Researchers discover Japan's oldest known rock, dating back 2.5 billion years

Abstract: HIROSHIMA - Japanese researchers said Monday they have found the country’s oldest known rock, dating back 2.5 billion years, in Shimane Prefecture — around 500 million years earlier than the previous oldest discovery. A team from Hiroshima University collected fragments of the rock, which is located near a forest road in the town of Tsuwano. The granite-gneiss metamorphic rock, formed by intense heat, has a striped appearance. The team estimated the age of the rock by analyzing the isotopic ratios of uranium and lead it contains. Many rocks of the same age exist in North Korea and northeastern China, and analysis of the latest specimen is likely to provide insight into the formation of the Japanese archipelago, which was originally connected to the Asian continent. “We will study the chemical composition of the rock and clarify from which part of the continent it came,” said Yasutaka Hayasaka, an associate professor at Hiroshima University. The previous oldest rock in Japan, which consists of 2 billion-year-old gneiss, was found in Hichiso, Gifu Prefecture, in 1970.

hiroshima university
tsuwano
yasutaka hayasaka
history
geology


Justice Ministry to accept online Japan visa renewals from July, but only by employers and agents

Abstract: The Justice Ministry announced Tuesday that it will introduce an online application system for visa renewals from July 25 in a bid to simplify visa-related procedures. The online application system, which will only be available for use by agents or officials from organizations where foreign residents work, not the visa-holders themselves, can be used to apply for permission to extend foreign residents’ period of stay. It can also be used to obtain a re-entry permit to simplify immigration procedures for foreign nationals who temporarily leave the country. The online service can also be used to apply for permission to engage in activities other than those permitted under the previously granted visa status. Such an application needs to be submitted along with the application for permission to extend the period of stay. The system can be used free of charge and around the clock. The announcement comes as Japan is trying to attract more foreign workers to cope with an acute labor shortage due to its aging population. The ministry will start by accepting online applications for visa renewals for employees including highly skilled professionals, university professors, researchers and interns working under the government-sponsored technical trainee program. However, diplomats, short-term visitors and those under the new visas that will be introduced on April 1 are not eligible to apply for their residence permit online. The ministry said it would grant permission to use the system to employers or affiliates that accept foreign nationals on condition that they have not been punished for violating immigration or labor laws within the past five years. Such firms and organizations are also required to prove they have accepted foreign nationals in compliance with the country’s laws and regulations over the past three years. Starting Friday the ministry will begin accepting registration requests from those who plan to use the system. Applicants are also required to submit a list of foreign nationals in the organization applying for permits. The ministry hopes the system will help simplify visa application procedures as the applicants will not be required to visit immigration bureaus to submit related forms and in some cases can receive residence cards in the mail.

justice ministry
immigration
foreign workers
expats
foreign trainees


Japan to partially lift evacuation order for one of towns hosting Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant

Abstract: Japan will for the first time next month partially lift an evacuation order for one of the two towns where the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is located, officials said Tuesday. The government plans to lift the order for part of the town of Okuma on April 10, Cabinet Office official Yohei Ogino said. It will be the first time the government has lifted an evacuation order within the towns — Okuma and Futaba — that host the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Okuma Mayor Toshitsuna Watanabe described the decision as a “very welcome move,” a town official said. “We will be able to take the first step forward (toward reconstruction) eight years later,” the official quoted Watanabe as saying. In March 2011, a massive tsunami caused by an earthquake slammed into Japan — killing at least 15,897 and leaving more than 2,500 unaccounted for — setting off the worst nuclear accident in a generation. The government has lifted evacuation orders across much of the region affected by the meltdown, allowing residents to return, as Tokyo has pursued an aggressive decontamination program involving removing radioactive topsoil and cleaning affected areas. But not everyone has been convinced, with a poll conducted in February by the Asahi Shimbun and Fukushima local broadcaster KFB finding that 60 percent of Fukushima Prefecture residents still felt anxious about radiation. No one is officially recorded as having died as a direct result of the radiation from the accident, but last year the government for the first time acknowledged the death from cancer of a man involved in the cleanup. More than 3,700 people — most of them from Fukushima — have died from illness or suicide linked to the aftermath of the tragedy, according to government data. The evacuation order will remain in place for so-called difficult-to-return zones still registering high radiation levels. As of the end of February, only 374 people were registered as residents of the difficult-to-return zones. “People have the freedom to go back if they want to, but personally I am against living in areas where there are no children and no places to work,” said a 72-year-old man, who has relocated to the nearby city of Iwaki. “We don’t know what’s going to happen when they remove (nuclear) debris” at the crippled plant, he added. Meanwhile on Tuesday, the Matsuyama District Court ordered the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. to pay a combined ¥27 million ($245,300) in damages to more than 20 people who fled from their hometowns due to the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The ruling marked the 10th straight loss for Tepco among about 30 similar damages suits filed across Japan against the government and the utility. The district court awarded payments to 23 of the 25 plaintiffs, who had sought a total of ¥137.5 million in damages. In the wake of the nuclear disaster, they evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture to Ehime Prefecture, where the court is located. The plaintiffs, age 1 to 64, claimed the government and the power company had failed to take proper steps to prevent the nuclear plant from being destroyed even though they were capable of foreseeing a potential disaster by 2006 based on official assessments of major earthquake and tsunami dangers. They said the compensation they had received from the utility is not enough given that the nuclear crisis has separated families and destroyed community ties. They each demanded ¥5.5 million for their psychological suffering and financial losses, including costs for moving. As of the end of February, around 52,000 people remain displaced because of evacuation orders or because they are unwilling to return, according to Japan’s Reconstruction Agency.

fukushima
fukushima no . 1
okuma
radiation
tepco
nuclear energy
3.11


Emperor visits tomb of predecessor Jimmu, Japan's legendary first leader, before abdication

Abstract: KASHIHARA, NARA PREF. - Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on Tuesday visited the mausoleum of Japan’s legendary first leader Emperor Jimmu in Nara Prefecture to pay respects before his abdication on April 30. The visit to the ancient grave dedicated to the first emperor, who is said to have acceded to the throne in 660 B.C., is one of 11 ceremonies and rites that started on March 12 in the run-up to the abdication. Dressed in a morning suit, the 85-year-old Emperor walked up to the tomb to place a sacred tree branch and bowed deeply. Emperor Akihito will also travel to the ancient Grand Shrines of Ise in Mie Prefecture on April 18 and the Tokyo mausoleum of his father Emperor Showa on April 23 for the same purpose. The succession events involving the Emperor will end with a ceremony marking his relinquishment of the throne at the end of next month. Emperor Akihito will become the first living monarch to step down in about 200 years and will be succeeded by his elder son, Crown Prince Naruhito, 59. The Emperor expressed his desire to abdicate in a rare video message in August 2016, citing concern that he might not be able to fulfill official duties due to his advanced age.

abdication
nara
emperor akihito
emperor jimmu
history
imperial family


Google fined $1.7 billion for blocking rival online search advertisers, in third EU sanction

Abstract: BRUSSELS - Google was fined €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) on Wednesday for blocking rival online search advertisers, in the third large European Union antitrust penalty for the Alphabet business in two only years. The European Commission, which said the fine accounted for 1.29 percent of Google’s turnover in 2018, said in a statement that the anti-competitive practices had lasted a decade. “Google has cemented its dominance in online search adverts and shielded itself from competitive pressure by imposing anti-competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. The case concerned websites, such as those of newspapers or travel organizations, with search functions that produce search results and search-related adverts. Google’s AdSense for Search provided the search-related adverts. The misconduct included stopping publishers from placing any search-related adverts from Google’s search competitors on the publishers’ search results pages, forcing them to reserve the most profitable space on their search results pages for Google’s own adverts, as well as a requirement to seek written approval from Google before making changes to the way in which any adverts from Google’s rivals were displayed. The AdSense advertising case was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft in 2010. Both companies subsequently dropped complaints against each other in 2016. Last year, Vestager imposed a record €4.34 billion fine on Google for using its popular Android mobile operating system to block its rivals. This followed a €2.42 billion fine in June 2017 for hindering rival shopping comparison websites. Google is now trying to comply with the order to ensure a level playing field, with proposals to boost price comparison competition and prompt Android users to choose their preferred browsers and search apps. Critics however are still not happy.

