| Pakistan says 4 troops, 4 militants killed in shootout in NW Posted: 12 Jul 2020 10:10 AM PDT |
| After Mueller's Op-Ed, Sen. Lindsey Graham Now Says He'll Call the Former Special Counsel to Testify Posted: 12 Jul 2020 01:45 PM PDT  Graham had previously brushed off Democrats' requests for Mueller to testify in the Senate
|
| ‘Disheveled’ campsite spurs search for missing California woman in national forest Posted: 12 Jul 2020 12:22 PM PDT  "She would never leave her campsite a mess. Even a piece of litter on the ground would bother her."
|
| Thousands of US pediatricians warn against reopening schools for in-person learning after Trump's push against CDC guidelines Posted: 11 Jul 2020 11:42 AM PDT  The American Academy of Pediatrics said officials looking to reopen schools must follow "science" and "evidence, not politics."
|
| US Surgeon General Jerome Adams says the US can turn coronavirus around in '2 or 3 weeks if everyone does their part' Posted: 12 Jul 2020 09:15 AM PDT  Adams compared his past mask advice to doctors who prescribed "leeches and cocaine and heroin for people as medical treatments" before learning more.
|
| Nelson Mandela's daughter Zindzi Mandela dies at 59 Posted: 13 Jul 2020 03:43 AM PDT  Zindzi Mandela, daughter of Nelson Mandela, has died, a spokesperson for the African National Congress said on Monday. She was 59.
|
| Arizona's surge in virus cases has been "the worst" in the U.S. Posted: 13 Jul 2020 08:10 AM PDT  Another looming situation facing Arizona is the opening of schools set for next month.
|
| Man, 37, who died from coronavirus had dismissed pandemic ‘hype’ on Facebook Posted: 13 Jul 2020 02:23 AM PDT  An Ohio man who died of Covid-19 had repeatedly posted on Facebook about his scepticism of the outbreak – and a tweet containing a montage of his posts is now going viral.Richard Rose, 37, died at home in Port Clinton on 4 July just days after he tested positive for Covid-19. The montage of his posts spreading on social media, which has been viewed 3.5 million times, shows that he tested positive and was quarantined on 1 July, when he was already viewing symptoms.
|
| Daniel Lewis Lee: US judge delays first federal execution in 17 years Posted: 13 Jul 2020 09:09 AM PDT  The execution of Daniel Lewis Lee in Indiana is stopped just hours before it was due to go ahead.
|
| Connecticut mayor sues Delta Airlines over dog bite Posted: 11 Jul 2020 10:46 AM PDT  Bridgeport's mayor is suing Delta Airlines over a dog bite he says he suffered on a flight. A suit filed in state Superior Court alleges Mayor Joe Ganim was sitting in his seat on a Delta flight in November 2018 when he was bitten by a dog that was accompanying a boarding passenger. The New Haven Register reports the suit alleges Ganim suffered "serious, severe, painful and permanent injuries" to his lower left leg and that he was forced to undergo a series of rabies shots because the airline didn't provide details on the dog's medical history or contact information for the animal's owner.
|
| Three people who traveled on recent Delta flight have tested positive for COVID-19 Posted: 13 Jul 2020 08:23 AM PDT  Three people who traveled on a recent regional Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to Albany have tested positive for COVID-19.
|
| Kosovo president meets war crimes prosecutors to discuss charges against him Posted: 13 Jul 2020 04:26 AM PDT  Kosovo President Hashim Thaci arrived in The Hague on Monday for a meeting with prosecutors who last month indicted him for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during Kosovo's 1998-99 uprising against repressive Serbian rule. Before entering the Specialist Chamber set up in 2015 to handle cases of war crimes during the revolt that eventually led to independence for Kosovo, Thaci told reporters he stood for "truth, reconciliation and peace".
|
| South Africa's 9 million smokers were faced with cold turkey when the government banned cigarette sales in March as a coronavirus measure. Now Big Tobacco is fighting back. Posted: 12 Jul 2020 09:03 AM PDT  Cigarettes have become the top illicit drug, more profitable than cocaine and heroin, analysts told AP.
|
| Japan is 'shocked' and furious at the US after a major coronavirus outbreak at 2 Marine bases in Okinawa — and says the US is not taking the virus seriously Posted: 12 Jul 2020 04:12 AM PDT  "We now have strong doubts that the US military has taken adequate disease prevention measures," Okinawa governor Denny Tamaki said.
