| Ocasio-Cortez throws her support to Bernie Sanders Posted: 19 Oct 2019 11:57 AM PDT  At a rally Saturday in Queens, N.Y., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made her endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders for president official.
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| US troops leave northern Syria for Iraq despite Trump's claims they are returning 'home' Posted: 20 Oct 2019 12:08 PM PDT  US forces began withdrawing from their largest base in northern Syria on Sunday after the Pentagon chief confirmed that nearly 1,000 troops would be relocated to "help defend Iraq" against Isil's re-emergence. As President Donald Trump claimed that he was "bringing soldiers home", he was contradicted by his defence secretary, Mark Esper, who said the troops were instead headed for Syria's neighbour to join an existing US force of 5,000. "The current game plan is for those forces to re-position into western Iraq," Mr Esper said late on Saturday, not ruling out that they would conduct counterterrorism missions from Iraq into Syria. The timeframe for the transfer to be completed was "weeks, not days," he added. By Sunday afternoon, the relocation had begun, with a first convoy of more than 70 US armoured vehicles escorted by helicopters rumbling out of the Sarrin base in northern Syria and past the town of Tal Tamr. The withdrawal brings to a close America's military presence in northern Syria and effectively abandons its ally, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, to Turkish firepower. Ankara began its cross-border attack on October 9 with the goal of pushing back Kurdish YPG fighters from its border and establishing a Turkish-controlled zone to which it could eventually return Syrian refugees. The operation unleashed chaos across a part of Syria that has long been relatively stable. As the SDF came under pressure from the Turkish offensive, non-combat duties such as the policing of Isil detainees were set aside, enabling large-scale escapes of Isil members and families. Running out of allies, the Kurds made a previously unthinkable deal with Damascus last week, allowing Syrian troops into areas under their control in exchange for protection from the Turkish attack. A five-day US-brokered ceasefire, announced on Thursday and only unevenly implemented, aimed to allow Kurdish forces to withdraw from a 120-km (70-mile) strip of land that runs along the Turkish border. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to restart the offensive if Kurdish fighters fail to pull out. A sticking point has been the besieged border town of Ras al-Ain, held by the Kurds but located in the middle of a future Turkish-controlled border zone. On Sunday, however, the Turkish defence ministry said that the SDF forces there had withdrawn, a move also confirmed by the Kurdish group. In other parts of northern Syria, fighting continued as Turkish warplanes and a motley crew of Turkish-backed troops worked to oust Kurds from long-held positions along the Turkey-Syria border. Both sides have accused the other of violating the ceasefire, and yesterday Turkey's defence ministry alleged that one of its soldiers had been killed by Kurdish forces in the Tal Abyad border area. The dynamics of the conflict's latest permutation are complex, with the US brokering a ceasefire between its NATO ally and former proxy even as it rolled out of the battlefield to continue the same fight from another front. The Turkish defence ministry asserted on Sunday that "there are absolutely no impediments to the withdrawal" of Kurdish forces and that "the activities of exiting and evacuation from the region are firmly coordinated with the US counterparts". But Mr Trump's focus appears to be less on the ceasefire and more on the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and the limiting of America's role there. After saying last week it was "time to bring our soldiers back home", he continued to claim they were returning to the United States despite being contradicted by Mr Esper. On Sunday, Mr Trump referred to his defence secretary on Twitter as "Mark Esperanto" and added that "USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!" The president's bizarre comment followed a high-level visit to Jordan led by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic US House speaker, for discussions on the "deepening crisis" in Syria.
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| 70,000 California wildfire victims may miss out on payments Posted: 19 Oct 2019 10:09 AM PDT  As many as 100,000 Californians are eligible to receive payments for the damages they suffered from a series of devastating wildfires over the last several years. Concerned that as many as 70,000 victims may miss out on payments, attorneys filed court papers Friday to alert the bankruptcy judge that wildfire survivors — many still traumatized and struggling to get back on their feet — aren't aware of their rights to file a claim. "People really are overwhelmed and don't understand what they need to do," said Cecily Dumas, an attorney for the Official Committee of Tort Claimants, a group appointed by the court to represent all wildfire victims in the bankruptcy.
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| Let jihadists return home, French anti-terror magistrate urges Posted: 20 Oct 2019 04:39 AM PDT  The refusal of the French government to take back Islamic State fighters from Syria could fuel a new jihadist recruitment drive in France, threatening public safety, a leading anti-terrorism investigator has told AFP. David De Pas, coordinator of France's 12 anti-terrorism examining magistrates, said that it would be "better to know that these people are in the care of the judiciary" in France "than let them roam free". Turkey's offensive against Kurdish militia in northeast Syria has sparked fears that some of the 12,000 jihadists, including thousands of foreigners, being held in Syrian Kurdish prisons could escape.
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| ‘I’m not your n-word’: school guard fired for repeating racial slur Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:46 AM PDT  Students rally round Marlon Anderson as Madison Metropolitan School District indicates it will review zero-tolerance policyMarlon Anderson, a security guard at a Wisconsin high school who was fired after he says he repeated a racial slur while telling a student who had called him that word not to use it, has filed a grievance seeking his job back. Photograph: Steve Apps/APA high school security guard in Madison, Wisconsin, said he was fired after repeating a racial slur that was used against him. The news spurred protests and demands for reinstatement."Short story....I get called a bit@ @ss Ni€€A by a student, I responded do 'not call me ni€€a !' And I got fired," Marlon Anderson wrote in a Facebook post on 16 October. Anderson also criticized the Madison Metropolitan School District, writing "MMSD I unfortunately expected better."The district said Anderson was fired due to its "zero-tolerance" policy against the use of racial slurs, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.The local teacher's union said it would file a grievance on behalf of Anderson, NBC 15 reported. Anderson reportedly said he would file suit if MMSD did not give him his job back.On Friday, hundreds of students left school to protest, walking two miles to the MMSD offices. The school's black student union, of which Anderson's son is a member, met the MMSD superintendent and the school board president, the Journal Sentinel reported."Anything that involves us, our voices will be heard," Noah Anderson reportedly told a crowd of around 1,000 following the meeting.National figures came to Anderson's defense. Arne Duncan, Barack Obama's education secretary, tweeted Friday": "The Madison, WI school district needs to grow a brain, and a heart, really quickly! I've seen some crazy things over the years, but this is one of the worst. Just more evidence our country still can't handle issues of race, and racism."The singer Cher also offered to help, telling Anderson "if you want to sue … I will incur your expenses".Anderson, 48, claims he was escorting an unruly male student out of Madison West High School on 9 October when the student started calling him the n-word. The student also allegedly shoved and threatened the school's assistant principal, the Journal Sentinel said.Madison West High School senior Noah Anderson, 17, president of the school's Black Student Union and son of the school's recently-fired security guard Marlin Anderson, leads a rally in support of his father outside the school in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday. Photograph: John Hart/AP"Every type of n-word you can think of, that's what he was calling me," Anderson said. "I said, do not call me that name. I'm not your n-word. Do not call me that."The school's principal, Karen Boran, told Anderson later that week keeping his job would be "an uphill battle". Boran then told parents in a letter on Wednesday a school staffer wasn't coming back to work, following an investigation."As you know, our expectation when it comes to racial slurs has been very clear," Boran wrote. "Regardless of context or circumstance, racial slurs are not acceptable in our schools."The school district superintendent said on Friday it wants to have a strict policy against racial slurs, but suggested it might be reviewed."All of us here know that education is a dynamic social process," the Journal Sentinel reported the statement as saying. "Sometimes it gets messy when we have to grapple together around deeply held values like what it means to be anti-racist."…There is no doubt that language matters and racial slurs are harmful. However, at this point, we have an opportunity to look more deeply into the response to the use of racial slurs in our schools."The school board president also said it would review district rules on disciplining staff for using such language.An area youth organization, the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County, said on Friday that it had hired Anderson while district officials weigh his appeal.On Facebook, Anderson wrote: "This is a great help to be able to earn wages while we go through this appeals process. The reality is I did not just lose wages but also benefits. Most importantly we will soon be without health insurance … which makes the loss that much more impactful to myself and my family."This among other reasons is why I am still fighting for my position @ West with fervor."He added that he was "amazed at the dynamic support from my Madison Community your love is recognized and so appreciated. I am still fighting for my position @ West and for justice to be applied to my situation. I am also still fighting to challenge the 'no tolerance' policy that made me a casualty to its flawed planning and implementation. Please continue to keep us in your prayers."