google
fines
european union
antitrust
alphabet
european commission


Toyota to build new hybrid cars for Suzuki in U.K., despite Brexit

Abstract: LONDON - Toyota on Wednesday said it will build a new hybrid car in the U.K. for Japanese peer Suzuki — a welcome boost for the country’s auto sector which has been hit by Brexit uncertainty. “Seeking to produce additional volume for other customers is one example of all the efforts we are making to keep our U.K. manufacturing operations as competitive as they can be” in the face of Brexit, said Toyota’s head of U.K. operations, Marvin Cooke. Toyota expects production to start in late 2020 at its Welsh plant in Deeside and its factory in Burnaston, central England. Just two weeks ago Toyota Europe’s CEO warned the firm could end production in the U.K. by 2023 should the country exit the European Union without a deal. Cooke repeated Toyota concerns in Wednesday’s statement: “We have consistently said for the medium to longer term, continued free and frictionless trade and common automotive technical standards will be essential to support the international competitiveness of the U.K. automotive sector.” But he added that Wednesday’s announcement by the Japanese car giant, which employs more than 3,200 people across its two plants in the U.K., “demonstrates Toyota’s trust” in the local workforce. Toyota said it would supply hybrid electric vehicles to Suzuki based on the Toyota Corolla Wagon. The announcement builds on a memorandum of understanding between the pair in 2017 to work closely together on projects, while maintaining their independence and competitiveness. “Toyota and Suzuki, in addition to bringing together Toyota’s strength in electrification technologies and Suzuki’s strength in technologies for compact vehicles, intend to grow in new fields, such as joint collaboration in production and in the widespread popularization of electrified vehicles,” the two companies said in a joint statement. The news is in contrast to Japanese rival Nissan, which recently said it would stop production of Infiniti cars at its factory in Sunderland, northeast England, and cancel the plant’s plans for the X-Trail SUV. Japanese peer Honda has also curbed investment in Britain, and plans to close its U.K. car plant in southwest England in 2022 with 3,500 job losses. In case of a no-deal Brexit, the U.K. government last week said carmakers based in the country that are reliant on EU supply chains would not face tariffs for imported vehicle parts. However, the U.K. car industry body, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, responded that a “no-deal” would spark disruption and job losses in a sector already plagued by collapsing demand for high-polluting diesel vehicles. London has asked EU leaders to delay Brexit until June 30, Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament on Wednesday, the eve of an EU summit in Brussels. The U.K. had been scheduled to depart on March 29 but Parliament twice rejected a divorce deal agreed between May’s Conservative government and Brussels.

toyota
hybrid cars
suzuki
brexit
eu
corolla
jobs
u.k .


Trump dampens hopes and stocks, says China tariffs may remain for 'substantial period'

Abstract: WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports could remain in place for a “substantial period,” dampening hopes that a new trade agreement would see them lifted soon. Top American trade negotiators are due to travel to Beijing next week for a fresh round of talks. And U.S. officials said this month they were in the final stages of negotiations on resolving the eight-month trade war with China but neither country has predicted a successful outcome. Washington and Beijing are battling over the final shape of an agreement that both sides have said they would like to reach, with American officials demanding profound changes to Chinese industrial policy. “We are talking about leaving them for a substantial period of time,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We have to make sure that if we do the deal with China, that China lives by the deal.” Trump also said the trade talks were “coming along nicely.” But American officials have insisted that any agreement have teeth — including the ability to impose tariffs unilaterally should China begin backsliding on any commitments to end alleged unfair trade practices. Over the last eight months, the United States and China have slapped tariffs on more than $360 billion in two-way goods trade, weighing on the manufacturing sectors in both countries. On Friday, China’s rubber-stamp parliament approved a foreign investment law to strengthen protections for intellectual property — a central U.S. grievance — but critics said the bill was rammed through without sufficient time for input from businesses. China has expressed willingness to increase purchases of American commodities such as energy and soybeans but analysts say they will be reluctant to accede to American demands that could weaken the communist party’s hold on power — such as fully exposing state enterprises to market forces. Trump initially said he expected to seal any final bargain at a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month but that expectation has faded as momentum in the talks has slowed. Despite Trump’s trade wars, the U.S. trade deficit with China last year hit a fresh all-time record, as avid U.S. consumers drew in foreign-made goods while weakened U.S. sales of agricultural commodities weighed on American exports. Wall Street shuddered at the news, with the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.7 percent on the day toward 1730 GMT, with markets also heavily focused on the outcome of the latest policy meeting of the Federal Reserve.

stocks
china
tariffs
donald trump
trade war
xi jinping


Mexico president talks U.S. investment to stem migrant flow with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner

Abstract: MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday that talks with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner have led to advances toward an agreement that would have the U.S. government guarantee some $10 billion in development investments for Mexico and Central America. The previously discussed investments would aim to reduce immigration from Mexico and Central America by providing more opportunities in those countries. Roughly half of the sum would go to Mexico, while the remainder would be divided among Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, Lopez Obrador said. “That is investment to create jobs so that the people don’t have the need to abandon their communities, their families, their regions, their customs, their culture,” he said. “That is the dream that we want to convert into a reality.” He said they were nearing an agreement and that he would consider traveling to the U.S. if there is a solid accord to sign. Mexico has been under pressure from the U.S. to address the flow of Central American immigrants through the country. Several migrant caravans have drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump. Mexico has stepped up its offering of visas that would allow Central Americans to stay and work in Mexico and also agreed to a U.S. program that forces some who seek asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed. Some have criticized Mexico for efforts to slow the migration flow to the U.S. even while Trump continues to demand funding to extend a barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. Lopez Obrador, a leftist, had campaigned on the idea of improving economic and security conditions in Mexico sufficiently so that Mexicans would not have to migrate. “We have the conviction that with the programs that are being implemented in our country there is going to be zero migration of Mexicans,” he said Wednesday. “Mexicans aren’t going to need to go to work in the United States because there is going to be work.” Lopez Obrador and Trump’s son-in-law dined Tuesday in the Mexico City home of Bernardo Gomez, co-executive president of Grupo Televisa. Lopez Obrador said there is a “very good relationship with the U.S. government.” The civil relationship between Lopez Obrador and Trump has surprised some who expected the two strong personalities to clash. Lopez Obrador’s predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, was harshly criticized for not standing up more strongly to Trump’s verbal attacks on Mexico and one of his final acts as president was giving Kushner the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest honor the country gives to foreigners. But Lopez Obrador has been careful to maintain a relationship of “mutual respect” and members of his Cabinet were involved in the renegotiation of the free trade agreement before he had even taken office. The Mexican leader said he and Kushner also discussed the pending ratification of the new trade agreement, dubbed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and John Creamer, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy, also attended the dinner.

mexico
migrants
jared kushner
andres manuel lopez obrador
jobs
donald trump
u.s .


U.S. Supreme Court questions whether settled class-action privacy case against Google should have been brought

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed a lower court to review a lawsuit that involved Google and privacy concerns, and which ended in a class-action settlement. The high court said in an unsigned opinion that a lower court should address whether those who sued had the right to do so. The Google users who sued argued that the search engine sends website operators potentially identifying information when someone clicks on a link produced by a search. They said the practice violates users’ privacy under federal law. Google eventually agreed to include certain disclosures about its practices on three webpages and settle the class action for $8.5 million. Of that amount, $2.1 million went to lawyers, $1 million paid administrative costs and $5.3 million was set aside for six organizations that deal with internet privacy issues. The individuals who initially sued received $5,000 each, but the millions of Google users they represented received nothing. If all 129 million people had been paid, they would have received 4 cents each. The justices had taken the case because it raised issues of fairness in the rare instances in which courts approve a “cy-pres” settlement, and find it to be impractical to distribute money to the very large class of affected people. But the court’s opinion Wednesday didn’t deal with that issue. The justices said a lower court needed to address whether the individuals who sued were entitled to do so. The justices said a federal trial court or the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should resolve that issue.

privacy
google
class action
u.s. supreme court


Facebook agrees to overhaul its ad system to settle U.S. discrimination suits

Abstract: BANGALORE, INDIA - Facebook has agreed to change its paid advertising platform as part of a wide-ranging settlement to prevent discriminatory and “harmful” practices, the company and U.S. civil rights groups said on Tuesday. Under the agreement, Facebook will create a new advertising portal for ads linked to housing, employment and credit ads that will limit targeting options for those ads across all of its services, including Instagram and Messenger, the rights groups said in a joint statement. Advertisers on the portal, which will be separate from the system used to advertise other sets of services, will not be able to target ads by age, gender, cultural affinity or zip code, the statement said. They will also be required to use a minimum geographic radius for location-based targeting to prevent the exclusion of certain communities. In addition, the company pledged to build a tool allowing users to search all current housing ads listed in the United States, regardless of whether the ads were directed at them. “There is a long history of discrimination in the areas of housing, employment and credit, and this harmful behavior should not happen through Facebook ads,” Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a separate statement. Facebook, the world’s largest social network with 2.7 billion users and nearly $56 billion in annual revenue, has been on the defensive over its advertising practices, while also fending off privacy scandals and disclosures that Russia used its platform to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Complaints over ads-based discrimination have dogged the company since 2016, when news organization ProPublica reported that advertisers could target ads on Facebook based on people’s self-reported jobs, even if the job was “Jew hater.” ProPublica later reported that it was able to buy discriminatory housing ads and slip them past Facebook’s review process, despite the company’s claims it was blocking such ads. Since then, Facebook has faced sustained legal pressure over the issue from the National Fair Housing Alliance, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Communications Workers of America, among other groups and individuals. In five separate lawsuits, the groups alleged the company’s audience selection tools enabled advertisers to exclude specific demographics from seeing job postings and other opportunities. Facebook’s settings “allowed advertisers to create ads that excluded people of color or families with children,” said Sandra Tamez, head of the Fair Housing Council of Greater San Antonio, which was part of Tuesday’s settlement. Under U.S. law, including the federal Fair Housing Act, it is illegal to publish certain types of ads if they indicate a preference based on race, religion, sex or other specified classifications. Facebook last year reached a similar settlement with Washington state to end discriminatory ad targeting. It said at the time that it had already removed thousands of categories of potentially sensitive personal attributes from its exclusion ad targeting tools. Wit the new settlement, Facebook has committed to creating its ads portal by Sept. 30 and to implementing other changes by the end of the year.

