations by Karl Hansen, who submitted a whistleblower tip last year accusing the company of spying on employees, Meissner said. Hansen was fired by Tesla, which has denied his allegations. A third employee, Martin Tripp, told the SEC he had witnessed dangerous conditions at the company, including punctured batteries installed in cars. Tesla has sued Tripp, accusing him of hacking the automaker's computer systems and stealing company secrets. Tesla refuted Gouthro’s allegations. He worked at the company for only one year and was fired for “poor performance,” Tesla said in a statement. Last year, Gouthro was interviewed about some of the same issues that are part of his SEC tip but did not raise any concerns, the statement said. “Like the claims of Mr. Meissner’s other clients, Mr. Gouthro’s allegations are untrue and sensationalized, only intended to seek the attention of the media,” the statement said. The SEC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk has also faced trouble at SpaceX, the space company he founded. The Air Force recently announced that it was reviewing certifications it had granted SpaceX that allow the company to launch national security payloads. After Musk smoked marijuana during a podcast appearance, NASA announced that it was conducting a safety review of SpaceX and Boeing. And Bloomberg News has reported that Musk’s marijuana use also prompted the Pentagon to review his security clearance.


Could there be a second Brexit referendum?

Brexit and the second referendum This week, the British Parliament is due to hold a series of votes on Brexit — but few expect progress toward agreement. Britain is due to exit the European Union at the end of the month, but there is no sign of an agreement that could pass through Parliament before the deadline. This means politicians on all sides of the debate have been looking for a way to avoid the looming “hard exit,” including the possibility of another referendum. The proposal for a second referendum became significantly more realistic when the Labour Party backed it in late February. Yet the politics are still difficult. Here is what is happening. There’s support for a second referendum — but big problems, too Some polls show Some object to a second vote on principle Brexiteers argue a second referendum is undemocratic. In 2017, Conservative and Labour members of Parliament ran for office on a promise to respect the outcome of the 2016 Brexit vote. Many would see a second referendum as a betrayal. The logic behind their position is the idea that referendums are supposed to reach a definitive decision. Although elections for representatives should be regularly repeated, giving voters opportunities to throw the bums out, popular votes should not. This would furthermore suggest a referendum on questions of national sovereignty should be binding and legitimate. The reason that such referendums are held is often because the question is too important or contested to be decided by delegates. Controversial outcomes follow from controversial questions. That elites don’t like the outcome does not mean it is illegitimate. Once the sovereign status quo has been altered through a popular vote, it is uncommon for another to be organized. In some cases, there have been repeated referendums on sovereignty issues. Quebec’s leader famously promised “À la prochaine fois!” (until the next time!) in 1980 after losing a vote on the province’s independence. Quebec did organize another vote in 1995. Puerto Rico has voted on its sovereign status five times since 1967. Votes that fail to alter the status quo may be rerun. This is often by design. Giving voters future opportunities to test whether there is still support for the Union in future referendums, for instance, is a feature of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement. However, this is not the same as holding referendums until you get the right result. But


Brexit: Theresa May secures assurances from E.U. but may not be able to pass her deal in Parliament

LONDON — In an 11th-hour round of negotiations, Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday night managed to wrestle new statements and language from European Union leaders that might help the British leader sell her unpopular Brexit deal to a skeptical Parliament. At a news conference at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, May said she had secured “legally binding” assurances that the Brexit withdrawal agreement will not trap Britain “indefinitely” in E.U. rules and regulations, even if the sides cannot agree in the future how else to keep the border on the island of Ireland free and open. On Tuesday, British lawmakers are scheduled to vote again on May’s withdrawal agreement, along with the supplemental statements. A possible series of votes this week will help determine whether Britain will depart on schedule on March 29 — or whether there will be more uncertainty, division and delay. “Today we have secured legal changes. Now is the time to come together, to back this improved Brexit deal and to deliver on the instruction of the British people,” May said on Monday night. But whether the additional language would be enough to win over a divided House of Commons was unclear. Keir Starmer, the opposition Labour Party’s point person on Brexit, responded that the changes announced were not a breakthrough. Waving a letter in the air that was sent from E.U. chiefs to May in January, he said, “It’s not new. That’s not today, that was in the letter.” Steve Baker, a prominent Brexiteer, told the BBC that it was “very good gloss” on something that “falls short” of expectations. May’s Brexit deal, negotiated over two years with the E.U., was rejected by Parliament in January by a vote of 432 to 202. Since then, she has pressed for adjustments that might induce support from hard-line Brexiteers in her Conservative Party. This deal is only about the terms of departure and does not include what the future relationship between Britain and the E.U. will look like. It sets out the $50 billion divorce settlement that Britain will pay; it allows for a two-year transition period, when things will remain essentially as they are now in terms of trade, migration, security and travel; and it seeks a guarantee to preserve the free and open border on the island of Ireland. It is that guarantee — the Irish backstop — that is at the heart


