Man accused in Christchurch mosque slayings of 51 pleads not guilty

Abstract: CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND - The man accused of the New Zealand mosque attacks smirked as his lawyer entered not guilty pleas to terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges Friday before a judge who set his trial for next May. The courtroom was filled with 80 survivors and family members of the 51 who were slain, while about another 60 watched the hearing on video in an overflow room at the Christchurch High Court. Four cultural advisers and other staff were assigned to help the victims and family members understand the proceedings and the next steps in the case. A man who addressed the survivors said they had been praying during the holy month of Ramadan and that the Muslim community would help and support each other during the coming weeks and months. Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian accused of the attacks, appeared at the hearing via video link from a small room at the maximum security prison in Auckland where he’s being held. The link was muted and he didn’t attempt to speak. Other than smirking a couple of times, Tarrant showed little emotion during the hearing. When Judge Cameron Mander asked if he could hear and see what was going on in the courtroom, Tarrant nodded. At times he looked around the room and stretched his neck. The judge did not allow cameras or video in the courtroom although did approve a sketch artist commissioned by The Associated Press. Tarrant has been charged with 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one terrorism charge in relation to the March 15 shootings. Mander said the findings of two mental-health assessments showed Tarrant had no issues related to his ability to enter pleas and stand trial. The assessments are standard in murder cases. The judge scheduled a six-week trial to begin May 4. Tarrant will remain in custody ahead of his next hearing in mid-August. Outside the court, police and court security staff escorted a man away after he got into an argument with survivors and family members, who later said the man was saying things supportive of white supremacist ideology. Police said they arrested a 33-year-old man and charged him with disorderly behavior. Janna Ezat wore a shirt that she’d designed which featured an image of her son Hussein Al-Umari, who was killed in the attacks. She said the court hearing had made her angry. “Before I was OK and calm and believe in this life my son died and he is in a good place,” she said. “But when I saw the terrorist, he was just, he’s nothing. Just sitting like that. Pretending that he’s innocent and nothing is wrong.” She said she thought the shooter deserved to be given the death penalty, even though New Zealand no longer institutes the punishment. “It’s not easy to lose your child. Not only my child, but 50 people,” Ezat said. “It’s unfair. It’s unfair. And he was laughing.” Abdul Aziz, who is considered a hero for confronting the gunman at the Linwood mosque, said he wouldn’t say the suspect’s name. “He’s a coward. And behind the cell he’s laughing,” Aziz said. “He should have laughed when I faced him. Then I would see how he laugh. He run like a dog. He run like a chicken.” In the March 15 attacks during Friday prayers, 42 worshippers were killed at the Al Noor mosque and seven were killed at the Linwood mosque. Two more people died later at the Christchurch Hospital. The shooter livestreamed much of the attack on Facebook. Tarrant had earlier published a 74-page manifesto espousing a white supremacist philosophy and detailing his plans to attack the mosques. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has vowed never to say the accused man’s name. Last month she helped lead a global pledge named the “Christchurch Call,” aimed at boosting efforts to keep internet platforms from being used to spread hate, organize extremist groups and broadcast attacks.

christchurch
new zealand
brenton tarrant
immigration
australia
mass shootings


'Naruto' ninja-themed area to open at amusement park at base of Mount Fuji

Abstract: KOFU, YAMANASHI PREF. - The operator of the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park at the foot of Mount Fuji will open a new area themed on the smash-hit “Naruto” ninja anime series on July 26, giving visitors a chance to explore the character’s world in the shadow of Japan’s highest peak. The 2,600-square-meter area at the Yamanashi Prefecture park features attractions such as an indoor ride in which people wearing 3D glasses shoot at targets for points, according to Fuji Kyuko Co. The new area, built at a cost of ¥1.2 billion, will also house a Naruto museum and a ramen shop created in the image of one featured in the anime. The “Naruto” anime is based on the manga series by Masashi Kishimoto, which appeared in a weekly comic magazine between 1999 and 2014. The comic series, depicting Naruto’s path to becoming the strongest ninja, has sold 153 million copies in Japan and 97 million copies in at least 46 other countries and regions, according to its publisher, Shueisha Inc. The spinoff comic and anime series “Boruto” is also popular.

naruto
amusement parks
fuji-q highland
anime
yamanashi prefecture


At Trump's request, Abe asked Iran to release American captives, source says

Abstract: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe asked Iranian leaders during his Tehran visit to release Americans detained by the country at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump, a Japanese government source said Friday. At least four Americans, including a navy veteran who has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, are being detained in Iran. Abe is believed to have requested the releases during his talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday, the source said. It is not known how they responded. As the first Japanese prime minister to visit Iran in 41 years, Abe was hoping to serve as a mediator between Tehran and Washington, with tensions having flared in recent weeks and concern growing about possible inadvertent military clashes in the region. But Iran said Thursday it will not negotiate with the United States, rejecting Abe’s bid to broker dialogue between the two foes amid escalating tensions in the Middle East. Abe admitted the road to easing tensions in the region amid the standoff between Iran and the United States will be rough but said that Japan will continue to work toward achieving peace and stability. Khamenei told Abe on Thursday that it was pointless to reply to a message he had brought to Tehran from Trump. “I do not see Trump as worthy of any message exchange, and I do not have any reply for him, now or in future,” Iranian state media quoted Khamenei as telling the Japanese leader. Trump said he appreciated the visit by Abe to Iran but that he believed it is “too soon to even think about” the United States making a deal with Tehran. “They are not ready, and neither are we!” Trump said in a tweet. U.S. allies in Europe and Asia have repeatedly expressed concern that tension between the United States and Iran could escalate into an armed conflict. After meeting Rouhani on Wednesday, Abe warned of unintended clashes in the Middle East. Ultimate authority in Iran is wielded by Khamenei, a hard-line cleric in power since 1989, although the country is run day-to-day by Rouhani, the pragmatist president who won two landslide elections on promises to open Iran to the world. Khamenei said a recent promise by Trump not to seek regime change in Iran was “a lie.” “The Islamic Republic of Iran has no trust in America and will never repeat the bitter experience of previous negotiations with America in the framework of the JCPOA,” Khamenei said, using the acronym for the nuclear deal. “No wise and proud nation will accept negotiations under pressure.” Abe told reporters in Tehran that Khamenei had promised Iran had no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran has always maintained its nuclear program is peaceful. On a visit to Japan last month, Trump welcomed Abe’s help in dealing with Iran. Last month Washington revoked sanctions waivers that had allowed some countries, including Japan, to buy Iranian crude. In its latest move, the U.S. Treasury prohibited companies on Friday from doing business with Iran’s largest petrochemical group, citing ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. “The U.S. president, after a meeting with you and discussions on Iran … imposed sanctions on Iranian petrochemical sector. Is this a message of honesty? Does that show he seeks honest negotiations?” Khamenei told Abe. “Japan is an important Asian country and if it wants to expand ties with Iran, it should show a firm stance, as other countries have done,” Khamenei said.

iran
shinzo abe
donald trump
hassan rouhani
ali khamenei
sanctions
u.s .


U.S. blames Iran for attacks on tankers, including one operated by a Japanese firm, in Gulf of Oman

Abstract: WASHINGTON/TOKYO - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that the U.S. government blames Iran for attacks on two oil tankers — including one operated by a Tokyo-based company — in the Gulf of Oman, casting it as the latest in a series of “provocative actions” that have sharply raised tensions in the region. The tankers were attacked Thursday near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, pushing up oil prices and fueling concerns about further tensions in the Middle East. Pompeo said Iran “insulted Japan” by attacking the Japanese-owned vessel, the Kokuka Courageous, at the time of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s landmark visit to Iran for talks with the country’s leaders aimed at defusing tensions between Tehran and Washington. The Kokuka Courageous was left ablaze and drifting in the attacks. The other vessel also caught fire. All 44 crew members from the two tankers were safe, though one of them was slightly injured. The U.S. assessment of Iran’s responsibility for the attack, which forced the evacuation of the crews in international waters, was based in part on intelligence as well as the expertise needed to carry out the operation, Pompeo told reporters in Washington. It was also based on a recent series of incidents in the region that the U.S. also blames on Iran, including a similar attack on tankers in the area in May and the bombing of an oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia by Iranian-backed fighters, he said. “Taken as a whole these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation and an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension by Iran,” Pompeo said. Hours after Pompeo’s assertion, the U.S. military released a video it said shows Iran’s Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded limpet mine from the Kokuka Courageous. The black-and-white footage, as well as still photographs released by the U.S. military’s Central Command on Friday, appeared to show the mine on the tanker. A Revolutionary Guard patrol boat pulled alongside the ship and removed the mine, Central Command spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said. “The U.S. and the international community stand ready to defend our interests, including the freedom of navigation,” Urban said. “The United States has no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the Middle East. However, we will defend our interests.” In Tokyo, the owner of the Kokuka Courageous said Friday its sailors saw “flying objects” before the attack, suggesting it wasn’t damaged by mines. Company president Yutaka Katada offered no evidence for his claim, which contradicts the U.S. military account. Katada also said crew members saw an Iranian naval ship nearby, but he did not specify whether this was before or after the attacks. All 21 Filipino crew members of the Panama-flagged ship escaped in life rafts and were rescued by a ship heading to the United Arab Emirates. On Friday, the crew members returned to the ship and are working to use the reserve power system, he said, adding that the vessel is in no danger of sinking. In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the attacks, warning that the world cannot afford “a major confrontation in the Gulf region.” Iran’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations brushed aside U.S. claims that Tehran is responsible for attacks. “Strongly we are rejecting any accusation of Iran,” Eshagh Al Habib told a small group of reporters shortly after Pompeo blamed Tehran for the attacks. “Definitely, those that accuse Iran have the main role in creating those incidents and it could be the United States itself,” Habib said. Apparently with Israel and Saudi Arabia in mind, the Iranian envoy also said there are two specific nations that “are looking for more tensions” in the Persian Gulf region and that the United States is a staunch backer of them. The attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, a key corridor through which a third of all oil traded by sea passes, caused global oil prices to surge. Despite the surge, industry minister Hiroshige Seko on Friday told reporters in Tokyo that the incident will not immediately affect Japan’s stable energy supply. The government will continue to closely watch the situation, the oil prices, as well as the effect on the Japanese economy, he added. He declined to comment on Pompeo’s assertion that Iran was behind the attack. Japan will host the Group of 20 ministerial meeting on energy and environment in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, this weekend. Seko said the ministers would share common concern. “There have been several incidents recently in the Middle East area, one of the most vital regions in energy security, that raise concern,” he said. “We would like to deepen discussions among ministers (at this weekend’s meeting) about how to deal globally with various challenges and threats to the world’s energy security.” The Kokuka Courageous was carrying 25,000 tons of methanol from Saudi Arabia to Singapore when it was attacked in the Gulf of Oman, near the Fujairah port of the United Arab Emirates, according to Kokuka Sangyo, the operator of the ship. The other ship, the Marshall Islands-listed Front Altair, was chartered by Taiwanese oil refiner CPC Corp. to carry 75,000 tons of naphtha from the UAE to southern Taiwan, company Vice President Chen Ming-hui said. Chen said the vessel was “engulfed in flames” but all 23 crew members were safe.