|
| Fire ravages 249-year-old Spanish mission in Southern California Posted: 11 Jul 2020 04:56 PM PDT  The San Gabriel Mission was founded in 1771 by Franciscan priest Junipero Serra, who has become a flashpoint for activists denouncing colonialism and systemic racism.
|
| Trump news – live: President 'denying reality', New York governor says, as White House smears Fauci Posted: 13 Jul 2020 09:00 AM PDT  Donald Trump has again lashed out on Twitter against his key media ally, Fox News, accusing the network of "working so hard against the people that got them there" and saying its contributors are "all over the place".A move by the White House to discredit the nation's top infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, by labelling him too frequently "wrong" about the coronavirus pandemic has meanwhile been derided as "atrocious" by House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff.
|
| Mali's President Keïta dissolves constitutional court amid unrest Posted: 12 Jul 2020 07:59 AM PDT  President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta is attempting to calm unrest that saw four people killed on Friday.
|
| British Islamic State fighter 'dies in prison' in Syria Posted: 12 Jul 2020 11:17 AM PDT  A British Islamic State member from East London has died in a prison in northeast Syria, according to the BBC. Ishak Mostefaoui is the first British IS-supporter to die in the custody of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The British government refuses to allow its adult IS prisoner suspects to return to the UK for trial, believing that they should be tried in the region. The year-long impasse between the Kurdish authorities and the UK, and other Western governments has led to dangerously over-crowded prison and camps of IS members. According to one BBC source, Mostefaoui was shot when trying to escape the custody of the jail in Hassakeh which houses over 5,000 IS prisoners from 28 countries in cramped conditions. Another BBC source said that he died during rioting in the prison. Neither his death nor the circumstances surrounding it have been confirmed. The rumours of Mostefaoui's death appear to be circulating from pro-IS Telegram channels. The 27-year-old from Leyton, who admits to joining IS, travelled to Syria to join the terrorist organisation in April 2014. He was among seven students from the University of Westminster, where he was studying economics, who travelled to Syria. Also among them was Mohammed Emwazi, better known as "Jihadi John". Like many captured IS fighters, Mostefaoui admitted to doing administrative work for the group, but denied being a fighter, when interviewed by the Independent last year. The prison, a converted school, was set up shortly after the last of IS territory, Baghouz, was captured in March 2019. He was one of a handful of the Brits who had travelled to Syria to survive. Mostefaoui told the Independent that he had left Baghouz unconscious after being injured in a US-led coalition airstrike. His wife and children, he says, were killed in the strike and his skull left fractured. His citizenship was revoked by the British government in 2018. Mostefaoui was among an estimated 10 British IS members in the prison in northeast Syria and 30 women. Of the estimated 900 people who left the UK and travelled to Syria, ministers have said that 20 per cent have died, 40 per cent have returned to the UK and 40 per cent are still in the region. It is not clear how these numbers were reached. Mostefaoui, like most other foreign fighters in IS prisons, wanted to be tried in a court at home. "If we go back home, and we get taken to court and we are found guilty of whatever crimes they see as a crime, I'll put my hands up and do my time for that. And I'll go out. This is what democracy is," he told the Independent in December. The British government cites security concerns as the reason for not trying the adult men in the UK. The security situation in the severely overcrowded Hassakeh prison is tense and riots break out frequently. Mostefaoui's family have been settled in London since they left Algeria when he was five years old.
|
| Incumbent Duda extends lead in Polish election cliffhanger Posted: 11 Jul 2020 04:06 PM PDT  Incumbent Andrzej Duda's lead in Poland's presidential election widened further, an updated late poll showed on Monday, a result, which while still uncertain, could have profound implications for Warsaw's relations with the European Union. The updated late poll combines exit poll data with official results for 90% of the polling stations that took part in the exit poll. The re-election of Duda, an ally of the ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS), is crucial if the government is to implement in full its conservative agenda, including judicial reforms that the European Union says are undemocratic.
|
| ‘Racist, hurtful and deeply inappropriate.’ California CEO resigns after racist rant Posted: 12 Jul 2020 07:52 AM PDT  A GoFundMe for the server who kicked him out of the Carmel Valley restaurant has raised more than $76,000.
|
| Coronavirus immunity can start to fade away within weeks, according to a new study which puts a 'nail in the coffin' in the idea of herd immunity Posted: 13 Jul 2020 05:10 AM PDT  The study by King's College London, the first COVID-19 study of its kind, is the latest to cast doubt over the concept of so-called herd immunity.