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| Chile protests: At least eight people killed during riots in Santiago Posted: 20 Oct 2019 12:31 PM PDT  At least eight people have been killed in Chile during a second day of protests and rioting in the South American nation.Three people were left dead after a looted building was set ablaze, the governor of Santiago, the country's capital, said.
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| Bill Maher Ignores Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Disturbing #MeToo Allegations Posted: 19 Oct 2019 12:24 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos Getty & HBONeil deGrasse Tyson, the fun-lovin' astrophysicist and TV personality, has been credibly accused of sexual misconduct by four women—one of whom, Thchiya Amet El Maat, alleged that he drugged and raped her while the two were graduate students at the University of Texas in 1984. Bill Maher, the boundary-pushing comedian, has branded the MeToo movement "scary" and aspects of it "MeCarthyism" whilst downplaying women's accounts of inappropriate touching at the hands of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and the allegations against former congressman Al Franken. On Friday night, Maher welcomed pal Tyson to his long-running HBO program Real Time. Tyson, who's managed to weather any professional ramifications from the sexual-misconduct allegations—keeping his gigs with National Geographic's StarTalk, Fox's Cosmos and Hayden Planetarium—joined Maher and his panel, which included The Daily Beast's politics editor Sam Stein, for an interview toward the end of the program. And sure enough, Maher joked about Tyson's planets tie; let him hawk his new book of published letters to and from his fans; debated the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) supporting the existence of God, as is the outspoken atheist's wont; talked flat-earthers; and acted generally chummy with one another. Bill Maher Fails to Challenge The Federalist Publisher (and Mr. Meghan McCain) Ben DomenechJohn Oliver Thinks Rudy Giuliani Is Totally Screwed: 'Trump Will Abandon Him'What Maher failed to do was even remotely probe the disturbing allegations against Tyson—something that most interviewers of Tyson have failed to properly reckon with during his recent book tour (CBS This Morning sort of did, albeit via a soft line of questioning, asking what he's "learned" since the allegations surfaced.) In addition to soft-pedaling the allegations against Biden, Maher voiced objections to the public outrage surrounding Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's sexual-assault allegation against Trump's Supreme Court nominee (now justice), Brett Kavanaugh. "There are social justice warriors who are crazy enough in this country, I fight with them all the time, who… they lend enough credence to this to make people think, 'Oh, you know what? They're going to go after my high school record. That's fair game now.' And it becomes sort of a privacy thing," offered Maher. Later on, the comedian added, "It does seem like things morphed from 'listen to any woman who says she's been wronged,' which is the right thing to do, to 'automatically believe.' That's what's scary." What's frustrating about Maher's attitude toward MeToo is that he appears to consistently downplay allegations of inappropriate touching or attempted sexual assault levied against certain men of power (usually Democrats), while regularly railing against those said to have been committed by President Trump, who's been accused of varying acts of sexual misconduct by over 22 women. While the attitude shouldn't be to "automatically believe" women, it shouldn't take nearly two dozen accusers—or hating the man's politics—to either. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| At a School for Suicide Bombers' Children, Dancing, Drawing and Deradicalization Posted: 19 Oct 2019 07:41 AM PDT  MEDAN, Indonesia -- Ais likes to dance. She knows the words to "I'm a Little Teapot." Her dimples are disarming.Her parents didn't want their daughter to dance. They didn't want her to sing. They wanted her to die with them for their cause.Last year, when she was 7, Ais squeezed onto a motorcycle with her mother and brother. They carried a packet that Ais refers to as coconut rice wrapped in banana leaves. Her father and other brother climbed onto a different bike with another parcel. They sped toward a police station in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, a place of mixed faith.The parcels were bombs, and they were set off at the gate to the police station. Catapulted off the motorcycle by the force of the explosion, Ais rose from the pavement like a ghost, her pale head-to-toe garment fluttering in the chaos. Every other member of her family died. No bystanders were killed. The Islamic State militant group, halfway across the world, claimed responsibility for the attack.Ais, who is being identified by her nickname (pronounced ah-iss) to protect her privacy, is now part of a deradicalization program for children run by the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs. In a leafy compound in the capital, Jakarta, she bops to Taylor Swift, reads the Quran and plays games of trust.Her schoolmates include children of other suicide bombers, and of people who were intent on joining the Islamic State in Syria.Efforts by Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, to purge its society of religiously inspired extremism are being watched keenly by the international counterterrorism community. While the vast majority of Indonesians embrace a moderate form of Islam, a series of suicide attacks have struck the nation, including, in 2016, the first in the region claimed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.Now, with hundreds of Islamic State families trying to escape detention camps in Syria amid Turkish incursions into Kurdish-held territory, the effort has taken on more urgency. The fear is that the Islamic State's violent ideology will not only renew itself in the Middle East, but may also metastasize thousands of miles away in Indonesia.There are signs that it is already happening.Last week, a man whom the police linked to ISIS wounded the Indonesian security minister, Wiranto, in a stabbing. Since then, at least 36 suspected militants who were plotting bombings and other attacks have been arrested in a counterterrorism crackdown, the police said this week.Hundreds of Indonesians went to Syria to fight for ISIS. In May, the police arrested seven men who had returned from the country and who, the police say, were part of a plot to use Wi-Fi to detonate explosive devices.The risks, however, are not limited to those who have come back. Indonesians who never left the region are being influenced by the Islamic State from afar.In January, an Indonesian couple who had tried but failed to reach Syria blew themselves up at a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines. More than 20 were killed in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State.In Indonesia, there are thousands of vulnerable children who have been indoctrinated by their extremist parents, according to Khairul Ghazali, who served nearly five years in prison for terrorism-related crimes. He said he came to renounce violence in jail and now runs an Islamic school in the city of Medan, on the island of Sumatra, that draws on his own experience as a former extremist to deradicalize militants' children."We teach them that Islam is a peaceful religion and that jihad is about building not destroying," Khairul said. "I am a model for the children because I understand where they come from. I know what it is like to suffer. Because I was deradicalized, I know it can be done."Despite the scale of the country's problem, only about 100 children have attended formal deradicalization programs in Indonesia, Khairul said. His madrassa, the only one in Indonesia to receive significant government support for deradicalization work, can teach just 25 militant-linked children at a time, and only through middle school.Government follow-up is minimal. "The children are not tracked and monitored when they leave," said Alto Labetubun, an Indonesian terrorism analyst.The risks of extremist ideology being passed from one generation to the next are well-documented, and a number of Indonesians linked to the Islamic State are the offspring of militants.The son of Imam Samudra, one of the masterminds of the 2002 bombing on the island of Bali that killed 202 people, was 12 when his father was executed in 2008. He joined the Islamic State and died in Syria at 19.Khairul, whose father and uncles were members of a militant organization, said he understood the pull of family obligation. He was sent to prison in 2011 for armed robbery and for planning an attack on a police station. Before his conviction, Khairul taught four of his 10 children to fire weapons."Deradicalizing my own children was very difficult," he said. "My wife and my children looked at me very strangely when I got out of prison because I had changed."Some of the children under Khairul's care were taught to assemble bombs by family members. The parents of about half the students were killed in armed conflict with the Indonesian counterterrorism police."It's natural for the children to want revenge for their parents' deaths," he said. "They were taught to hate the Indonesian state because it is against the caliphate."When Indonesia achieved independence in 1945, religious diversity was enshrined in the constitution. About 87% of Indonesia's 270 million people are Muslims, 10% are Christian, and there are adherents of many other faiths in the country.A tiny fraction of the Muslim majority has agitated violently for a caliphate that would arc across Muslim-dominated parts of Southeast Asia. The latest incarnation of such militant groups is Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, considered the Indonesian affiliate of the Islamic State.The parents of Ais, who is now 8, were members of a Jamaah Ansharut Daulah cell. Each week, they would pray with other families who had rejected Surabaya's spiritual diversity.The day before Ais and her family rode up to the police station in May 2018, another family -- mother, father, two sons and two daughters -- made their way to three churches in Surabaya and detonated their explosives. Fifteen bystanders were killed. The militant family was extinguished entirely, including the two girls, who went to school with Ais.Hours later, members of two other families in the prayer group also died, either from shootouts with the police or when explosives hidden in their apartment