Boeing’s banner run put at risk by renewed questions about safety of its profit-driving 737 Max 8 jet

Even after the Lion Air crash of its state-of-the-art Max 8 in October, Boeing was predicting another banner year in 2019. Orders of its 737 Max 8 aircraft were up. It had notched three major Pentagon contracts. And its stock was flying sky high. But now, after another of the aviation giant’s jets crashed, this time in Ethiopia, killing all 157 people on board, it’s facing renewed questions about its safety and reliability as investors knocked back its share price more than 12 percent in early trading Monday. Boeing, which last year carried the Dow Jones industrial average to record highs, dragged it down on Monday morning, as the blue-chip measure opened in the red. China, Indonesia and Ethiopia have grounded the 737 Max 8, which was involved in both crashes, and other carriers have signaled they may follow suit. In a statement Monday, Boeing said no new safety guidance is planned as of now: " The investigation is in its early stages, but at this point, based on the information available, we do not have any basis to issue new guidance." The Chicago-based U.S. aerospace giant, with more than $100 billion in revenue and 153,000 employees, is one of the most heavily weighted of the Dow’s 30 components. It has been one of the drivers of the 10-year-old bull market; its stock had been up more than 30 percent, year to date, as of Friday’s close. The "decline is weighing heavily on the Dow because the stock has much more to surrender than other Dow components,” said Sam Stovall of CFRA Research. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Nasdaq composite index showed slight gains in early trading Monday. Europe and Asia markets were also up, despite growing concerns over global growth spurred by a disappointing U.S. jobs report on Friday. The crash comes as the aerospace giant has been having a stellar year. Its commercial business has been surging. It pulled in those three major military contracts worth more than $18 billion to build training jets, replacement helicopters and drones that can refuel fighter jets in midair. Boeing is also building the next Air Force One, a spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station and a monster rocket that NASA says will again take them to the moon. In 2016, it celebrated its 100-year anniversary, a legacy that marches in lockstep with the history of


Grocery chain CEO among two killed in 12-vehicle crash in Maryland

A young boy and a grocery store chain’s chief executive were killed after a crash Monday morning in Maryland that involved 12 vehicles. The crash happened about 7 a.m. in Harford County along Route 24 near Ring Factory Road in the Bel Air area, about 60 miles northeast of Washington. An initial investigation found a tractor-trailer driver was southbound on Route 24 north of Ring Factory Road and didn’t stop when traffic was backed up. The truck hit several vehicles, causing two to become pinned beneath the truck. The truck and vehicles then caught fire, police said. Six people were taken to hospitals, officials said. Police identified the deceased victims as Tripp Johnson, 7, of Joppa, Md., and Andrew Klein, 65, of Forest Hill, Md. The driver of the tractor-trailer was identified as Carloo Watson, 49, of Brunswick, N.J., who did not require hospitalization. Watson wasn’t facing charges as of Monday afternoon. Ron Snyder, a Maryland State Police spokesman, said a preliminary investigation shows drugs and alcohol do not appear to be factors. He described the crash investigation as being “complicated,” given the number of victims and vehicles involved. Klein was president and chief executive of Klein’s ShopRite of Maryland, a grocery store chain. Tripp was a second-grader at William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary School in Abingdon. Police said Klein and the boy weren’t in the same vehicle. Klein was a passenger in a Toyota Camry that became pinned under the tractor trailer, which was a ShopRite truck. An article in the Aegis “But if I had to pick one word, it’s happy. He had the biggest smile you ever saw . . . He was the sweetest, happiest, fun-loving little boy.” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan expressed his condolences on Twitter saying, “sending prayers to everyone involved in this morning’s devastating accident, including the families and loved ones who lost their lives.” He went on, “my deepest gratitude goes to the first responders who rushed to the scene.” The Klein family owns nine ShopRite stores, including seven in Harford, one in Baltimore County and one in Baltimore City, the Aegis said. The chain started in 1925 and Andrew and his brothers eventually took it over from his parents. Klein was known for being involved in community events and groups. Lyle Sheldon, president and chief executive of Upper Chesapeake Health, who knew Klein for more than three decades, called him a