|
| Organizers of Hong Kong's Tiananmen vigil appear in court Posted: 13 Jul 2020 12:29 AM PDT  The organizers of a vigil commemorating China's bloody 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square appeared in a Hong Kong court on Monday on charges of inciting others to participate in an unlawful assembly. A total of 13 people were charged over the June 4 vigil, including Lee Cheuk-Yan, who chairs the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic and Democratic Movements of China. Others charged include Jimmy Lai, founder of the Apple Daily newspaper and a pro-democracy advocate, as well as activists and alliance members Richard Tsoi and Albert Ho.
|
| Disgruntled driver blamed for China bus tragedy Posted: 12 Jul 2020 10:29 PM PDT  A Chinese bus driver upset that his home would be demolished had been drinking at the wheel before plunging his vehicle into a reservoir, killing 21 people including students heading to their college entrance exams, police said. The driver, surnamed Zhang, "was unhappy about his life and about the demolition of the public-owned house he rented," Anshun city police said in a statement on an official social media account Sunday. Anshun emergency authorities have said five students heading to their university entrance exams were among those killed, while fifteen other people were hurt.
|
| 'We do expect deaths to go up,' warns White House COVID-19 task force's Adm. Giroir as cases rise Posted: 12 Jul 2020 11:14 AM PDT  Brett Giroir, who oversees coronavirus testing, said mask wearing is "essential" to stopping the spread of coronavirus and reinstating lockdowns is "on the table."
|
| Couple who threatened Black Lives Matter protesters with guns once destroyed children's beehives Posted: 12 Jul 2020 02:14 PM PDT  St. Louis couple Mark and Patricia McCloskey drew national attention in June when they flashed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters walking down their street.
|
| Coronavirus: Florida sets new state daily case record of 15,299 Posted: 12 Jul 2020 08:25 PM PDT  A 24-hour tally of 15,299 new coronavirus cases eclipses the worst rates seen in New York in April.
|
| Yemeni Houthis say they hit Saudi oil facility in drone, missile attack Posted: 13 Jul 2020 02:59 AM PDT  "The strike was accurate," a Houthi military spokesman said.
|
| Minority U.S. diplomats face bias entering own country, group says Posted: 13 Jul 2020 09:11 AM PDT  An organization of retired U.S. diplomats on Monday accused the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol of a "deeply troubling pattern" of discrimination and harassment against Black, Hispanic and other minority U.S. diplomats at U.S. border entry points. The American Academy of Diplomacy made the allegation in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It urged him to order a review of incidents, take steps to "ensure equal treatment" of minority U.S. Foreign Service officers and make clear that their mistreatment is "unacceptable."
|
| Bavarian governor emerges as the front-runner to succeed Merkel as Chancellor in Germany Posted: 12 Jul 2020 10:03 AM PDT  A German politician until recently seen as a rank outsider to replace Angela Merkel as Chancellor is suddenly the frontrunner, according to a series of opinion polls. Markus Söder, state leader in Bavaria, is seen by the public as the best candidate for the job, with 64 percent of voters saying he is suited to the role, ahead of Social Democrat Olaf Scholz on 48 percent. Meanwhile a separate poll released over the weekend found that in a head-to-head against Mr Scholz or popular Green leader Robert Habeck, Mr Söder would come out on top. The other two leading conservative contenders, Friedrich Merz and Armin Laschet, both members of Ms Merkel's CDU, would lose to left-wing opposition in next year's election, the poll found. Mr Söder, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to the CDU, has been sending out mixed messages for weeks. While sticking to an insistence that his "place is always in Bavaria", he has said that the next Chancellor "needs to have proved himself during the pandemic." Mr Merz has had no official role during the crisis, while Mr Laschet is widely regarded to have botched the pandemic response in his state, North Rhine-Westphalia. The only conservative other than Mr Söder to have come out of the crisis well, Health Minister Jens Spahn, is supporting Mr Laschet's candidacy. Despite Bavaria's prominence as the wealthiest federal state, a Bavarian has never held power in Berlin. Bavarian candidates have only run for the Chancellery twice - in 1980 and 2002 - but on both occasions young CDU leaders gave way in the belief that they faced likely defeat to a sitting Social Democrat Chancellor. In 1980 Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was able to defeat Franz Josef Strauß when Helmut Kohl sat out the race, and in 2002 Gerhard Schröder won against Edmund Stoiber, with a young Ms Merkel choosing not to run. The circumstances in 2021 would be markedly different. The next candidate would take over from a popular Chancellor, with the party on close to 40 percent approval, far ahead of the Greens on 20 percent and the Social Democrats in the doldrums on 16 percent. Reputedly fiercely ambitious, the 53-year-old Mr Söder manoeuvred himself to power in Bavaria in the wake of the refugee crisis by lambasting Berlin for failing to stem the number of refugees crossing the border. While previously a polarising figure with a low national approval rating, his handling of the corona epidemic has seemed decisive. He was the first state leader who announced a comprehensive lockdown, pushing the rest of the country to follow suit. He has also made national headlines by offering a coronavirus test to any Bavarian who wishes to have one, a break from the national policy of targeted testing. With the Chancellery there for the taking, CDU politicians have failed to impress. Mr Merz, a business friendly candidate who left frontline politics at the start of the century, has struggled for attention during the pandemic. Mr Laschet, whose state has faced repeated local outbreaks, is seen as having pushed too aggressively for an end to the lockdown. END