detonated. The six children who survived the carnage are now in the Jakarta program with Ais.When they first arrived from Surabaya, the children shrank from music and refrained from drawing images of living things because they believed it conflicted with Islam, social workers said. They were horrified by dancing and by a Christian social worker who didn't wear a head scarf.In Surabaya, the children had been forced to watch hours of militant videos every day. One of the boys, now 11, knew how to make a bomb."Jihad, martyrdom, war, suicide, those were their goals," said Sri Wahyuni, one of the social workers taking care of the Surabaya children.On a recent weekday, however, the children shimmied their way through team-building exercises. During Arabic class, they squirmed. They drew the human figure they had once considered taboo.But their religious practice remains important. Although it is not required, all seven still fast two days a week to demonstrate commitment to their faith."We don't want to challenge their religion by stopping them," said Ahmad Zainal Mutaqin, a social worker who also teaches religion classes. "Indonesians respect their elders, and we don't want them to think their parents were evil."Some day soon, these children of suicide bombers will have to leave the government program in which they have been enrolled for 15 months. It's not clear where they will go, although the ministry is searching for a suitable Islamic boarding school for them.The children of those who tried to reach Syria to fight get even less time at the deradicalization center -- only a month or two. Some then end up in the juvenile detention system, where they re-encounter extremist ideology, counterterrorism experts said."We spend all this time working with them, but if they go back to where they came from, radicalism can enter their hearts very quickly," said Sri Musfiah, a senior social worker. "It makes me worried."Irfan Idris, the director of deradicalization for Indonesia's National Agency for Combating Terrorism, acknowledged that threat, saying there "is not a guarantee" that the minors who have been funneled through government care pose no threat.Most children of the 1,000 or so people who have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes in Indonesia don't even have the chance to go through this effort at education and moderation. The government runs the one program in Jakarta and provides support for Khairul's madrassa."The solution is a very expensive, long-term mentoring program such as takes place with some of the white power youths in Europe, involving schools, social psychologists and attention to families," said Sidney Jones, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta and an authority on Islamic militancy in Southeast Asia.But the political commitment to such an extensive effort is lacking in Indonesia.Alto, the terrorism analyst, said that even the nascent efforts underway in Indonesia might only be camouflaging the problem."Although it seems that they are obedient, it's a survival mechanism," he said of the students undergoing deradicalization. "If you were taken prisoner, you will do and follow what the captor told you to do so that you will get food, water, cigarettes, phone calls."But, he added, "you know that one day you will come out."At the madrassa in Medan, which preaches the dangers of radicalism within a conservative approach to Islam, a row of boys sat on the veranda of a mosque and expounded on their worldview. Dan, 12, agreed with classmates that Indonesia should be an Islamic state.What of the churches interspersed with the mosques in Medan? Dan, who is also being identified by a nickname to protect his privacy, giggled.His hands mimicked the shock of an explosion, and he formed a word."Bomb," he said. His laughter stopped.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Bob Menendez says Pompeo ‘in a parallel alternate universe’ Posted: 20 Oct 2019 08:28 AM PDT ![Bob Menendez says Pompeo 'in a parallel alternate universe']( "Bob Menendez says Pompeo 'in a parallel alternate universe'") Sen. Bob Menendez said Sunday there are "no guarantees" that U.S. interests in the Middle East are still being served following the White House decision to pull troops out of northern Syria. The New Jersey Democrat also scoffed at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's assertions that the region has become more stable since the U.S. announced its withdrawal and that the Islamic State is being effectively countered. President Donald Trump's abruptly announced pullout allowed Turkey to invade the region and attack Kurdish forces that were allied with the U.S. in the fight against ISIS.
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| Trump calls Mexico's president to express 'solidarity' Posted: 19 Oct 2019 01:42 PM PDT  Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said on Saturday that President Trump called him to express his "solidarity" following an attempt to arrest a drug kingpin's son that prompted a wave of violence in the city of Culiacan.
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| Researchers find second warship from WWII Battle of Midway Posted: 20 Oct 2019 03:25 PM PDT  A crew of deep-sea explorers and historians looking for lost World War II warships have found a second Japanese aircraft carrier that went down in the historic Battle of Midway. Vulcan Inc. director of undersea operations Rob Kraft said a review of sonar data captured Sunday shows what could be either the Japanese carrier Akagi or the Soryu resting in nearly 18,000 feet (5,490 meters) of water in the Pacific Ocean more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) northwest of Pearl Harbor. To confirm exactly which ship they've found the crew will deploy the AUV for another eight-hour mission where it will capture high-resolution sonar images of the site.
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| Defense secretary says U.S. troops in Syria to transfer to Iraq, Trump maintains they're coming home Posted: 20 Oct 2019 07:44 AM PDT ![Defense secretary says U.S. troops in Syria to transfer to Iraq, Trump maintains they're coming home]( "Defense secretary says U.S. troops in Syria to transfer to Iraq, Trump maintains they're coming home") It appears U.S. troops leaving Syria won't be coming home -- at least not yet -- as President Trump had indicated last week, and reiterated today.Instead, defense Secretary Mark Esper said Saturday that all U.S. troops leaving northern Syria will be re-stationed in western Iraq where they will reportedly defend the country and continue to conduct preventative operations against the Islamic State, as the cease-fire brokered with Turkey in northern Syria mostly seems to be holding. Esper also did not rule out counterterrorism missions from Iraq into Syria.The plan calls for about 1,000 troops to head to Iraq, adding to the more than 5,000 troops currently in the country. "Things could change between now and whenever we complete the withdrawal, but that's the game plan right now," Esper said. The secretary added that he will talk with U.S. allies at a NATO meeting next week to discuss how to handle military operations to block any resurgence from ISIS.But Trump still maintained that troops were coming home in a Sunday morning tweet, in which he also called Esper the wrong name.> Mark Esperanto, Secretary of Defense, "The ceasefire is holding up very nicely. There are some minor skirmishes that have ended quickly. New areas being resettled with the Kurds." USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!> > -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2019Read more at NBC News and The Associated Press.Update: Trump has since removed the original tweet and posted another in which he referred to Esper by his correct name, and said the U.S. is "ending endless wars" rather than "bringing soldiers home."
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| Thousands protest against Haiti's president Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:44 PM PDT  "Jovenel is incapable and incompetent, he must pack his bags because Haiti must live," said one of the protesters, Jean Ronald. Anger mounted in late August due to a national fuel shortage, and protests turned violent.
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| Burmese fishermen 'faint' after mistaking $20 million of floating crystal meth for natural deodorant Posted: 20 Oct 2019 07:57 AM PDT  Sacks of crystal meth scooped from the sea by Burmese fishermen who mistook it for a deodorant substance had a street value of $20 million (£15.4m), an official said on Sunday, in a country believed to be the world's largest methamphetamine producer. The accidental drug haul off Burma's coastal Ayeyarwady region occurred when fishermen spotted a total of 23 sacks floating in the Andaman Sea on Wednesday. Each one contained plastic-wrapped bags labelled as Chinese green tea - packaging commonly used by Southeast Asian crime gangs to smuggle crystal meth to far-flung destinations including Japan, South Korea and Australia. Locals were mystified by the crystallised substance in the sacks, Zaw Win, a local official of the National League for Democracy party who assisted the fishermen and police, told AFP. At first, they assumed it was a natural deodorant chemical known as potassium alum, which is widely used in Burma. "So they burned it, and some of them almost fainted," he said. They informed the police, who on Thursday combed a beach and found an additional two sacks of the same substance - bringing the total to 691 kilogrammes (1,500 pounds) which would be worth about $20.2 million (£15.6m), Zaw Win said. "In my entire life and my parents' lifetime, we have never seen drugs floating in the ocean before," he said. The massive haul was sent on Sunday to Pyapon district police, who declined to comment on it. Burma's multi-billion-dollar drug industry is centred in eastern Shan state, whose poppy-covered hills are ideal cover for illicit production labs. Made-in-Burma crystal meth - better known as ice - is smuggled out of the country to more lucrative markets using routes carved out by narco gangs through Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. A study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says that Southeast Asia's crime groups are netting more than $60 billion a year - a conservative estimate, according to experts - thanks to a sophisticated smuggling and money-laundering operation. In March, Burma authorities seized more than 1,700 kilogrammes of crystal meth worth nearly $29 million, which police said at the time was their biggest drug haul this year.