facebook
discrimination
advertising
internet
computers
social media


Finland tops global happiness index for second year, while Japan slips to 58th place

Abstract: HELSINKI/NEW YORK - Finland has topped an index of the happiest nations for the second consecutive year, with researchers saying the small Nordic country of 5.5 million has succeeded in generating a happiness recipe for a balanced life not simply dependent on economic and material wealth. The World Happiness Report , produced by the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens see themselves to be. It’s based on factors including economic wealth, life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices and levels of government corruption. Published Wednesday, the index showed that other Nordic countries also did well again this year, with Denmark, Norway and Iceland taking the next spots. The remaining top ten nations were The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Austria. Japan sank to 58th place, just one notch above Honduras — a Central American country battered by gang violence and poverty. South Korea was placed 54th, the position held in previous rankings by Japan. The United States dropped from the 18th to 19th place despite enjoying a booming economy in the past few years, while China ranked 93rd. The 134-page report noted that, in general, happiness levels have decreased worldwide despite continued economic growth. That’s partly explained by “dramatic falls” in happiness in population dense countries like the United States, Egypt and India, it said. “The worldwide tendency of a considerable decline in average happiness, despite the general growth in GDP per capita, is proof that measuring happiness and life satisfaction in terms of economic wealth alone is not at all sufficient,” said Meik Wiking, CEO of think tank The Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, who took part in the report. Wiking believes the erosion of happiness in the United States can be blamed on a “social crisis” where many Americans are increasingly feeling that they cannot trust their fellow citizens and feel “they have no one to count on in times of need.” “The divide between rich and poor also creates an erosion of the cohesion and trust between people, which is so vital for the feeling of safety and security and therefore for the overall happiness level of the American people,” Wiking said. “By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever,” wrote Professor Jean M. Twenge from San Diego State University, referring to low U.S. unemployment and violent crime rates, improved living standards and income level. She suggested that one factor in the trends observed could be the substantially increased time Americans are spending on electronic devices and social media — habits that have led to low in-person social interaction and decreased sleeping time, among other things. The report noted that happiness has declined the most drastically in the past ten years in the 108th placed Venezuela, a South American nation currently in economic turmoil with a severe political crisis. Out of the bottom ten countries in the index, six are African nations. South Sudan is the least happy country, followed by Central African Republic and Afghanistan. The report was compiled by prominent economists John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey D. Sachs.

finland
venezuela
south sudan
u.n .
happiness rankings


Poll: More Americans want immigration to stay the same or welcome more newcomers

Abstract: SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA - A growing number of Americans say immigration levels should remain the same or increase, according to a major U.S. survey, a shift that comes as the Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement. At the same time, the latest data from the General Social Survey — a widely respected poll that has measured trends on American attitudes since the 1970s — shows a growing partisan divide on the topic over the past decade. The 2018 survey was released this week and shows 34 percent of Americans want immigration levels to be reduced, down from 41 percent in 2016, according to an analysis by The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and GSS staff. That’s compared with 23 percent of Americans who want more immigration, up from 17 percent in 2016. Forty-one percent say they want immigration levels to stay the same. It’s the first time since the survey question was first asked in 2004 that more Americans want immigration to remain the same than to be reduced. The survey is conducted every two years, and the question was last asked before President Donald Trump took office and made it harder for people to immigrate to the United States. Trump — who made immigration enforcement a centerpiece of his election campaign — has repeatedly called for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and his push for wall funding last year drove the federal government to a monthlong shutdown that furloughed hundreds of thousands of government workers. The administration enacted a travel ban for citizens of mostly Muslim countries, including Iran and Yemen, that has torn many families apart. And officials last year separated immigrant parents from their children to prosecute illegal border crossers, a move that sparked an international outcry. “People are more tolerant of immigration than the president and the far right would have us believe,” said Louis DeSipio, a political science professor at the University of California, Irvine. According to the survey, nearly three times as many Democrats as Republicans want more immigrants allowed into the country, while Republicans are more than twice as likely as Democrats to favor less immigration. But fewer Republicans want a reduction in immigration than did in 2016. In 2018, 52 percent of Republicans said they wanted less immigration, down from 62 percent two years earlier. Forty-four percent of Democrats say they want immigration levels to remain the same, while 34 percent want an increase in immigration. The survey — which does not distinguish between illegal and legal immigration — also looked at Americans’ views on the issue by race. About 41 percent of whites want a decrease in immigration, while only 24 percent of blacks and 22 percent of Hispanics say the same. Trump has made immigration an intensely political issue, and also an issue of race, said Manuel Pastor, director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. “Trump is trying to create a Republican Party that’s much more based in an older, white electorate in nonmetropolitan areas of the country,” Pastor said. “The Democrats are trying to put together political coalitions that have a deep base in metropolitan areas, and that includes many more people of color.” The General Social Survey has been conducted since 1972 by NORC at the University of Chicago, primarily using in-person interviewing. Sample sizes for each year’s survey vary from about 1,500 to about 3,000 adults, with margins of error falling between plus or minus 2.2 percentage points and plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The most recent survey was conducted April 12 through Nov. 10, 2018, and includes interviews with 2,348 American adults.

immigration
general social survey
donald trump
democrats
republicans
race
u.s .


Gay lawmaker who fled Brazil amid death threats: Bolsonaro 'turned me into a pariah'

Abstract: PARIS - Brazil’s first openly gay lawmaker, Jean Wyllys, who fled his country over mounting death threats after the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, fears he won’t be returning home anytime soon. In an interview with AFP in Paris, the 45-year-old politician and LGBT activist, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Europe since January, accused Bolsonaro of turning him “into a pariah in my own country.” In recent months, he said: “I received death threats by telephone, on social media and on email. People also started threatening me on the street.” Former army Capt. Bolsonaro, who has a history of making homophobic remarks — he once declared he would rather his son die than be gay — “made me a sort of enemy, not a political adversary but an enemy,” Wyllys added. In January, the MP for the left-wing Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), who was elected to a third term in 2018, announced that he would not be taking up his seat in Congress and was leaving Brazil for his own safety. The tipping point for Wyllys was the murder of black, fellow LGBT activist and Rio councilor Marielle Franco, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in March 2018. Two police officers are suspected of killing the 38-year-old, who had campaigned against police violence. “After Marielle’s murder it became clear my life was in danger,” Wyllys said. “All public spaces became dangerous for me.” The crusading politician, who clashed repeatedly with Bolsonaro when the latter was still an MP, believes he became a marked man after an altercation between the pair during the hearings that led to the impeachment of leftist ex-President Dilma Rousseff in 2016. Wyllys spat in Bolsonaro’s face after Bolsonaro dedicated his impeachment vote to a torturer from Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship. After Bolsonaro’s election, the threats on his life intensified, said Wyllys. He accused the president’s supporters of waging a “fake news smear campaign” against him, giving as an example claims that he was behind a move to equip schools with a “gay kit” that would “favor homosexuality” — referring to a 2011 plan to distribute material to combat homophobia that was abandoned in the face of conservative opposition. Born in the northeastern state of Bahia to a car painter father and washerwoman mother, Wyllys became a household name in Brazil after winning the 2005 edition of the reality TV show “Big Brother Brasil.” His victory was hailed as a turning point for gay rights in the socially conservative country but when the tide turned and Brazil lurched to the far-right he became a figure of hate for Bolsonaro’s supporters. “I began living as if in a private prison, moving between an armored vehicle and my home, always accompanied by a police escort,” he told AFP. For the past two months he has been living between Barcelona, Spain, and Berlin, but now intends to make the German capital his home. “Berlin chose me,” he said, explaining that he had accepted an invitation from the Berlin-based Rosa Luxemburg Foundation — named after a Polish-born German revolutionary — and the Open Society Foundation — to study for a doctorate there. But he does not plan on going quietly into academia. Wyllys is determined to continue resisting Bolsonaro’s rule from a distance. “You can do politics in other ways, outside of Congress, living free as I live today,” he said. He is hopeful that if alleged links between Bolsonaro and Franco’s suspected killers were proved that it would “rouse Brazilians and bring down this government.” One of the suspects is reported to have posted a photograph of himself alongside Bolsonaro on his Facebook account — since deleted — while the other lived in the same Rio residential complex as the president — a fact dismissed by the police as a “coincidence. Wyllys sees the connections as proof that democracy in Brazil is under threat. Asked how long he may remain in Europe, he said: “I will stay for the duration of this Brazilian night, which could be long.”