iran
mike pompeo
oil
shinzo abe
kokuka sangyo


Remains of U.S. sailor who died at Pearl Harbor accounted for

Abstract: BOSTON - The remains of a sailor from Massachusetts lost during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor have been accounted for. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Thursday that Navy Seaman 1st Class Frank Hryniewicz was accounted for Jan. 28. Hryniewicz was 20 years old and on the crew of the USS Oklahoma when it was hit with torpedoes during the 1941 attack. It capsized the battleship and killed 429 crewmen. Hryniewicz’s remains were among those recovered over the next few years but ruled unidentifiable and buried in Hawaii. They were exhumed in 2015 and identified using dental, anthropological and DNA analysis. The military says Hryniewicz was from the Three Rivers section of Palmer. More than 200 sets of remains from the Oklahoma have been identified.

pearl harbor
massachusetts
frank hryniewicz
hawaii
wwii
u.s .


Chemical firm Kao cancels #BeWhite project after employees point out racial connotations

Abstract: Kao Corp., a major maker of toiletry and chemical products, suspended a promotional project Thursday the day after its launch after some of its employees pointed out the title could imply racial discrimination. Kao’s #BeWhite project was aimed at encouraging households to split chores equally within families while also promoting the re-evaluation of workplace practices based on the results of in-house surveys about work and household tasks. The title was later criticized for implying an endorsement of light colored skin. #BeWHITE pic.twitter.com/cAmhQmRVnt — 花王 アタック （お洗濯全般） (@kao_attackjp) June 12, 2019 According to the company, the use of “white” was meant to emphasize the effectiveness of the company’s laundry detergent Attack, which appears at the end of a video featuring company employees. It was also meant to be a nod to “white companies” — or firms that treat their employees well compared with exploitative “black companies,” which are infamous for the poor treatment of workers. The project’s website was set up Wednesday by Kao’s fabric and home care division but was shut down after the connotations were pointed out the next day.


To aid tourism, Japan to expand language support and offer free Wi-Fi on 300 bus and train routes

Abstract: The government said Friday it plans to provide multilingual information and free Wi-Fi access on 300 public transport routes as it steps up efforts to boost inbound tourism. As a first step, foreign language support and free Wi-Fi will be made available on 100 local bus and train routes running between airports and popular tourist sites by March 2020, with the government subsidizing roughly half the cost. The government plans to launch services on another 200 routes later in 2020. Special liaisons will also be posted at 87 tourist spots, including UNESCO World Heritage sites and national parks, to assist existing English tour guides. The government also plans to install equipment to aid in the streamlining of immigration screening processes at Haneda airport, Hakata port in Fukuoka Prefecture and Hitakatsu port in Nagasaki Prefecture by March 2020. These efforts are aimed at achieving the government’s goal of attracting 40 million foreign visitors by 2020 when Tokyo hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games. In 2018, a record 31.19 million foreign tourists visited Japan, up 8.7 percent from the previous year.


Nobel winner Tasuku Honjo to make decision on Opdivo lawsuit in July

Abstract: OSAKA - Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo said he will make a decision as early as July on whether to sue Ono Pharmaceutical Co. to demand a hike in the licensing fee for cancer drug Opdivo, which was developed based on his research. “It would lead to serious trouble in the future if this case is settled in an ambiguous way,” Honjo said in a recent interview, hinting at his intention to continue negotiating with the drugmaker. The 2018 Nobel laureate in medicine is in a dispute with the company over a licensing fee set under a patent agreement signed in 2006, arguing his current share of the patent income is significantly low. Ono Pharmaceutical is seeking to settle the dispute through negotiations and has offered to donate up to ¥30 billion ($277 million) to Kyoto University, where Honjo is a distinguished professor. It would be difficult for the company to comply with his demand, which involves a major change in the terms of the agreement, because such a revision would influence contracts with other researchers and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole, industry sources said. According to Honjo’s side, it is estimated that the market for cancer immunotherapy drugs like Opdivo is likely to expand to ¥4.5 trillion in 2024. “It would encourage young researchers if we can show that there is a big return for good research,” Honjo said. The discovery of the protein PD-1 by Honjo and his team in 1992 later led to the development of Opdivo, which triggers the immune system to attack cancer cells. Sales of Opdivo, which is usually used to treat skin and lung cancer, began in 2014.

tasuku honjo
opdivo
cancer
medicine
nobel prize
ono pharmaceutical co .


Cabinet OKs reforms to address Japan's labor market woes

Abstract: The Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved Friday a suite of labor reforms designed to solve Japan’s demographic challenges while creating conditions to promote job growth, particularly for those struggling to find stable work. Under the annual economic policy blueprint, the government wants to see 300,000 new jobs created over the next three years for people in their mid-30s to mid-40s who have had difficulty finding stable employment. The government hopes to help around 1 million people who graduated from high school and university between 1993 and 2004, collectively called the “employment ice age generation” because they began searching for work following the end of Japan’s economic boom. The government is concerned the social security system, including the public pension system, will falter if the ice age generation is unable to find full-time work and generate sufficient tax revenue, officials said. It hopes the policies will help them find work to help offset the national labor shortage, the officials said. Toward that end, Japan introduced a new visa system in April to bring in more foreign labor, a policy incorporated in last year’s economic blueprint. But many in the ice age generation complain the government wants to deploy them into labor-hungry sectors with poor working conditions. Critics say the reforms will not succeed unless Japanese companies shake up their employment practices, including the hiring of new graduates en masse, promotion by seniority and lifetime employment. Under the policy blueprint, which will be reflected when the state budget for fiscal 2020 is drafted, the government also encourages the elderly to work longer. It specifically plans to scale back and eventually abolish a system that reduces the pensions of people who still earn at a certain income level. The government believes the system discourages those of advancing age from continuing to work full time. “It is necessary to set the stage for the elderly who are willing to work so they can fully exercise their abilities,” the policy guideline said. In a strategy separately approved Friday by the Cabinet, the government decided it will ask companies to consider keeping employees at work until age 70, with many firms having already raised the retirement age from 60. To secure funds to cover swelling social security costs, the policy blueprint also confirms the government’s plan to hike the consumption tax from 8 percent to 10 percent in October. With widespread fear the tax hike could hurt the economy by weakening domestic demand, the government is looking to increase the national average minimum wage to ¥1,000 per hour from the current ¥874 “at an early date,” according to the blueprint.