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| Royal Caribbean’s ‘Adventure of the Seas’ requests help from Coast Guard off Jersey Shore Posted: 19 Oct 2019 08:25 AM PDT  The cruise ship is on a 13-day, one-way cruise from Quebec City, Canada to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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| Detroit-area men who sent millions to Yemen spared prison Posted: 20 Oct 2019 08:22 AM PDT  A group of Detroit-area men opened bank accounts to move millions of dollars to Yemen, their war-torn native country. One by one, U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn declined to send them to prison, despite guidelines that call for a few years or more behind bars. The Detroit area is believed to have the highest U.S. population of Yemenis, a demographic that has risen amid war in Yemen that has killed tens of thousands of people and left millions more with food and health care shortages.
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| Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan delegation to Jordan to talk Middle East peace amid the Syrian crisis Posted: 20 Oct 2019 07:09 AM PDT  Pelosi was joined by other House members in Jordan on Saturday for diplomacy meetings with top officials, including King Abdullah II and his son.
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| Egypt unveils biggest ancient coffin find in over a century Posted: 19 Oct 2019 05:53 AM PDT ![Egypt unveils biggest ancient coffin find in over a century]( "Egypt unveils biggest ancient coffin find in over a century") Egypt on Saturday unveiled the details of 30 ancient wooden coffins with mummies inside discovered in the southern city of Luxor in the biggest find of its kind in more than a century. A team of Egyptian archaeologists discovered a "distinctive group of 30 coloured wooden coffins for men, women and children" in a cache at Al-Asasif cemetery on Luxor's west bank, the Ministry of Antiquities said in a statement on Saturday. "It is the first large human coffin cache ever discovered since the end of the 19th century," the Egyptian Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany was quoted as saying during a ceremony in Luxor.
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| China trade: Deal or no deal? Posted: 20 Oct 2019 02:55 AM PDT ![China trade: Deal or no deal?]( "China trade: Deal or no deal?") The smartest insight and analysis, from all perspectives, rounded up from around the web:As the Trump administration and Beijing appear to edge closer to a trade agreement, "China is emerging with wins," said Chao Deng and Lingling Wei at The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. agreed last week to suspend an imminent tariff hike on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports; in return, President Trump said, China will buy up to $50 billion in U.S. agricultural products. Beijing has pursued a "tit-for-tat strategy" on tariffs in the year-old trade war but has grown more open to a deal as it "runs out of ammunition on more U.S. imports to hit." Yet it's not clear what China is really willing to concede to secure a trade pact; even the billions supposed to go to U.S. agriculture may be more of an "aspiration" than a firm target. Despite that lack of firm commitments, Trump has played down the protests in Hong Kong to keep the trade talks on track -- a success for Beijing. The two sides emerged from talks last week with different takes on what will be included in any eventual accord "and how close they are to signing a document," said Bloomberg. President Trump claimed to be very close to a "phase one" agreement, calling the latest talks a "lovefest" and saying that "we've come to a deal, pretty much, subject to getting it written." But China has been much more measured, saying only that progress has been made.For the U.S. and China, this is already the 13th round of trade talks, said Weizhen Tan at CNBC. Trump's phase-one deal is really more of a truce, with China still "hunkering down." The very limited agreement leaves the hard issues such as cybersecurity and the fate of blacklisted Chinese tech companies, including the giant Huawei, still on the table. "The agreement, such as it is, seems more like a demonstration of goodwill than a resolution of the trade dispute," said The Economist. We've been here before, and prior cease-fires have collapsed "under a barrage of tweets." And what advances have been made aren't all in the right direction. Yes, having China buy some $50 billion worth of agricultural produce would help American farmers. "But trade is supposed to be about markets, not state intervention," and in the long run this movement toward managed trade could "further undermine the global trading system.""Don't get too excited" about hopes of relief from the trade war, said David Fickling at Bloomberg. More than $460 billion worth of tariffs remain in place between the world's two biggest economies, and there are few reasons to think the bilateral relationship will improve anytime soon. Trump's impulsive, unpredictable behavior discourages China from striking a more comprehensive deal. "There's little point in offering concessions on intellectual property protection or opening more sectors of the economy to foreign investment if the other side is prepared to throw over the chessboard because of a separate issue." Meanwhile, an increasingly authoritarian China is "busy making itself a markedly less attractive place for U.S. businesses to invest." There could well be no resolution at all to the trade battle, and the current "grim equilibrium" may be all we can get.
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| School apologizes after photo showing students with cardboard boxes over their heads during exam goes viral Posted: 20 Oct 2019 09:41 AM PDT  An school in India has issued an apology after a bizarre image of students wearing cardboard boxes on their heads went viral. The images were taken during a chemistry exam at Bhagat Pre-University College in the town of Haveri.
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| Lebanon rocked by vast protests demanding resignation of Hariri government Posted: 20 Oct 2019 11:57 AM PDT  Lebanon was shaken on Sunday by its largest protests in years as young and old turned out en masse to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and his coalition government. It marked the fourth day of protests following a proposal for new taxes, which ignited widespread anger over austerity measures and corruption in a deeply unequal society. The plan - to tax WhatsApp calls and other third-party applications that have long afforded cash-strapped Lebanese a chance to chat for free - was quickly dropped. But the protests have morphed into demands for an overhaul of the entire political system in the crisis-ravaged country. After on Friday laying out a 72-hour deadline for parties to agree to a framework for economic reforms, Mr Hariri held round-the-clock meetings with Lebanon's various political blocs to discuss proposals for the 2020 budget. Late on Sunday Mr Hariri appeared to have bought himself some time with the announcement of a package of reforms including a 50 percent reduction in the salaries of current and former officials. The reforms also include $3.3 billion in contributions from banks to reduce the deficit in the heavily indebted country, and plans to overhaul the crippled electricity sector. But they will not be confirmed until approved by the cabinet on Monday, and it is unclear whether they will go far enough. On Saturday night, the resignation of four ministers from the Christian Lebanese Forces, a party allied with Mr Hariri, underscored the chaos in government. By Sunday evening, with just 24 hours to go before Mr Hariri's deadline, the country's streets were awash in flags and furious Lebanese taking aim at all corners. "Neither Saudi nor Iran will be able to take this protest down," chanted demonstrators in downtown Beirut Sunday night, referencing the regional arch-rivals that have long jostled for control of the tiny Mediterranean country. In the predominantly Shia city of Tyre, in the country's south, there were chants accusing parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, himself Shia, of corruption. There has also been vocal opposition to Hizbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah. "All of them means all of them. Nasrallah is one of them," was heard throughout the protests. While demonstrators called for the government's departure, its actual collapse would likely herald even greater instability and economic disaster – something MPs seem anxious to avoid. Mr Hariri has hinted at resignation if his demands are not met. But there are few obvious alternatives to the current PM. Not only is the post limited to Sunnis by the country's power-sharing system, but it is also unclear who would be willing to take over in such a disastrous economic situation. Mr Hariri formed the current government of national unity in February after nine months of wrangling. He is currently in his third term as leader.