brazil
jean wyllys
jair bolsonaro
lgbt
marielle franco
gay rights


Niger's top court outlaws 'fifth wife' sex-slave maids

Abstract: DAKAR - Niger’s top court has outlawed the practice of keeping women as maids and sex slaves known as “fifth wives,” capping a decade-long legal battle by one victim that could inspire others in the West African nation to seek justice, lawyers and activists said. The “fifth wife” custom — also known as wahaya — is when in addition to the four wives permitted by Islam, rich men take on other, unofficial wives who live as domestic and sexual slaves, said Britain-based group Anti-Slavery International. Hadizatou Mani, a woman who was forced into slavery as a “fifth wife,” escaped over a decade ago and married someone else, but her former master took her to court accusing her of bigamy, said Anti-Slavery International, which backed her case. A Nigerien court initially ruled in favor of her master, but Mani appealed the decision. Last month, the Niger Court of Appeals ruled that her first marriage was never valid and that all “fifth wife” marriages are illegal, according to court documents seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The custom of “wahaya” or “sadaka” is a traditional practice of acquiring a young women to serve as both a maid and a “concubine” or sex slave,” said the ruling, signed by the chief clerk of the Court of Appeals. “This custom … is contrary to the laws of the republic and the international conventions regularly ratified by Niger.” A spokesman at the justice ministry said it was pleased with the ruling, which was only circulated among activists last week. Mani’s lawyer, Abdourahaman Chaibou, said it will set a precedent for future cases. “I think this decision is fundamental, in that it rejects a custom that has been practiced for centuries,” Chaibou said. “It’s a victory for the defence of human rights and especially the fight against slavery.” No one knows how many women live as “fifth wife” slaves in Niger, but the practice is fairly common in some areas, said Jakub Sobik of Anti-Slavery International. The West African nation also has a tradition of descent-based slavery, he said. About 133,000 people in Niger, a country of 20 million, live as modern-day slaves, according to the 2018 Global Slavery Index by the Walk Free Foundation. “This is a decision we have waited years for,” Mohamed Mogaze, national coordinator for the Nigerien anti-slavery organization Timidria, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Activists will now focus on raising awareness of the ruling so that women can bring more cases to court, said Mogaze. Mani was bought by her former master at the age of 12 for 240,000 CFA francs ($418) and was enslaved for nine years, according to the court ruling. She first took her case to West Africa’s regional ECOWAS court, which ruled in 2008 that Niger had failed to protect her from slavery, said Sobik of Anti-Slavery International. This drove Niger to take the issue more seriously, he said. “The fight is far from being won, but we’re in it for the long haul,” said Sobik. “Together with our partners we will work to ensure a full implementation of this ruling.”

niger
marriage
religion
sex crimes
polygamy


Battle for last Islamic State enclave edges toward end as U.S.-backed force combs for hidden fighters

Abstract: BAGHOUZ, SYRIA - The operation to take Islamic State’s last enclave in eastern Syria looked close to an end on Wednesday, with no sign of clashes as U.S.-backed fighters said they were combing the area for hidden jihadis. Reuters reporters overlooking Baghouz from a hill on the bank of the Euphrates at the Iraqi border said the area was calm, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia searched for tunnels and landmines, an SDF official said. The SDF on Tuesday captured an encampment where the jihadis had been mounting a last defense of the tiny enclave, pushing die-hard fighters onto a sliver of land at the Euphrates riverside. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drain, whose country has participated in the campaign, said in Paris he expected the announcement of the “final territorial defeat” to be made in the “next few days. There was no immediate update from the SDF on Wednesday on the fate of these remaining militants. A group of women and children were seen being evacuated from the Baghouz area. Islamic State’s defeat at Baghouz would end its territorial control over the third of Syria and Iraq it held in 2014 as it sought to carve out a huge caliphate in the region. While it would represent a significant milestone in Syria’s eight-year-old war and in the battle against Islamic State, the jihadi group remains a threat. Some of the group’s fighters remain holed up in the central Syrian desert and others have gone underground in Iraqi cities to wage an insurgent campaign to destabilize the government. For the SDF, it would cap a four-year, U.S.-led military campaign in which its fighters drove Islamic State from swathes of northeastern Syria, taking the city of Raqqa after a months-long battle in 2017. The group was also forced into retreat by numerous other local and foreign forces roused by its public displays of bloodletting and the attacks it plotted abroad. Its Baghouz enclave was the last part of the huge territory it seized in 2014, straddling swathes of Iraq and Syria, where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a new caliphate. His fate, along with other Islamic State leaders, is not known, though the United States has said it believes him to be in Iraq. Women and children leaving Baghouz have spoken to Reuters and other international media of harsh conditions under siege in the encampment, surviving heavy aerial bombardment and with food supplies so scarce that some resorted to eating grass. In the past 24 hours, IS supporters and activists have circulated photos on social media that purportedly show children and women, some alive and some apparently dead, among corpses of fighters after a coalition strike on the encampment. Reuters was unable immediately to verify the authenticity of the pictures. Former residents also told Reuters hundreds of civilians have been killed in months of heavy aerial bombing by the coalition that has razed many of the hamlets in the area along the Iraqi border. The coalition says it takes great care to avoid killing civilians and investigates reports that it has done so. Over the past two months, some 60,000 people, mostly women and children, have poured out of shrinking IS territory, said the SDF. Relatives snd former residents told Reuters many of them were Iraqi Arab Sunni Muslim families who crossed into Syria fleeing revenge by Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias that had overrun their towns. The SDF has said that among the civilians who fled were some Islamic State victims such as enslaved women from Iraq’s Yazidi religious community. The SDF estimated at least 5,000 fighters surrendered. In recent days, as the enclave shrank, the SDF said hundreds more of them started to surrender, or were captured trying to escape. Most of the women and children who were detained were moved to displacement camps in northeast Syria. The fighters were taken to security prisons, but the SDF has urged foreign countries to take back their citizens, causing a dilemma for some Western states who see them as a threat.

islamic state
baghouz
syria
euphrates
syrian democratic forces
conflict
terrorism


Boeing delays flight test to International Space Station, sources say

Abstract: SEATTLE - Boeing has delayed by at least three months its first uncrewed flight to the International Space Station under NASA’s human spaceflight program, and pushed its crewed flight until November, industry sources said on Wednesday. Reuters reported last month that NASA has warned Boeing and rival contractor SpaceX of design and safety concerns the companies need to address before flying humans to space. Boeing’s first test flight was slated for April but it has been pushed to August, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The new schedule means that Boeing’s crewed mission, initially scheduled for August, will be delayed until November. A Boeing spokesman declined to comment. NASA spokesman declined to comment but said a new update to the launch schedule would be posted next week. NASA is paying Boeing and SpaceX about $6.8 billion to build rocket and capsule launch systems to return astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. soil for the first time since America’s Space Shuttle program went dark in 2011. Earlier this month an unmanned capsule from Elon Musk’s SpaceX completed a six-day round-trip mission to the International Space Station. It’s astronaut flight is planned for July.


Study on 'punch drunk syndrome' could help identify and treat Alzheimer's patients

Abstract: LONDON - Scientists studying damaged brains of boxers and other sports people have found key details about a head injury-linked disease called “punch drunk syndrome” that could help the development of new diagnostics and treatments for Alzheimer’s. The syndrome, also known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), is linked to repeated blows to the head and causes a type of dementia similar to Alzheimer’s, which is characterized by behavioral changes, confusion and memory loss. CTE can affect people who play contact sports such as boxing, rugby, soccer and football, but can currently be diagnosed only after death, since brain tissues have to be removed and analyzed to confirm presence of the disease. Like Alzheimer’s — a brain-wasting condition that affects up to 50 million people worldwide — CTE features the abnormal build-up of certain proteins in the brain. One of those, tau, forms filaments that clump up in tangles inside cells. In this study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, researchers from Britain’s Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) were able to detail the atomic structures of the abnormal tau filaments in CTE. “Our new knowledge of these structures could make it possible to diagnose CTE in living patients by developing tracer compounds that will specifically bind to the tau filaments of CTE,” said Michel Goedert, an LMB researcher who co-led the study. The research involved scientists extracting tau filaments from the brains of three people with CTE postmortem — one former professional American football player and two former professional boxers. The filaments were then imaged using a technique known as cryo-electron microscopy. The team found that while the tau structures from the three patients with CTE were identical, they were also different from those seen in Alzheimer’s. This could in the future help doctors distinguish between various forms of dementia when diagnosing patients, the team said, and also furthers understanding of how and why tau forms disease-specific clumps and folds. “We don’t know the chemical nature of these molecules yet, but we suspect they may play a role in the assembly of tau into filaments, and that their abundance may determine why some individuals develop CTE and others do not,” said Sjors Scheres, who co-led the work. He said the next stage of research will be to identify those molecules and understand more about their role in tau build-up.


The powerful meteor that no one saw (except satellites)

Abstract: WASHINGTON - At 11:48 a.m. on Dec. 18, 2018, a large space rock heading straight for Earth at a speed of 30 kilometers per second (19 miles per second) exploded into a vast ball of fire as it entered the atmosphere, 25 km above the Bering Sea. No human eye caught sight of it. One of the first researchers to detect the event was Peter Brown, a meteor scientist at the University of Western Ontario. On March 8, he was poring over December data from the system used by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization to detect atmospheric explosions caused by nuclear tests. The system consists of seismic and acoustic sensors capable of picking up infrasound at a distance of tens of thousands of kilometers. “Many of them detected the sound waves from this explosion,” he said. “If you were directly under it, it would have been deafening.” U.S. military satellites spotted the explosion immediately. But it was not until March 8 that the U.S. Air Force officially informed NASA, which logged the event in the database of fireballs it has kept since 1988, according to Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies calculated the energy released by the explosion to be 173 kilotons, more than 10 times as destructive as the 15-kiloton atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima in 1945. It was the most powerful explosion in the atmosphere since the fireball that burst over the Russian town of Chelyabinsk in 2013. That was 440 kilotons and left 1,500 people injured, mostly from glass flying out of smashed windows. The event was described on Monday by scientists at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas. When he read a report on the subject on the BBC, Simon Proud, a meteorologist and specialist in satellite data at Oxford University, decided to check the archive of images collected by the Japanese weather satellite Himawari, which his center monitors. Bingo: The satellite was in the right place at the right time, he said. Proud published the image on his Twitter account. It looks like an orange ball of fire above the clouds but is in fact a cloud of dust from the meteor caught in the sunlight, Brown said. As it turns out, NASA’s MODIS satellite also photographed the dust cloud, the agency’s Kurtis Thome said Tuesday. “It doesn’t surprise me,” said Patrick Michel, research director and asteroid specialist at the observatory of the Cote d’Azur in southern France. “It is a good reminder that there are a bunch of these things that pass over our heads and that it would be good to be more concerned about them,” he said. “It should remind us that even if it is the least likely natural risk we face, it is a still a risk that exists and will in the long term become a reality,” he said. The rock was roughly 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter. The most dangerous celestial bodies for the Earth are those in excess of 150 meters. “Nothing very unusual,” said Rudiger Jehn, head of planetary defense at the European Space Agency. “We were lucky it was over the ocean. It can happen again, and someday there will be a bigger one,” he said, noting that the ESA plans to ask member states for a budget to create a better protection system against asteroids during a ministerial meeting in November. “That meteor explosion is a perfect promotion for our program. And it is free,” he said.