labor reforms
jobs
employment
population


Japanese government played hidden role in breakdown of Fiat-Renault deal

Abstract: The Japanese government played a role in the breakdown of merger talks between Renault SA and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV earlier this month, weighing in with concerns that the combination could harm Nissan Motor Co., people familiar with the matter said. Tokyo signaled its misgivings over the deal to the French government, said the people, asking not to be identified speaking about the negotiations. France — Renault’s most powerful shareholder — then sought a pause in the talks for more time to win Nissan’s support, provoking Fiat to withdraw its offer. Details on Japan’s role, only emerging now, highlight the obstacles to a quick resumption in merger negotiations between Renault and its Italo-American rival. They also show that France and Japan can find common ground to protect their carmakers and the two-decade Renault-Nissan alliance. A spokesman for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the French Finance Ministry. Representatives for Renault and Nissan also declined to comment. Renault and the French state are now focusing on repairing the relationship with Nissan, under strain since the November arrest of Carlos Ghosn, who oversaw both companies and their partnership. Tensions escalated further when Renault’s new chairman, Jean-Dominique Senard, pressed Nissan for a merger it didn’t want, then pursued the Fiat deal without telling the Yokohama-based firm. Relations touched a new low earlier this month when Senard threatened to block Nissan’s new governance plan at its annual shareholders meeting. An accord Thursday put an end to the spat over boardroom powers, easing tensions for now. Heading into the pivotal June 5 Renault board meeting, Senard and Fiat Chairman John Elkann were pushing for quick approval of the French-Italian tie-up. Nissan had been cool to the Fiat-Renault deal since it first learned of the talks, people familiar with the matter said. But rather than come out against it openly, the company’s representatives on Renault’s board chose to signal their opposition with an abstention, the people said. Dialogue with Japanese officials helped their French counterparts understand Nissan’s position, prompting France to put the brakes on the deal. While CEO Hiroto Saikawa had pledged to protect Nissan’s interests, the company didn’t ask METI to intervene with the French government, according to a person familiar with the matter. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said Nissan’s plan to abstain on the Renault-Fiat vote drove his decision to seek a delay. The last-minute move by Le Maire to pause the Renault-Fiat talks won him praise from some Nissan insiders. The Fiat proposal was seen by some at Nissan as a way for it to get control of the company and its key technologies and to benefit from its presence in the U.S. and China — all on the cheap. Renault owns 43 percent of Nissan and their operations are so intertwined that the deal would have had deep implications for the Japanese partner, the insiders said.

japan fiat renault merger nissan france meti


Toyota Executive Vice President Didier Leroy's pay in fiscal 2018 topped ¥1 billion

Abstract: NAGOYA - Executive compensation paid to Toyota Motor Corp. Executive Vice President Didier Leroy in fiscal 2018 surpassed ¥1 billion for the second straight year, according to the automaker’s financial report. In the year that ended in March 2019, Toyota paid ¥1.042 billion to Leroy, up ¥16 million from the previous year, the report showed Friday. It was the highest pay for any Toyota executive. Leroy, a French national, joined Toyota in 1998 after working at French auto giant Renault SA. In deciding the amount of compensation for Leroy, the automaker apparently took into account pay levels at major U.S. and European companies that are comparatively high, the need to get talented executives to stay at Toyota and the firm’s solid earnings performance. In fiscal 2018, Toyota became the first Japanese company to report consolidated sales of over ¥30 trillion. The number of Toyota board directors whose annual compensation topped ¥100 million totaled five, the same as in the previous year. The pay of Toyota President Akio Toyoda in the latest year edged up to ¥386 million. When dividends on Toyota shares he owns are combined, Toyoda’s annual income surpassed ¥1.4 billion.


Japanese Americans detained as children during World War II to protest housing migrant children at army base

Abstract: LAWTON, OKLAHOMA - Demonstrators including Japanese Americans who were detained as children by the U.S. government during World War II are speaking out against the Trump administration’s plans to house migrant children at an Oklahoma army base. Groups including the Japanese American National Museum and Densho, which documents the history of Japanese American incarceration, plan to protest Saturday outside Fort Sill near Lawton. They also will hang origami paper cranes in an effort to inspire hope for the migrant children. The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement said this month it plans to temporarily place up to 1,400 kids at the base. Fort Sill housed migrant children in 2014 under the Obama administration. It was used to incarcerate hundreds of the approximately 120,000 Japanese and Japanese American people the federal government detained during the war with Japan.

protests history wwii immigration military ethnicity discrimination


Georgians keep protesting Russian's speech in parliament despite speaker's resignation

Abstract: TBILISI - The speaker of Georgia’s parliament stepped down Friday in the wake of violent clashes that left at least 240 people injured, but the move failed to assuage protesters, who returned to the streets demanding that the interior minister also step down over a brutal police response. A night of clashes Thursday was sparked by a Russian lawmaker who took the speaker’s seat as a group of international lawmakers met at the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi. It angered the opposition, which sees the current Georgian government as overly friendly to Russian interests. The protests mark the largest outpouring of anger against the ruling Georgian Dream since it took power in 2012. Officials said at least 240 people were injured when riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas and unleashed water cannon on protesters outside Georgia’s parliament building during the clashes that lasted into early Friday. More than 100 people are still in the hospital, and two people lost eyes because of the rubber bullets, according to Giorgi Kordzakhiya, director of Tbilisi’s New Hospital. Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze blamed opposition leaders for the violence, saying they hijacked a “genuine” public outpouring but then “violated the law and the Constitution.” Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze, who was out of the country on an official visit, handed in his resignation but several thousand protesters returned to the parliament building Friday, demanding the interior minister also resign. Many wore eyepatches in solidarity with those who lost their eyes. President Salome Zurabishvili also cut short a foreign trip to return to the capital. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered that the country’s airlines stop transporting Russian citizens to Georgia beginning July 8, citing national security concerns. The reason for delaying the implementation wasn’t immediately clear. He also ordered officials to assist in bringing Russians home from Georgia. The move carries echoes of Russia’s full ban on transport links with Georgia in 2006 amid rising tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi. Air connections were restored in 2010, two years after a short war between Russia and Georgia. Anti-Russian sentiments run deep in Georgia, which made a botched attempt to regain control over breakaway province of South Ossetia during the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, sparking the 2008 war that routed the Georgian military in five days of fighting. Moscow then recognized the independence of South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia and set up military bases there. Georgian Dream, which is led and funded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, has controlled parliament and dominated the nation’s political scene since in 2012. “We will do everything to oust this government that serves Russia,” said 32-year-old lawyer Demetre Saladze, who was among the protesters Friday. Engineer Vakhtang Kiriya, 28, vowed that the protesters will make the government answer for the brutal police crackdown. “We will fight until Ivanishvili and his team flee Georgia,” he said. “They should get ready to board their jets.” Sergei Gavrilov, the Russian lawmaker who sparked the conflict by taking the Georgian speaker’s seat, on Friday blamed the clashes on “radical groups” who he said were trying to stage a “coup.” Speaking on Russian state TV, he rejected reports that he was fighting on the side of separatists in Abkhazia, saying he had only been there on “humanitarian missions.” Russia and Georgia broke off diplomatic relations after the 2008 war, but steps have been made in recent years to restore ties, including Georgia scrapping visitor visas for Russians and Russia lifting a ban on Georgian wine and fruit imports. Still, animosity toward Russia remains strong due to the Kremlin’s support of the two separatist regions. Other Russian officials blamed Georgian politicians for trying to undermine the slow thaw in relations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that thousands of Russian tourists vacationing were in Georgia, as a reason of Moscow’s concern about what he described as an anti-Russian “provocation.”


U.K. minister to meet top Iranian government officials during visit to discuss crisis

Abstract: LONDON - A minister from Britain’s Foreign Office will travel to Iran on Sunday for talks with senior Iranian government officials amid escalating tensions in the Gulf region, the department said Saturday. Minister of State for the Middle East Andrew Murrison will call for an “urgent de-escalation” of the crisis and raise British concerns “about Iran’s regional conduct and its threat to cease complying with the nuclear deal to which the U.K. remains fully committed,” a department statement said. “At this time of increased regional tensions and at a crucial period for the future of the nuclear deal, this visit is an opportunity for further open, frank and constructive engagement with the government of Iran,” it added. U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States was “cocked & loaded” to strike Iran but pulled back at the last minute because it would not have been a “proportionate” response to Tehran shooting down a pilotless American drone. The downing of the drone — which Iran insists violated its airspace, a claim Washington denies — has seen tensions spike after a series of attacks on tankers the U.S. has blamed on Tehran. Britain and the U.S. are at odds over the nuclear deal they both signed with Iran, with Trump pulling out last year.

iran
donald trump
drone
u.s .
u.k .
persian gulf


Trump's Pentagon pick Mark Esper is an army veteran and defense lobbyist

Abstract: WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump’s new pick for defense secretary is an army veteran who served in the first Iraq war and also has experience as a national security adviser on Capitol Hill as well as a defense industry lobbyist. Trump announced Friday that he would nominate Mark Esper to lead the Pentagon. Trump had already named Esper, his current army secretary, to lead the Defense Department on an acting basis, starting Sunday. “I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a fantastic job!” the president tweeted Tuesday. He later told reporters: “He’s very experienced. He’s been around all of the things that we’ve been talking about for a very long period of time.” Tuesday’s move came after acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan withdrew from the job before his formal nomination had gone to the Senate, citing a “painful” family situation that would hurt his children and reopen “wounds we have worked years to heal.” Esper was sworn in as army secretary in November 2017 following a seven-year stint as vice president for government relations at defense contractor Raytheon. That lobbyist background raised immediate alarms from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which said that Raytheon had recently won multiple government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. “While Esper may not have had sway over these types of deals as secretary of the army, as acting secretary of defense he will have potential influence over such deals” as well as a proposed merger between Raytheon and United Technologies Corp., CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. Esper previously served a national security adviser for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He was policy director for the House Armed Services Committee and a professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations committee and also advised former Obama administration Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel when Hagel was in the Senate. He’s also served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense and was a war planner on the army staff. Esper spent more than a decade in the army, including serving in the Persian Gulf War in 1990 and 1991 with the 101st Airborne Division. He has won the Bronze Star Medal and other awards. “He has a great background. I know him and I think he’ll do very well in the acting role,” said Sen. David Perdue, a close Trump ally who speaks frequently with the president. It is not clear whether Esper’s defense industry background might complicate any confirmation prospects. Shanahan, for instance, came under scrutiny because of his prior career as a Boeing executive and persistent questions about possible conflicts of interest. The Defense Department’s Inspector General cleared Shanahan of any wrongdoing in connection with accusations he had shown favoritism toward Boeing during his time as deputy defense secretary, while disparaging Boeing competitors. But even so, Bookbinder said Shanahan’s past work at Boeing overshadowed his decisions at the Defense Department. “His successor will likewise risk being tainted by his previous work for a major defense contractor,” Bookbinder said.