Ethiopian Airlines flight bound for Nairobi crashes, all 157 on board killed

arrived from Johannesburg that morning. The pilot has been identified as Yared Getachew, 28, of Addis Ababa. According to a statement issued by relatives in Northern Virginia, Getachew had 8,000 hours of flight time and was the youngest pilot in Ethiopian Airlines history to captain a Boeing 737. GebreMariam would not speculate on the causes of the crash and said the investigation would involve Ethiopia’s civil aviation authority, representatives of Boeing and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Flight data viewed by The Washington Post shows the flight getting into trouble almost immediately after departure. A normal takeoff for most passenger jets involves a steady climb to about a thousand feet, followed by an accelerating climb. However, on this flight, a minute and a half after its takeoff, the plane inexplicably began to descend — for nearly a minute — before climbing again. During that time, the plane’s speed kept increasing to what is far above normal for that phase of a takeoff. The plane underwent a sharp pull up — 600 feet in just 10 seconds — and was flying at 380 nautical miles per hour, when about 270 would be closer to normal. Three minutes later, it crashed. The victims included people of more than 30 nationalities, including 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians, eight Italians, eight Americans and seven Britons, as well as four people who held passports of the United Nations. Among the dead was Cedric Asiavugwa, a third-year student at Georgetown University Law Center and a member of the school’s campus ministry. The airline set up emergency hotline numbers for families and friends of victims and changed the cover image on its Facebook page to black. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed visited the crash site and expressed his “profound sadness at the loss of life” and wished “healing to friends and families of the bereaved.” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also tweeted his condolences. Ethiopian Airlines announced the acquisition of the Max aircraft in July. Six others are in service to the airline, and GebreMariam said there are no plans to suspend their use. The Max model is the newest version of Boeing’s workhorse 737, the world’s most popular commercial aircraft. Boeing issued a statement saying that it was “deeply saddened” about the crash, adding that a “Boeing technical team will be travelling to the crash site to provide technical assistance under the direction of the Ethiopia


Elon Musk’s SpaceX capsule lands successfully in crucial step toward human spaceflight

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft splashed down safely in the Atlantic Friday after undocking from the International Space Station, appearing to successfully complete the first mission of the vehicle the company designed to fly humans. There were no people on board the spacecraft, built to carry four NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. The nearly week-long journey culminated when the spacecraft disembarked from the station about 2:30 a.m. Friday, fired its engine to slow down, and barreled through the thickening atmosphere on its fiery return to Earth until finally splashing down into the Atlantic Ocean at 8:45 a.m. The capsule was hoisted out of the water and placed on the deck of a recovery boat shortly before 10 a.m. The mission comes at a precarious time for brash billionaire Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, who has come under fire for his sometimes erratic behavior. The reentry is one of the biggest tests of the Dragon and of SpaceX, the company founded by Musk in 2002 with the ultimate goal of flying humans to Earth’s orbit and beyond. If deemed a complete success, the mission would give NASA increased confidence in one of its prime contractors and propel the space agency a step closer to restoring human spaceflight from U.S. soil. Since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has been unable to fly its astronauts. Instead, it has paid Russia for rides to the space station at an increasing price tag that now tops $80 million. In 2014, NASA awarded contracts worth a combined $6.8 billion to SpaceX and Boeing to build spacecrafts capable of carrying NASA’s astronauts to the orbiting laboratory 250 miles above Earth. Since then, both companies have faced delays and setbacks. But now, SpaceX has taken a major leap forward and is poised to fly its first test mission with two NASA astronauts on board later this year. Boeing is scheduled to fly its first uncrewed mission to the station by next month at the earliest, though that date is likely to slip, officials have said. SpaceX’s uncrewed mission began early Saturday, when its Falcon 9 rocket blasted off in the predawn darkness from a historic launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the crew of Apollo 11 began their journey to the lunar surface. Once aloft, the SpaceX craft traveled to the space station, whizzing around Earth at 17,500 mph, catching up


Saudi female activists finally get a day in court. They deserve freedom.