Talent, not testosterone, powers intersex athletes, scientists say

Abstract: LONDON - Talent, not testosterone, is behind the success of intersex athletes such as Olympic champion Caster Semenya, scientists said on Wednesday, stepping into a toxic battle of the sexes over fairness in sport. Their editorial in the British Medical Journal flies counter to those who want to ban competitors with high levels of testosterone from competing in women-only events, and comes days before a key ruling on Semenya’s eligibility to run. Activists on one side of the debate say high testosterone in some athletes who are born with indeterminate sex powers them to victory and leaves women disadvantaged in their own events. But the BMJ scientists disagreed. “We venture that the Olympian gods smile down on winners like Mokgadi Caster Semenya when they perform extraordinary feats of human endeavour,” the scientists said. There is no direct link between testosterone levels and athletic performance, wrote Cara Tannenbaum, a professor at the University of Montreal, and Sheree Bekker, a researcher at the University of Bath. “This mythical perception of testosterone as the elixir of performance … is not backed up by the science,” Bekker said in an interview. The finding comes amid bitter division among athletes and scientists over what is fair play in female sport — an issue under ever-increasing scrutiny since Semenya was crowned the 800-meter world champion in 2009. Up to 1.7 percent of babies are born with an indeterminate sex, according to the United Nations, often undergoing surgery to bring their genitalia into line with gender norms. Moves are under way to force intersex sportswomen to suppress an above-average testosterone count, which could prevent champions like Semenya from racing at top level. In April 2018, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ruled that female intersex athletes competing in 400-meter to mile-long races must keep their testosterone below a certain level for at least six months. Semenya filed a legal challenge to the restriction, with a ruling due on March 26. Some rivals say the 28-year-old’s hyperandrogenism gives an unfair advantage. The condition, also known as a difference of sex development (DSD), is characterized by higher-than-usual levels of testosterone, a hormone that increases muscle mass, strength and hemoglobin, which affects endurance. The average woman has far lower testosterone levels than the average man, but there is an overlap in elite sport, studies say. The IAAF’s proposed rule “greatly overestimates the role of endogenous testosterone,” said Peter Sonksen, a retired professor of endocrinology who was not part of the BMJ team. “It is also personal and unfairly targets a brilliant athlete,” he wrote in an email. However, the IAAF has also had numerous scientists come out in support of its case. In some intersex conditions, women “get pretty much full male advantage when they go through puberty,” said Joanna Harper, an expert on transgender sportswomen who gave evidence in support of the IAAF. A 2017 study of Swedish female Olympians by Angelica Linden Hirschberg, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology who also supported the IAAF, found that higher natural testosterone levels correlated with better athletic performance.

caster semenya
lgbt
sexuality
biology
2012 london olympics


Life lessons: Microscopic tardigrade 'water bears' can survive extremes, and may hold secrets for human health

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Earth’s ultimate survivors can weather extreme heat, cold, radiation and even the vacuum of space. Now the U.S. military hopes these tiny critters called tardigrades can teach us about true toughness. These animals are pipsqueaks, only about the size of a period. Under a microscope they look like some combination of chubby bear and single-eyed alien. They are the closest life gets to indestructible. No water? No worries. Tardigrades survive. Antarctic cold, heat of 300 degrees Fahrenheit (150 Celsius), a lack of oxygen, even punishing radiation doesn’t stop these animals. They are so resilient in the face of so many dangers that scientists think their unique biology may hold clues to how we can make crops more resistant to drought, better preserve blood and medicines, and even make more effective sunscreen. When the going gets tough for tardigrades, they curl up, dry out and wait. Then, when the environment gets better and they get water, they spring back to life. They can stay dormant for decades before reanimating. In 2007, scientists put two species of tardigrades in containers, launched them into orbit and opened them up to the vacuum full of punishing radiation. They lived and later multiplied. There are as many as 1,200 species of tardigrades, and they live all over Earth. Not all have the ability to go dormant. Tardigrades seem to be the first animals on Earth to have evolved legs. The legs look like a first draft: The rear two legs face backward, while the front six face forward. If they are hurt when they are in an active phase and can’t go into survival mode, they die. But they don’t have a circulatory system or a skeleton, so that lets them curl up in a hypersurvival mode called “cryptobiosis.” University of North Carolina biologist Thomas Boothby wanted to know how they manage to survive in “environments we think of as being impossible to live in.” So he isolated the genes that activate when tardigrades need to go into cryptobiosis. Boothby engineered those genes into yeast and says their tolerance to drought increased 100-fold. He hopes the genes could also help crops better survive drought. In December, the Defense Department’s long-term research arm gave Boothby a nearly $5 million grant to figure out what in tardigrade genes might help human health. Boothby hopes to make bags of blood last longer than the current six weeks and allow them to be stored in a dried state so soldiers can take their own blood supply to battle or ambulances can carry more. Tardigrade tricks may also help with preserving vaccines to help reduce the enormous cost and complexity of trying to keep vaccines cold. They could also potentially help preserve organs or damaged tissue. Japanese scientists are studying whether tardigrade proteins could help them come up with a better sunscreen to protect against ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer. A 2016 study showed that human cells augmented with a DNA protein unique to tardigrades reduced radiation damage in lab tests. Tardigrades are so otherworldly that some theorize that they could easily exist on planets outside the solar system. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb said “they could survive an impact by a rock and they could potentially be brought from another planet” to Earth. Loeb and colleagues conclude that the water bears could survive most end-of-the-world scenarios — everything short of our sun blinking out. “It’s good to know that at least one creature on Earth has a chance of surviving no matter what,” Loeb said.

tardigrades
water
radiation
cryptobiosis
u.s. military


Upgrades in space: Smartphone-like software starts to bring satellites greater capabilities

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Once a traditional satellite is launched into space, its physical hardware and computer software stay mostly immutable for the rest of its existence as it orbits the Earth, even as the technology it serves on the ground continues to change. Just as some aerospace startups are developing technologies to repair, modify or refuel satellites to prolong their life spans, some satellite manufacturers are looking at a complementary solution — hoping to install smartphone-like software that has more computing power and is capable of receiving updates within minutes instead of days or weeks. The U.S. aerospace company Lockheed Martin presented its new SmartSat technology to journalists Wednesday near Washington. SmartSat software will hitch a ride aboard miniature satellites called CubeSats that they plan to launch within the next six months. “Today’s satellites that exist currently are durable, they’re capable, they’re precise — but once we launch them, they generally don’t change much,” Lockheed Martin’s Maria Demaree explained. “We want the satellites of the future to operate more like smartphones.” Instead of computer programs with a single processor, like satellites have today, Lockheed Martin says with SmartSat they will be bringing multicore processing to space. “That lets satellites process more data in orbit so they can beam down just the most critical and relevant information — saving bandwidth costs and reducing the burden on ground station analysts, and ultimately opening the door for tomorrow’s data centers in space,” the company said in a statement. For example, according to the company, this technology could allow a commercial operator to more easily reprogram a communications satellite to switch to serving Eastern Europe instead of Western Europe, if necessary. The U.S. military might also be interested, though Lockheed has not yet confirmed whether it is a SmartSat client. So why haven’t aerospace organizations implemented such revolutionary technology before now? Extreme conditions in space make everything more complicated. “The hardware is very susceptible to locking up or just completely burning out,” said SmartSat program manager Adam Johnson. “So the hardware is now catching up to the capabilities that we see on the ground, such that it’s more radiation-tolerant.”

space smartphones satellites computers apps


Srebrenica survivors applaud life sentence handed to Radovan Karadzic by appeals judges