mark esper
donald trump
patrick shanahan
u.s .
military


U.S. running out of beaches for rotting whales

Abstract: PORTLAND, OREGON - So many gray whales are dying off the U.S. West Coast that scientists and volunteers dealing with the putrid carcasses have an urgent request for coastal residents: Lend us your private beaches so these ocean giants can rot in peace. The number of dead whales washing ashore in Washington state alone — 29 as of this past week — means almost every isolated public beach has been used. Authorities are now scrambling to find remote stretches of sand that are privately owned, with proprietors who don’t mind hosting a rotting creature that is bigger than a school bus and has a stench to match its size. “The preferred option is, at all times, that they just be allowed to decompose naturally,” said John Calambokidis, a research biologist with the Olympia, Washington-based Cascadia Research. “But it gets harder and harder to find locations where they can rot without creating a problem. This is a new wrinkle.” At least 81 gray whale corpses have washed ashore in California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska since Jan. 1. If tallies from Mexico and Canada are added, the number of stranded gray whales reaches about 160 and counting, said Michael Milstein, spokesman for NOAA Fisheries. U.S. scientists last month declared the die-off an “unusual mortality event,” a designation that triggered additional resources to respond to the deaths and launch an investigation. The first private-beach owners to respond, a Washington state couple, received their carcass earlier this month. Volunteers with the so-called “stranding network” — a coalition of nonprofits, research institutions and government agencies — attached a rope to the dead whale’s tail and used a motorboat to tow it 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) along the coast to the couple’s beach, where they anchored it to tree stumps. Mario Rivera and his veterinarian wife, Stefanie Worwag, asked their neighbor’s permission first and are using copious amounts of lime to speed decomposition and reduce the stench. They visit the carcass daily and consider it a scientific opportunity. “It’s decomposing nicely. There’ve been a couple of days this week when I was out there mowing and I was like, ‘Oooph,'” Rivera said of smell from the 40-foot (12-meter) adult male whale sitting 150 yards (137 meters) from his house. “But it’s only temporary. It’s only going to be smelling for about a month — and after that, the smell’s gone.” Since the Port Townsend, Washington, couple welcomed the carcass, 15 more private individuals have signed on to do the same, mostly in remote areas around the Salish Sea in far northwest Washington state, Milstein said. The number of dead whales found in Washington state this year has already surpassed the tally for 2000, when the last significant die-off of gray whales occurred on the West Coast. In Oregon, five dead gray whales have been documented as of this past week, more than in all of last year. California has seen 37, and 10 have come ashore in Alaska. Experts estimate the washed-up whales represent just 10 percent of the total number of the dead, with the rest sinking into the sea unnoticed by humans. In past years, the majority of stranded whales were left to rot in place after necropsies were done. A few were buried, hauled to a landfill or sunk at sea. Towing them back out to sea isn’t the preferred method because the bodies could wash up again or could cause problems if they float into shipping channels and collide with boats. Officials have learned how not to dispose of whale carcasses from experience, including a 1970 attempt to blow up a dead sperm whale with dynamite in Oregon. The blast sent chunks of burning, rotting blubber raining down on spectators, and several cars in a nearby parking lot were crushed by blobs of putrid flesh. Now it is about “getting people to step up and say, ‘Yeah, we can take these animals and have them on our beach,'” said Betsy Carlson, the citizen science coordinator for the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. “There’s such sadness in them just washing up on the shores and seeing these big, majestic animals there.” It is a disappointing twist in what is otherwise considered a success story for species recovery. The eastern North Pacific gray whales were removed from the endangered species list in 1994, after rebounding from the whaling era. The population has grown significantly in the past decade and is now estimated at 27,000 — the highest since surveys began in 1967. But that has raised questions about whether their population has reached the limit of what the environment can sustain, causing a rash of starvation. Another theory cites the loss of Arctic sea ice due to global warming. The whales spend their summers in the Arctic feeding on tiny shrimp-like, bottom-dwelling creatures called amphipods before migrating 10,000 miles (16,090 kilometers) to winter off Mexico, where the females give birth. Though they eat all along their route, they are typically thinning by the time they return north along the West Coast each spring. Although scientists are far from an answer about the die-off, whale expert Calambokidis wonders if fluctuations in the food supply because of global warming are having an outsized impact on the whales because their population has increased. “It isn’t like there are twice as many gray whales this year as there were last year,” he said. “The increases (in numbers) are small, so why would you expect this huge jump in deaths? There has to be some other variable.” The whales that have washed up this year are emaciated, and scientists have also noted that whales migrating north are showing up in places they wouldn’t normally venture, such as the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, or San Francisco Bay. That leads researchers to wonder if the gigantic mammals are veering off course in a desperate bid to find food far south of where they usually fatten up in the late summer months. The dead whale Rivera and Worwag have on their beach had a stomach full of eel grass, far from its normal diet. A necropsy showed the adult male starved to death. “This whale was desperation feeding,” said Rivera. “It’s like a starving human eating grass to stay alive. It just can’t.”

whales
oregon
oceans
washington state
nature
animals
u.s .


Thought global but didn't eat local: How scurvy undid last crusader king

Abstract: PARIS - He was the last of the crusader kings who was thought to have died of the plague as he made one last — and rather roundabout — attempt to recover the Holy Land for Christianity. But it now appears that France’s King Louis IX — better known as St. Louis — died because of a cardinal error committed by many a colonial invader: not eating the local food. An international team of researchers led by celebrated French forensic pathologist Philippe Charlier, whose Twitter handle translates as “Doctor Too Late,” now believe he fell prey to scurvy. Caused by a lack of vitamin C, the painful and potentially fatal disease was the scourge of sailors until the turn of the 19th century. While the local food in Tunisia, where the Eighth Crusade landed in 1270, contained lots of vegetables rich in vitamin C in addition to citrus fruit, the crusaders’ meat-heavy diet and Louis’ extreme piety appears to have been his undoing. “His diet wasn’t very balanced,” said Charlier, who also examined the heart of Richard the Lionheart and confirmed that a jawbone held in Moscow had come from the head of Adolf Hitler. “He put himself through all manner of penances and fasting. Nor was the crusade as well prepared as it should have been,” he said. “They did not take water with them, or fruit and vegetables.” Charlier and his team used carbon dating to authenticate that a jawbone held in a reliquary at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris had belonged to the king, who died five weeks after landing at Carthage in what is now Tunisia. Examining the bone, he said it was clear that Louis suffered from scurvy, “which attacks the gums and then the bone.” “St. Louis did not die from plague,” as historians had always thought, Charlier added. “The scurvy is certain, but one cause of death can also hide another,” said the paleopathologist. Chroniclers at the time recounted in gory detail how “St. Louis lost his teeth, spitting out bits of his gums, which is consistent with what we see on his mandible,” he said. As much as one-sixth of the French Army may have perished from disease — including Louis’ son John Tristan — as they besieged Tunis in the summer of 1270. A contemporary account by the king’s friend Jean de Joinville describe how soldiers howled like “women in labor … as barbers (doctors) had to cut (away) the dead tissue to allow them to chew their meat.” King Louis, however, lived on fish, a more humble food associated with abstinence in the Middle Ages. The new scientific report, in the Journal of Stomatology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, said that Louis, weakened by the scurvy, could have succumbed to another condition. “Tradition has conserved a cause of death as plague, but this could be related to a bad translation of the ancient word ‘pestilence,'” it added. “That he died of the plague is still there in the history books,” Charlier said, “and modern science is there to rectify that.” Other accounts maintain that he died of dysentery, and experts are now examining his stomach, which was cut up and boiled in wine and spices to preserve it before being shipped back to Europe. But the French were not the only ones to suffer during the crusade. De Joinville described both armies as being decimated by trench disease, a louse-borne illness that also hit soldiers in World Wars I and II, with the river separating the French and besieged “Saracens filled with corpses.” Louis was an inveterate crusader, leading both the Seventh Crusade and the Eighth Crusade. The Seventh Crusade was a disaster, too. After initial success following his landing in Egypt in 1249, it ended with him being captured and ransomed by Cairo’s Mamluk rulers. While Muslims might have a different view, Louis was regarded as a model for medieval Christian rulers. An ascetic who tended to lepers, fed beggars from his table and washed their feet, he brought to Paris the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the True Cross on which Christ was said to have been crucified. De Joinville, who was with him to Tunis, is also the source of the apocryphal story of the good king dispensing justice under an oak tree.