AT LEAST 10 Saudi female activists were arrested beginning last May, just as the regime was preparing to lift a ban on women driving that they had long campaigned against. Most or all of them were initially held incommunicado in a secret prison, where they were subjected to severe torture, including beatings, electric shocks and sexual abuse, according to their families and human rights groups. One was so traumatized that she reportedly attempted suicide; another could barely stand when she finally met her family. Even after they were transferred to conventional prisons, the women were denied legal representation and were not informed of the charges against them — while state media slandered them as traitors. In this dismal context, it might be counted as progress that 10 women were brought to a court in Riyadh on Wednesday and formally charged. Details were hard to obtain, because the court refused to admit Western diplomats and journalists. But the activists were processed by a regular criminal court, rather than the special court for terrorism they were first assigned to; and at least some were reportedly charged with cybercrimes, rather than the more serious allegations of undermining state security that had previously been reported. It may be that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose security apparatus was behind the arrests and torture, is responding to international pressure. All 28 European Union governments joined a statement last week by the U.N. Human Rights Council rebuking Saudi Arabia for “arbitrary detentions” and calling for the women’s release. One of the most prominent of the activists, Loujain al-Hathloul, is said to have been induced to request a pardon, which may mean that the regime is at least contemplating her release. For now, however, the women remain unjustly imprisoned, and those who tortured them have gone unpunished. For that reason, Western governments must keep up the pressure on a regime that persisted in a pattern of criminal behavior that also includes the deliberate bombing of civilians in Yemen and the murder of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Particularly disturbing are the reports that one official who played a large role in the Khashoggi murder, as well as the persecution of the women, Saud al-Qahtani, remains at large. This close aide to Mohammed bin Salman is reported to have overseen the torture of Ms. Hathloul and to have personally threatened her with rape and murder. Saudi authorities named


GSA chief: Trump had no role in wanting FBI headquarters downtown

President Trump had no role in deciding to keep the FBI headquarters downtown, General Services Administration chief Emily W. Murphy told Congress on Wednesday, at least none that she was aware of. Murphy also said she was not aware of any discussions regarding the Trump hotel, which is down the street from the headquarters, and how it might be affected if the current FBI headquarters were replaced by private development. Democrats have alleged that Trump inserted himself into the planning — a rarity for a president — to prevent the J. Edgar Hoover Building from being replaced by a hotel that could compete with his. Murphy said that when she met with Trump, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, budget director Mick Mulvaney and then-White House Chief of Staff Gen. John F. Kelly in January 2018, Wray had already indicated to her that he preferred to keep the FBI downtown. “The location had already been decided weeks before meeting with the president,” Murphy told the House Appropriations subcommittee, adding later that: “What we concluded at that meeting was how we were going to pay for that project.” Murphy, who was previously criticized by her agency’s inspector general for not being more forthcoming with Congress about Trump’s involvement in the project, repeatedly declined to answer questions from Democrats about her discussions with the president. “I can say who was there and what we concluded,” she said when Democrats inquired about the president’s involvement. Murphy is a top target for Democrats because of her authority over not only the FBI headquarters but also the Old Post Office Pavilion, which the GSA leases to the president’s company despite criticism from ethics experts and constitutional scholars. Rep. Norma J. Torres (D-Calif.) said she was frustrated to see that during the government shutdown, the clock tower at the Old Post Office Pavilion was staffed by National Park Service employees while the agency failed to protect Joshua Tree National Park, allowing it to be battered by vandals. Murphy said the Public Buildings Service staff was not furloughed during the shutdown and worked out an agreement with the Park Service to keep the clock tower open using funds from the project, which did not rely on appropriations. “There was no influence from political appointees and no influence from the White House” in that decision, Murphy said. Much of the discussion, however, focused


Trial begins for 10 Saudi women’s rights activists as journalists are barred from court