|
| The murder of Vanessa Guillén has opened the floodgates on sexual assault in the US military as servicewomen rush to share their stories Posted: 12 Jul 2020 10:00 AM PDT  Two former servicewomen spoke to Insider about the sexual abuse they experienced while in the military and shared how their reports were mishandled.
|
| Florida cop charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after pointing gun at unarmed Black man Posted: 12 Jul 2020 01:14 PM PDT |
| As virus rages in US, New York guards against another rise Posted: 12 Jul 2020 07:39 AM PDT  As coronavirus rages out of control in other parts of the U.S., New York is offering an example after taming the nation's deadliest outbreak this spring — while also trying to prepare in case another surge comes. New York's early experience is a ready-made blueprint for states now finding themselves swamped by the disease. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has offered advice, ventilators, masks, gowns and medicine to states dealing with spikes in cases and hospitalizations and, in some places, rising deaths.
|
| 'I Don't Want to Go Back': Many Teachers Are Fearful and Angry Over Pressure to Return Posted: 12 Jul 2020 08:35 AM PDT  Many of the nation's 3.5 million teachers found themselves feeling under siege this week as pressure from the White House, pediatricians and some parents to get back to physical classrooms intensified -- even as the coronavirus rages across much of the country.On Friday, the teachers' union in Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest district, demanded full-time remote learning when the academic year begins on Aug. 18, and called President Donald Trump's push to reopen schools part of a "dangerous, anti-science agenda that puts the lives of our members, our students and our families at risk."Teachers say crucial questions about how schools will stay clean, keep students physically distanced and prevent further spread of the virus have not been answered. And they feel that their own lives, and those of the family members they come home to, are at stake."I want to serve the students, but it's hard to say you're going to sacrifice all of the teachers, paraprofessionals, cafeteria workers and bus drivers," said Hannah Wysong, a teacher at the Esperanza Community School in Tempe, Arizona, where virus cases are increasing.School systems struggling to meet the financial and logistical challenges of reopening safely will need to carefully weigh teachers' concerns. A wave of leave requests, early retirements or resignations driven by health fears could imperil efforts to reach students learning both in physical classrooms and online.On social media, teachers across the country promoted the hashtag 14daysnonewcases, with some pledging to refuse to enter classrooms until the coronavirus transmission rate in their counties falls, essentially, to zero.Now, educators are using some of the same organizing tactics they employed in walkouts over issues of pay and funding in recent years to demand that schools remain closed, at least in the short term. It's a stance that could potentially be divisive, with some district surveys suggesting that more than half of parents would like their children to return to classrooms.Big districts like San Diego and smaller ones, like Marietta, Georgia, are forging ahead with plans to open schools five days per week. Many other systems, like those in New York City and Seattle, hope to offer several days per week of in-person school.Adding to the confusion, optional guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May set out ambitious safety precautions for schools. But the president, and many local school system leaders, have suggested they do not need to be strictly followed, alarming teachers.Many doctors, education experts, parents and policymakers have argued that the social and academic costs of school closures on children need to be weighed alongside the risks of the virus itself.The heated national debate about how and whether to bring students back to classrooms plays upon all the anxieties of the teaching profession. The comparison between teachers and other essential workers currently laboring outside their homes rankles some educators. They note that they are paid much less than doctors -- the average salary nationwide for teachers is about $60,000 per year -- but are more highly educated than delivery people, restaurant workers or most staffers in child care centers, many of whom are already back at work.Now, as teachers listen to a national conversation about reopening schools that many believe elevates the needs of the economy and working parents above the concerns of the classroom work force, many are fearful and angry. They point out that so far Congress has dedicated less than 1% of federal pandemic stimulus funds to public schools stretching to meet the costs of reopening safely.The message to teachers, said Christina Setzer, a preschool educator in Sacramento, is, "Yes, you guys are really important and essential and kids and parents need you. But sorry, we don't have the money."Earlier in the shutdown, Trump acknowledged the health risks to teachers over the age of 60 and those with underlying conditions, saying at a White House event in May that "they should not be teaching school for a while, and everybody would understand