Abstract: SREBRENICA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA - Relatives of victims of the Srebrenica massacre applauded the life sentence delivered Wednesday against Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic for genocide and war crimes during the 1990s. A panel of appeals judges in The Hague increased Karadzic’s original 40-year sentence for the atrocities during Bosnia’s inter-ethnic war to life in prison. He was also found guilty over his role in the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. It was the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II and deemed genocide by international justice. About 50 Srebrenica mothers, sisters and widows as well as some male survivors of the massacre, who watched the verdict at a memorial in Potocari, just outside the ill-fated town, applauded and prayed when the ruling was announced. As they gathered next to the cemetery where the remains of their loved ones are buried, the relatives said they were hoping for such an outcome. “My hope and my only thought is that (Karadzic) is sentenced to life,” Hajrija Oric, 63, told AFP ahead of the verdict. Her 17-year-old son, Elvir, and husband, Sahin, were both killed in the massacre. Their remains were found years later and buried. “All I found was a handful of bones and a head. I would give everything, I would give my eyes, if I could bring them back but it cannot happen.” Wednesday’s ruling was one of the last remaining cases from the collapse of the former Yugoslavia and was handed down by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. The body deals with cases left over from now-defunct courts for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war between its Croats, Muslim and Serbs left 100,000 people dead.

radovan karadzic
bosnia
srebrenica massacre
genocide
muslims
icc


Trump says he does not mind if public sees Robert Mueller's 'ridiculous' Russia probe report

Abstract: WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he believes special counsel Robert Mueller’s report should be released to the public, even as he disparaged its very existence as “ridiculous.” “Let it come out, let people see it,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Wednesday for a trip to Ohio. “Let’s see whether or not it’s legit.” Mueller is expected to present a report to the Justice Department any day now outlining the findings of his nearly two-year investigation into Russian election meddling, possible collusion with Trump campaign officials and possible obstruction of justice by Trump. Mueller is required to produce a confidential report that at a minimum explains decisions about who was and was not prosecuted. Attorney General William Barr is then expected to produce his own report for Congress and has said he wants to make public as much of Mueller’s findings as he can under the law. Trump said he was personally looking forward to reading the findings, even as he scorned the fact that Mueller was empowered to write the report in the first place. “I just won one of the greatest elections of all time in the history of this country. … And now I have somebody writing a report that never got a vote?” Trump said. “It’s called the Mueller report. So explain that because my voters don’t get it. And I don’t get it.” Trump went on to mischaracterize the effort, saying “it’s sort of interesting that a man out of the blue just writes a report.” The House voted unanimously last week for a resolution calling for any report in Mueller’s investigation to be made public. It was a symbolic action designed to pressure Barr into releasing as much information as possible. Trump and his outside attorneys have worked for months now to undermine Mueller and cast doubt on his eventually findings. Trump continued that effort Wednesday, calling Mueller “conflicted” and criticizing the lawyers who have worked on the case. Though Mueller’s office has said nothing publicly about the timing of a report, several prosecutors detailed to Mueller’s team have left in recent months, suggesting the investigation is winding down. Trump, for his part, said he had no idea when the report would be released, but maintained his innocence, saying there was “no collusion” and “no obstruction. There was no nothing.” “With all of that being said,” he added, “I look forward to seeing the report.”

robert mueller
russia probe
donald trump
william barr
congress


Chief of staff of Venezuela's Juan Guaido arrested

Abstract: CARACAS - Venezuelan intelligence officers Thursday arrested the chief of staff of Juan Guaido, the opposition leader recognized by the U.S. and other countries as interim leader, Guaido and the opposition-ruled congress said on Twitter. Roberto Marrero was grabbed by SEBIN officers when they staged a pre-dawn raid on his Caracas home, according to Guaido and a recorded voice message by Marrero published on social media. The United States has repeatedly warned Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government against arresting Guaido or his aides, and Washington’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo quickly called for Marrero’s release. “They have grabbed Roberto Marrero, my chief of staff. He yelled out that they planted two rifles and a grenade,” Guaido tweeted. “The raid happened at around 2:00 am (0600 GMT). We don’t know his whereabouts. He must be released immediately.” Maduro and Guaido both claim to be the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Maduro, 56, retains the loyalty of military brass and has control of state apparatus. Guaido, 35, declared himself interim president on January 23 and has the backing of the U.S. and more than 50 other countries, mostly in Latin America and the US. “The United States condemns raids by Maduro’s security services and detention of Roberto Marrero, Chief of Staff to Interim President @jguaido. We call for his immediate release. We will hold accountable those involved,” Pompeo said on Twitter. U.S. President Donald Trump has said, as recently as Tuesday, that “all options” remain on the table in his drive to bring down Maduro, implying military action if he deemed it necessary. So far, however, the power struggle in Venezuela has become bogged down in an impasse, with Maduro railing daily about the U.S. “imperialists” trying to dislodge him and Guaido touring the country to rally supporters and pledge he’ll be taking over “very soon.” Maduro’s forces have reinforced obstacles blocking a border bridge linking Venezuela and Colombia to prevent Guaido’s supporters trucking in U.S. aid stockpiled on the other side. Extra shipping containers and concrete blocks have been moved into place on the bridge. As well as seizing Marrero early Thursday, SEBIN officers raided the next-door home of an opposition lawmaker, Sergio Vergara, the opposition-ruled congress — the National Assembly — tweeted. Vergara was not arrested. He told reporters that he saw Marrero bundled off into the street. He said around 15 SEBIN officers “ransacked” his own home for around two hours, while asking where to find Marrero, a lawyer who works in the National Assembly. “They started to bash on the door of Roberto Marrero’s place, which is a few meters (yards) from my door, until they were able to get inside,” he said. “The dictatorship is abducting citizens,” he added. The United States has cautioned Maduro to not lay a finger on Guaido or National Assembly deputies or risk unspecified repercussions. Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton in January tweeted: “Any violence and intimidation against U.S. diplomatic personnel, Venezuela’s democratic leader, Juan Guaido, or the National Assembly itself would represent a grave assault on the rule of law and will be met with a significant response.” The United States has since withdrawn all its diplomats from Venezuela. In just over a month, on April 28, increasingly harsh U.S. sanctions on Venezuela will jump up a critical level with a ban on all oil sales to the United States, Venezuela’s main crude buyer. The step is expected to worsen already dire economic conditions ravaging Venezuela, a once-wealthy South American nation that has become impoverished under Maduro.

venezuela
juan guaido
roberto marrero
nicolas maduro


20 years on, Serbian victims of NATO bombings feel forgotten

Abstract: SURDULICA, SERBIA - On the outskirts of the southern Serbian town of Surdulica a black cross looms above a grave covered in a tangle of weeds. This is the final resting place of some of the hundreds of civilians killed by the NATO air attacks launched 20 years ago this Sunday, a tragedy survivors feel is as forgotten as the overgrown burial ground. “No one except for journalists has called us or asked if we need any help, how we feel. Nobody,” said 34-year-old Ivana Mitic. Mitic’s brother, grandmother, uncle, aunt and cousins died when a NATO bomb razed their home on a residential street in Surdulica on April 27, 1999, in what the alliance later admitted had been a “mistake.” NATO’s three-month bombardment was an effort to halt Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a southern province that later declared independence. On its 20th anniversary, many will celebrate the intervention for having ended the final war in Yugoslavia’s collapse, in which 13,000 were killed, mostly Kosovo Albanians. But in Serbia the airstrikes left their own trail of death and trauma in their wake. For 78-days, NATO aircraft bombed Serbian military and civilian targets across the country, killing some 500 civilians according to Human Rights Watch. The victims included Serbs, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and Roma. The civilian deaths were never investigated by international courts, despite rights groups saying that some incidents could have violated international law or even constitute war crimes. Mitic was 14 at the time of the bombings. Her parents were only able to identify the nine dead by the clothes, jewelry and shoes pulled out from the rubble of their house, she recalled. “Nobody has ever come to tell us who is accountable for that crime,” she added, trembling at the memory. The bomb that crushed Mitic grandfather’s house was one of numerous “errors” NATO admitted to afterwards. Speaking in Brussels several days later, a spokesman for the alliance said: “One bomb went astray. … Things like this can happen and in fact they happened.” A month later on the other side of Surdulica, 21 more people were killed when NATO fired on a nursing home at midnight on May 30, 1999. Retired doctor Miroslav Stosic, 71, was one of the rescuers who arrived at the “horrible scene” strewn with dismembered bodies. They were later buried under the cross. “We stood here for the entire night and tried to protect the remains” from stray dogs, he said. Most of the victims were refugees from Croatia who were being housed in the complex. According to Stosic, they had been transferred to the site, trading places with soldiers previously been based there. NATO launched “Operation Allied Force,” without backing from the U.N. Security Council, after Milosevic refused to sign a peace deal to end the war. Among the mistakes NATO admitted to was a strike on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade that killed three people. The U.S. said outdated maps had led the pilot to the wrong target. In another case, a NATO aircraft launched two laser-guided bombs at a railway bridge over Grdelicka gorge in southern Serbia, killing at least 10 people on a passenger train. The alliance claimed the train crossed the tracks at the last minute and that its bombs had only been aimed at the bridge. There was also the highly controversial strike on the state TV broadcaster RTS in Belgrade in April 1999, which killed 16 civilians. NATO claimed it was a legitimate military target because of the broadcaster’s propaganda function. Although Amnesty International argued that the bombing was a war crime, U.N. prosecutors in 2000 decided not to open an investigation. Many Serbs still harbor some hostility towards NATO and — unlike the rest of its Balkan neighbors — the country has no intention of joining. In Belgrade, some buildings still bear the damage of the bombs, while activists have hung banners in the city center bearing the faces of the victims. Some families of victims have also accused Milosevic’s regime of sacrificing civilians for propaganda purposes. As well as NATO, Mitic also blamed the Serbian state for her family tragedy. The authorities had failed to protect them, she said. “Nobody has said ‘We are sorry, we made a mistake, we did not know that civilians were there,'” Mitic said through tears. The only survivor of the bomb that struck that house, 81-year-old Stojanca Petkovic, lives around the corner. “I would rather it had been me gone and one of these kids had survived,” he whispered sadly.