sidelining his competitors, consolidating power and portraying the crown prince, at home and abroad, as the sole architect of reform and progress in the kingdom. The crackdown targeted prominent figures across Saudi society, including clerics, political activists, business executives and members of the royal family. The government said some of them were detained as part of an anti-corruption initiative. The arrest of the feminists, however, appeared aimed at sending a specific message: that women’s rights, should they be forthcoming, would be granted by the monarchy rather than won by grass-roots activists. The kingdom has faced further intense scrutiny over its human rights record in the months since Saudi government agents killed Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, in Istanbul in October. U.S. lawmakers have called for an investigation into Khashoggi’s killing as well as the release of the women’s rights activists and other political prisoners. On Wednesday, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), pressed the Trump administration’s nominee as ambassador to Saudi Arabia “on the need for accountability following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” according to a statement from Durbin’s office. During a meeting with the nominee, Gen. John Abizaid, Durbin raised the prosecution of the women’s rights activists as well as the cases of other imprisoned dissidents, the statement said. ALQST, a Saudi rights group based in London, said Wednesday that the women are being charged under the country’s Cyber Crime law with offenses related to their activism, including contacting human rights groups. The charges carry sentences of up to five years in prison, but prosecutors have also asked the judge to “impose other discretionary punishments,” the group said on Twitter. A Saudi government communications office did not respond to a request for information about the hearing. It is not clear whether the women have attorneys. Relatives of some of the women said that during their detention, they were not given access to legal representation. Two prominent activists — Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah — were not in court Wednesday, nor were several men who were detained about the same time as the women’s rights activists, according to people briefed on Wednesday’s session. It is unclear whether these other detainees have been referred to trial. There have been signs that Saudi Arabia might be intending to release some of the activists. Hathloul’s family said she was recently forced to sign a document requesting a royal pardon from the Saudi


This Northern Va. student won the $250,000 prize in a top science competition

In sixth grade, Ana Humphrey attended the nation’s oldest and most prestigious high school science competition and was inspired after speaking with a student who claimed the top prize that year. Humphrey left that year with dreams of conducting her own research. On Tuesday night, at a black-tie gala inside a soaring hall at the National Building Museum in Washington, the 18-year-old from the city of Alexandria, Va., was awarded the $250,000 top prize at the Regeneron Science Talent Search. “All I could dream of was being just like her, just doing research just like her,” she said. “I never thought that dream would include actually winning.” Humphrey’s project sought to confirm the existence and probable location of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — missed by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. The planets orbit stars beyond our solar system and are uncovered using a method that measures a star’s decrease in brightness when a passing body blocks its light, according to a project summary. But some planets may not pass in front of a star from our viewpoint, or the planets are so small they don’t block enough light to be detected, Humphrey explained. Humphrey used mathematical modeling to determine as many as 560 missing planets and 96 key areas to search. “By learning about these other systems and figuring out how they form . . . we can understand a lot more about how our own solar system formed and what’s possible and what our place is in our universe,” she said. Humphrey is the only student from T.C. Williams High School in at least the past decade to place in the competition’s top 10. Two other Northern Virginia students — Adam Ardeishar, who attends Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, and Carolyn Beaumont, a student at the private Potomac School in McLean — were finalists. Ardeishar, who came in third and won $150,000, found a connection between a previously unsolved math problem called the “coupon collector problem” and extreme value theory, which is used to determine the likelihood of a maximal event, such as a bridge collapse. Beaumont received fifth place and $90,000 for investigating how water affects the viscosity of magma, a key factor in the violence of volcanic eruptions. In the past decade, just four other Virginia students placed in the science competition’s top 10. All attended Thomas Jefferson, an elite


In aviation, safety comes in numbers. And there are thousands of Boeing 737s.

Air travelers nervous about flying on a Boeing 737 after two crashes in close succession might take comfort in thinking of airplanes as herd animals: There is some safety in numbers. Every hour of every day, thousands of 737s have the opportunity to prove the cliche that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. But each time a flaw is found in a 737, there is a corresponding opportunity to correct it in all planes — because a cornerstone of aviation safety is that you don’t make the same mistake twice. Or seldom do. In October, a Lion Air jet crashed into the Java Sea off Indonesia, killing all 189 people aboard. And on Sunday, an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed en route from Ethiopia to Kenya, killing all 157 aboard. Both planes were the Boeing 737 Max 8 model. Both planes crashed not long after takeoff. A sensor and software problem are believed to have contributed to the Lion Air crash, although a final cause has not been determined. The Ethiopian Airlines crash investigation is in its early stages. Most countries, including the United States, have grounded the Max 8s in their fleets. The 737 is the most popular airline model in aviation history. So many 737s traverse the skies — Boeing has built more than 10,000 over 50 years, with more than 5,000 still in service — that opportunities to learn are ample. When something goes wrong with one, the news spreads fast. For example, 737s have fuel tanks in the wings. A conduit typically runs through the tank, with an electric cable inside that carries current to a fuel pump. In April 1998, a mechanic found fuel leaking into the conduit of a Continental Airlines 737. Sparks from the electric cable had burned a hole in the conduit. Once you have fuel and a spark, all you need is oxygen to have a catastrophe. In nothing flat, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered inspections — immediately for older planes and promptly for younger ones. Sure enough, other aircraft showed signs of wear on the same conduit. The flaw was corrected. No accident resulted from it. The system isn’t perfect. In 1991, a 737 crashed near Colorado Springs. At first, investigators attributed the crash to an extraordinary meteorological phenomenon. But another 737 crashed on approach to Pittsburgh in 1994, and after a lengthy investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board