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| Boeing Pilot Complained of 'Egregious' Issue With 737 Max in 2016 Posted: 19 Oct 2019 01:30 AM PDT  For months, Boeing has said it had no idea that a new automated system in the 737 Max jet, which played a role in two fatal crashes, was unsafe.But on Friday, the company gave lawmakers a transcript revealing that a top pilot working on the plane had raised concerns about the system in messages to a colleague in 2016, more than two years before the Max was grounded because of the accidents, which left 346 people dead.In the messages, the pilot, Mark Forkner, who played a central role in the development of the plane, complained that the system, known as MCAS, was acting unpredictably in a flight simulator: "It's running rampant."The messages are from November 2016, months before the Max was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. "Granted, I suck at flying, but even this was egregious," he said sardonically to a colleague, according to a transcript of the exchange reviewed Friday by The New York Times.The Max crisis has consumed Boeing, and the revelation of the messages from Forkner come at a particularly sensitive time. The company's chief executive, Dennis Muilenburg, is scheduled to testify before two congressional committees, on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30, the first time a Boeing executive has appeared at a hearing related to the crashes. Boeing's stock lost 7% of its value Friday, adding to the financial fallout.The existence of the messages strike at Boeing's defense that it had done nothing wrong regarding the Max because regulators had cleared the plane to fly, and potentially increases the company's legal exposure as it faces civil and criminal investigations and multiple lawsuits related to both crashes. Facing competition from Airbus, Boeing worked to produce the Max as quickly as possible, striving to minimize costly training for pilots. Last week, a task force of 10 international regulators released a report that found that Boeing had not fully explained MCAS to the FAA."This is more evidence that Boeing misled pilots, government regulators and other aviation experts about the safety of the 737 Max," Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said in a statement Friday.Boeing has maintained that the Max was certified in accordance with all appropriate regulations, suggesting that there was no sign that MCAS was unsafe.That contention was central to the company's rationale in not grounding the Max after the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 last October, and in waiting days to recommend grounding the plane after the second crash, of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March.It was only after data suggested that MCAS played a role in the second crash that Boeing and the FAA decided to ground the Max.Forkner was the chief technical pilot for the Max and was in charge of communicating with the FAA group that determined how pilots would be trained before flying it. He helped Boeing convince international regulators that the Max was safe to fly.In the messages, he said that during tests in 2016, the simulator showed the plane making unexpected movements through a process called trimming."The plane is trimming itself like craxy," he wrote to Patrik Gustavsson, a fellow 737 technical pilot at Boeing. "I'm like WHAT?"Forkner went on to say that he had lied to the FAA."I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly)," Forkner says in the messages, although it was not clear what he was specifically referring to.Lawmakers, regulators and pilots responded with swift condemnation Friday."This is the smoking gun," Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said in an interview. "This is no longer just a regulatory failure and a culture failure. It's starting to look like criminal misconduct."Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he expected answers from Boeing's chief executive and board of directors."They must be held accountable if Boeing was deceptive or misleading in failing to report safety concerns," Blumenthal said in an interview. "What these reports indicate is that Boeing's own employees lied and concealed the truth."The FAA administrator, Stephen Dickson, sent Muilenburg a letter Friday morning demanding that the company account for why it had not provided the messages to the agency earlier."I expect your explanation immediately regarding the content of this document and Boeing's delay in disclosing the document to its safety regulator," Dickson wrote.A Boeing spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said the company was "voluntarily cooperating" with the congressional investigation and provided the messages to lawmakers as part of that process. He noted that the company gave the messages to the Department of Justice, which is conducting a criminal investigation into Boeing, earlier this year.A Boeing spokesman said the company did not give the messages to the FAA earlier because of the ongoing criminal investigation.The Max has been grounded for more than seven months, and airlines do not expect to fly it again this year. The FAA and Boeing have repeatedly pushed back the expected date of the plane's return to service as regulators and the company uncover new problems with the plane.The crisis has already cost Boeing more than $8 billion. It has disrupted expansion plans for airlines around the world, which have had to cancel thousands of flights and lost hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.The Times, which was the first to disclose Forkner's involvement in the plane, previously reported that he had failed to tell the FAA that the original version of MCAS was being overhauled, leaving regulators with the impression that the system was relatively benign and would be used only in rare cases.Eight months before the messages were exchanged, Forkner had asked the FAA if it would be OK to remove mention of MCAS from the pilot's manual. The FAA, which at the time believed the system would activate only in rare cases and wasn't dangerous, approved Forkner's request.Another exchange, in a batch of emails among Forkner, Boeing colleagues and FAA officials, was also reviewed by The Times on Friday. In one email from November 2016, Forkner wrote that he was "jedi-mind tricking regulators into accepting the training that I got accepted by FAA."A lawyer for Forkner downplayed the importance of the messages, suggesting Forkner was talking about issues with the simulator."If you read the whole chat, it is obvious that there was no 'lie' and the simulator program was not operating properly," the lawyer, David Gerger, said in a statement. "Based on what he was told, Mark thought the plane was safe, and the simulator would be fixed."Flight simulators replicate real cockpits and are used to test planes during development. They can sometimes behave unpredictably, depending on their configuration.Forkner, who is now a pilot for Southwest Airlines, and Gustavsson did not respond to requests for comment.Boeing provided the transcript to lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Friday morning, in advance of the hearings this month at which Muilenburg will testify about the crashes for the first time. Reuters was first to report on the existence of the transcript.DeFazio, who as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is overseeing the investigation into the crashes, said he had reviewed other internal Boeing documents and emails that suggested employees were under pressure to produce planes as fast as possible and avoid additional pilot training."Boeing cannot say this is about one person," DeFazio said. "This is about a cultural failure at Boeing under pressure from Wall Street to just get this thing out there and make sure that you don't open the door to further pilot training."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
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| Report: Synagogue massacre led to string of attack plots Posted: 20 Oct 2019 04:35 PM PDT ![Report: Synagogue massacre led to string of attack plots]( "Report: Synagogue massacre led to string of attack plots") At least 12 white supremacists have been arrested on allegations of plotting, threatening or carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. since the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly one year ago, a Jewish civil rights group reported Sunday. The Anti-Defamation League also counted at least 50 incidents in which white supremacists are accused of targeting Jewish institutions' property since a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. The ADL said its nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents remains near record levels.
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| Worst Baku Clashes in Years Followed by Claims of Critic's Abuse Posted: 20 Oct 2019 06:26 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The political fallout of rare anti-government demonstrations is spreading in Azerbaijan, with the European Union issuing a warning and an opposition leader saying he was beaten up by riot police following his arrest on Saturday.An unathorized rally by hundreds of protesters demanding freedom of assembly, which has effectively been denied since the start of 2019, ended in the worst violence the Azeri capital has seen in years. Ali Karimli, leader of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan Party, was detained with scores of his supporters as they defied a ban to demonstrate in central Baku."Six to seven police officers handcuffed me, throwing me onto the floor and kicking me," Karimli said in a video statement on his Facebook page. With bruises visible on his head, face and neck, Karimli said he was beaten so severely that at some point he lost consciousness.While Azerbaijan ranks among the world's most corrupt and repressive governments, arrests or torture of leaders of opposition parties are rare in the energy-rich former Soviet republic.With parliamentary elections looming next year, demonstrators gathered on Saturday despite a heavy security presence, demanding the resignation of the country's longtime President Ilham Aliyev. Karimli and other leaders of the secular opposition are using social media to galvanize public support for a peaceful shift to democracy.Authorities had offered demonstrators a remote location on the outskirts of the city to conduct the rally.Europe's WarningThe EU's executive arm called for an investigation into reports of excessive and unprovoked force, urging the Azeri government to release the detained opposition protesters."Freedom of assembly is a fundamental human right and we expect Azerbaijan to ensure that it can be fully exercised, in line with the country's international obligations," European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said in a statement.After being detained and dragged into a police car, Karimli was eventually taken to hospital where he received stitches to his forehead and his body was screened for injuries. He was later released home.The Interior Ministry's press service didn't answer calls for comment. Sahlab Bagirov, commander of the riot police, on Saturday rejected claims police used excessive force.In a statement late Saturday, the Interior Ministry said 60 people were detained for attending the demonstration. Of those, 42 were "warned" and released. The remaining 18 will stand trial.To contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net, Paul Abelsky, Angela CullenFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| UPDATE 1-Bangladesh to move Rohingya to flood-prone island next month Posted: 20 Oct 2019 06:08 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Bangladesh to move Rohingya to flood-prone island next month]( "UPDATE 1-Bangladesh to move Rohingya to flood-prone island next month") Bangladesh will start relocating Rohingya Muslims to a flood-prone island off its coast next month as several thousand refugees have agreed to move, a government official said on Sunday. Dhaka wants to move 100,000 refugees to Bhasan Char – a Bay of Bengal island hours by boat from the mainland – to ease overcrowding in its camps at Cox's Bazar, home to more than 1 million Rohingya Muslims who have fled neighbouring Myanmar. "We want to start relocation by early next month," Mahbub Alam Talukder, the Relief and Repatriation Commission chief based in Cox's Bazar, told Reuters, adding that "the refugees will be shifted in phases".