serbia
nato
slobodan milosevic
ethnicity
anniversaries
yugoslavia
conflict
history


Dutch populist party wins provincial elections after Utrecht attack

Abstract: AMSTERDAM - An upstart populist party shocked the Dutch political establishment by winning the most votes in provincial elections after a preliminary count in the early hours of Thursday, boosted by a possible terrorist attack this week in the city of Utrecht. The result shows the enduring strength of far-right populism in the Netherlands, coming nearly two decades after the assassination of populist Pim Fortuyn in 2002 led to a similar upset in parliamentary elections. The most important short-term impact is that Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right coalition will be forced to seek outside support to win Senate approval for laws passed by parliament. Provincial votes determine the composition in the Senate, where Rutte’s government has lost its majority. The big winner in the vote was the Forum for Democracy party, led by 36-year-old Thierry Baudet, which holds just two seats in parliament after entering politics in 2016. On current projections it will have an equal number of seats in the Senate as Rutte’s VVD. In a speech to supporters peppered with literary allusions, Baudet said the arrogance of the elites had been punished. “We are standing in the rubble of what was once the most beautiful civilization in the world,” he said. Following the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump, Baudet opposes immigration and emphasizes “Dutch first” cultural and economic themes. He opposes the euro and thinks the Netherlands should leave the European Union. Baudet had continued campaigning when other parties stopped after Monday’s attack in Utrecht, in which a gunman shot three people dead on a tram. Baudet blamed the incident on the government’s lax immigration policies. A 37-year-old Turkish-born man has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the shooting. Prosecutors have not determined a motive, though they say it may have been terrorism. Pollsters had for weeks predicted Rutte’s center-right coalition would lose its Senate majority. But experts, including pollster Maurice de Hond, said the Utrecht attack boosted turnout most among opponents of immigration. The Dutch economy has been one of Europe’s best performers under successive Rutte-led governments, but resentment over early 2010s austerity programs lingers. Recent debate has focused on funding the government’s plans to meet international goals on climate change. Left-leaning voters feel not enough is being done and supported the pro-environment Green Left party, which also booked big gains nationwide on Wednesday, including taking nearly a quarter of the vote in Amsterdam. Rutte is expected to look to the Green Left or Labour parties for outside support once the new Senate is seated in May, though there are other possibilities in the increasingly fragmented political landscape, which include religious parties and a party focused on voters older than 50. Rutte said he would be looking for support from “constructive” parties on either the left or the right. Baudet ruled out any cooperation. “This means drinking a lot of coffee and making even more phone calls” Rutte told supporters. “So I’m counting on it that the country will remain well manageable with this result.” Parliamentary elections are due by March 2021.

elections terrorism netherlands immigration


Trump calls top aide Kellyanne Conway's spouse 'husband from hell' in Twitter brawl

Abstract: NEW YORK/WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump refused to row back on his feud with White House aide Kellyanne Conway’s spouse on Wednesday, calling George Conway a “husband from hell” and prompting Conway to renew his accusation that Trump was mentally unfit for his office. “The president seems determined to prove the point I’ve been making,” Conway told Reuters in response to the president’s latest Twitter broadside. Of all the brawls Trump has waded into, his back-and-forth with Conway, a lawyer who specializes in litigation, has been one of the more eyebrow-raising in Washington. Trump relied heavily on Kellyanne Conway, a longtime Republican pollster and strategist, to help steer his presidential campaign to victory in 2016. She is a trusted member of his White House inner circle. In a tweet, Trump wrote that George Conway was upset that he did not get a job in the Trump administration. But the Washington Post quoted Conway — who is with New York-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz — as saying he turned down an offer to head the Justice Department’s Civil Division. In a morning tweet, Trump wrote, “George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!” Asked about George Conway by reporters on the White House South Lawn on Wednesday, Trump used colorful language. “I don’t know him. He’s a whack job. There’s no question about it. I think he’s doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife,” he said. Trump has been expressing irritation with Conway since the lawyer’s recent suggestion the president was suffering from a mental condition such as narcissistic personality disorder and was unfit to serve as president. Conway suggested the diagnosis in response to a torrent of tweets unleashed by Trump last weekend laying bare his grievances with, among other topics, Fox News Channel’s weekend anchors and the late Sen. John McCain. Conway on Wednesday posted a brief response on Twitter commenting on Trump’s latest tirade: “You. Are. Nuts.” In a brief telephone interview, Conway dismissed any suggestion that he and his wife had a book or movie deal about their situation “Zero. Zilch. The suggestion is absurd,” he said. He also said he was not fearful about his personal safety as a result of his tiff with Trump. “Most of the unsolicited emails I’ve gotten have been positive,” he said. Conway declined comment on the fight’s impact on his career and refused to say anything at all about his marriage. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

kellyanne conway
twitter
donald trump
george conway
john mccain


Wary EU to May: Brexit delay until June 30 is contingent on Parliament yes vote for her deal

Abstract: LONDON - Exactly 1,000 days after Britain voted to leave the European Union, and nine days before it is scheduled to walk out the door, Prime Minister Theresa May hit the pause button Wednesday, asking the bloc to postpone the U.K.’s departure until June 30. EU leaders, who are exasperated by Britain’s Brexit melodrama, will only grant the extension if May can win the U.K. Parliament’s approval next week for her twice-rejected Brexit deal. Otherwise, the U.K. is facing a chaotic “no-deal” departure from the bloc within days, or a much longer delay that May says she will not allow while she is in power. May, who has spent two and a half years trying to lead Britain out of the EU, said it was “a matter of great personal regret” that she had to seek a delay to Brexit. In a televised statement from 10 Downing St., May said she shared the frustration felt by many Britons who have “had enough” of endless Brexit debates and infighting — though she did not accept a role in causing it. Instead, she blamed Parliament for the deadlock, and warned that if lawmakers did not back her deal it would cause “irreparable damage to public trust.” “It is high time we made a decision,” May said. In a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, May acknowledged that the Brexit process “clearly will not be completed before 29 March, 2019” — the date fixed in law two years ago for Britain’s departure. May asked to delay Britain’s withdrawal until June 30, and said she would set out her reasons to EU leaders at a summit in Brussels on Thursday. Her long-shot plan is to hold a third vote in Parliament on her deal next week, then use the EU-granted extension to pass the legislation needed for an orderly departure from the EU. “As prime minister I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than June 30,” May told the House of Commons — a hint she could quit if Britain is forced to accept a longer pause. Tusk said he thought a short delay to Brexit “will be possible, but it would be conditional on a positive vote on the withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons.” May’s request — and Tusk’s response — leaves Britain and the bloc facing Brexit uncertainty right up to the deadline for departure. Withdrawing without a deal could mean huge disruptions for businesses and U.K. residents, as well as those in the 27 remaining EU countries. “Even if the hope for a final success may seem frail, even illusory, and although Brexit fatigue is increasingly visible and justified, we cannot give up seeking until the very last moment a positive solution,” Tusk said in Brussels. Tusk made clear what other EU leaders have long hinted: The EU is unwilling to give Britain more time unless the government can find a way out of the Brexit impasse. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that “if the (EU) Council is to decide on extending the deadline for Britain, then we would like to know: Why, why, why?” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a delay could only be granted if May guaranteed that its purpose “is to finalize the ratification of the deal already negotiated.” EU leaders are united in saying that the divorce deal it spent more than a year and a half negotiating with Britain can’t be renegotiated. But the deal has twice been rejected twice by hefty margins in Britain’s Parliament, amid opposition from pro-Brexit and pro-EU lawmakers. May had planned to try again this week to get the agreement approved, until the speaker of the House of Commons ruled that she can’t ask Parliament to vote on the deal again unless it is substantially changed. May told Tusk that despite the ruling “it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House.” She’s likely to do that next week — within days or hours of Britain’s scheduled departure — by arguing that circumstances have changed and the speaker’s bar on a third vote no longer applied. But she faces a struggle to overturn the huge margins of defeat for her deal in previous votes in January and last week. Tusk did not say whether the EU would be willing to grant a long delay to Brexit if Britain changed course and abandoned May’s deal for a new approach. British opposition politicians, and pro-EU members of May’s Conservative government, have urged a longer extension, saying a delay of just a few months could leave the country once again facing a no-deal Brexit this summer. They want to commit to a close post-Brexit economic relationship with the bloc to ease disruption for businesses and citizens. Opposition Labour Party lawmaker Angela Eagle said May should “stop banging her head against the brick wall of her defeated deal” and seek cross-party support for a new Brexit strategy. But a shift to “soft Brexit” would infuriate the pro-Brexit wing of May’s divided party, and a long delay would require Britain to participate in May 23-26 elections for the European Parliament. May said postponing Brexit beyond June would result in Parliament spending “endless hours contemplating its navel on Brexit.” Any delay that required Britain to take part in European parliamentary elections would be a major headache for the bloc. Britain’s seats already have been allocated to other countries to fill in the May election. Britain believes it would not have to participate if it got a three-month delay, because the newly elected European parliament is not due to convene until July. Some EU officials take a different view and want any extension to end by May 23, the first day of the European elections. The Brexit-fueled political chaos has drawn reactions ranging from sympathy to scorn at home and around the world. On its front page Wednesday, the Brexit-backing Daily Mail newspaper bemoaned the time since the referendum as “1,000 lost days.” Juncker said Britain’s Parliament needed to decide whether it would approve the only deal that is on the table. “If that doesn’t happen, and if Great Britain does not leave at the end of March, then we are, I am sorry to say, in the hands of God,” he said. “And I think even God sometimes reaches a limit to his patience.”