The Energy 202: Study renews debate about a radical climate solution – geoengineering

THE LIGHTBULB The idea of artificially modifying the Earth’s climate to reverse human-driven global warming has gotten a pretty bad rap. There’s the worry that geoengineering is a “moral hazard” — because just knowing there’s a technological fix available could induce us to pollute even more. And there’s the concern that one prominent geoengineering technique — filling the Earth’s stratosphere with special particles such as sulfate that cool the planet by reflecting back some sunlight into space — could trigger other unwanted consequences. Critics say it could, for instance, reduce rainfall in some locations. New research released this week, though, could assuage some of these concerns enough to spark renewed interest in geoengineering. But at the same time, it’s reawakening a fraught debate over the wisdom of using technological interventions — rather than simple cuts in greenhouse gas emissions — to reduce global warming. A Harvard University study led by Peter Irvine found that geoengineering the climate to cut global warming in half — by managing how much sunlight reaches the Earth — would not lead to disproportionate or unjust impacts around the globe. The study in Nature Climate Change uses a high-resolution climate model called HiFLOR from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. This model has recently produced some concerning results about hurricanes, which it finds are intensifying more rapidly in the Atlantic region because of human-caused climate change. In this high-powered model, the study found, geoengineering the climate by reducing the sunlight reaching the Earth didn’t seem to produce many significant disparities between different regions, such as a higher occurrence of droughts in some parts of the globe. “The big conclusion is that, with a model that really should do a better job on regional climate, that the level of inequality is really stunningly low,” said David Keith, a Harvard geoengineering researcher who co-wrote the paper. Keith is not proposing that we actually geoengineer the climate based on this or any other study — just that the idea warrants more research. “What I think it says is there is enough reason to believe there might be something worthwhile here, that the world should take a much more serious look,” he said. Ken Caldeira, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif., is another geoengineering expert who was not involved in the study. He said the findings are consistent with other work.


What the military can teach us about preventing suicide

The news this week that Kelly Catlin, an Olympic cyclist who won a silver medal in 2016, took her own life is the latest tragedy amid a nationwide rise in suicide. Before her death, Catlin had apparently been open about her mental-health struggles and the overwhelming stress that she felt. “She just felt like she couldn’t say no to everything that was asked of her and this was her only escape,” her sister told The Washington Post. Catlin had also suffered a concussion that left her struggling to continue to train at a high level. As they engage in the reflection and soul searching that another high-profile suicide rightly demands, Americans pondering what can be done to lower the national suicide rate would do well to consider lessons from what might, at first glance, seem an unlikely source: the U.S. Army. Military suicides have been a major problem for more than a decade, and the military has developed ideas that, if applied to the general population, might help reduce the epidemic of suicides plaguing the United States. In 2007, as President George W. Bush announced that he was dispatching an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq, newspapers across the country reported that for the first time, the suicide rate among active-duty soldiers had risen above the national average. For an institution that had spent the decades after Vietnam repairing its image and building a reputation as an organization that helped young Americans “be all that they can be,” this statistic prompted close study and a cultural reckoning. At first glance, there seemed to be a simple explanation for the increase in suicides: Soldiers were returning from a prolonged, violent war traumatized by their experiences, and some of them took their own lives. While logical, this explanation turned out to be oversimplified. When the Army’s Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention Task Force studied cases of suicide, it found that most soldiers who had taken their own lives had deployed only once to Iraq, or not at all, and that deployment-related mental-health troubles didn’t necessarily correlate with suicides. Instead, the committee found that the pace of Army life, particularly during wartime, produced a hectic stream of trainings, deployments, job changes and relocations that placed soldiers under more stress than their civilian peers but that soldiers most often took their lives for the same reasons that civilians did: failed relationships; careers imperiled