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| Lost hiker rescued in Oregon snowstorm: 'I wouldn’t have survived another night' Posted: 19 Oct 2019 06:27 PM PDT  Lost in a fierce snowstorm on the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon, hiker Robb Campbell made a desperate call for help.
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| Milan seeks US apology for WWII bomb that killed children Posted: 20 Oct 2019 08:40 AM PDT  Milan's mayor appealed Sunday to U.S. authorities to apologize for a World War II bombing raid that killed 184 elementary school children. Mayor Giuseppe Sala made the request following a Mass marking the 75th anniversary of the Gorla massacre, named for the quarter in the city that was struck, the news agency ANSA reported. "I think it's necessary that the American government apologizes, knowing that we are here to forgive," Sala said, adding that he would formalize the request with the U.S. consul in Milan this week.
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| Donald Trump Is Perfectly Happy to Let Allah Sort ’Em Out Posted: 19 Oct 2019 02:19 AM PDT  Delil Douleiman/GettyOn Thursday night at his rally in Texas, Donald Trump finally admitted why he greenlit the Turkish military to cross the border into northern Syria to attack the Kurds: He wanted these two groups of Muslims to slaughter each other. As Trump declared to his adoring fans, without even a hint of humanity about the suffering this would cause to civilians, "Sometimes you have to let them fight like two kids. Then you pull them apart." This follows Trump's comments on Wednesday, when he did his best to callously dispel humanitarian concerns many have voiced for the Kurds. First, Trump dismissively stated that the Kurds were "no angels." He then did his best to dehumanize both sides in the battle, declaring that the Kurds and Turks have been fighting for "hundreds of years," which he explained in essence is just who these people are. I'm not exaggerating, Trump stated that "warring" and killing is "unnatural for us, but its sorta natural for them." Many were stunned by Trump's comments, but not me. The why behind Trump's comments is simple. He was simply updating the old concept of "Kill them all, let God sort it out" to "let the Muslims slaughter each other and let Allah sort it out.What do I mean let the Muslims kill each other? Well, Turkey's population is 99 percent Muslim. While the Kurds, who number overall between 25 and 30 million, are overwhelmingly Muslim. In fact, I'm named after one of the most famous Kurds ever, Saladin, who led the Muslim forces during the Crusades. (I'm not Kurdish, but I am Muslim.)Pence Just Ratified All of Turkey's War Aims in SyriaThis is far from the first time a conservative has suggested that the U.S. should stay out of Syria and simply let the Muslims there slaughter each other. In 2013, Sarah Palin—who at the time was still relevant in GOP circles—articulated that very concept as she slammed President Obama for contemplating committing U.S. troops to end the civil war in Syria. Palin commented that in a situation with "both sides shouting 'Allah Akbar' at each other," we should just "let Allah sort it out." Palin, who publicly defended Trump's despicable Muslim ban in 2015, was obviously playing on the idea of "Kill them all and let God sort it out," but instead used the word "Allah," conceivably so it would play better with the rabidly anti-Muslim GOP base. ("Allah" simply means God in Arabic.) Legend has it that this expression, ironically, comes from the Crusades, when in the 13th century a Catholic monk named Arnaud Amalric was asked by the military commander how to differentiate between heretics and Christians shortly before they laid siege to the French city of Beziers. Amalric reportedly responded, "Kill them all, God will know his own." The result was these Christian soldiers slaughtered 20,000 people, including women and children.The view that America should stay out of Syria and simply reap the benefits of Muslims killing each other was more recently expressed in a more "intellectual" way by right-wing "scholar" Daniel Pipes, a man with a long history of spewing anti-Muslim bigotry as documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In 2017, Pipes penned an article for National Review criticizing Trump's military strike against the ruling Assad regime in Syria for its use of chemical weapons against civilians that killed more than 80. Pipes wrote, "I see this military action as an error. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution requires that American forces fight in every war around the world," adding, "this one should be sat out, letting enemies of the United States fight each other to exhaustion."Pipes' words, "letting enemies of the United States fight each other to exhaustion," are nothing more than let the Muslims kill each other. And that's exactly what Trump has done by greenlighting Turkey's military operation. The only reason Trump pushed for the Thursday ceasefire was the vocal GOP criticism that resulted in 129 House Republicans voting for the resolution condemning his abandonment of the Kurds. Trump's defense of his decision to abandon the Kurds revealed his total lack of compassion for the Kurds and even more broadly, Muslims, as human beings. This is not surprising given Trump's 2016 campaign call for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims from our country. And since then, Trump has drastically reduced the number of Muslim refugees admitted to our country, down from nearly 40,000 accepted in 2016 to 4,900 in fiscal year 2019. Trump, as he promised in the first week of his presidency, has also prioritized Christian lives over Muslim in terms of the percentage of refugees accepted. In 2016, the split between Muslim and Christian refuges was almost equal, with 46 percent being Muslim. In 2019, now the scale tilts heavily to favoring Christians, with 80 percent of all refugees being Christian. In raw numbers that amounts to 23,800 Christian refugees to 4,900 Muslim admitted.This helps us understand why Trump smeared the Kurds with lies from they are "no angels" to telling the press the Kurds "didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy." In reality, the Kurds didn't have their own nation then (and they still don't today), so as an entity they couldn't help anyone. Trump's comment was clearly designed to convince some Americans to not care if the Kurdish civilians were killed by Turkish forces.Another Trump tweet Monday summed up perfectly how he doesn't see the Kurds as humans worthy of compassion: "Anyone who wants to assist Syria in protecting the Kurds is good with me, whether it is Russia, China, or Napoleon Bonaparte. I hope they all do great, we are 7,000 miles away!" That's the president of the United States talking.With media reports that over 160,000 people have been displaced already because of the fighting and numerous Kurdish civilians being killed including a female Kurdish politician who was taken from her car and executed along with either other civilians by Turkish backed militias, Trump hoping "Napoleon Bonaparte" might help the Kurds was the height of dismissive depravity. And while Trump notes we are "7,000 miles away" as a justification for not caring about a growing humanitarian crisis that he bears moral responsibly for allowing, he had no problem recently sending nearly 2,000 U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia, which is further away than Syria. If only the Kurds had oil or could help Trump make money, maybe then he would show them compassion.To Trump—and, sadly, others on the right—watching Muslims kill each other and let God sort it out is appealing. Tragically, Trump has turned that medieval view into modern day U.S. policy. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| How Catalan protest tactics are inspired by Hong Kong Posted: 20 Oct 2019 02:59 AM PDT  From blocking airports to using encrypted messaging apps, Catalan separatists demonstrating against the jailing of nine of their leaders are openly copying tactics devised by pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong. Shortly after Spain's Supreme Court on Monday sentenced nine Catalan leaders to prison terms of up to 13 years over their role in a failed 2017 independence bid, 240,000 users of Russian-designed messaging app Telegram received a message urging them to head to Barcelona's El Prat airport, Spain's second busiest. The goal according to the message -- sent by a new anonymous separatist organisation called Democratic Tsunami -- was to "paralyse" the airport, just as demonstrators did in Hong Kong in September.