crusades
france
king louis ix
disease
history
nobility


Virtual reality could help prompt people to flee storms, research says

Abstract: NEW YORK - Virtual reality simulations work better than traditional alerts in motivating people to evacuate ahead of hurricanes, research said on Friday, part of efforts to improve alert methods as the risk of extreme weather increases. Typically utilizing headsets for viewers to look into, dramatic simulations can create a heightened sense of urgency and fear, said the study by researchers at Hofstra University in New York. With warming oceans and rising sea levels predicted to intensify hurricanes and other extreme weather, researchers have been seeking better ways to warn people to get out of harm’s way. Participants who saw virtual reality of a storm were significantly more likely to say they would make home preparations or evacuate than those who saw traditional weather maps or text alerts, the Hofstra research found. “Many people are just frightened by it because it’s like being trapped and slowly thinking you’re going to drown,” said Jase Bernhardt, lead author and a professor of geology, environment and sustainability at Hofstra. “It elicits a visceral reaction which then makes them say, ‘Yes, I would actually take these warnings seriously, now that I really see what it’s all about,'” he said. In the study, college students were told about a looming storm. Some were shown traditional warnings, and others saw a virtual reality simulation of a hurricane, with 360-degree viewing of rising water and flying debris and surround sound of roaring wind. Nearly 90 percent of those who watched the simulation said they would evacuate but only about 70 percent who saw traditional media said the same. “The VR experience can create the sense of fear and make people think about what they actually would do,” said one respondent quoted in the report, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. A number of factors keep people from evacuating, including illness, age and a fear that shelters will not help them, said the report. Virtual reality technology is becoming more available to individual users, and outreach programs with schools and communities can bring it to a wider audience, said Bernhardt.

virtual reality
storms
psychology
disasters
typhoons


U.S. psychoanalyst association apologizes for past labeling of homosexuality as an illness

Abstract: SAN DIEGO - The American Psychoanalytic Association apologized on Friday for previously treating homosexuality as a mental illness, saying its past errors contributed to discrimination and trauma for LGBT people. It may be the first U.S. medical or mental health organization to issue such an apology. Although psychiatrists declassified homosexuality as a disorder in 1973 and psychoanalysts came around nearly 20 years later, the APsaA says it is unaware of any related professional group that had apologized. “It is long past time to recognize and apologize for our role in the discrimination and trauma caused by our profession and say, ‘We are sorry,'” said a statement by Dr. Lee Jaffe, president of APsaA. The group uses that abbreviation to distinguish it from the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Jaffe announced the apology on Friday at the opening session of the group’s 109th annual meeting in San Diego, drawing a standing ovation from about 200 people present, witnesses said. Jaffe said his group has long been active in promoting LGBT rights but had yet to put its contrition into words. “It’s hard to admit that one has been so wrong,” Jaffe said. One Los Angeles-based analyst said the audience interpreted the moment as significant. “As someone who comes from a long line of analysts who have been fighting for LGBT people, this felt like a watershed moment,” Dr. Justin Shubert said. The change in the medical community’s thinking about homosexuality and Friday’s apology both stem from a seminal event in LGBT history 50 years ago: the Stonewall uprising. Patrons of a New York City gay bar called the Stonewall Inn fought back against police harassment in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, triggering the start of the modern movement for the rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. New York police recently apologized for the raid and discriminatory laws of the time, which prompted APsaA to issue its apology, said Dr. Jack Drescher, an APsaA member and leading authority on the history of psychiatric and psychological treatment of LGBT people. New York is expecting as many as 4 million people for the 50th anniversary of Stonewall next Friday, and gay pride parades will be celebrated around the world on June 30. LGBTQ activists disrupted the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in 1970 in San Francisco. The protests upended the convention so much, Drescher said, that by December 1973 the APA’s board removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But APsaA did not change its position until 1991 when, under threat of an anti-discrimination lawsuit, it allowed the training of gay and lesbian psychoanalysts, Drescher said. APsaA went on to become an early supporter of same-sex marriage and opponent of “conversion therapy” aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation. In 2012, psychiatrist Dr. Robert Spitzer on his own apologized for authoring an influential study 11 years earlier that supported reparative therapy to “cure” homosexuality. Today, APsaA and other professional organizations view being gay as a normal variant of human sexuality, but until now have yet to express how wrong they were before, Drescher said. “They did the work of apologizing but they did not say the words,” Drescher said. “If the police commissioner of New York City could do it, why couldn’t we do something similar?”

lgbt
mental health
history
psychology
sexuality


New drug to boost women's sex drive approved in U.S.

Abstract: WASHINGTON - American women will soon have another drug to help boost a low sex drive: a shot they can give themselves in the thigh or abdomen that raises sexual interest for several hours. The medication, approved Friday by the Food and Drug Administration, is only the second approved to increase sexual desire in women, a market that drugmakers have been trying to cultivate since the blockbuster success of Viagra for men in the late 1990s. The other drug is a daily pill. The upside of the new drug “is that you only use it when you need it,” said Dr. Julia Johnson, a reproductive specialist at UMass Memorial Medical Center who was not involved in its development. “The downside is that it’s a shot — and some people are very squeamish.” The drug’s developer, Amag Pharmaceuticals, could also face some of the same hurdles that have plagued the lone pill previously approved for the condition, including unpleasant side effects and limited insurance coverage. The company declined to release price information. The FDA approved Vyleesi (pronounced vie-LEE’-see) for premenopausal women with a disorder defined by a persistent lack of interest in sex, causing stress. The most common side effect in company studies was nausea. Flushing, injection-site reactions and headache are other common side effects. The approval was based on women’s responses to questionnaires that showed increases in sexual desire and decreases in stress related to sex. The women didn’t report having more sex, the original goal for the drug. “Women are not desiring more sex. They want better sex,” said Dr. Julie Krop, Amag’s chief medical officer. Women with high blood pressure or heart disease should not take the drug because increases in blood pressure were observed after injections, the FDA said. It also could interfere with oral naltrexone, a drug for people with alcohol and opioid dependence, the FDA said. Because so many factors affect sexual desire, doctors must rule out other causes before diagnosing the condition, including relationship issues, medical problems and mood disorders. The condition, known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder, is not universally accepted, and some psychologists argue that low sex drive should not be considered a medical problem. Still, the pharmaceutical industry has long pointed to surveys — some funded by drugmakers — suggesting that it is the most common female sexual disorder in America, affecting roughly 1 in 10 women. Amag estimates nearly 6 million U.S. women meet the criteria for the drug. Cynthia Pearson, executive director of the National Women’s Health Network, urged women to avoid using the drug “until more is known about its safety and effectiveness.” She noted in a statement that Amag had not yet published full clinical trial results. The search for a pill to treat women’s sexual difficulties was once a top priority for many of the world’s biggest drugmakers, including Pfizer, Bayer and Procter & Gamble. Those companies and others studied and later abandoned drugs acting on blood flow, testosterone and other targets. Vyleesi acts on receptors for a brain-stimulating hormone called melanocortin, which is associated with sexual arousal and appetite in both men and women. Amag, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, plans to pitch the drug to consumers through social media, including a website called unblush.com that tells women low sex drive “is nothing to blush about.” Amag’s campaign has some of the hallmarks that helped launch the first female libido drug, Addyi, a once-a-day pill approved in 2015. The FDA’s decision followed a contentious four-year review that included a lobbying effort funded by Addyi’s maker, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which framed the lack of female sex drugs as a women’s rights issue. Women taking Addyi showed a slight uptick in “sexually satisfying events” per month and improved scores on psychiatric questionnaires. Those results were only slightly better than what women taking a placebo reported, but they were significant enough to meet FDA effectiveness standards. The pink pill — originally developed as an antidepressant — was ultimately approved with a bold warning that it should not be combined with alcohol, due to risks of fainting and dangerously low blood pressure. Most insurers refused to cover the drug, citing lackluster effectiveness, and many women balked at the $800-per-month price. Last year, Sprout slashed the price to $400. It was prescribed just 6,000 times last year, according to investment analyst data. UMass’s Johnson said drugs should not be the first choice for treating women’s sexual problems. Instead, she recommends counseling to help women “separate all the stresses of life” from their sex life. “But if that doesn’t work, having a medication that may help is worth trying,” she said.


U.N. report says at least 26 people were killed during 2018 Haiti slum gang massacre

Abstract: PORT-AU-PRINCE - A U.N. report has found at least 26 people were killed during a 2018 massacre in a Haiti slum, at which several members of the police and a government representative were allegedly present. Over two days, five armed gangs carried out planned attacks on residents in La Saline in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, according to the report, which was published Friday. The youngest victim of the violence was just 10 months old and the oldest 72 years, the document reported. It said two gang rapes took place and 12 people are still missing. Some 5,000 people live in the impoverished area under the threat of frequent violence, as gangs fight to control one of the largest markets of the city. “The testimonies recorded suggest that the number of victims of the attacks of 13 and 14 November 2018 could be higher,” said the report from the U.N. Mission in Haiti and the High Commission for Human Rights. Human rights organizations in the country have put the toll at 71 dead and counted 11 gang rapes. The report said victims and their relatives identified the presence of local official Richard Duplan and three police officers in La Saline during the violence. Witnesses said that as the armed gangs killed and carried out gang rapes on the afternoon of Nov. 13, Duplan had gone to the scene and told the attackers they had “killed too many people, this was not your mission.” The report also said victims identified at least two policemen, who had previously been investigated by the inspector-general, among the attackers. The U.N. criticized the inaction of the police during the violence, which lasted for more than 14 hours, adding that officers at La Saline police station could hear the cries of nearby residents. Police failings gave the gang members time to dispose of evidence, with bodies “mutilated, burned and left in a public dump to the mercy of animals,” the report said. It called on Haitian authorities to investigate the violence and alleged complicity of the police and state officials.