that fully."But this week, as the administration launched a full-throated campaign to pressure schools to reopen in the fall -- a crucial step for jump-starting the economy -- it all but ignored the potential risks teachers face. More than one-quarter of public schoolteachers are over the age of 50.Teachers say many of their questions about how schools will operate safely remain unanswered. They point out that some classrooms have windows that do not reliably open to promote air circulation, while school buildings can have aging heating and cooling systems that lack the filtration features that reduce virus transmission.Although many districts are spending millions this summer procuring masks, sanitizers and additional custodial staff, many teachers say they have little faith that limited resources will stretch to fill the need.They also worry about access to tests and contact tracing to confirm COVID-19 diagnoses and clarify who in a school might need to isolate at home in the event of a symptomatic student or staff member.The CDC has advised against regular testing in K-12 schools, but Wednesday, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said the Trump administration was exploring whether testing being developed for other vulnerable environments, like nursing homes, could be used in schools.Indeed, educators have had to process a head-spinning set of conflicting health and safety guidelines from Washington, states and medical experts.The CDC has recommended that when schools reopen, students remain 6 feet apart "when feasible," while the American Academy of Pediatrics released guidelines suggesting that 3 feet could be enough space if students wore masks.But after major pushback from educator groups, who felt there was too little attention on the health risks for adults who work in schools, the Academy joined with the two national teachers' unions Friday to release a statement saying, "Schools in areas with high levels of COVID-19 community spread should not be compelled to reopen against the judgment of local experts."In Arizona, Wysong, 30, said she was willing to return to her Tempe classroom; she is not in a high-risk category for complications from COVID-19 and her school caps classes at 15 students. But given the long-term teacher and substitute shortage in Arizona, which has some of the lowest educator salaries in the nation, she said she believed the overall system could not reopen safely with small enough class sizes.Health and education experts who support reopening schools have sometimes questioned the need for strict physical distancing, pointing in recent weeks to emerging research suggesting that children may be not only less likely to contract COVID-19, but also less likely to transmit it to adults.In interviews, many teachers said they were unaware of or skeptical of such studies, arguing that much about the virus remains unknown, and that even if teachers do not catch coronavirus in large numbers from children, it could be spread among adults working in a school building, or during commutes to and from schools via public transit.The education systems in Germany and Denmark have successfully reopened, but generally only after local virus transmission rates were brought under control.American schools currently have a variety of plans for welcoming students back to campuses, ranging from regular, five-day schedules with children using desk partitions to stay distanced, to hybrid approaches that seek to keep students physically distanced by having them attend school in-person only a few days per week, and spend the rest of their time learning online from home.In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that the nation's largest school system would reopen only part-time for students this fall, but teachers would most likely be back in classrooms five days a week.The teachers' union president, Michael Mulgrew, has said he does not believe schools can reopen at all if the city does not receive additional federal funding this summer.With many teachers reluctant to return to work, according to polls, staffing will be a major challenge for districts across the country. New York estimates that about 1 in 5 of its teachers will receive a medical exemption to teach remotely this fall.Matthew Landau, a history teacher at Democracy Prep Charter High School in Harlem, hopes he will be one of them. He survived stage four cancer several years ago and said he does not feel comfortable going back to his classroom."I feel there's no way to keep immunocompromised teachers safe," he said.Kevin Kearns, a high school English teacher at the High School of Fashion Industries in downtown Manhattan, has spent the last few weeks wrestling with his own dilemma.Kearns and his wife became parents in March, and need child care for their infant son. Their only option is to have Kearns' mother-in-law, who is in her 70s, stay with them. Kearns is terrified of bringing the virus home."I don't want to go back, I don't think it's safe to go back, but I don't know that I necessarily have a choice," he said.Still, Kearns said he feels a duty to the mostly low-income, Black and Latino students he teaches."It puts me in a very difficult moral conundrum," he said, "to choose between supporting my community, students, colleagues and my own family's safety."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
|
| Theodore Roosevelt's great-grandson says: Remove the statue Posted: 12 Jul 2020 07:24 AM PDT  Mark Roosevelt wants the memorial to the 26th president removed from the Museum of Natural History in New York City
|
| Hong Kong security law: Why we are taking our BNOs and leaving Posted: 12 Jul 2020 05:19 PM PDT  As China enforces new restrictions, some are turning to their British National (Overseas) passport.