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| Deadly protests in Guinea as Russia calls for change of rules to keep despot in power Posted: 19 Oct 2019 07:54 AM PDT  When police shot dead nine pro-democracy protesters in Guinea this week, Western embassies quietly shared their misgivings with the country's president, Alpha Conde. International human rights groups were more unequivocal. François Patuel of Amnesty International denounced "a shameful attempt by Guinean authorities to stifle dissent by any means necessary". But one major power seemed unperturbed. Mr Conde's ruthless response to protests against his apparent efforts to cling to power not only suited Russia, it seems probable that they were tacitly endorsed by the Kremlin. On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, will host leaders from 35 African states at a summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as he seeks to consolidate Moscow's growing influence in the world's poorest continent. Russia may lack the heft of its rivals, able neither to match the West in aid nor China in terms of infrastructure financing, but it does have other resources with which to woo African leaders, particularly those of a more authoritarian bent. Vladimir Putin is looking to expand Russian influence Not only has Russia sold arms to 18 African states over the past decade, its mercenaries have fanned out across the continent to offer protection and other services to receptive governments. "Political technologists" have also allegedly mounted disinformation campaigns in several recent African elections. In return, Russia has won concessions to mine minerals and secured backing from African delegates at the United Nations. Russia's blossoming relationship with Mr Conde is an example of just how successful its muscular Africa policy can be. Guineans are meant to elect a new president next year. Having served two five-year terms, Mr Conde is constitutionally barred from standing again, but has made it increasingly clear that he is not yet ready to surrender the presidency. At least four people have been killed in Guinea's capital after police fired tear gas and bullets Monday to disperse thousands of opposition supporters Credit: AP To do so, Guinea will need an entirely new constitution, plans for which have already been advanced by Mr Conde's ruling party. The opposition has accused the president of seeking to ease its path by stacking the constitutional court, taming the electoral commission and delaying parliamentary elections by more than a year to protect his narrow legislative majority. Russia has openly given its cover to Mr Conde's efforts. In an extraordinary intervention, brazen even by the Kremlin's standards, Russia's ambassador, made a televised address on New Year's Eve backing a constitutional change. Alexander Bregadze told Guineans they would be mad to allow the "legendary" Mr Conde to step down, saying: "Do you know many countries in Africa that do better? Do you know many presidents in Africa who do better?" "It's constitutions that adapt to reality, not reality that adapts to constitutions." Such naked campaigning from a diplomat is unusual. But Russia has a vital relationship to nurture. Guinea holds the world's largest reserves of bauxite, the ore that is refined and smelted to produce aluminium. The Russian firm Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer outside Russia, sources more than a quarter of its bauxite from Guinea. Guinea's importance to Russia grew immeasurably last year after the United States imposed sanctions on Rusal and its co-owner, the oligarch and close Putin ally Oleg Deripaska. Sanctions have since been lifted on Rusal but not on Mr Deripaska. Young people block the road as they protest against a possible third term of President Alpha Conde on October 16, 2019, in Conakry Credit: AFP The significance of the relationship was underscored when Mr Bregadze stepped down as ambassador in May to head Rusal's operations in Guinea. Other Russian firms also have mineral interests in Guinea. Tellingly, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a shadowy Kremlin associate linked to mercenary and mining outfits in Africa, is understood to have set up operations in Guinea. Mr Putin has wooed President Conde, too, twice inviting him to Moscow for talks. Guinea's opposition has denounced what it says is Russian interference. Protesters last week made their feelings clear by blockading a Rusal-owned railway line used to transport bauxite. Their anger is likely to achieve little. Emboldened by Russian backing, Mr Conde has only cracked down harder. Last week, nine senior opposition figures were charged with insurrection. They face five years in prison. Given everything it has invested in Mr Conde, Russia cannot risk the opposition coming to power. When Mr Putin meets his guest in Sochi, he is likely to encourage him to persist with repression.
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| The coming end of Christian America Posted: 20 Oct 2019 03:35 AM PDT ![The coming end of Christian America]( "The coming end of Christian America") America is still a "Christian nation," if the term simply means a majority of the population will claim the label when a pollster calls. But, as a new Pew Research report unsparingly explains, the decline of Christianity in the United States "continues at a rapid pace." A bare 65 percent of Americans now say they're Christians, down from 78 percent as recently as 2007. The deconverted are mostly moving away from religion altogether, and the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated -- the "nones" -- have swelled from 16 to 26 percent over the same period. If this rate of change continues, the U.S. will be majority non-Christian by about 2035, with the nones representing well over one third of the population.Smaller details from the study are equally striking. Protestantism lost its narrow claim to an outright majority of Americans' souls around 2012. While older generations remain at least two-thirds Christian, millennials have an even 49-49 split of Christians vs. nones (40 percent) and those of other faiths (9 percent). Religious service attendance rates haven't dramatically declined in the last decade, but they will soon if generational trends hold.As even the strictest practitioners of laicite must concede, major religious shifts like this will have equally major political effects -- but we are in somewhat uncharted territory as to what those effects may be. In broad strokes, this decline keeps the U.S. trailing Western Europe's religious and political evolution: the end of Christianity as a default faith and a move toward left/right politics that can be roughly characterized as socialism against nationalist populism. Yet Europe can hardly provide a clear window to our future, not least because many European states have both multi-party parliamentary systems and state churches.So what, then, should we expect of an increasingly post-Christian American politics? I have a few ideas.For ChristiansIn what remains of the American church, reactions to this decline will vary. Some will see it as a positive apocalypse, which is to say a revealing of what was always true. America was never really a Christian nation. Our government and society have long made choices and embraced values that are difficult, if not impossible, to square with Christianity, so an end of any association between the two is welcome. Likewise, the proportion of Americans who actually practiced Christian faith in any meaningful, life-altering sense was always substantially lower than the proportion who would identify as Christian in a poll. What we're seeing is less mass deconversion than a belated honesty which may be an opportunity for new faithfulness, repentance, or even revival.Other Christians, especially on the political right, will respond to this shift with sadness, alarm, or outright fear. And this is not mere selfishness, mere worry over loss of political or cultural power -- though certainly that is a factor for some. But if you believe, as people of faith generally do, that your religion communicates a necessary truth about God, the universe, humanity, the purpose of life and how we should live it -- well, then a precipitous decline in that religion is an inherently horrible thing with eternal implications for millions.Still other Christians (and I count myself among them) will land somewhere in between these two views. Yet all across this spectrum of responses, I suspect, we'll see an increasing concern for religious liberty as an ever-smaller portion of the broader public has a personal stake in its preservation as a special right distinct from freedoms of speech, association, and so on.Dumping fuel on this fire are proposals from the post-religious left -- Pew's data shows religion is especially on decline among white Democrats -- like Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke's plan to revoke tax exemptions for religious institutions that don't affirm gay marriage. As O'Rourke's fellow candidate South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg commented, "I'm not sure he understood the implications of what he was saying." That includes the panic the idea induces among traditionally religious people who are already feeling isolated, caricatured, misunderstood by their country's cultural mainstream. (For more on that panic, see this helpful explainer from Vox's Jane Coaston.)For nonesFor religiously unaffiliated Americans, the political consequences of declining Christianity feel more difficult to predict, because this group is legitimately a new phenomenon. That is not to say there has never been a mass movement away from religion in a relatively modern, Western, democratic context -- see revolutionary France, for example, or, again, most of Western Europe. But there has never been anything like this in America, and you don't have to take a big swig of the American exceptionalism Kool-Aid to concede our country is in many ways unique. Moreover, there is a substantial difference between the humdrum religious apathy or vague spirituality of a none as compared to the murderous anti-Catholicism of a French revolutionary. In fact, that lack of specific opposition is key here: Many nones aren't consciously deconverting out of atheistic fervor. They're not rebelling against Christendom but growing up entirely in its aftermath. That is what makes this situation unprecedented.This caveat aside, I'd suggest the lack of a state church (which persists in nations as irreligious as Iceland, Sweden, Scotland, and the like) in America means religious efforts to obtain or keep political power will strike the unaffiliated rather differently here. No established religion means religious political action feels less like a tiresome anachronism -- outdated and unnecessary, but nice for Grandma -- and more like a threat of theocracy. In Europe, the state church already has a certain territory staked out as part of an ancient status quo. Here, every bit of territory is up for grabs, so the fight is always on.Yet as contradictory as it may seem, I'll also suggest left-wing nones may come to find they miss the religious right when grappling with its successor. The New York Times' Ross Douthat has argued the post-religious right of which President Trump has given us a glimpse will be an ugly beast indeed. Polling shows the "churchgoers who ultimately voted for Trump over Clinton still tend to hold different views than his more secular supporters," he wrote last year, including being "less authoritarian and tribal on race and identity. ...The trend was consistent: The more often a Trump voter attended church, the less white-identitarian they appeared, the more they expressed favorable views of racial minorities, and the less they agreed with populist arguments on trade and immigration." In other words, on the right, the decline of Christianity looks to mean the rise of racism, as the communal life of active faith is replaced by darker impulses.For allFinally, for Americans of any religious affiliation or none at all, the decline of Christianity will make political communication more difficult. For centuries the Christian faith has indelibly shaped the English vocabulary -- it is no exaggeration to say the King James Bible specifically is unparalleled in its cultural influence. That's especially so with politics, which beside religion is the most common context in which we discuss the world as it is and as it should be.The ways of thinking and turns of phrase that Christendom once made normative in America will become newly strange as Christianity declines. Those of us who remain religious will have to thoroughly rethink our assumptions about other Americans' frames of reference. I am regularly reminded of this by revealing expressions of religious ignorance by my fellow journalists, the archetypal example of which is an Associated Press headline which announced, after the famous cathedral burned, that "Tourist mecca Notre Dame [is] also revered as [a] place of worship." (For the AP writers, if no one else, "mecca" is a metaphor from Islam, and Notre Dame was a place of worship for centuries before the concept of tourism emerged. I read this headline to religious friends to peals of rueful laughter.)Perhaps, whether you are among the nones or not, you think moving toward a more secular shared vocabulary is a good thing. But even if you're right, the transition will be no less challenging. In an era of social fracture, loss of common language patterns can only exacerbate our disintegration. We have always talked against each other in politics; now we are talking past each other, too. As the decline of Christianity in the United States "continues at a rapid pace," it will influence every level of our fractious project of self-governance, down to our very words.