U.S. Supreme Court rules prosecutors need to prove violation of gun laws was deliberate

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court says prosecutors must prove that people charged with violating federal gun laws knew they were not allowed to have a weapon. The government says the decision could affect thousands of prosecutions of convicted criminals who are barred from having a firearm. The court ruled 7-2 Friday in the case of a foreign student from the United Arab Emirates who took target practice at a Florida shooting range, even though he had been dismissed from the Florida Institute of Technology and was in the United States illegally. He was prosecuted under a law that bars people who are in the country illegally from having guns. Prosecutors never proved that the student, Hamid Rehaif, knew he couldn’t have a gun, and lower courts ruled they didn’t have to. The same law is also an important tool to keep guns away from convicted criminals. There were more than 6,000 convictions under the law during the government’s 2017 fiscal year, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his majority opinion that the law at issue requires prosecutors to show both that the person had a gun and knew he shouldn’t. Otherwise, Breyer said, the law could ensnare someone “brought into the United States unlawfully as a small child and was therefore unaware of his unlawful status.” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a dissent that was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas that the decision “opens the gates to a flood of litigation that is sure to burden the lower courts.” The gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety had joined the Trump administration in urging the court to reject Rehaif’s arguments. “We are concerned today’s ruling will make it harder for law enforcement to impose accountability when people keep or acquire guns they’re legally barred from possessing, including due to felony and domestic violence convictions,” said Eric Tirschwell, Everytown’s litigation director. Rehaif was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Friday’s decision, though, may not be the last word in his case. Lower courts will take a new look at its details, including the school’s telling him his student visa would no longer be valid unless he transferred to another school. Prosecutors say Rehaif ignored the warning and instead spent months at a hotel in Melbourne, Florida, never re-enrolling in school.


German ministers urge crackdown on far-right crime

Abstract: BERLIN - German government ministers have called on Germans to stand up against far-right extremists. In remarks published Saturday in the German daily newspaper Bild, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said “looking away can be fatal — we must call out far-right terrorism by its name.” And Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said he wants to crack down harder on far-right crime. Their comments come after Walter Luebcke, a long-time member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, was found shot in the head at his home on June 2. Police arrested 45-year-old Stephan Ernst over the killing. Ernst has a string of convictions for far-right crime dating back to the late 1980s.

far-right
crime
angela merkel
germany
politics


U.S. Supreme Court tosses murder conviction of black man, Curtis Flowers, over racial bias

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Friday threw out the murder conviction and death sentence for a black man in Mississippi because of a prosecutor’s efforts to keep blacks off the jury. The defendant already has been tried six times and now could face a seventh trial. The removal of black prospective jurors deprived inmate Curtis Flowers of a fair trial, the court said in a 7-2 decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The long record of Flowers’ trials stretching back more than 20 years shows District Attorney Doug Evans’ “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals,” with the goal of an all-white jury, Kavanaugh wrote. In Flowers’ sixth trial, the jury was made up of 11 whites and one black. Prosecutor Evans struck five black prospective jurors. In the earlier trials, three convictions were tossed out, including one when the prosecutor improperly excluded blacks from the jury. In the second trial, the judge chided Evans for striking a juror based on race. Two other trials ended when jurors couldn’t reach unanimous verdicts. “The numbers speak loudly,” Kavanaugh said in a summary of his opinion that he read in the courtroom, noting that Evans had removed 41 of the 42 prospective black jurors over the six trials. “We cannot ignore that history.” In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas called Kavanaugh’s opinion “manifestly incorrect” and wrote that Flowers “presented no evidence whatsoever of purposeful race discrimination.” Justice Neil Gorsuch joined most of Thomas’ opinion. Thomas, the only black on the court, said the decision may have one redeeming quality: “The state is perfectly free to convict Curtis Flowers again.” Flowers has been in jail more than 22 years, since his arrest after four people were found shot to death in a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi, in July 1996. Flowers was arrested several months later, described by prosecutors as a disgruntled former employee who sought revenge against the store’s owner because she fired him and withheld most of his pay to cover the cost of merchandise he damaged. Nearly $300 was found missing after the killings. Defense lawyers have argued that witness statements and physical evidence against Flowers are too weak to convict him. A jailhouse informant who claimed Flowers had confessed to him recanted in recorded telephone conversations with American Public Media’s “In the Dark” podcast. A separate appeal is pending in state court questioning Flowers’ actual guilt, citing in part evidence that reporters for “In the Dark” detailed. “A seventh trial would be unprecedented, and completely unwarranted given both the flimsiness of the evidence against him and the long trail of misconduct that has kept him wrongfully incarcerated all these years. We hope that the state of Mississippi will finally disavow Doug Evans’ misconduct, decline to pursue yet another trial and set Mr. Flowers free,” Sheri Lynn Johnson, who represented Flowers at the Supreme Court, said in an emailed statement. Evans said he remained confident of Flowers guilt but hadn’t decided on retrial, according to American Public Media. However, he denied trying to exclude blacks from the jury. In the course of selecting a jury, lawyers can excuse a juror merely because of a suspicion that a particular person would vote against their client. Those are called peremptory strikes, and they have been the focus of the complaints about discrimination. The Supreme Court tried to stamp out discrimination in the composition of juries in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986. The court ruled then that jurors couldn’t be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors. Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had been the nation’s pre-eminent civil rights attorney, was part of the Batson case majority, but he said the only way to end discrimination in jury selection was to eliminate peremptory strikes. Flowers’ case has been to the high court before. In 2016, the justices ordered Mississippi’s top court to re-examine racial bias issues in Flowers’ case following a high court ruling in favor of a Georgia inmate because of a racially discriminatory jury. But the Mississippi justices divided 5-4 in upholding the verdict against Flowers. The state, defending the conviction, said the justices must narrow the focus from Evans’ broader record to the case at hand. But Kavanaugh said that even on the narrower basis, there is evidence that at least one prospective black juror for the sixth trial, Carolyn Wright, was similarly situated to white jurors and was improperly excused by Evans. “The trial court clearly erred in ruling that the state’s peremptory strike of Wright was not motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent,” Kavanaugh wrote.

courts
murder
curtis flowers
discrimination
ethnicity
u.s. supreme court


U.S. blacklists five Chinese groups involved in supercomputing work

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The United States is blacklisting five Chinese organizations involved in supercomputing with military-related applications, citing national security as justification for denying its Asian geopolitical rival access to critical U.S. technology. The move Friday by the U.S. Commerce Department could complicate talks in the coming week between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, aimed at de-escalating a trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies. The five blacklisted organizations placed on the so-called Entity List include supercomputer maker Sugon, which is heavily dependent on U.S. suppliers including chipmakers Intel, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. The other four are the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology and three Sugon affiliates. The Commerce Department called their activities “contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.” Sugon and the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute, which the U.S. said is owned by a Chinese army research institute, are involved in China’s push to develop next-generation “exascale” high-performance computing to assist with military modernization. The technology involved supports such military-related tasks as running nuclear simulations, calculating missile trajectories and hypersonic algorithms, said Paul Triolo, technology analyst with the global risk-assessing Eurasia Group. “This is all about the race to exascale computing, which China has designated as a major priority,” he said, adding that companies such as Sugon have received major government backing. Of particular concern to China hawks in the Trump administration, Triolo added, is Sugon’s move to develop a next-generation processor of its own. It licensed one generation of AMD technology as part of a 2016 joint venture in which a Sugon subsidiary has an ownership stake. An AMD spokesperson said the company was reviewing the order “to determine next steps related to our joint ventures.” In recent years, U.S. and Chinese companies have been alternating as leading producers of the world’s fastest supercomputers. Sugon had 63 of the top 500 in the most recent rankings. The blacklist effectively bars U.S. firms from selling technology to the Chinese organizations without government approval. Last month, the U.S. added telecommunications giant Huawei to it, heightening tensions with Beijing. This is not the first time the U.S. has placed on the Entity List a Chinese organization involved in supercomputer development with military uses. In 2015 it added China’s National University of Defense Technology to the list. “The U.S. is gradually squeezing off access to U.S. technology for major elements of China’s next-generation supercomputing,” said Triolo. The long-running campaign isn’t directly related to Trump’s trade war with China. Trump has imposed 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports and is preparing to target another $300 billion, extending the import taxes to virtually everything China ships to the United States. China has retaliated with tariffs on U.S. products. Talks to resolve the dispute broke off last month. But Trump and Xi are scheduled to meet at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka to get the negotiations back on track. “Adding more Chinese companies to the U.S. bad guys list may be seen as a way to ramp up the pressure on China,” said Amanda DeBusk, a partner at Dechert LLP and the former Commerce Department assistant secretary for export enforcement. “However, the Chinese may see this as ill-timed bullying. They cannot be seen as making concessions to the United States, so this may have the effect of hurting any chances for trade agreement.” The administration appeared to be sending mixed signals ahead of the summit. In what looked like a goodwill gesture to Beijing, Vice President Mike Pence postponed a speech planned for Monday at a Washington think tank at which he was expected to criticize China’s communist regime. Asia specialist Tami Overby, senior director at the McLarty Associates consultancy, said “it seems odd” that the Trump administration would delay Pence’s speech and then turn around and expand its tech blacklist.