New National Zoo security fencing that reduces pedestrian access is approved

The National Zoo said Wednesday that it received permission last week from the National Capital Planning Commission to proceed with a controversial plan to extend security fencing around its complex. The zoo, citing safety concerns, plans to reduce its pedestrian entrances from 13 to six and add 4,700 feet to its existing perimeter fence. Some of the new fencing would be strong enough to prevent vehicle “ramming,” the zoo has said. “On March 7 . . . the Smithsonian’s National Zoo received combined preliminary and final approval from the National Capital Planning Commission for its perimeter fencing plan,” the zoo said in a statement. “Along with the revised final approval from the Commission of Fine Arts and the finding of ‘no adverse effect’ from the D.C. State Historic Preservation Office, the zoo can now proceed to construction.” The zoo added that it “has no plans for permanent, year-round visitor screening.” Construction should begin late this year, a zoo spokeswoman said. Critics have complained that the fencing would cut off the zoo from the city and surrounding neighborhoods. “Please do not wall off our national zoo from the community,” one critic wrote to the planning commission last year. In granting approval, the commission said the zoo was “consolidating redundant points of entry throughout . . . in an effort to enhance safety and security . . . and better protect the animal collection.” The zoo said its three main entrances used by most visitors will not change, but pedestrian entrances will be consolidated. The Rock Creek bike path that crosses the zoo’s property won’t be affected. Joggers and cyclists will be able to continue on the protected path along Rock Creek and enter the zoo at the Beach Drive Gate, the zoo said. michael.ruane@washpost.com


Brexit has devastated Britain’s international reputation — and respect for its democracy

In Madrid last week, a senior politician told me that he was watching the Brexit crisis with growing astonishment. “England, the mother of parliaments,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ve looked up to them for so long.” Meanwhile an Italian friend who arrived in London on a delayed train — French customs officers are having a pre-Brexit strike at the Gare du Nord in Paris, delaying London-bound trains and demanding extra compensation — was also amazed. “We think our democracies are weak, elsewhere in Europe. But even if you took a bunch of Italians, Poles and Hungarians, kept them up all night and got them drunk, they still wouldn’t come up with anything as disastrous as what we are seeing in the House of Commons.” Another week, another history-making vote: On Tuesday, the British Parliament rejected, again, Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, an arrangement that would have given Britain a reasonably smooth transition period out of the European Union. It was a deal that pleased no one, but some saw it as a way out of a dilemma. The fact is that the British narrowly voted to leave the E.U., but they have never agreed about which kinds of relationships should replace it. More than two years have passed, and in that time the disagreements have simply grown deeper and more bitter. Now, without May’s deal, the choices are stark. Either Britain crashes out of the E.U. on March 29, with no transition period and no treaties at all — or Brexit is delayed. More votes, to be held later this week, will determine which it is to be. But before we get to that moment, it’s worth pausing to reflect on the damage already done by the Brexit debacle, and I don’t mean the harm to the economy. Far worse is the damage done to Britain’s reputation a serious international player, a competent negotiator of treaties, a reliable ally, a voice for sense in the world — and a representative democracy. My Spanish and Italian acquaintances are not alone in their astonishment: All across Europe, people are reassessing their views of Britain, its politics and above all its politicians. Since the referendum in 2016, all of the key Brexit-negotiating jobs have been held by people who campaigned in favor of leaving the E.U. Universally, they turned out to be ill-informed and second-rate. European negotiators in Brussels, accustomed to


Brexit may no longer mean Brexit

Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday, along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? British Prime Minister Theresa May May’s government is technically supposed to take Britain out of the European Union in just over two weeks’ time. But that and so much more about the political future of Europe’s second-largest economy is now in limbo. Since taking office in July 2016 following the shocking victory of the Leave campaign in Britain’s Brexit referendum, May has been the steward of a tortuous and troubled process to negotiate Britain’s terms of divorce from the continental bloc. In the beginning, she confidently declared that “Brexit means Brexit,” a point made to emphasize her government’s determination to execute the mandate of the referendum, no matter the cost. But over time, the bravura of that political slogan withered as May and the entire British political establishment came to reckon with the dizzying complexity of breaking out of the E.U. There were heated arguments over “hard” and “soft” Brexits, leading Brexiteers abandoned ship when the going got tough, and the hoary specter of the “Irish backstop” — an insurance policy to preserve a free and open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland — ultimately doomed May’s attempts to woo over the hard-liners in her ranks. Now, it’s not clear whether Brexit will mean quite anything at all. In the likely event British parliamentarians vote against “no deal,” they are expected to vote again on Thursday on whether May should seek an extension from the European Union to Article 50 — the process by which Britain notified the continental bloc that it was leaving. Though the E.U. would likely want to grant this extension, it’s still contingent on Britain persuading all other 27 members of the bloc that an extension is warranted. E.U. officials have made clear they are not interested in new rounds of talks with Westminster, and it’s difficult to see how the myriad intractable differences stymieing the passage of May’s current withdrawal plan will be resolved. “Voting against leaving without a deal and asking for an extension does not solve the problems we face,” May warned on Tuesday, her voice hoarse from having spent previous days locked in talks. “The European Union will want to know what use we mean to make of such an extension, and this house will have to answer