|
| Fact check: Trump campaign accused of T-shirt design with similarity to Nazi eagle Posted: 13 Jul 2020 10:10 AM PDT  A Trump campaign shirt is being criticized for having a design resembling a Nazi eagle. But there are uses of eagle imagery by the U.S. government.
|
| Fire breaks out at petrochemical facility in southwest Iran Posted: 12 Jul 2020 11:37 AM PDT |
| Ex-soldier who fled with puma turns himself over to police Posted: 12 Jul 2020 03:51 PM PDT  A former Polish soldier who fled into a forest with his pet puma to avoid handing it over to a zoo, gave himself up to police on Sunday after a three-day manhunt. About 200 officers were deployed to track down the former Afghan war veteran and the big cat. The former soldier "Kamil Stanek voluntarily turned himself over to police in Zawiercie and was later released", the police in the southern Polish city said on their Facebook page.
|
| NASA operates a fleet of Gulfstream private jets used to shuttle astronauts and conduct research missions – take a closer look Posted: 12 Jul 2020 05:24 AM PDT  NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley arrived for the Falcon 9 launch in style on a Gulfstream that has a long history with the space agency.
|
| Man arrested in kidnapping of Amish woman missing since Father's Day Posted: 12 Jul 2020 08:09 AM PDT  A man has been arrested in the kidnapping of 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfoos, who has been missing since Sunday, June 21, 2020. She has not been found. Police arrested Justo Smoker, 34, of Paradise, Pennsylvania. He is charged with felony kidnapping and a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment. Linda was last seen at a farm on Stumptown Road in Lancaster County, after attending a church service. The East Lampeter Township Police Department is investigating.
|
| Activists seek to decriminalize 'magic' mushrooms in DC Posted: 12 Jul 2020 09:06 PM PDT  The posters started blanketing light posts just a few weeks after the city entered what would be a monthslong stay-at-home order. Vividly colored and bearing a three-headed mushroom, they asked Washingtonians to "reform laws for plant and fungi medicines" by making natural psychedelics "the lowest level police enforcement priority." It was the start of an underdog campaign that just managed a truly improbable political feat: a successful grassroots petition drive conducted entirely under pandemic lockdown conditions.
|
| Ted Cruz caught on commercial flight without a mask Posted: 13 Jul 2020 06:10 AM PDT  Texas senator Ted Cruz appeared to contravene an airline's mandate on masks this weekend when he was pictured without one.In a picture shared online on Sunday, Mr Cruz was onboard an American Airlines departure when he was seen unmasked.
|
| Wild bison to roam England's woodlands for the first time in 6,000 years as 'ecosystem engineers' Posted: 12 Jul 2020 09:29 AM PDT  Bison imported from Poland and the Netherlands will be released in Kent, southern England, to help regenerate an ancient woodland.
|
| Walt Disney World reopens in Florida amid Covid-19 surge Posted: 12 Jul 2020 03:14 AM PDT  Visitors are required to wear masks, socially distance and have temperature checks on arrival.