wuxi jiangnan institute of computing technology


Trump faces new sexual assault allegation; he issues denial

Abstract: WASHINGTON - A New York-based advice columnist claims Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, according to a first-person account published Friday by New York magazine. Trump denied the allegations and said, “I’ve never met this person in my life.” The allegation against the U.S. president by E. Jean Carroll is included in her upcoming book about the “hideous men” that the Elle magazine columnist says she has encountered throughout her life. Carroll wrote that after what started as a friendly encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996, the real estate mogul pushed her up against a dressing room wall, unzipped his pants and forced himself on her. Carroll said that in a “colossal struggle,” she pushed him off and ran from the store. In his statement, Trump called the accusation “fake news” and said there was no evidence. “No pictures? No surveillance? No video? No reports? No sales attendants around?? I would like to thank Bergdorf Goodman for confirming they have no video footage of any such incident, because it never happened,” he said. The Trump Organization, which Trump still owns, did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, which has not independently verified Carroll’s account. Carroll did not immediately return a call for comment. During the 2016 presidential campaign, more than a dozen women accused Trump of sexual misconduct in earlier years. Trump has denied the allegations and said the women are lying. While those cases generally involved groping and kissing without consent, Carroll alleged forced penetration. Carroll, now 75, wrote in her book excerpt on the magazine’s website that Trump recognized her as “that advice lady” as he arrived at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue just as she was leaving. She said Trump invited her to help him buy a present for an unidentified “girl” and she agreed. Carroll said that after Trump suggested a purchase of lingerie or underwear, he grabbed a bodysuit and urged Carroll to try it on. After some joking around about which one of them should try it on, Trump led Carroll to a dressing room, where, she alleged, Trump pushed her against a wall, pulled down her tights and assaulted her in an episode that lasted under three minutes. Carroll said there were no attendants in the dressing room area and she did not file a report with the New York Police Department. She said she did, however, tell two journalist friends, one of whom urged her to contact the police while the other advised her to keep quiet, citing Trump’s access to lawyers. New York magazine said it confirmed the accounts of Carroll’s friends but it did not identify either individual by name. Trump was caught on tape in 2005 boasting of grabbing women by their genitals and kissing them without permission. When the tape became public weeks before the November 2016 general election, Trump said he never acted in any of the ways described on the tape, and described it as just “locker-room talk.” In March, a New York state appeals court ruled that Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s reality TV show “The Apprentice” who accused him of unwanted kissing and groping, can move forward with her defamation lawsuit against him. Trump isn’t the only prominent man on the list of men who Carroll alleges have assaulted her. She also claimed that Les Moonves, the former CEO of CBS, mauled her in the elevator of a Beverly Hills hotel after she interviewed him in 1997. Moonves was one of television’s most influential figures when he was ousted in September 2018 following allegations by women who said he subjected them to mistreatment, including forced oral sex, groping and retaliation if they resisted. Moonves told New York magazine that he “emphatically denies” the incident occurred. He did not respond to requests for comment.


Tories plot against no-deal Brexit as odds of Boris Johnson victory grow

Abstract: LONDON - In the coffee shops and bars of Britain’s Parliament, the political conversation has already turned to the question that will define the country’s immediate future: Can Boris Johnson be stopped from pursuing a no-deal Brexit? The options under discussion for Conservative politicians who want to avoid a no-deal split from the European Union are dramatic. They include quitting the party and mounting a rebellion to bring down the government. The contest to succeed Theresa May as prime minister has seen a hardening of rhetoric around leaving the European Union. Johnson, the front-runner, and his rival to be prime minister, Jeremy Hunt, argue that only by threatening to leave the EU without an agreement can Britain get a good deal. The fear among some members of Parliament is that Johnson, in particular, will find himself boxed into a corner where he has to carry out his threat. That’s why politicians who oppose a no-deal Brexit, from the cabinet down, are bracing themselves for battle. There has been talk of a vote of no-confidence in the government, with the idea floated even of doing it as soon as Johnson takes office in late July. This is a “nuclear option” that could destroy Johnson’s administration as soon as it is formed, leading to a general election. Any Conservative MP supporting a no-confidence vote would be expelled from the party and forbidden from standing as a Tory candidate, effectively ending their careers. Yet one veteran Conservative observed privately that he was ready to do it if necessary to avoid the economic disaster of a no-deal Brexit. Most no-deal opponents argue that such a radical move would not be necessary. Instead, they plan to seize control of the Parliamentary agenda, putting them in charge of the draft laws and motions that are debated and voted on — matters that the government of the day usually decides. There’s no formal mechanism for this to happen, but officials point to the Standing Order 24 in the parliamentary rule book, which lets the opposition force an emergency debate. Parliamentary officials expect Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow to allow this rule to be used in an unprecedented way to set aside a whole day for debate. That day would give Johnson’s opponents a chance to pass a law blocking a no-deal Brexit. Supporters of this plan are confident it would work. Rory Stewart, who ran for the party leadership but was knocked out, told journalists that “nearly 100 of my colleagues” would vote to prevent a move to leave the EU without a deal. That’s a big increase on the nine Conservatives who voted to block a no-deal Brexit in March. But even if it’s an exaggeration, there are good reasons to think that more Tories will be willing to rebel against the government to stop a no-deal exit under Johnson. He is such a divisive figure that some MPs could leave the party if Johnson wins and sit as independent MPs. Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve has said he will. In the final stages of voting for leadership candidates, two Tories spoiled their ballots, suggesting they found all the remaining options unacceptable. Whoever is the next prime minister will find he makes enemies as quickly as he makes friends. The suggestion that some Johnson supporters voted for Hunt in order to put his long-term rival Michael Gove out of the race has created resentment in parts of the Tory party. And there are likely to be MPs supporting Johnson in hope of getting government jobs who find themselves disappointed. The biggest group in the way of Johnson’s plan to leave the EU without a deal are the ministers he fires when he takes power. They would feel liberated to vote as they liked. Along with Stewart, other ministers who vocally oppose no-deal are May’s de facto deputy, David Lidington, Philip Hammond, the finance minister, and Justice Secretary David Gauke. If Johnson is defeated on a vote about no-deal, he will face another choice: Back down and see his credibility further eroded, or call an election — and risk being thrown out of office only weeks after taking the job.


Police called to PM hopeful Boris Johnson's home after 'row,' reports say

Abstract: LONDON - Police were called to the home of British leadership candidate Boris Johnson and his partner after reports of a heated fight just hours after he was named one of the final two in the race to become prime minister. The Guardian daily reported that officers were alerted after a neighbor said there had been a loud altercation involving screaming, shouting and banging at the south London property. The paper said Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds, could be heard telling the former London mayor to “get off me” and “get out of my flat.” London’s Metropolitan Police said it responded to a call from a local resident at 12:24 a.m. on Friday. A police spokesman said: “The caller was concerned for the welfare of a female neighbor. Police attended and spoke to all occupants of the address, who were all safe and well. There were no offenses or concerns apparent to the officers, and there was no cause for police action.” The neighbor, who recorded the altercation from home, told the Guardian: “I (was) hoping that someone would answer the door and say, ‘We’re OK.’ I knocked three times and no one came to the door.” It was also reported that the neighbor heard “a couple of very loud screams” and a “loud bang” that shook the house. Johnson on Saturday was to kick off a monthlong nationwide tour in his bid to win over grassroots Conservatives to become prime minister. After five rounds of secret voting by MPs in the governing Conservative Party, Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are the two final contenders out of an original field of 13 hopefuls. As runaway favorite in the race to become PM, Johnson will now be hoping to avoid making any major blunders on the campaign trail, while Hunt will need to pull off a huge upset if he is to win. Whoever takes the Tory party leadership in the week beginning July 22 — and therefore becomes prime minister — will then face the looming Brexit deadline of Oct. 31. The battle is likely to feature pledges from both contenders to get Britain out of the European Union safely and in one piece, succeeding where outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May repeatedly failed. But the race might ultimately turn into a popularity contest between Johnson — pugnacious but affable with a tendency for gaffes — and the more diplomatic and low-key Hunt.