The White House is in such a hurry to get to the moon that NASA is considering sidelining its major rocket to make it happen

schedule delay in what’s known as Exploration Mission-1, or EM-1. “I think we as an agency need to stick to our commitments,” he said in a response to a question from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). “Sir, if we tell you and others that we’re going to launch in June of 2020 around the moon, which is what EM-1 is, I think we should launch around the moon in June of 2020. And I think it can be done. We as an agency need to consider all options to accomplish that objective.” The announcement was a blow for Boeing, one of the prime contractors on the SLS rocket, as it was facing serious repercussions in the wake of the crashes involving its 737 Max 8 airplane. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Boeing’s SLS rocket has repeatedly suffered schedule delays and cost overruns. In a scathing report last year, NASA’s inspector general found that the SLS program would require a massive amount of additional funding that could double the cost of the project to nearly $9 billion. It found that Boeing had already spent $5.3 billion and was expected to burn through the rest of its budget three years ahead of time and without delivering a single rocket stage. Bridenstine went out of his way to say NASA was not abandoning the rocket, praising it as “the largest rocket that’s ever been built in American history” and saying it remains “a critical capability” for the U.S. space program. But the delays have forced the agency to look at using other rockets available. There are two that meet that criteria, officials said, the United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. To meet the 2020 timeline, Bridenstine said, the agency was looking at changing the mission profile. Instead of launching Orion on a trajectory straight to the moon, it would look at the possibility of flying it to orbit around the Earth. Then, on a second rocket, NASA would launch a propulsion module. The Orion spacecraft would dock with it, and the propulsion module would shoot Orion to the moon. Bridenstine did not address how NASA would pay for those launches. And he said there is a major hurdle: Orion does not have the ability to dock in space. “Between now and June of 2020 we would have to make that a reality,” he said.


Killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a human rights abuse, State Department says

The State Department on Wednesday characterized the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by government agents as a human rights abuse but avoided implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA concluded was likely to have ordered it. In its annual human rights report of abuses in more than 200 countries and territories, the State Department noted that while Saudi Arabia’s investigation into Khashoggi’s killing is still underway, in other cases “the government did not punish officials accused of committing human rights abuses, contributing to an environment of impunity.” The assessment was included in the State Department’s annual human rights report, which has been mandated by Congress since 1977. In introducing it, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo singled out Iran, South Sudan and Nicaragua for condemnation. “Then there’s China, which is in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations,” he said. Pompeo accused China of sending more than 1 million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and other Muslims to reeducation camps “designed to erase their religious and ethnic identities.” He said it has stepped up persecution of Christians, Tibetans and anyone who advocates views different from that of the government. Pompeo said the report documents abuses by both adversaries and allies, in the hope that the attention can bring about change. “By issuing today’s report, we deploy the truth — the truth about abuses occurring around the globe — as one of the most powerful weapons in America’s diplomatic arsenal,” he said. The annual report is Pompeo’s first since becoming secretary of state last year. “The policy of this Administration is to engage with other governments, regardless of their record, if doing so will further U.S. interests,” he wrote in the preface. “At the same time, we recognize that U.S. interests in the enduring stability, prosperity, and security of a world filled with strong, sovereign states will only be served if governments respect human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Some human rights groups expressed astonishment at Pompeo’s words. “This statement signals to world leaders including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Egypt’s president [Abdel Fatah al-Sissi] that the U.S. doesn’t care about human rights and will forgive or forget even the most atrocious human rights abuses,” said Philippe Nassif, advocacy director for the Middle East at Amnesty International USA. But Tom Malinowski, a former assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor — and now a