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| Battered Trudeau team sees sign of Canadian election hope after scandals Posted: 20 Oct 2019 10:52 AM PDT ![Battered Trudeau team sees sign of Canadian election hope after scandals]( "Battered Trudeau team sees sign of Canadian election hope after scandals") Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, hit by scandals and locked in a near dead-heat ahead of Monday's election, has put away his teleprompter and taken his campaign on the offensive. A day ahead of a federal election that looked as though it could spell the end for one of the world's last remaining progressive leaders, the Trudeau team is seeing signs of hope. Surveys of public opinion still indicate that Trudeau will lose his majority in Parliament and be forced to rely on the support of smaller parties.
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| Kuwait Sees Neutral Zone Oil Pact With Saudis Within 45 Days Posted: 19 Oct 2019 11:55 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Kuwait expects to sign an agreement with Saudi Arabia to restart oil production from the neutral zone along their border within 30 to 45 days, according to a person familiar with the matter.The pact, reached after months of intensive negotiations, won't be final until it's signed, the person said, asking not to be identified as the talks are private. Khafji, one of two fields in the zone, can start production immediately, while the Wafra field will need three to six months, the person said.The neutral zone, which has been shuttered for at least four years, can produce as much as 500,000 barrels a day. Negotiations continue with the Kuwaiti authorities, but even if production resumes, the area would not add oil to global markets because both countries adhere to output limits that OPEC has extended into early 2020, according to a person familiar with Saudi thinking.Talks with Saudi Arabia continue and are "very positive," Kuwait's Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid al-Jarallah was cited as saying by the Kuwait News Agency late Saturday. When an agreement is reached, the countries will start talks on resuming production, he said. Officials from Kuwait Petroleum Corp. couldn't be reached for comment.The neutral zone hasn't produced anything since the fields were shut after spats between the two countries in 2014 and 2015. The barren strip of desert straddling the Saudi-Kuwaiti border -- a relic of the time when European powers drew implausible ruler-straight borders across the Middle East -- can pump about as much as OPEC member Ecuador.The disagreement between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait started over the Wafra field, which is operated by Chevron Corp. Saudi Arabia extended the original 60-year-old concession of the field, giving the U.S. company rights over Wafra until 2039. Kuwait was furious over the announcement and claims Riyadh never consulted it about the extension.(Adds comments from person familiar with Saudi thinking in third paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Fiona MacDonald in Kuwait at fmacdonald4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Nayla Razzouk at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net, Bruce StanleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump accidentally refers to Defense Secretary Esper as 'Mark Esperanto' in tweet defending Syria withdrawal Posted: 20 Oct 2019 01:45 PM PDT  President Trump quoted "Mark Esperanto, Secretary of Defense" on Sunday. But the man in charge of the Pentagon is named Mark Esper, not Esperanto.
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| China talks up tech prowess in face of US rivalry Posted: 20 Oct 2019 12:39 AM PDT  China on Sunday said it aims to become a "great power" in the online world and took a swipe at Washington on trade, kicking off its annual conference promoting the Communist Party's controlled and censored version of the internet. US-China rivalry is increasingly playing out in the digital sphere, as Beijing pursues dominance in next-generation technology while Washington takes measures to cripple Chinese tech firms like Huawei. China heavily monitors and censors its internet, with US titans Facebook, Twitter and Google all hidden behind a so-called "Great Firewall" that also blocks politically sensitive content.
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| WKD: Ukraine Is Facing a Tough Path Towards Peace with Russia Posted: 20 Oct 2019 01:37 AM PDT  Can Kyiv pull it off?
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| Four killed as police fire on Bangladesh protesters Posted: 20 Oct 2019 08:55 AM PDT  Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday called for calm after at least four people were killed when police fired on thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims protesting Facebook messages that allegedly defamed the Prophet Mohammed. Mob attacks over online posts perceived to be blasphemous have emerged as a major headache for security forces in Bangladesh, where Muslims make up some 90 percent of the country's 168 million people. Some 20,000 Muslims demonstrated at a prayer ground in Borhanuddin town on the country's largest island of Bhola to call for the execution of a young Hindu man charged with inciting religious tension through online messages.
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| The Latest: City plans to remove plane from site Saturday Posted: 18 Oct 2019 10:03 PM PDT  The state Department of Transportation determined the runway was not damaged by the crash, the city said in a news release. A Ravn Air Group flight brought in investigators from the state transportation department and the NTSB, the city said. It then returned the Cordova High School swim team to Anchorage.
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| Hillary Clinton claims Tulsi Gabbard is being 'groomed' by Russia Posted: 19 Oct 2019 10:26 AM PDT  Hillary Clinton has claimed a Democrat presidential candidate is being "groomed" by the Kremlin to run as an independent in 2020. In an astonishing attack on Tulsi Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii, Mrs Clinton suggested Russia would use her to damage the Democrats' chances of taking the White House. Ms Gabbard, 38, responded by calling Mrs Clinton the "queen of warmongers" and the cause of "rot" in the Democrat party. The bitter row began when Mrs Clinton was being interviewed about the prospect of Russian interference in the upcoming election. She said: "I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary, and they're grooming her to be the third-party candidate. "She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far." Tulsi Gabbard called Hillary Clinton the "queen of warmongers" Credit: AFP Mrs Clinton did not mention Ms Gabbard by name, but a spokesman later confirmed she had been referring to Ms Gabbard. The spokesman said: "This is not some outlandish claim, this is reality." Ms Gabbard is a military veteran who served in Iraq. She caused controversy after revealing that she had met with Bashar al-Assad on a fact-finding trip to Syria. Responding to Mrs Clinton's allegations she said: "Thank you Hillary Clinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain." She accused Mrs Clinton of being behind a concerted campaign to derail her candidacy. Ms Gabbard added: "It was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose." The congresswoman urged Mrs Clinton to run again in 2020. She said: "Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly." During the latest televised Democrat debate in Ohio this week Ms Gabbard condemned suggestions of Russian support for her. She said: "This morning, a CNN commentator said on national television that I'm an asset of Russia. Completely despicable." Mrs Clinton also accused Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential nominee in 2016, of being a "Russian asset". In 2016 Ms Stein received about one per cent of the vote but some Democrats claim that helped Donald Trump win several key states. Ms Stein denied Mrs Clinton's accusations and accused her of "peddling conspiracy theories to justify her failure, instead of reflecting on real reasons the Democrats lost in 2016."
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