boris johnson
jeremy hunt
brexit
eu
u.k .
domestic violence


NATO aims to make space a new frontier in defense

Abstract: BRUSSELS - NATO aims to recognize space as a domain of warfare this year, four senior diplomats said, partly to show U.S. President Donald Trump that the alliance is relevant and adapting to new threats after he signed off on the creation of a U.S. Space Force. The decision, set to be taken at a Dec. 3-4 leaders summit in London that Trump is due to attend, would formally acknowledge that battles can be waged not only on land, in the air, at sea and on computer networks, but also in space. “There’s agreement that we should make space a domain and the London summit is the best place to make it official,” said one senior NATO diplomat involved in the discussions, although cautioning that technical policy work was still under way. NATO diplomats deny the alliance would be on a war footing in space, but say declaring it a domain would begin a debate over whether NATO should eventually use space weapons that can shut down enemy missiles and air defenses or destroy satellites. The decision to declare space a new frontier for defense may help convince Trump that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization can be a useful ally in deterring China’s rise as a rival military power, the diplomats said. While NATO countries today own 65 percent of satellites in space, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking missiles and armed forces on the ground. China is developing weapons it could use in orbit and became the first country to land on the far side of the moon last year. Russia, once a strategic partner for NATO but now viewed by many allies as a hostile power, is also a force in space and is one of the few countries able to launch satellites into orbit. “You can have warfare exclusively in space, but whoever controls space also controls what happens on land, on the sea and in the air,” said Jamie Shea, a former NATO official and now an analyst at Friends of Europe think tank in Brussels. “If you don’t control space, you don’t control the other domains either.” NATO defense ministers are expected to agree to a broad space policy in the coming week at a regular meeting in Brussels, although there will be no decision yet to declare space an operational domain of defense. A second diplomat said that while the decision was weighty and had real consequences, it would likely be “a gift to Trump.” Trump, who used NATO’s last summit in July last year to harangue European allies over defense spending and accused Germany of being a prisoner of Russian energy, signed a plan in February to start creating the U.S. Space Force. Even though the London gathering is some six months away, European allies are already nervous about whether Trump will use the meeting to again question the value of the alliance, of which he is the de-facto head. The U.S. military is increasingly dependent on satellites to determine what it does on the ground, guiding munitions with space-based lasers and satellites as well as using such assets to monitor for missile launches and track its forces. No longer forced to simply circle the earth’s orbit, satellites can now be maneuvered in space to spy on other space assets. India launched an anti-satellite missile test in March. Italy, Britain and France are Europe’s main space powers, while Germany is drafting new laws and seeking private investment to secure a slice of an emerging space market that could be worth $1 trillion a year by the 2040s. France wants more assurances of how its space assets would be used in the event of a crisis. In other areas of warfare, national assets belonging to NATO allies are put under the command of the supreme allied commander during a conflict. Most sensitive of all would be deciding if an attack on a allied satellite constituted an assault on the alliance and whether to trigger NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause. Similar to a decision to make cyber a domain of warfare in 2016, NATO’s decision would initially mean increased military planning, a review of NATO vulnerabilities and scrutiny of how to better protect commercial satellites used by the military.


Trump orders roundup of 2,000 families who have received deportation orders

Abstract: WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered border agents to begin a mass roundup as early as Sunday of some 2,000 migrant families that have received deportation orders, U.S. media reported Friday. The news follows the president’s announcement on Twitter Monday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials would begin deporting “millions of illegal aliens,” although he gave little detail. The tweet sped up operations that were already underway, according to unnamed sources cited by the Washington Post, NBC and CNN. The family roundup is likely begin with pre-dawn raids in up to 10 cities including Houston, Chicago, New York and Miami. Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, is hesitant about parts of the operation, CNN reported. He has been urging ICE to mainly focus on some 150 families that had attorneys but have dropped out of the legal process and vanished, the Post reported. The U.S. is facing a surge in migrants from several Central American countries plagued by gang violence and poverty. The numbers have hampered U.S. authorities’ abilities to temporarily shelter and process arrivals. Trump has called it “an invasion,” and has made the fight against illegal migration a central plank of his administration. An estimated 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants are living in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. Migrant apprehensions have soared to 144,000, including 57,000 minors, in May — the highest number in 13 years. Congress has authorized ICE to detain 40,000 migrants, and many others are sent to other overcrowded facilities across the nation. In 2017 the Trump administration imposed a “zero tolerance” regime on the U.S. border with Mexico, which resulted in hundreds of families being split up.


Huawei files lawsuit against U.S. Commerce Department over equipment seized in Alaska

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Huawei Technologies Co. filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday challenging whether telecommunications equipment it sent from China to the United States, and then back to China, is covered by Export Administration Regulations, according to a court filing. The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a battle between the U.S. government and Huawei. Washington says the Chinese company’s telecommunications gear could be used by Beijing to spy. Huawei denies that is the case. In the lawsuit, Huawei said that it shipped telecommunications equipment from China, including a computer server and Ethernet switch, to a testing laboratory in California. After the testing was done, the equipment was shipped back to China. No application for a license was made because none was needed, the lawsuit claims. But the equipment was seized in Alaska by the U.S. government, and no decision has been made about whether a license is required to ship it, the filing said. “The equipment, to the best of HT USA’s knowledge, remains in a bureaucratic limbo in an Alaskan warehouse,” Huawei said in its lawsuit. The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Huawei contends that the equipment did not require a license because it did not fall into a controlled category and because it was made outside the United States and was being returned to the same country from which it came. Huawei asked for the equipment to be either released for shipment or for the Commerce Department to decide that it was shipped illegally. In May, the Trump administration added Huawei to the entity list, barring it from buying needed U.S. parts and components without U.S. government approval. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the government could resolve complaints about Huawei as part of a trade deal. Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the company’s founder, has been detained in Canada since December on a U.S. warrant. She is fighting extradition on charges that she misled global banks about Huawei’s relationship with a company operating in Iran. Shortly after her detention, Chinese authorities detained two Canadians citizens, charging them with espionage.


Stonehenge solstices go live worldwide

Abstract: LONDON - People around the world can now view the movement of the sun and stars over the ancient stone circle at Britain’s Stonehenge through a livestream launched on Friday, the summer solstice. The solstice marks the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and has been celebrated for millennia at Stonehenge, a still-mysterious site built more than 4,500 years ago and apparently designed to align with movements of the sun. Thousands gather on June 21 every year to see the sun rise directly behind the largest stone at the World Heritage site in southwest England and its first rays shine into the heart of circle. The livestream was devised by scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock together with English Heritage, the charity that manages Stonehenge, to give more people access to the sight. “We live in quite large cities sometimes with tall buildings so we don’t see so much of the sky, and at nighttime there is lots of light pollution, so we are losing that access,” said Aderin-Pocock. “We don’t often just step out and look at the night sky — and with a monument like Stonehenge, that is just what our ancestors were doing.” In the daytime the camera shows live photographs taken at the site, while at night it uses detailed computer generated images showing the exact position of the moon and stars to avoid the view being obscured by clouds. “Stonehenge was built to align with the sun, and to Neolithic people, the skies were arguably as important as the surrounding landscape,” said Susan Greaney, a senior historian at English Heritage. “Stonehenge’s connection with the skies is a crucial part of understanding the monument today and we are really excited to share this view online with people all over the world.”

stonehenge
religion
internet
history
u.k .
social media
astronomy
tradition
anniversaries


Last-minute reversal on Iran strike showcases Trump's confusion

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Sebastian Smith and Jerome Cartillier Donald Trump wants to be warlike and he wants to avoid war — and late Thursday, with U.S. bombers poised to unleash explosive fury on Iran, those contradictory impulses came to a head. The surprise revelation that Trump ordered the bombing of Iran in retaliation for downing a U.S. drone, only to pull back at the last minute, encapsulates the paradox at the heart of the White House foreign policy over the past two years. “He has two instincts. One is caution, believing that endless, repeated wars have been too costly for the United States,” said Rob Malley, a former advisor to President Barack Obama who heads the International Crisis Group. “The other instinct is to look like someone strong, who can’t be pushed around.” Many days, Trump resembles a geopolitical John Wayne, a swaggering global sheriff out to duel with rivals like China and old allies alike. And even if the 45th president famously managed to avoid serving in his generation’s big war, Vietnam, he revels in his role as commander-in-chief. He rarely seems happier than when boasting about the billions of dollars spent on “rebuilding” the military or talking lovingly about the latest, deadliest weapon system. But Thursday evening in Washington, with U.S. forces on the verge of striking three sites in Iran, that hawkish version of Trump suddenly transformed into Trump the dove. “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,” Trump wrote in a tweet Friday morning. Gung-ho bragging about “cocked & loaded” on one hand, and a peace-loving decision to avoid 150 deaths in retaliation for losing an unmanned aircraft on the other. Even in a brief statement replete with his customary grammar and spelling errors, Trump summarized perfectly the hesitation afflicting the world’s most powerful office. Whether this adds up to strategy or dysfunction has been an open question since Trump, who had no foreign experience beyond his business deals, became president. In one way, Trump has been consistent. Often going against mainstream political currents and even his own intelligence and military leaders, he has pushed for U.S. withdrawal from battlefields he says most Americans have trouble finding on the map. “Look, I said I want to get out of these endless wars, I campaigned on that, I want to get out,” he told reporters on Thursday. But at the same time, Trump installed John Bolton, a veteran cheerleader for the Iraq invasion and a hard-liner on Iran, as his national security advisor. And even as he advocates winding down involvement in the Afghan, Iraqi and Syrian military quagmires, Trump has ramped up tension with Iran by wrecking an international agreement meant to reward the longtime U.S. foe for allowing controls over its nuclear industry. According to Trump, the Obama-era exercise in diplomacy was pure weakness. Malley says Trump actually does have a strategy for Iran as well as another longtime adversary: North Korea. First he brings massive pressure, including “the threat of economic suffocation,” and then he says “if you are ready to accept our conditions, the door is open to an extraordinary relationship.” The problem, Malley says, is that when the strong-arm approach fails, both sides find themselves cornered. “Then he has the dilemma he doesn’t like: Go to war or retreat?” Robert Guttman, who teaches at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies, says the flaw in Trump’s thinking is simpler — and deeper. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Guttman said. “He talks big, he’s a bully, but he hasn’t any experience in foreign policy. He’s saying, ‘I’m a tough guy but don’t test me.’ “