|
| In Moscow’s Afghan Bazaar, Searching for a Bagman Who Pays Bounties for Dead Americans Posted: 13 Jul 2020 01:55 AM PDT  MOSCOW—If you ask where to find almost anyone in Moscow's Afghan community, you'll be told to come here, to the Hotel Sevastopol. Probably you will be told it has 16 floors, which seems important to the direction givers. Much of the hotel has been turned into a market, a sort of Afghan bazaar where men with tired eyes above their COVID-19 masks crowd into the elevators carrying plastic shopping bags full of fragrant Indian spices, semi-precious stones, and cheap leather goods.Russian neighbors of the Hotel Sevastopol complain bitterly about drugs being sold in the depths of this maze of hallways and rooms converted into tiny shops. Not unlike Afghanistan itself, they say, the market is a complete mess. But the Afghans seem to have enough clout with Moscow's city government to keep business going. Always, new men are showing up to have a kebab and share the latest news. Lately, talk turned to a certain Rahmatullah Azizi. He was identified by The New York Times at the beginning of this month as a middleman U.S. and Afghan security services believe paid bounties to the Taliban and criminal gangs in Afghanistan to kill American and other coalition soldiers. A unit of the Russian military intelligence, known as the GRU, allegedly was behind the operation.Both the U.S. and Afghan security services have been investigating the bounty scheme for months, raiding homes and offices and arresting at least a dozen suspects. According to the report, Azizi accumulated considerable wealth, with expensive cars and private bodyguards. A raid on one of his homes in Afghanistan several months ago turned up half a million dollars in cash. But Azizi was believed to have fled to Russia.Here in the Sevastopol Hotel, however, it appears nobody ever heard of Rahmatullah Azizi. He certainly hadn't shown up here, people said.A tall young Afghan man, who offered just one name, Sam, was selling lapis lazuli necklaces on the 16th floor. "An Azizi worked here before me," he said. "But he wasn't Rahmatullah." Ali, in a small jewelry shop, said his uncle had a pharmacy in Kabul and knew "everybody," but not Rahmatullah Azizi. He never heard of any such Azizi. The answers kept coming back the same: Essentially, "Rahmatullah who?"The bazaaris might not have met that Azizi, they said, but they knew what the story of this particular business meant: "Another conflict between Russia and the United States on Afghan land would be a catastrophe for our people," says Sherkhasan Hasan, formerly a practicing physician, who now runs a small business here selling toys. BLACK TULIPSThe Afghan diaspora in Russia counts about 20,000 in Moscow, and as many as 100,000 around the country. Its leaders, mostly Russian-educated during the decade of Russian occupation and dominance there, play an important role in political negotiations between Moscow and leaders on both sides of the Afghan conflict in which the United States became so deeply embroiled over the last 20 years. Today, Russian attitudes toward Afghanistan are complicated, and even the Kremlin does not articulate any clear strategy. The Soviet war in Afghanistan took the lives of more than 14,000 Soviet soldiers and triggered the fall of the USSR—that is how many in Russia remember this bloody chapter of their country's modern history. The word Afghanistan is associated with what became known as "Black Tulips," the Antonov cargo airplanes carrying dead soldiers home. In recent years, there has been a lot of concern about the drug traffic. Afghan opium smuggled across Central Asia makes its way to every Russian region. Thousands of drug addicts die in Russia every year. Stamping out the drug trade, which is partly run through the diaspora, seemed for a time an opening for cooperation between the United States and Russia in Afghanistan. The cooperation ended after the U.S. economic sanctions on Russia were in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea. Russian Bounties for Killing Americans Go Back Five Years, Ex-Taliban ClaimsIn 2008, three of Vladimir Putin's close allies decided it was time to re-engage on Afghanistan. They were the head of the FSB Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev; the deputy prime minister, Igor Sechin; and director of the drug-control agency, and an old friend of Putin's from the KGB years, Victor Ivanov. Ivanov's aide, Yuriy Krupnov, traveled to Afghanistan in 2008 and 2009 to invite Afghan politicians and Pashto leaders to a high-level forum in Moscow. "By then Afghanistan was sick of American occupation and remembered Russians fondly as sheravi, which means Soviet people," Krupnov told The Daily Beast. THE OPENING Patrushev, Sechin, and Ivanov on the Russian side and Afghan Vice President Karim Khalili opened the forum at another Moscow hotel—the upscale President Hotel—in May 2009 to sign some business agreements, appeal to the Russian government for bank credits, restore 142 Soviet-built industrial sites, and announce support for some educational programs. Bridges were being built. At the forum, an old friend of Moscow, the nephew of Afghanistan's last king, Abdul Ali Seraj, declared, "We don't want the American model." In the fractured political landscape of Afghanistan, Moscow realized, Pashto leaders were once again reasserting their influence, and not just as the Taliban. "This is all wrong to say 'Taliban claims this or that,'" Krupnov said. "There are dozens of various Taliban groups among about 60 tribes, who each have their own ancient culture and history." Russia planned to work on what it saw as this deeper, older level of Afghan power structures. Two months after the forum, in July 2009, President Barack Obama visited Moscow to help launch the so-called reset of the U.S.