eu
brexit
theresa may
donald tusk
u.k. parliament


U.K. police arrest wealthy Indian jeweler Nirav Modi

Abstract: LONDON - Diamond tycoon Nirav Modi, whose jewels once adorned stars from Bollywood to Hollywood, was arrested in London on Tuesday, more than a year after Indian authorities alleged he was involved in a $1.8 billion bank fraud. Modi, 48, was detained in central London and remained in custody overnight, the Metropolitan Police Service said. He appeared at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court for a bail hearing Wednesday. Indian authorities have sought Modi’s arrest since February 2018, when they alleged that companies he controlled defrauded the state-owned Punjab National Bank by using fake financial documents to get loans to buy and import jewels. Police in India later raided the homes and offices of Modi and business partner Mehul Choksi, seizing nearly $800 million in jewels and gold. The men are thought to have left India before the alleged fraud was discovered. Modi denies the allegations and has sought political asylum in the U.K. In a letter to Punjab National Bank last year, Modi said he owed the institution about 50 billion rupees ($775 million). The $1.8 billion figure cited by the bank resulted in a media frenzy that pressured authorities to quickly search and seize assets from two of his companies, Firestar International and Firestar Diamond International, Modi said. The son of a diamond merchant, Modi built an international jewelry empire that stretched from India to New York and Hong Kong. Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra became the face of his eponymous brand and Hollywood actress Naomi Watts appeared with Modi at the opening of his first U.S. boutique in 2015. As recently as 2017, Forbes magazine estimated Modi’s wealth at $1.8 billion. But his empire began to crumble after the fraud allegations, and he was removed from the publication’s billionaires list in 2018. Last year, the international police organization Interpol issued a “red notice” seeking Modi’s arrest. His arrest finally came after Britain’s Daily Telegraph this month said it had tracked him down to a luxury apartment in London’s Centre Point tower.

police
india
nirav modi
diamonds
tycoon
u.k .
crime


Boeing, FAA officials called to testify in U.S. Senate on 737 MAX jetliner crashes

Abstract: ADDIS ABABA/JAKARTA/WASHINGTON - Boeing Co. faced growing pressure in Washington on Wednesday with U.S. lawmakers calling for executives to testify about two crashed 737 MAX jets even as the world’s biggest plane-maker works to overcome obstacles to returning the grounded fleet to the skies. The Senate hearing, at an unspecified date, would be the first time that a U.S. congressional committee has called Boeing executives to appear for questioning about 737 MAX passenger plane crashes in October in Indonesia and March 10 in Ethiopia. On March 27, the same panel, the Senate Commerce subcommittee on aviation and space, also will question U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials. They will likely be asked why the regulator agreed to certify the MAX planes in March 2017 without requiring extensive additional training. Meanwhile, the FAA on Wednesday sent a notification to global aviation authorities saying the installation of Boeing’s new automatic flight software in the grounded jets and related training was a priority for the agency. The Ethiopian Airlines crash has shaken the global aviation industry and cast a shadow over the flagship Boeing model intended to be a standard for decades to come, given parallels with the Lion Air calamity off Jakarta in October. The two crashes killed 346 people in all. Boeing was sued on Wednesday in federal court in Chicago by the estate of one of the Lion Air crash victims in which the plaintiffs referred to the Ethiopian crash to support a wrongful death claim against the company. A Boeing spokesman said the company does not respond to, or comment on, questions concerning legal matters. Also on Wednesday, the Seattle Times, citing unidentified sources, reported the FBI was joining the criminal investigation into the MAX’s certification. The U.S. Justice Department is looking at the FAA’s oversight of Boeing. Meanwhile, the Pentagon Inspector General said it would investigate a complaint that Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, violated ethical rules by allegedly promoting Boeing while in office. Chicago-headquartered Boeing has promised a swift update of software, but regulators in Europe and Canada are shifting away from previous reliance on FAA vetting, saying they will now seek their own guarantees of the MAX planes’ safety. Aviation experts suspect an automated system, meant to stop stalling by dipping the nose, may be involved in both cases, with pilots struggling to override it as their jets plunged downwards. But they stress neither investigation is complete and crew actions and training will also be closely scrutinized. As Ethiopian investigators pored over black box data from their crash, sources with knowledge of the doomed Lion Air cockpit voice recorder revealed how pilots scoured a manual in a losing battle to figure out why they were hurtling down to sea. Investigators examining the Indonesian crash want to know how a computer ordered the plane to dive in response to data from a faulty sensor and whether pilots had enough training to respond appropriately. Communications showed that in the final moments, the captain tried in vain to find the right procedure in the handbook, while the first officer was unable to control the plane. At the end, the sources told Reuters, the Indian-born captain, 31, was quiet, while the Indonesian officer, 41, said “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) — an Arabic phrase to express excitement, shock, praise or distress. The plane then hit water. Boeing has said there was a documented procedure to handle the problem. A different crew on the same plane the evening before had the same situation but solved it after running through three checklists, though they did not pass on that information to the doomed Indonesian crew, according to a preliminary report released in November. Regulators want to be absolutely sure of Boeing’s new automated control system, known as MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), and that pilots are fully prepared to handle it. It is meant to prevent a loss of lift which can cause an aerodynamic stall and send the plane downwards in an uncontrolled way. Facing such high-profile scrutiny, Boeing reshuffled executives in its commercial airplanes unit to focus on the crash fallout. The FAA said its “robust processes” and “full collaboration with the aviation community” were key to safety worldwide. In Ethiopia, which is leading the investigation of the crash, experts were poring over the in-flight recording of the captain and first officer. As with the Indonesia flight, they radioed about control problems shortly after take-off and sought to turn back, struggling to get their plane on track before it hit a field. Ethiopia’s civil aviation head, Wosenyeleh Hunegnaw, told Reuters he expected a report on the investigation within 30 days. For now, more than 350 MAX aircraft are grounded, and deliveries of nearly 5,000 more — worth more than $500 billion — are on hold. Development of the 737 MAX began in 2011 after the launch by its main rival of the Airbus A320neo. The MAX entered service in 2017. While some airlines are worried about the impact on profits, they have been able to keep services going, swapping MAX planes for others, or using partner carriers.

boeing
faa
737 max
ethiopian airlines
lion air
fbi
u.s. congress
aircraft accidents


U.S. B-52 bombers train with navy, ASDF over East China Sea

Abstract: The U.S. Air Force said Thursday it sent two B-52 bombers over the East China Sea for training with the U.S. Navy and Air Self-Defense Force near Okinawa Prefecture, the latest mission in the waterway that is home to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands. The training mission, which took place Wednesday, was part of the so-called continuous bomber presence operations the U.S. military says have been ongoing since March 2004 and are part of the United States’ long-standing “freedom of navigation” policies. “Two B-52H Stratofortress bombers took off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and conducted integration training with the U.S. Navy, Koku Jieitai (Japanese Air Self-Defense Force) and F-15C Eagles assigned to the 18th Wing, Kadena Air Base, Japan, in the vicinity of the East China Sea,” the U.S. Pacific Air Forces said in a statement. The U.S. and Japanese militaries regularly conduct such exercises in the East China Sea. Beijing — which also claims the Senkakus and calls them Diaoyu — in response often dispatches ships and aircraft to the area surrounding the tiny islets. In November 2013, China declared an air defense identification zone, in which aircraft are supposed to identify themselves to Chinese authorities, in the East China Sea. The United States and Japan have refused to recognize the ADIZ, and many observers have viewed it as an attempt by China to bolster its claims over disputed territories, like the uninhabited Senkakus. Beijing said in 2017 that Washington should respect the ADIZ after Chinese officials warned a U.S. bomber that it was illegally flying inside the East China Sea zone. The Pentagon rejected the Chinese call and said it would continue its flight operations in the region. The United States is obligated to defend aggression against territories under Japanese administration under Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, and top U.S. officials have said this extends to the Senkakus. Training missions such as Wednesday’s have apparently ramped up amid protracted military and trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, with one mission on March 4 and another in January taking bombers over the East China Sea. The U.S. has also sent its B-52s over the disputed South China Sea — including two separate flights near some of China’s man-made islands there within the space of ten days earlier this month. Beijing has blasted the missions as “provocations.” China’s Foreign Ministry has said no military ship or aircraft could scare Beijing away from its resolve to protect what it says is its territory. China has built up a series of military outposts in the strategic waterway, which includes vital sea lanes through which about $3 trillion in global trade passes each year. Washington and Beijing have frequently jousted over the militarization of the South China Sea, where China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines all have competing claims. The U.S. does not maintain any claims there, but says the operations are conducted globally with the aim of promoting freedom of navigation.

east china sea
senkakus
military
u.s .
weapons
disputed islands