-Russia relations. In the years to come, Victor Ivanov on the Russian side and Gil Kerlikowske, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, would lead a joint anti-drug group and organize about 15 joint anti-narcotics operations in Afghanistan. The U.S. national security adviser at the time, Gen. James L. Jones, addressed Nikolay Patrushev, as his "friend and counterpart" in fighting organized crime and terrorism in the country. As a correspondent for Newsweek, I interviewed Ivanov multiple times in 2010 and in 2011. He spoke about the huge volumes of drugs coming into Russia and financing terrorism in the North Caucasus. "A kilo of heroin," he noted, "is worth $150,000 on the street in Russia and a Kalashnikov costs $1,000 on the Afghan market."Ivanov traveled to Kabul in 2010. On the plane with some members of the press, Russia's drug tsar drank Champagne and toasted his return to Afghanistan, two decades after he last was there during the war with Soviet army. Krupnov says he believes that Ivanov's activity—trips to China, to Afghanistan, and Russian drug-fighting centers in Central America—annoyed Washington. The Obama administration's special envoy for the region, the late Richard C. Holbrooke, said poppy eradication had alienated poor farmers and was driving people into the hands of the Taliban. "Washington's special representative to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, told Viktor Ivanov to keep his hands off Afghanistan during their meeting at the State Department," Krupnov says, citing that as a turning point in the relationships. Holbrooke died in 2010, and cooperation continued, but without the commitment that existed before. The last joint operation was in 2012, and meetings ended in 2014. ASSASSINS? REALLY?Today Krupnov denies outreach to the Afghans a decade ago was the beginning of an anti-American campaign in the Middle East and South Asia, or that the Kremlin, brushed off so many times, was offended and seeking revenge in some fashion, much less paying Taliban to kill U.S. and coalition soldiers—which is something that many are perfectly willing to do on their own. "It would be ridiculous to imagine that any Russians in Afghanistan—there are about 300 Russian nationals there and thousands of U.S. military and private forces—would hire assassins to kill American soldiers." (The element of the GRU cited by the Times as instrumental in the alleged bounty operation, Unit 29155, also has been blamed for destabilization operations in Europe and the attempted murder in Britain of former GRU officer Sergei Skripal.)In any case, outreach to the Taliban has continued. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov received a Talib leader, Sher Mohammed Abas, last year along with a group of other Taliban authorities to discuss the joint fight against the Islamic State terror group. The idea that Russia and the United States make a great team against ISIS is one that U.S. President Donald Trump has promoted for years. At the Helsinki summit with Putin in 2018, for instance, Trump noted his appreciation for Russian help against "the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism.""Both Russia and the United States have suffered horrific terrorist attacks," Trump said. "We have agreed to maintain open communication between our security agencies to protect our citizens from this global menace." That was the same summit where Trump said he doubted U.S. intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 elections that made him president.Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry has eagerly pointed out that the Trump White House, too, is questioning intelligence on Russian bounties for the deaths of American soldiers. But the sense Russia is inching back into Afghanistan, again in conflict with the United States, is not lost on those who know this relationship well. "I don't like the idea of some bearded Taliban leaders, who previously tried to drag us back a thousand years, all of a sudden becoming legitimate," Hasan said of Russia's negotiations with the group. "It would be a big mistake to help people who everybody considered terrorists."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.
|
| UK plans to create 'freeports,' cut taxes - Sunday Telegraph Posted: 11 Jul 2020 09:37 PM PDT  British finance minister Rishi Sunak is preparing to introduce sweeping tax cuts and an overhaul of planning laws in up to 10 new "freeports" within a year of the UK's becoming fully independent from the European Union in December, the Sunday Telegraph said. Sunak will open the bidding for towns, cities and regions to become freeports, which would place them outside UK customs territory, in his autumn budget later this year, the newspaper said, citing a copy of the plans it said it had seen. Sunak plans to confirm the successful bids by next spring and introduce major tax and regulatory changes in those areas at next year's budget, the Telegraph added.
|
| Eric Shawn: President Trump is not on the Alabama ballot, but might as well be Posted: 12 Jul 2020 09:42 AM PDT  Odds on the Jeff Sessions-Tommy Tuberville GOP Senate primary.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment